EPTThe rally is located at Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn. Imagine the park as a large rectangle with streets on all sides sequestering it. As I stand on the corner of Tillary St, I see from every single direction, masses of Chinese Americans streaming towards the park, converging for a singular purpose: Peter Liang. I have never felt more proud to be Chinese, and I think the same is true for many others. There is a sense of wonder at seeing so many thousands of people turn out. Many middle-aged ladies are saying “Zhe me duo ren…zhe me duo ren…” It means, ‘This many people … this many people…”
Why did so many people show up? And what exactly are we doing at this park? Do we think Peter Liang is guilty? Do we think he is a scapegoat? Is he being treated unfairly? Are we demonstrating for justice? Protesting against injustice? Supporting Peter Liang? Or supporting ourselves as a collective minority community?
I believe all of these questions can be answered by a single hypothetical situation. In considering just the past few years, if Martin Zimmerman who killed Trayvon Martin, or Darren Wilson who killed Michael Brown, or Daniel Pantaleo who killed Eric Garner, if even just one of these people had been convicted of something, I don’t think the rally would have happened.
The reason I say this is because most people in the Chinese community truly believe Peter Liang is guilty. In speaking to my landlord, a Chinese immigrant in her 50s, her words were: “What the fuck? So many white police officer kill … nothing happen. Then Chinese officer kill on accident, and go to jail 15 years. They take advantage of us.”
No one denies Peter Liang’s responsibility. No one denies he killed a man. Regardless of the nature or intent behind his actions, it was his gun, his bullet, his finger, pulling the trigger, causing the bullet to ricochet off the wall, striking Akai Gurley. Peter Liang is responsible.
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The problem however, the basis for all the anger and outrage in the Chinese-American community over this Peter Liang situation, has nothing to do with his responsibility. It has nothing to do with the guilt of a single man. It has everything to do with our most fundamental human condition: The desire for equality.
For many of the older Chinese immigrants at the rally, they who represent the restaurants of Chinatown, the laundromats, the nail salons hair salons beauty salons, they who are mostly unheard, and mostly invisible, they breathe the air of inequality everyday. Part of it is based in their inability to speak English, part in their unconscious fears, part in their remembrance of the past. The sentiment among the older generations is that ‘white people’ exploit or take advantage of the Chinese and that the Chinese exist as second-class citizens. (This is well documented in the book ‘The Chinese in America,’ by Iris Chang.)
While it’s not necessarily true anymore — for America has largely evolved into a meritocracy, it’s not what you look like, but what you do and how good you do it which determines who you are — there are still cases where inequality seems to spring up, reminders that everything is not as nice and sweet and fair as it seems. Peter Liang’s case, despite his guilt, is one such example.
Peter Liang was a police officer of the United States of America. As such a police officer, he was supposed to belong to their brotherhood. He was supposed to be a brother. He was supposed to receive their perks. Maybe he gets a discount at Dunkin Donuts, I have no idea. But one perk he was most definitely supposed to receive, a perk which is obvious to almost any American citizen who follows the daily news cycle is this: If a cop kills someone, the cop will pretty much come out fine.
It’s a strange precedent we have here in America, that police brutality, police-induced civilian casualties, receive so little punishment and so much leniency. The law seems to turn a blind eye. It’s fucked up. But hey! Self-defense for our police officers is important. This is how it is, and how it’s always been.
Except, until now.
Peter Liang was supposed to receive this precedent of leniency. Except he didn’t.
He was supposed to be ‘protected.’ Except he wasn’t.
I wonder what Peter said to his parents after he turned himself in. He lived with them in Bensonhurst. He must have called and told them what happened. No one can know exactly what he said, but here is what I would have said and I think my words are representative of most people’s words.
“Don’t worry mom. Don’t worry dad. Something terrible happened. I’m in the middle of it. But it was an accident. It was 100% an accident. And it’s happened hundreds of times before. And it’s always been fine. I’m going to be fine.”
