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Might and right in City Politics
What gives?
These have been strange and troubling times in ol’ Froggy Bottom. Hands being thrown. Hair being yanked. Bullets ricocheting every which way.
Everyone seems on edge like never before.
Is it the ballooning price of gas, the exploding rent, the drastic increase in the grocery and electric bills that has everyone on a hair trigger?
Or is it something else? And what can we do about it?
Ain’t no party like a rat party
Let us go down a brief list of the random acts of extraordinary violence over the past several months. First, something emblematic of how oddball this has been. A brawl erupts at a kid’s birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. Seriously? We’re celebrating the joy and innocence of being a kid by shattering the joy and innocence of being a kid?
What could be worse? A bare chested, shirt waving, chair busting, hair pulling fight at a kindergarten graduation? Oh yeah, that happened too. At Queen of Apostles school. Over seating arrangements.
Then a few days later the eighth-grade graduation at Pickett Elementary erupted in violence. Celebrate good times. Come on.
The fifteen-year-old tossed around by Toledo Police in a viral video has since been convicted of firing a gun in a domestic dispute. Wait, wait. A fifteen-year-old brandishing a gun. In a domestic dispute.
And you know, young people are settling disputes by firing randomly into crowds at revered neighborhood festivals on city streets.
Did you hear about the head bashing melee in the parking lot at Hobby Lobby? Or the ongoing fights and shootings seemingly every weekend across the city? And the regular domestic dispute standoffs across the region?
At least the Toledo Police have a fair, steady hand in response. Unless they decide to call you names, toss you to the ground, or insult your neighborhood.
The powers dat be know something must be done. So Toledo Council recently renewed a contract for surveillance cameras. And approved Mayor
Wade’s request to create a “safety zone” around certain summer gatherings.
We get the sentiment. We do. But does that mean everywhere else is in the dangerous zone?
Dispute resolution
Cut to the chase. All these examples have one thing in common. Resolving disputes, not with dialogue and compromise, but with brutal force.
We fear this is sadly, becoming engrained in the culture. It comes from families, job sites, relationships, schools, and other institutions where abuse isn’t just tolerated, it’s the norm.
We have governmental leaders who ridicule empathy and applaud unbridled violence. Who believe that might literally makes right. That power is the only answer.
The United States was founded on a different answer, though. A nation based on the rule of law, not the rule of the powerful. Where everyone is equal, and disputes can be solved through dialogue.
We’re not naive. We know that ideal is rarely achieved. But we need to aspire to live up to it, as best we can.
Start with applauding empathy, not violence. Dialogue, not force. Caring, not abuse. Listening, not shouting. Understanding, not ridiculing. Equality, not power dynamics.
Can we rededicate ourselves to better answers as we gather to celebrate two hundred and fifty years of the selfevident truth that all of us are created equal?
