When adolescence gets old (op-ed)

A 4-foot-by-12-foot #Black Lives Matter banner has hung over the main entrance of City Hall in Somerville, Massachusetts for a year. The banner was hung by the mayor in collaboration with the Black Lives Matter chapter in Cambridge. (Somerville has no Black Lives Matter chapter)

The deal struck probably had to do with a two day protest in December 2014 when hundreds of college students marched through Somerville.

Students wanted justice after grand jury decisions did not indict two white police officers for the deaths of unarmed black men in Missouri and New York. Their mission was to “call attention to their battle cries of justice”.

The local news also reported, “Police were their escorts following the ‘soft approach’ to letting protesters air their grievances.”

I’ll speculate phase two of Somerville’s “soft approach” was to pacify the Cambridge organizers to prevent further activity passing through their jurisdiction. So the mayor offered to support their mission so in the future they would stay in Cambridge.

But a week after the December 2014 Somerville demonstrations Black Lives Matter protesters in New York marched through the streets chanting, “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!”

Then in August 2015, the month the Somerville banner went up, the St. Paul, Minn. Black Lives Matter chapter and other activist marched during the Minnesota state fair chanting, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon.” According to The Daily Caller, “The activist sang out the violent chorus chant just hours after a lone gunman shot 47-year-old Harris County sheriff deputy Darren Goforth while he was getting gas. The suspect approached the 10-year-old veteran from behind … And shot him in the back of the head.”

Afterwards the Harris County Sheriff said, “We’ve heard ‘Black Lives Matter’, ‘All Lives Matter’ -- Well, cops’ lives matter too. So why don’t we just drop the qualifier and say ‘lives matter’ and take that to the bank.”

As the Nation debated the merits of the Black Lives Matter movement there was no debate in Somerville about the banner or the movement it represented. Its clear Somerville officials ignored the actual movement and just supported the slogan.

But after Dallas police officers were killed by sniper fire during a Black Lives Matter march last month the banner was no longer a progressive slogan for Michael McGrath, President of the Somerville Police Employees Association.

McGrath sent a letter to the mayor stating the banner was demoralizing in light of the recent violence against police. The letter also said, “The vast majority of police officers across this country are tasked with shielding, protecting, and assisting elements of the protest movement that loathe them, spit on them, intentionally injure them, and wish death upon them.”

This point should have been made last year, but since it wasn’t McGrath went with the “soft approach”. Instead of asking for the removal of the banner he asked for it to be replaced with a banner that stated “All Lives Matter.”

The problem is in this context the rebuttal “All Lives Matter” becomes the political statement that has no place on City Hall and not the initial “Black Lives Matter” banner because it was hung with no political connotation intended.

So the Mayor played hardball with the police union and refused to replace or remove the banner.

In response the police union organized a rally and more than 100 police officers demonstrated in opposition to the Black Lives Matter banner. They carried blue signs that said: Cop’s lives Matter. And they wore tee shirts with the American flag that said, “Strength in Unity”.

As Somerville’s Mayor and their police union fought over how to decorate City Hall, Black Lives Matter, Cambridge didn’t respond to multiple media request.

They had no comment.

Maybe they matured in the past year and decided to leave the adolescence to the adults.

First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 8/10/16