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At the rally, one word is being uttered more than any other word: JUSTICE. One of the rally leaders says a sentence, and then follows it up by ‘Justice Justice Justice!’ Then he says another sentence, and follows it again with ‘Justice Justice Justice!’ He does this about 20 times, until his throat can take it no longer. Luckily, there are three rally leaders who can each take turns.
The two most popular slogans are: ‘Justice for Peter Liang!’ and ‘Justice for All!’
Here is a sequence that happened.
Rally Leader: Justice for Peter Liang!
Audience: Justice for Peter Liang!
Rally Leader: Justice for All!
Audience: Justice for All!
Rally Leader: Justice Justice Justice!
Audience: Justice Justice Justice!
Rally Leader: Justice Justice Justice!
Audience: Justice Justice Justice!
‘Justice for Peter Liang’ can be viewed in one of two ways. The first is what I previously described, that Peter didn’t receive the perks of a free pass in his sentencing and trial. Myself, and many I’ve talked to, are against this viewpoint. It promotes a backwards mindset, a retrospective justification for his actions that goes something like this:
Mommy! All the other kids smashed a sandcastle. Some of them smashed it with their hands. Some of them smashed it with a shovel. Some even took a shit on the sandcastle. But me? I accidentally jumped over a sandcastle and that caused it to get smashed. Why am I the only one getting in trouble?
The second viewpoint of ‘Justice for Peter Liang,’ is more encompassing, and it’s one that I want to bias towards. It says that Peter Liang is guilty, but his punishment should be proportional to his actions and inexperience. His punishment should be ‘justly’ delivered. The second viewpoint, essentially espouses: ‘Justice for All,’ because at the end of the day, Akai Gurley is dead. There is only one way for Akai Gurley and the black communities to receive justice: Peter Liang needs to be punished. But how severely does he need to be punished? Fifteen years? Did Peter fire with malicious intent? If we are to argue semantics, it’s fair to say Peter didn’t even shoot Akai. He shot the wall.
Manhattan councilwoman Margaret Chin urges “Compassion” for Peter Liang. The Chinese community urges love and understanding. Two more popular posters from the rally: “One Tragedy. Two Victims.” “Our Condolences to Akai Gurley.” But again, compassion? Love? Understanding? Leniency? Accidental manslaughter? None of this compares to the statement that Akai Gurley is dead. Condolences mean nothing when there are so many competing forces at work:
Personal: Akai Gurley needs justice.
Political: The black community at large needs an outlet for all the suffering they’ve inflicted at the hands of the American Police.
Racial: If Peter Liang had been a white officer named Peter Lang, the statistical evidence says he would have not been convicted.
Racial: Asian-American sentiments of social and political inferiority, feelings of being an ‘outsider,’ feelings of being prejudiced against.
Judicial: The dividing line, ever-changing, ever-moving, which determines the distance between acceptable self-defense, and criminal self-defense.
These myriad forces make it so that there can be no clean solution. Someone needs to take a hit. Is Peter being scapegoated? In the sense that he’s inherited the burden of being the tipping point of the police vs. black civilian eternal struggle — yes. In the sense that he’s being unfairly treated by the legal system? — No. The ironic point of the entire matter is this: A legal system with a flawed approach in dealing with its police has finally decided to not be flawed for once.
So what happens next? What is Peter Liang’s legacy? Regardless of what happens to Peter, regardless what sentence gets laid down, what will happen the next time a police officer kill someone? Because a shooting or a killing will certainly happen again. The probability of a police officer killing a civilian, intentionally or unintentionally, is actually 100%. It might not happen today or tomorrow, or next month, but the passage of time is patience and it will truck along and one day, the killing will happen. What will happen to this officer?
