Angela Slack#fridayflipbacks
#fridayflipbacks is here again and this time it is poignant!
I came across and subsequently posted a video this week that was circulating on Facebook. A young African American man named Stanley went to Walmart to purchase a pushbike for his young son. Having made the purchase and picked his receipt was testing the bike in the store.
Arrested without any probable cause.
Before Stanley could proceed, an unknown staff member called the police and reported him. The police arrived on the scene and arrested Stanley. Without first telling him why he was being arrested, the police tasered Stanley. later on, the police handcuffed him, bound his both feet and dragged him up to their car. Next the police shoved and kicked Stanley into the back of the police car, against his will.
During all of this, Stanley remained calm, was reasonable, respectful, and cooperative but understandably insistent they tell him what he’d done wrong, which is his right under USA law, and in this country,[UK]. I’d say, it is standard in any democracy.
We have lost our moral courage.
What appalled me is the level of indifference as the general public, except for a handful of persons who video recorded the incident and asked the police to check the man’s story first. He kept telling the officers that he’d bought the bike and had the receipt on him. The police didn’t care to listen to Stanley’s pleas. Apparently, arresting and criminalising him was more important.
What is the moral of the story, you may ask?
Let’s go back thousands of years to the Greek Classic Age. Aesop, the Greek philosopher, tells the story of the farmer who bought the rat trap to kill a mouse. The farmer bought a rat trap and the worried mouse told the chicken and the pig and the cow who all ignored him as it had nothing to do with them.
Well, let’s not forget how that worked out.
The farmer’s wife caught a cold, so the farmer killed the chicken to make soup. The farmer’s wife died so the pig was killed to be cooked for her wake. You can guess what was on the menu for the repast after her funeral. Yes, beef, the cow was killed. Meanwhile, the relieved mouse watched it all from the rafters.
What goes around comes around, everything that affects our neighbor affects us in the end; we are interdependent in this world and indifference is worse than hate!
Something to think about this weekend as we #pray for Ukraine and gather our moral courage!
Love as always,
AngelB