On Saturday, Feb.
20, I walked in Boston Common about 11 am, in time to see a large group of
Chinese Americans gathering by the Brewer Fountain in front of the gold-domed Massachusetts
State House. Behind the crowd, a man in a
black ski jacket and a woman in blue jeans quietly placed a small, home-made memorial
under a tree. They carefully laid down pine
twigs and flower bouquets on the lawn, and set up a cardboard sign with
hand-written words:
"TRIBUTE TO AKAI GURLEY"
"TRIBUTE TO AKAI GURLEY"
People came from as far away as Rhode Island to demonstrate in Boston, responding to former New York policeman Peter Liang's conviction. The majority of the participants were middle-aged,
and quite a few brought children with them. Led by a Boston University
Professor named Wang Hua, the first thing the demonstrators did together was observe
one minute of silence in mourning of Akai Gurley and as an expression of
condolences to his family.
I watched them from
a distance. I had decided from the very beginning to stay out of the mass
rally, and advised my friends to do the same. In addition to personal reasons, I
was also concerned about possible adverse consequences of racial tension. But I
would be surprised this time.
My first surprise
was that a friend, Hong Jiang, a former IT professional who had been skeptical about the
rally early on, brought with her two hand-made placards. One read,
"Condolences to Mr. Gurley's family," and the other "Fair Trial
for Peter Liang." She said she decided
to get involved because she really didn't want the rally sending the wrong
message to the public.
As it turns out,
these were the two main messages of the rallies across the country that day. Sadly, however, the mainstream media, and many in
their readership as well, seem to have seen only the second message or, worse still, to characterize
the demonstrations as a
"square-off" between the Asian and black communities. Few recognized
that the Chinese American community as a whole has emerged from its customary
quietness to make a collective bow to the victim's family, to express regrets
and sorrow, to issue a profound apology, and to acknowledge the failure of Liang's
defense team for not delivering an apology until after the verdict was read. Such
a collective apology is something unheard of in the 190-year history of Chinese
Americans.
The consensus on apologizing
was not manifest at the outset. On WeChat, I early on saw an ambivalent
question: Are we begging for leniency?
In the week between the verdict and the demonstrations, I watched on my
cellphone people debating passionately, sometimes fiercely, on whether mass
rallies should be held and how. There
were no authorities anywhere; anyone could propose any idea, and people took or
rejected ideas at their own discretion.
Despite endless arguments, some sort of convergence—though in no way unanimity—did
seem to appear at the end. One example: inappropriate slogans such as
"Support Peter Liang" stayed around for a while but were ultimately
rejected by the majority. "Support
him for what? For shooting?" the question from a random person had made
others think twice.
As a rookie cop, Peter
Liang made a grave mistake on the evening of November 20, 2014, on the 8th
floor of a dark stairwell in a Brooklyn public housing complex, when a bullet discharged
from his gun, ricocheted
off the wall, and fatally struck Akai
Gurley one floor below. Though all evidence points to the fact that neither man
was aware of the presence of the other at the time, and that even
the victim did
not immediately realize he himself was hit until he ran down two more
floors and collapsed on the 5th floor landing, Liang, as well as his
partner, made a further mistake by not performing CPR for the dying man after
they saw what happened minutes later. While Liang's defense team had argued
that a devastated and not well trained Liang was incapable of handling such a
crisis, an unarguable fact is that a young man's life was lost because of him,
and for that Liang must bear the responsibility.
Yet it is also a
fact that the tragedy was a horrible accident, made even more tragic by the
extremely low probability that a ricocheting bullet would strike someone in the
heart. As Ken Thompson, the Brooklyn DA who prosecuted Liang, said in a video
interview on Feb. 19, the day before the demonstrations, "I do not
believe that Peter Liang intentionally killed Akai Gurley. We have never said
that."
An accident is not
the best example of evilness. An individual who caused an accident without
intent should not be symbolized for political causes or be given the harshest
punishment. As far as I can tell, this is what pushed Chinese Americans to the
streets on Feb. 20. But as they sought fairness for a member of their own, it
also became clear to them that "fairness" might not mean the same
thing to those on the side of the victim. Thus, as a grassroots movement, the
Peter Liang demonstrations ran into a dilemma. That dilemma, embodied in the
two slogans carried by my friend, also became part of the rallies.
On the grass of
Boston Common, I asked a demonstrator, who identified herself as a housewife, why
she brought her children here. She
replied in Chinese, "I want them to know we are a minority. They have to know that unfair things happen to us because we are a minority." She paused, and
then added somewhat ambivalently, "But we don't want our black friends to
think we are against them. They are a minority too. We are both disadvantaged groups."
A park ranger on horse attracted children who came with their parents. The kids wanted to pat the horse. They wanted to take pictures with the handsome policeman.
A park ranger on horse attracted children who came with their parents. The kids wanted to pat the horse. They wanted to take pictures with the handsome policeman.
I couldn't help but
wonder: when Peter Liang, at age five, witnessed her mother being robbed on the
street, and vowed to protect her when he grew up, was it the mighty image of a
policeman like this that inspired his dream career? How could he have known there's so much behind
a beautiful image!
By the Brewer
Fountain, a woman speaker stood on a bench and called on Chinese
Americans to actively participate in public affairs. The crowd responded with
foot stamping while shouting in unison: "Vote! Vote! Vote!" Hong Jiang, who became one of the provisional organizers with the BU professor, spoke next. She told people to care not only about our own community, but also all other minority groups.
After seven or eight men and women made impromptu speeches, people began to sing "God
Bless America." A man with a
singer's voice held a megaphone and led the chorus. I was surprised that many
remembered the lyrics; those who didn't hummed along.
As the demonstrators
paraded along the outmost ring inside the large park, the procession stretched for
more than half a mile. I asked the park ranger on horse how many people he
thought there were.
"More than
2000," he said, impressed. "I thought there'd be 50. That's the estimate on the permit."
"Is it okay
there are so many?" I asked.
"Oh yeah, "
he said, "perfectly fine. It's a good thing."
The parade marched
past my camera, shouting slogans. Suddenly, a white man standing next to me in
the audience ran to the parade and stopped a woman holding a sign, on it were
the words "Free Peter Liang."
"Where is he
being held?" the man, who later told me his name was Ed, asked her. The
woman looked puzzled. Several others came around and tried to explain, but Ed
cut them short. "You can't ask to free someone who's not being imprisoned,"
he said.
This slogan, in
fact, had been one of those deemed inappropriate by most—albeit for different
reasons than Ed's—during the WeChat discussions before the demonstration. Many
seemed to want leniency for Peter Liang, not exactly "free," but
unsure what term would be fair.
I
spotted another friend, also an IT professional, at the tail of the parade. I
asked her why she came to demonstrate. "If we didn't," she said in a Sichuan
accent, "Peter Liang would be locked up for 15 years!"