By Richard Cambridge      

What needs to be done, right now, is for white allies to put their bodies between the police and the Black community. The murdering of Black people by the police will not stop until white allies find creative ways to do this.

There is no conversation, no dialogue, no dialectic that will stop the police from murdering Black people. Because of the Code of Silence there are no good police. All police are complicit in the murder of Black people due to the Code of Silence they keep. Were one to break the Code of Silence, that one would be silenced. It would take many police officers — a national collective outcry from police officers to break the Code of Silence. The police do not dwell in the realm of this possibility.

Peacemaking by white allies is the only way to stop the shedding of Black blood. Peacemaking is standing in the gap between the police and Black people. The police will be enraged when white allies put their bodies between them and the Black people they lust to murder. Blood will be shed. White allies will die. Racism requires it. White supremacy demands it. There is no way around it.

This historical moment in the United States is open season on Black people. Moose in Maine and bear in New Hampshire and deer in Vermont stand a better chance of not being killed than Black people. There is a law-bound season to kill for sport. Hunters abide by the law. It is an honor to so. Police do not; it is an honor for them not to do so. A Black person has no certainty they will not be murdered along a path in a village, a park in a town, a tangle of streets in the city, a sidewalk in the suburbs, or any of the highways and byways connecting them. Moose and deer and bear abide in peace outside the season to kill. There is no season of safety for Black people. There exists no sanctuary, no haven, no city of refuge, no building, no home, no bedroom, where a Black person may flee from the murderous rage of police to find safety and rest.

The very thought of a police officer serving life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, or on Death Row awaiting execution for murdering a Black person is preposterous. Pause for a moment. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes. Try to imagine this happening. You cannot. I can imagine a cure for all cancers. I can imagine earth being visited by a race of beings from a faraway planet. I cannot imagine police officers receiving life sentences or awaiting execution on Death Row for murdering Black people.

Not until white allies find creative ways to do this. Not until white allies wrench this into being. It will be a violent birth. The Gang of Blue will make it so.