Scenario 1: The officer gets sentenced like Peter. Factors like self-defense, eminent danger, safety considerations, are all levied into the sentence. The officer gets a fair verdict. The victim gets compensation in the form of justice and recognition of wrongness. The net result: The activism, protests, and literature over Peter Liang have meant something. Humanity progresses forward a few inches. Not to mention, it decreases the likelihood of maverick police officers instituting death-dealing choke holds on innocent civilians, since they know there will be consequences for such actions.
Scenario 2: The officer gets sentenced like Peter Liang never happened. Which is to say, the officer doesn’t get sentenced at all. He goes home after his hard day at work and watches Stephen Curry highlights on ESPN. The net result: Disappointment. Overwhelming disappointment mixed with some rage. In the eyes of minorities, especially Chinese-Americans, America will lose credibility. People will clamor there is a two-tier system. And how would one argue against it? After Peter Liang, an Eric Garner verdict cannot ever against exist. Seriously, how was Daniel Pantaleo not convicted of at least one charge? Just one fucking charge! For a rational human being capable of at least some cognizant thought, it makes zero sense.
It is unfortunate that back-judgment, like back-pay, cannot be back-administered to previous officers. It is unfortunate that Peter Liang’s sentencing cannot be split among all police officers who have been in similar situations. It is most unfortunate that Peter Liang receives the culmination of all the injustices dealt to Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Eric Garney, William Corey Jackson, John Crawford III, Tamir Rice, Amadou Diallo, Antonio Martin, Ezell Ford, and Andy Lopez, Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. But the world moves forward. The world is a unidirectional machine. There is no looking back. There is only forward momentum.
Peter Liang has created a lot of momentum. More accurately, a lot of momentum has been created for Peter Liang. He has been turned into a symbol. He has been turned into a representative idea. The older generations see Peter as a unifying catalyst. Spoke the rally leader near the end:
“LET US SHOW THEM WE HAVE A VOICE.”
“LET US COME BACK ON THE FOURTH (Of July) , 50,000 STRONG. THAT WILL BE A SUCCESS.”
For the younger generations, I cannot speak for my peers, but at least for myself, he is a reminder of my identity, of who I am. Peter is 28. I am 26. I cannot help but identify somewhat with him. I cannot help but see his reaction in the video of his indictment as the exact same way I would react. I cannot help but feel companionship and anger when new articles describe jurors as thinking he is ‘remorseless’ because his face does not show emotion. That ‘remorseless’ look, is how I too, display deep emotions. Some emotions penetrate so deeply, they cannot be expressed: They can only be seen in stony silence.
A country’s most valuable resource is its people. Of America’s people, minority groups make up about 23% it. A system which contains inequality and carries out differential treatment alienates its people. Its why LGBT is no longer as prejudiced against as it was in the 90s. Its why feminism has soared. Everything and everyone is interconnected. When an asian police officer is held accountable, but nearly every other police officer is not held accountable, how does an asian citizen not feel disgust? As humans, we cannot escape our tendencies to extrapolate from the microscopic to the macroscopic, from the other to the self. I have love for my country. I have love for my white friends whom I’ve known since childhood. But this love will become tainted if there is a veil between what I perceive as equality and what is actually equality.
Near the end of the rally, this happened.
Rally Leader: What do we want!
Audience: Justice!
Rally Leader: When do we want it!
Audience: Now!
Rally Leader: Who gots the power?
Audience: We gots the power!
Rally Leader: Who gots the power?!!
Audience: We gots the power!!!
As citizens, I believe, we really do, gots the power. We might not get justice the way we want. We might not get justice when we want it. But as for power? That is something that burns within each of us. Our voices, our attitude and actions, our unity, our presence, really do have the power to shape each other and to shape our country. Undoubtedly, the issue of police accountability will rise again. Undoubtedly, there will be pain and blame and politics. We can only do our individual best. To quote the great Lebron James: “This is a work in progress. We all feel like, you know, Rome wasn’t built in one day. It’s going to take time and we understand that. We just have to keep making progress every day.”
