University of Virginia Library

Law And Order

The Reverend Henry Mitchell, in his remarks
on Charlottesville's racial situation in
Monday's Cavalier Daily, made one very valid
statement which a lot of people who are
piously disgusted with what President Johnson
calls the "emotionalism" of the times
would do well to consider carefully.

He said: "Within the community . . . there
is another issue concerning the way of life
here — crime and 'law and order.' I don't look
with favor on violence, but although it's
wrong, it seems to be one of the few ways
black people can get any attention here. This
is unfortunate, but before one condemns
violence he ought to take a thorough look at
the conditions which cause it. There must be
something terribly wrong when people who
are ordinarily peaceful resort to violence. I'd
say it's time for that society to take a good
look at itself."

He continues: "We'd all love to have law
and order . . . But the law and order theme is
a racist statement — I say that unequivocally.
It belongs to the Wallace-Nixon group . . ."

Although we do not deny that the worn
-out "law and order" ensemble is very frequently
voiced by conscious racists with
racism in mind, we cannot agree that it is a
"racist statement." It is much more than that.
It is rather the pathetically trite, hopelessly
oversimplified, and highly explosive answer
which too many unthinking and unwilling-to-think
ethnocentrism offer to the problem of
public manifestation of frustrations by minority
(or even voiceless majority) elements.
How often have we heard, "If I were President,
the first thing I'd do is establish law and
order!" How seldom have we heard, "If I were
President, the first thing I'd do is try to find
out and rectify the situations which frustrate
so many people so much that they would be
unlawful and disorderly."

"Law and order" is not a "doctrine"
confined to racists, it is foremost in the
vocabulary of all those "concerned" citizens
who would rather fight than change, and it is
thrown at anyone — black or white, young or
old — who wants change enough to seek it in
the streets.

Mr. Mitchell hit the nail on the head when
he said, "There must be something terribly
wrong when people who are ordinarily peaceful
resort to violence. I'd say that it's time for
that society to take a good look at itself."
We'd say that any society which is able to
watch violence in its living rooms nightly, and
counter-violence Chicago-style in its living
rooms from time to time, is long overdue a
good look at itself.

How many disgusted citizens, we wonder,
have taken time out from cursing "those
damn hippies" or "those black sons-of-a-gun"
as they watch even to wonder casually what it
is that has forced them into the streets. How
many of them, we wonder, see the whole
thing as nothing more than a threat to their
comfort without regard for the discomfort of
those in the streets.

Or, how many of them, we wonder,
have to struggle to suppress a certain disturbing
feeling which rises in them that just maybe
they, or their society, have something to do
with it all, however vague what it is may be.
Similarly, how many of them, we wonder,
shout "law and order" as loud as they can just
to drown out their discomfiting consciences.

Finally, we wonder, how many of them
have no consciences at all and never imagine
that there just might be a pretty good reason
for which a student will allow his head to be
cracked open.

We cannot imagine that even the dullest
boor is thick enough not to guess that
something is out of order when a teenager will
leave his home and family — when lots of
teenagers will do so — to live a miserable
existence in and out of the streets dodging
billy sticks, supposedly in the name of a
cause. Simple restlessness or no-countness
does not suffice to answer the "why" of it,
and even if it did there has to be an
explanation for the sudden rash of no-countness
on the part of the nation's youth.

In other words, something about the society
of those who are so quick to shout "law
and order" must be what is responsible for the
lack thereof, or for the lack of respect
therefor, on the part of that society's product.
If nothing else, that society is to blame for
raising no-counts.

Clubbing those no-counts, though, is not
really a very effective method of rehabilitating
them. Further, macing those who are not
no-counts but who are sincere in their appeal
to the last grim resort for being heard doesn't
really redress or stifle their grievances.

The point is that what those who shout
"law and order" tend to mean by "law and
order" can do nothing but cause more unlaw
and disorder. We do not approve of violence
anymore than anyone else, but we can readily
sympathize with those who are frustrated
enough to resort to it in order to be heard in
the absence of any other voice, or even with
those who would tear down, for the sake of
tearing down, the unlistening society they
find so offensive and so untrue to all they
have been taught. We do not mean to suggest
that all those who resort to violence are noble
souls pursuing ideals the only way they can
and are thus defensible. It's apparent that
many militants are purely destructive in their
motives. What must be answered is what it is
that made them destructive.

Hollow appeals to "law and order" are
nothing more than scapegoats for those who
are afraid to investigate the causes of the deep
divisions which undermine real law and order.
They are the resort of those who are totally
insensitive to the needs of the times. Law and
order cannot and will not be established by
force. It's an admirable end, but those who
profess to seek it so loudly must realize the
error of the means they would employ for
reaching it or it will never develop again. The
problem involved is not window-smashing or
rioting in the street — they are only manifestations
of the real problem, which lies at the
very core of our society. Not until those in
power realize and admit that will there be any
hope for law and order of the genuine variety.