The Rev. Wayne Sautter: White people need to wake up

Watching recent events, I feel a need to express my view to someone. Let me offer some background.

I am a white, 75-year-old retired pastor in the United Church of Christ. My father was a career policeman in Baltimore as I grew up. He was not a nice man and hated African Americans and Jews. My grandfather was a card-carrying Nazi Party member. You can imagine the fights I had with my father over the years. You can also imagine how he treated people of color, and his beat was what we called The Block. He died without our ever reconciling.

I am the grandfather of two biracial grandchildren, and we have already had some difficult conversations with them about the police. They live in Louisville, Ky.

I graduated from the Military Police Academy during Vietnam, so I know something about police training.

I believe a major part of the problem is the increasing militarizing of police forces. Their uniforms are black and intimidating. The weapons they now carry are military grade. Around their waists are enough weapons to go into a firefight. A local police chief told me that all of that is intentional because it generates fear, which seems to be the primary goal of modern policing in this country.

Even police vehicles are painted to look threatening and intimidating. Police cruise around neighborhoods, and rarely get out and walk around and talk to people. As bad as my father was, he was excellent at that — providing you were white.

There should be a nationwide movement to redesign uniforms with some color to suggest authority, but also calmness and approachability. The same applies to their cars. Police should obviously have sufficient gear to do their job, but do they need to carry around all that threatening gear? Why don’t we have rapid response teams like the U.K., should more firepower be needed?

There obviously are recruitment and training issues. If departments don’t require psychological profiles of applicants, they should. During Vietnam and the draft, we had a number of young men who just wanted to get a gun and kill. Thank heavens we successfully screened most of them out, and when they were discovered, they were either discharged or imprisoned.

Training should focus on de-escalation strategies. Even the military focused on this because of all the demonstrations during the war. Simple things like always speaking in a neutral, monotone voice and using respectful terms when addressing someone.

Far greater than the policing issue is the continued lack of interest by politicians in dealing with the long-term, systemic inequity in neighborhoods of color. There is a part of Baltimore, my hometown, that has been a hellhole since I was a boy, and it still is. Most of the properties are owned by slum landlords charging exorbitant rates, even when the rent is paid by state and federal programs. There is no oversight. The code enforcement people never seem to find time to deal with the thousands of complaints about conditions.

The infrastructure in those communities continues to be terrible, with cracked sidewalks and streets and trash-filled alleys. I remember as a child how politicians came around every election promising to fix things, then nothing being done.

Low income levels mean things like no supermarkets, so people are forced to buy expensive food from small local markets or dollar stores with no produce.

There are always promises of job training programs, but the money always seems to disappear, or there is no oversight and the program is terrible. The schools are some of the worst, not because of teachers but because of lack of funding when most schools are funded by property taxes.

I’m sorry to say it, but most white people in the suburbs really don’t give a damn. They think it doesn’t affect them and they are surprised when the anger and rage that has built up over the years erupts.

I’m on the side of the protesters. My greatest fear is that we no longer have a Martin Luther King Jr. to redirect the anger and rage into constructive political action. When I was in the military police, one of the things we prepared for was an all-out race war. There were any number of African American ex-soldiers who knew all about tactics and weapons. I fear we are headed there again if the white politicians and citizens don’t wake up.

I am so upset I am brought to tears every day.

The Rev. Wayne Sautter lives in Unity.