Michael Sean Winters
National Catholic Reporter
Originally posted 4 September 20
President Donald Trump went to Kenosha, Wisconsin, this week to "survey the property damage" according to a White House transcript. He spoke a lot about law and order and very little about justice, as if the concepts are not necessarily related. To him, they probably are not.
A morally serious person would begin any examination of the damage in Kenosha with a look at an MRI of Jacob Blake's shattered torso. Blake was shot seven times in the back — reports said he was shot at "point blank range," but that phrase covers a range of distances — the gun only a few feet from his body. The video made the shooting look like a public execution.
Donald Trump is not a morally serious person.
A morally serious person would continue his survey of the damage in Kenosha by visiting with the family of Jacob Blake, especially his three young sons who witnessed the shooting. They are ages 3, 5 and 8, and the trauma to which they were exposed is horrific to contemplate. A morally serious person would express sympathy with the family and the community, mindful of how much more shocking the shocking video of Blake's shooting was if you knew the victim.
Donald Trump is not a morally serious person.
A morally serious person would understand that, while it is entirely fitting for the nation's chief magistrate to mourn the death of Aaron "Jay" Danielson, the 39-year old Trump supporter gunned down on the streets of Portland, Oregon, it is wrong to mourn his death publicly without mentioning the shooting of Blake, on the very day you are going to Kenosha. Such uneven treatment epitomizes the very reason it is still necessary to remind the nation that Black lives matter.
Donald Trump is not a morally serious person.
A morally serious person would inquire into the legacy of racism, structural racism, in Kenosha and elsewhere, the racism that made the shooting of Blake horrifying but not surprising. A morally serious person would not take refuge in chatter about "a few bad apples" but confront the police culture that permits such bad apples to poison the bushel. A morally serious person would work, and work hard, at finding ways to ameliorate the effects of racism and call fellow citizens to that deep examination of conscience every episode of police brutality against Black men demands.
Donald Trump is not a morally serious person.
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