Should police kneel with protesters? Charlotte NAACP leader calls it a ‘publicity stunt’
A video showing more than 50 police officers kneeling before a crowd of protesters this week in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where George Floyd was born, has been shared thousands of times on social media.
It’s become a sticking point of similar imagery across the U.S. featuring officers joining protests, carrying signs and offering hugs since Floyd was killed in police custody in Minneapolis more than a week ago. But for some social justice advocates, the actions ring hollow.
The Rev. Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg chapter of the NAACP, is among them.
“I personally am sick of black people being so gullible and conciliatory,” she said in a Facebook post Thursday in which she shared a column titled “Don’t Let The Police Join Our Protests.”
The article was published Tuesday by The Appeal, an independent media outlet focused on criminal justice. In the article, human rights lawyer Derecka Purnell said police should never be invited to “march with us in protest against their own violence.”
“History and my spirit tell me that the police who stand with us today will not sacrifice anything to end police violence tomorrow,” she wrote.
Tear gas, then kneeling
In Uptown Charlotte on Wednesday night, multiple television cameras surrounded a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police captain as he kneeled with protesters.
Less than 24 hours earlier, police had used chemical agents on a group of largely peaceful protesters in the area, The Charlotte Observer reported.
A crowd of demonstrators had gathered early Wednesday evening at the Government Center to question officials about the incident.
Mack was also there.
“They (CMPD) know that what happened last night was horrible,” Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles told the crowd. She then led the group — numbering close to 300 — on a march through Uptown.
Lyles and the police captain kneeled with protesters at separate points during the night, usually after the crowd called on them to “kneel with us.”
Mack was seen shaking her head, calling the scene a “publicity stunt.”
“It’s a setup!” Mack called out to protesters who followed behind Lyles and other city council members who were marching.
Mack could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday afternoon.
Strong reactions from both sides
Similar events played out across the United States since the May 25 death of George Floyd, often brought on by encouragement from protesters.
Also in North Carolina, State Capitol Police took a knee with demonstrators on Tuesday following shouts of “kneel with us,” The (Raleigh) News & Observer reported. Video showed protesters later hugging the officers.
Chief Chip Hawley said officers took a knee to “show our deep and abiding respect for the value of all human lives.”
In Lexington, Kentucky, video captured by the Lexington Herald-Leader showed protesters chanting “kneel with us” before officers in riot gear gradually descended to one knee.
An opinion columnist for the Herald-Leader called it “one instance of peace as the country continues to explode around us.”
But for some, the gesture is — as one Twitter user suggested — something akin to a Trojan Horse.
Thought to be a sign of peace from the Greeks to the City of Troy, the Trojan Horse eventually led to the city’s downfall.
Another Twitter user compared it to an abusive boyfriend.
“The police kneeling with and hugging protesters is like when your abusive boyfriend brings you flowers after hurting you,” Breya M. Johnson said on Twitter. “When he makes a grand gesture of love in front of your friends. It’s to pressure you into forgiveness, it’s manipulation, it’s abuse. Don’t fall for it.”
It’s since been retweeted more than 181,000 times.
Someone else referred to the moments as nothing more than a photo opportunity.
Shannon Keating, a senior culture writer and editor at Buzzfeed, echoed that sentiment in a column Thursday. She said many of the images circulating online of officers kneeling with and hugging demonstrators lack context.
“In different cities around the country, police officers have knelt with protesters one moment, then maced, teargassed, and arrested them en masse in the next,” Keating said.
Beyond that, she said promoting that kind of imagery “suggests that antiblack racism and police brutality are best addressed with niceness.”
“But protesters aren’t out in the streets because they want individual police officers to be nicer to them,” she said.
Charlotte Observer reporter Alex Andrejev contributed to this story.
This story was originally published June 4, 2020 at 3:49 PM with the headline "Should police kneel with protesters? Charlotte NAACP leader calls it a ‘publicity stunt’."
