{"id":11534,"date":"2016-09-21T12:28:20","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T16:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=11534"},"modified":"2016-09-21T12:28:20","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T16:28:20","slug":"emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html","title":{"rendered":"From Emmett Till to Terence Crutcher: a tragic timeline"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2026this remains: two adults, armed, in the dark, kidnap a fourteen-year-old boy and take him away to frighten him. Instead of which, the fourteen-year-old boy not only refuses to be frightened, but, unarmed, alone, in the dark, so frightens the two armed adults that they must destroy him…. What are we Mississippians afraid of?<\/em><\/p>\n

William Faulkner, “On Fear”, 1956<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Faulkner could be writing today, about Terence Crutcher<\/a>, who met his completely unnecessary death in my hometown, on Friday. That would be less than a week that Crutcher\u2019s 4-year-old son has had to try to understand why Tulsa police shot his daddy, who had his arms in the air. Who was unarmed. Who had already been tased.<\/p>\n

Please let that sink in: Tulsa police had already tased Crutcher, a 40-year-old father of four. Need I add that Crutcher was black? It\u2019s such a familiar scenario in America these days that Chauncey Devega<\/a>, in his Salon article, likens it to the background chord in a melody. Perhaps the dirge-like progression in a hymn on death, without redemption\u2026<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2532\"<\/a>So America, I ask you: just what, in the name of all that preaches love, are we afraid of???<\/p>\n

Much is being made of the shooter (please let me call her the murderer, which is how I think of her), white female police officer Betty Shelby, and her gender. She \u2018felt threatened.\u2019 As several white-aligned news sources have noted, Crutcher was \u2018a big black man.\u2019 Is that enough? Have we become so filled with fear and hate that just to be a large black man is enough to call down the death sentence? And once again: please don\u2019t elide the tased part: here was a man her partner had already rendered immobile. Terence Crutcher was not going to cause her any trouble.<\/p>\n

\"Terence<\/a>
Google, Crutcher family<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the past few days, an alleged find of drugs in Crutcher\u2019s car has made news headlines. Most Tulsans who know about the Tulsa police, and the city government, are certain it\u2019s a plant. And really? Why should it even matter?? Crutcher wasn\u2019t under investigation. He had car trouble, for cryin\u2019 out loud! So: you murder him, and then assassinate his character?? After the fact\u2026 When Crutcher\u2019s only defense is his family. Because the justice system is our friend, right?<\/p>\n

Unless you\u2019re Emmett Till<\/a>\u2019s family, trying to find justice. Or Terence Crutcher\u2019s. And the (literally) THOUSANDS of black Americans murdered by police in the intervening six decades.<\/p>\n

Sixty years later, what are we STILL afraid of, America??<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026this remains: two adults, armed, in the dark, kidnap a fourteen-year-old boy and take him away to frighten him. Instead of which, the fourteen-year-old boy not only refuses to be frightened, but, unarmed, alone, in the dark, so frightens the two armed adults that they must destroy him…. What are we Mississippians afraid of? William…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[335,358,1049,1396,87,110],"tags":[1270,1127,568,1215],"class_list":["post-11534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anger","category-fear","category-hatred","category-police-shootings","category-racism","category-social-justice","tag-anger","tag-hate","tag-race-in-america","tag-social-justice"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Emmett Till to Terence Crutcher: a tragic timeline - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sixty years later, what are we STILL afraid of, America??\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From Emmett Till to Terence Crutcher: a tragic timeline - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sixty years later, what are we STILL afraid of, America??\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-21T16:28:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2016\/09\/IMG_2532-300x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"From Emmett Till to Terence Crutcher: a tragic timeline - Beginner's Heart","description":"Sixty years later, what are we STILL afraid of, America??","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"From Emmett Till to Terence Crutcher: a tragic timeline - Beginner's Heart","og_description":"Sixty years later, what are we STILL afraid of, America??","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html","og_site_name":"Beginner's Heart","article_published_time":"2016-09-21T16:28:20+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2016\/09\/IMG_2532-300x300.jpg"}],"author":"Britton Gildersleeve","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html","name":"From Emmett Till to Terence Crutcher: a tragic timeline - Beginner's Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2016\/09\/IMG_2532-300x300.jpg","datePublished":"2016-09-21T16:28:20+00:00","dateModified":"2016-09-21T16:28:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52"},"description":"Sixty years later, what are we STILL afraid of, America??","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2016\/09\/IMG_2532-300x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2016\/09\/IMG_2532-300x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2016\/09\/emmett-till-terence-crutcher-tragic-timeline.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"From Emmett Till to Terence Crutcher: a tragic timeline"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/","name":"Beginner's Heart","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Britton Gildersleeve","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52","name":"Britton Gildersleeve","description":"Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11534"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11538,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11534\/revisions\/11538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}