Pandemic, police killings pose greatest black crisis since Jim Crow era, Cleaver says
The year 2020 may stand as the most difficult faced by African Americans since since the civil rights era of the 1960s, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said this week.
Cleaver, Kansas City’s first African American mayor (1991-99), said the pandemic that has disproportionately affected minority communities, skyrocketing unemployment and long-simmering anger over police killings pose an historic challenge.
“This current situation may exceed all of the other crises save slavery and the Jim Crow era in terms of the pain,” Cleaver told The Star Monday.
“When you peel away all of the anger, you’ll find pain and it’s a unique pain because our death numbers are skyrocketing. And even when we go out and protest, we jeopardize ourselves in two ways,” Cleaver said, noting the dual risks of COVID-19 and violence at protests.
Cleaver said the Congressional Black Caucus held an emergency meeting Monday to discuss a legislative response to the crisis as cities across the country grapple with protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Floyd, an African American man, died after a white police officer held a knee to his neck for nearly 9 minutes after he was accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill.. The officer, Derek Chauvin, now faces a third degree murder charge.
Floyd’s death set off a national protest movement. There have been many peaceful demonstrations, including the one Cleaver participated in Sunday in Kansas City, but there have also been fires and looting across the country as standoffs between police and protesters escalate.
“People keep saying this is about one person, George Floyd. It’s not. It’s about all of the things that have been unaddressed with regards to race,” said Cleaver, who founded the Kansas City chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
“This cannot be seen as a black problem. This is an American problem and it has to be resolved by Americans.”
Cleaver said the Congressional Black Caucus held an emergency meeting Monday to discuss police reforms in response to the protests. He could not share the details at this time, but promised that the proposed legislation would be robust and move beyond the general resolutions against racism that Congress typically passes.
Cleaver was in his first term as mayor in 1992 when the acquittal of Los Angeles police officers taped beating Rodney King set off rioting in Los Angeles and threatened to do the same in cities nationwide.
“It was the busiest and maybe the scariest time of my eight years,” Cleaver said, recalling how he walked the streets to help defuse racial tension. “The Rodney King decision created chaos all over the country like this, but it was not at this level.”
The pandemic and economic crisis will make it more difficult to deescalate the situation this time around, Cleaver said.
“We just reached 100,000 deaths from this vicious virus and we’re now hovering at depression level unemployment… And this 400-year-old bogeyman called race opens the door and comes out and wreaks more havoc,” Cleaver said.
Cleaver said a particular focus of public officials at the local and federal level should be programs to support minority youth, a strategy he employed in 1992 with a midnight basketball tournament, among other initiatives.
“All they know is it is hot. They are broke. Their mothers and fathers don’t have jobs,” Cleaver said. “All they know is this is a rough time and people express their anger in a lot of ways and some of the ways are stupid.”
Trump can’t calm the crisis
The congressman said President Donald Trump lacks the credibility on racial issues to calm the country in the moment of crisis.
“We need for Donald J. Trump to have influence with the people who are protesting, but he doesn’t,” he said.
“He does not have the much desired leadership skills for this particular moment. It doesn’t mean he’s an evil man… It means he has forfeited unfortunately any ability to send a calming message to the country.”
Cleaver’s comments came hours after Trump floated the idea of using military force to quell the demonstrations.
Minutes after the interview ended, police in Washington used tear gas to clear protesters outside the White House so that Trump could have his photo taken at St. John’s Church, an Episcopalian church often called the “Church of Presidents” that had been set on fire the previous night.
Cleaver noted that in 2017 Trump’s Justice Department ended a program focused on combating racial bias in local police departments, a decision that he said should be reversed in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.
He attended a peaceful protest in Kansas City Sunday during the day, but he has criticized night protests that have turned violent and destructive in Missouri and elsewhere.
“If you’re righteous and most of those people are, the whole purpose of the protest is to be seen and to be heard and that’s not what happens after the sun goes down,” Cleaver said.
‘Homicidal misuse of government authority’
Other members of the Kansas City area congressional delegation have walked a careful line when addressing the protests. They’ve empathized and acknowledged the righteous anger at police killings, but they’ve also been sure to condemn looting and property damage.
Rep. Sharice Davids, a Kansas Democrat whose district borders Cleaver’s, said that Floyd’s death was a painful reminder of the systemic injustices African Americans face on a daily basis.
“Even amid a global pandemic that is disproportionately impacting Black and Brown people, the circumstances are too much for many to bear silently or alone. It is inspiring to see people come together to stand up for each other and demand justice,” Davids said in a statement. “At the same time, it is disheartening to watch a very small minority compound the community’s pain by resorting to further violence and destruction.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican and former state attorney general, delivered a speech on the Senate floor Monday after an independent autopsy ruled Floyd’s death a murder.
“Words cannot begin to describe the injustice that this report puts into plain text. The violation of police procedures. The abuse of the law. The appalling, illegal, homicidal misuse of government authority,” Hawley said.
But Hawley also blasted “those who would turn this occasion into an opportunity for rioting and for looting, and for more violence and for further attacks.”
Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican and member of Senate GOP leadership, issued a statement Monday evening warning that the nation should not allow peaceful protesters to have “their message to be drowned out by those who are exploiting this moment to destroy communities and put more innocent lives at risk.”
This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 2:42 PM.
