Madison out of balance

by

Local officials didn’t create an international pandemic and they’re not responsible for the demolition of local budgets that has resulted from the necessary shutdown. They also didn’t have anything to do with the murder of George Floyd.

But they are responsible for managing the challenges posed by the coronavirus as well as the city’s response to the unrest and racial reckoning that followed Floyd’s death. 

I think the best way to categorize their response to the protests is to say that it has been mostly out of balance. 

Proposals have been introduced at the Madison City Council to prohibit police from using certain weapons like tear gas, pepper spray and nonlethal projectiles. It’s important that the police are under civilian control, but it’s also important that part-time public officials don’t try to micromanage one of the most progressive, thoughtful police departments in the nation. 

So, it’s appropriate to get some answers from the cops about their decisions to use these things during the recent unrest and to question what circumstances are right for their use as a matter of policy. But to ban them altogether regardless of circumstances strikes me as unnecessary and possibly dangerous. 

But there’s a deeper question of balance here. The police did not start a riot. The police did not loot stores on State Street. The cops didn’t tear down public property and beat up a state senator or toss a molotov cocktail into the City County Building. The council has expressed little concern about the actions of groups and individuals during what can only be described as nights of mayhem. It seems to me that a resolution condemning the destruction of local businesses, the defacement of public property (and the danger posed by pulling heavy statues off of pedestals surrounded by a crowd), and violence against individuals would be appropriate. It also won’t be forthcoming, I expect. 

It’s a similar story with regard to a rash of gun violence around the city, unrelated to the Floyd protests. Neighborhoods (all of which have substantial populations of people of color) are being terrorized, innocent people are endangered and the police themselves are at risk. The answers aren’t simple as this is part of a national spate of similar incidents, but it would be helpful if the same council that is so concerned about the actions of police would express a healthy sense of outrage over the shootings. 

There is a sensible middle ground here. It is possible to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism while also believing that it doesn’t explain 100% of every problem and leaving some room for personal responsibility for one’s actions. Here’s how Brown University economist Glenn Loury, who is Black, makes that same point in a recent Wall Street Journal interview: “There is certainly some discrimination in policing and the courts, he says. ‘But it can explain maybe 15% or 20% of the gap between Black and white incarceration rates, not the whole thing.’ Most of the difference, he insists, turns on the behavior of people.”

I should pause and acknowledge here that Loury is a somewhat controversial figure. He was a Reagan conservative, became disenchanted with that and moved to the left, only to become disenthralled again and move back to the right. It seems to me that that only gives his views added weight because it indicates someone who reads widely, thinks deeply and interacts with people with different ideas and who has the courage to break with the party line — in his case, twice. Show me someone who believes just exactly what they did 20 years ago and I’ll show you somebody who needs to get out more.

It’s possible to try to see things both from the point of view of peaceful protesters and from the point of view of police officers faced with an angry, menacing and perhaps dangerous crowd. 

It is possible to reject any rationalization for looting, destruction of property and attacks on individuals and to condemn those things without qualification as Black Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has done. Responding to the same national rash of shootings that resulted in the death of a child in Atlanta, Bottoms said, “The reality is this: These aren’t police officers shooting people on the streets of Atlanta, these are members of the community shooting each other… Enough is enough...It has to stop.” 

The lack of balance in proposals and public statements coming from Madison officials is undermining their credibility and with it their ability to take actions that would improve anything. 

There are notable exceptions. Council President Sheri Carter, the first African American woman to hold that post, has been praised by the centrist Wisconsin State Journal for her evenhandedness. Longtime downtown Ald. Mike Verveer has made consistently thoughtful statements during all of these troubles. And Ald. Paul Skidmore, for many years now the only full-throated supporter of Madison police on the council, has stood up for the cops without dismissing the justified anger of peaceful protesters. 

The recall effort against Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway is, in my view, inappropriate and probably doomed to failure. I seriously doubt that organizers will get 36,000 signatures in 60 days and I certainly won’t be one of the signers. But I don’t think that effort is really just aimed at the mayor. It expresses some genuine frustration over how most of Madison’s elected officials are handling these serious challenges. 

Right now we live in a city out of balance.