The infection of hate

Hatred is a disease that seemed to infect Gavin Long, the black man who shot six law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge, La., on Sunday morning, killing three.

One of the dead was Jackson, a 10-year veteran of the Baton Rouge Police Department, a husband and father of an infant son.

Jackson was troubled by the killing of Alton Sterling, a black man, by two white Baton Rouge police officers July 5. It set off protests and a tragic chain of events — including the shootings of police officers in Dallas on July 7 and Sunday’s attack.

Jackson, who was black, said he loved his city and loved being a cop, “but I wonder if this city loves me.” His post spoke to the fear and suspicion that seems to lead to more police shootings of black men than are warranted.

Now police have reason to fear just for wearing their uniforms. In Dallas and again in Baton Rouge, they were targeted.

The assailants in the two cities were black men who expressed anger at police and at whites. Long spoke of fighting back against “oppressors” in online videos.

Both were military veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, highly trained in the use of weapons.

Did their war experiences contribute to their hostile attitudes or leave them with dangerous emotional disorders? Experts will have to work on those questions. Because both assailants are dead, answers won’t be easy to come by.

There’s no simple remedy to this sickness of hatred, either. The country has grown so divided over issues of race and justice that every event is twisted to fit a political narrative.

It’s refreshing when someone tries to bridge the gap.

U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, a black Republican, Tea Party and NRA favorite from South Carolina, tried to do that last week. In a floor speech, he recounted being stopped by police seven times in the past year.

“Was I speeding sometimes? Sure,” he said. “But the vast majority of the time, I was pulled over for nothing more than driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood or some other reason just as trivial.

“I do not know many African American men who do not have a very similar story to tell, no matter the profession, no matter their income, no matter their disposition in life.

“There is absolutely nothing more frustrating, more damaging to your soul than when you know you’re following the rules and being treated like you are not.”

Scott has a right to complain. People have a right to protest when a traffic stop or arrest for a minor offense leads to the death of another black man. But demonstrations must be peaceful. And nothing justifies the assassination of police officers.

In Dallas, police were targeted as they kept the peace during a march. In Baton Rouge, they were ambushed as they responded to a 911 call about an armed man acting suspiciously.

Long, the Baton Rouge killer, may have considered himself a soldier in some kind of uprising against a white power structure. Dylann Roof, a white man who killed nine African Americans at a Charleston, S.C., church last year, not far from Tim Scott’s home, reportedly hoped to start a race war. Men like these must be repudiated. Their path leads to destruction.

“We don’t call for no bloodshed,” Veda Washington-Abusaleh, an aunt of Alton Sterling, said Sunday in Baton Rouge. “That’s how this all started.”

Montrell Jackson wasn’t an oppressor. He was a cop trying to protect the public. So were his white fellow officers. Their blood was the same color, and we’ve seen enough of it.

http://www.greensboro.com/opinion/n_and_r_editorials/our-opinion-the-infection-of-hate/article_3e4e22f7-f84b-51ce-bb77-b8859164e895.html