What happened here?
I am not writing this to deconstruct this specific incident, nor to speak on the issue of racism per se. What I want to talk about here is the issue of power. Chauvin had power over Floyd. From a legal standpoint, he was the law enforcement officer and Floyd was the arrested suspect. Floyd had to obey Chauvin. From a physical standpoint, Chauvin was upright, free with his movements, and carried weapons. Floyd was on his chest, hands tied behind his back, and utterly powerless. From an interpersonal standpoint, Floyd was by himself, but Chauvin had other officers there as backup - strength in numbers.
Everything about the situation gave power to Chauvin, and none to Floyd. This isn't me saying Floyd shouldn't have been arrested - it appears he broke a law, and the officers had a job to do. This is about what happened once they arrested Floyd, who did not, by any account, appear to be a threat to the officers, and his alleged crime was completely nonviolent. This is about the power dynamics at play.
Years ago, my wife and I were driving through Syracuse, NY, at night. The streets were largely empty. We came to a stoplight and it was red, so naturally I stopped the car at the white line. No other cars were at any other spot in the intersection, but the light was red, so....we stopped. Behind us rolled a police car. The officer waited five seconds and the light stayed red. He was in no hurry. But suddenly he turned his police lights on. I really had nowhere to go, but I pulled over a little. He went by us, drove through the intersection, and once clear, shut his lights off and kept going. He was not headed to a call. He was cruising at 20 miles an hour.
He simply didn't want to wait for the light to turn green. Period. And because he didn't feel like waiting, he used his power (the power of being a police officer in a police car) and did what he felt like doing, even though what he did was wrong.
Now this obviously isn't nearly as serious as what Chauvin did to Floyd. But it still stems from the same root - abuse of power. In both cases, a police officer - someone who is sworn to *uphold* and enforce the law - broke the law, simply because they could.
In the case of Chauvin and Floyd, look, let's be honest. Police officers have a difficult job. Many of them spend day after day in crime-ridden areas, and every day they risk their lives to keep others safe. Sometimes in these police shootings we've read so much about, I can understand why they happened (it's not good that they happened, but I can understand how they happened and why), because officers never know when they themselves are going to be in danger. Tense situations involving potentially dangerous people sometimes lead to bad things happening. I get it.
This was not that.
This was a person suspected of a totally non-violent crime, who did not resist arrest, and who complied with whatever the officers told him to do. And yet Chauvin killed him anyway. Just absolutely horrific in every way imaginable. I am not sure Chauvin meant to kill him. I'm not sure he did it thinking, "he's black, so I can do this". I have no idea. That would be ascribing to him the worst of all possible motives. But what IS clear is that he abused his power.
Power dynamics exist everywhere in the world. There are hierarchies in nature in animal groups. In human society, even if there was total anarchy, there would still be power dynamics, where some people hold power over others. This power can take the form of physical strength or strength in numbers or by position of authority, or some combination of all that.
Bullying in schools is about power. One kid trying to assert power over another. Sometimes that kid has backup - his or her friends get involved and now the kid being bullied is outnumbered five to one.
Power dynamics exist in the home, in the office, in sports, in government, in hospitals, in churches...everywhere. As Peter Parker's uncle said, "With great power comes great responsibility." The more power we have over someone, the more responsible we should be with it.
And to be clear, the riots that are happening in Minneapolis in angry response to Floyd's death are also an example of power dynamics at work. The rioters far outnumber the police, and they're running roughshod over the neighborhoods. It's become a mob mentality. Videos shot by people doing the looting show people rushing into Target and stealing electronics. Why are they doing this? They're doing this because they can, and because nobody has the power to stop them. In this moment, the rioters have the power, and they are using it - and, frankly, abusing it. Wherever and whenever someone has power over another, the possibility exists for abuse of that power.
A husband has physical strength and power over his wife, so he abuses her. A boss has authority (power) over her subordinate and belittles her workers. A parent has both physical power and authoritative power over his children and mistreats them, knowing they can't do anything about it. A pastor has power over his church, and abuses his congregation's trust. A kid in school has a group of friends and they have power over the poor kid with few friends, and they bully him. A white woman in central park - who's supposed to have her dog leashed and is asked to by a black man who is bird-watching, of all things - threatens to call the cops. She tells him, "I'm going to call the cops and say that an African-American man is threatening my life." And she does, her voice in hysterics. Her power was because she was white and he was black, and that was that.
There is power everywhere, and wherever there's power, there's the opportunity to use that power wisely and responsibly, or to abuse it and take advantage of it.
There is power everywhere, and wherever there's power, there's the opportunity to use that power wisely and responsibly, or to abuse it and take advantage of it.
In the movie "First Knight", Guinevere, played by Julia Ormond, is set to marry King Arthur. She explains, admiringly, that Arthur "wears his power so lightly". The idea is that he is the king and everyone knows it, but he doesn't use that power to belittle others, bully others, run roughshod over others. He doesn't use his power for personal gain, he doesn't use it to control people or to manipulate them. He uses his power for the good, seeking the betterment of everyone.
Power structures necessarily exist, and they're GOOD things. It's impossible to live in a world where everyone has equal power. The mere existence of physical strength differences means that some people are going to have physical power over others. It's reality and that's never changing. In Christian thinking, God has power of life and death. It's ok that some people have more power than others. What's not ok - what's never ok - is when that power is abused instead of used responsibly.
We can think of this in individual situations or in the much larger picture of cultural power. No matter what level (ground level or 50,000 foot level or anything in-between) we look at it, power dynamics exist and they're real. People with power have a responsibility to use it wisely.
Not long ago one of my kids was on a team where the captains of the team thought that by virtue of being captains, they could tell everyone else what to do. They themselves didn't do any of the work; they just bossed everyone else around. "We're captains," was their claim. They were using their captaincy as power over others, and clearly they abused it. One of my other kids had a coach once that belittled certain kids on the team. He could get away with it because he was the head coach. He had the power.
To lead is to serve. To have power is to use it responsibly. We could all stand to consider what we do with the power we have. How well do we use it? Do we use it to serve and better others, or to further empower and enrich ourselves?
And in situations where you feel powerless, what then? Do you seek power? Why do you seek power? What would you do with that power? Last night on the news I saw a man in the riot yelling into the camera that "We can f***ing do what we want because there's more of us than there are of you!" Maybe for the first time in his life he felt like he had power and control. But what was he doing with it? Smashing a window and looting a store. So the first moment he got to have power, he abused it.
There are so many other issues at play in the Floyd tragedy - social justice, racism, socio-economic inequalities. But power is one of them. Think about your power relationships and situations. How do you use the power you have? Do you want to be like the police officer who went through a red light just because he could? Or do you want to be like King Arthur who wears his power lightly, using it for the betterment of others?
