A False Choice

Like wave after wave battering a shoreline during a storm, 2020 just keeps sending new challenges, one after the other.

This weekend could bring a new one crashing ashore in Southampton Village, where a “Back the Blue” rally in the morning will give way to a Black Lives Matter rally in response a few hours later. The debate on police reform, driven by the horror of several deaths at the hands of law enforcement captured on video, has been intense. Locally, however, it has stayed peaceful, constructive and even productive.

On Saturday, proximity of the two camps, and an intensity that has only increased in recent weeks as the issue has been politicized on all sides, create risks of a flare-up. It doesn’t have to happen. It shouldn’t happen. It can’t happen here.

There has been a fallacy at the heart of this ongoing debate: that you have to pick a side. Either you support the police, or you support the Black Lives Matter movement. It is, in a sense, literally a black-and-white choice.

It’s nonsense, a narrative hijacked in the midst of a divisive political campaign. In fact, most people are perfectly capable of articulating the middle ground: First responders and law enforcement are essential for the proper functioning of society, and they deserve a full measure of support and credit. However, there are policies, procedures and troubling blind spots that are killing innocent civilians for no good reason, and it’s become a crisis that needs to be addressed with reform.

The “Back the Blue” rally on Saturday purports to try to deliver a message to local police, which might be summed up as: “I respect everything you guys do, and when something happens, you guys come and you fix it, and most of you guys do your job with such bravery and pride, and it is awesome.”

What’s interesting: That’s a direct quote from Willie Jenkins, the co-administrator of Black Lives Matter on the East End, and the co-organizer of the series of protests this spring and summer. Likewise, Westhampton Beach Village Police Chief Trever Gonce who noted the death of George Floyd in May, and said, “What took place in Minneapolis was a disgrace, and it tarnishes the badge nationwide.”

Both comments came during a video discussion sponsored by the Express News Group that brought together the two sides, including several local police chiefs. The discovery: The two sides agree that change is needed. There is no disagreement on that point, and protest doesn’t necessarily mean disrespect. It puts the lie to the idea that “Black Lives Matter” in any way suggests that “Blue Lives” do not. It’s ridiculous to suggest that.

It’s an essential conversation that has been taken over by politics with the November election so close at hand. It has intensified to the point of bloodshed on both sides, violence from both sides.

This region has set an example so far as to how protest can be constructive, it can be passionate without curdling into violence, it can be respectful even as it makes strong demands. On Saturday, our mettle will be tested. If you participate in either rally — or both, since the idea that the two sides are mutually exclusive is a myth — understand that the moment you turn to violence of any kind to make your point, you have lost the debate for your side.