 | | The police in riot gear in Louisville, Ky., on Monday.Luke Sharrett for The New York Times |
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This past March was the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre, in which a group of British soldiers fired on a crowd of protesters outside of the state house (now the Old State House), killing five people, including Crispus Attucks, a sailor of Native and African descent. |
I took a trip to Boston for the occasion, speaking with historians and re-enactors about the event, which was pivotal in driving the city to rebellion and the colonies toward independence. One factor precipitating the confrontation, I learned, was the de facto military occupation of the city by British Regulars. |
The French and Indian War ended in 1763 with London in control of vast territories on the western reaches of the American colonies. To protect those territories — and to keep opportunistic colonists from settling them and provoking conflicts with Indigenous communities and foreign powers — the British kept thousands of soldiers on hand to keep the peace and restrain colonists when necessary. In 1765, Parliament passed the first Quartering Act, requiring colonists to house, feed and supply those soldiers, who at that point were also tasked with handling civil unrest among Americans angry with the heavy hand of the Crown on their activities. |
Even with the act in place, quartering was uncommon. But colonists in cities like Boston still had to contend with soldiers on the streets, whose presence led to protests, conflicts and altercations, like the one that led to the massacre. This experience — of quartering, occupation and the resulting unrest — would inform the men who drafted the Constitution as they debated the extent of the federal government’s ability to raise an army. For many, any standing, permanent army would lead directly to the kind of abuses Americans suffered under British soldiers. Even Alexander Hamilton, a fierce supporter of a powerful central government, was wary of standing armies, which he said would bring “the violent destruction of life and property.” |
Despite these misgivings, however, the framers would include an “Army clause” in the Constitution, giving Congress the ability to “raise and support Armies” with funds appropriate for a term of no longer than two years (in a nod to those concerns). |
Still, this provision would spark fierce debate when the Constitution went before state legislatures (and the public) for ratification. For antifederalist opponents of the Constitution, the Army clause was a dangerous invitation to the kind of tyranny and degradation the colonists fought a war to end. A writer with the pen name Brutus warned that a standing army would “inevitably sow the seeds of corruption and depravity of manners.” |
Luther Martin, another leading antifederalist, took a similar position, contrasting an oppressive and hierarchical standing army with a more democratic local militia: “When a government wishes to deprive their citizens of freedom, and reduce them to slavery, it generally makes use of a standing army for that purpose, and leaves the militia in a situation as contemptible as possible, least they might oppose its arbitrary designs.” |
I raise all of this to suggest a thought: Founding-era warnings against standing armies might apply as much to our militarized police forces, which all too often resemble an army in form and function, occupying neighborhoods as soldiers rather than keepers of the peace, with predictable results. As we’ve seen in just the past week, our police — with their lawlessness and outright opposition to accountability — are acting in exactly the ways Americans feared in the Revolutionary period. |
If this is true, or even anywhere close to true, it raises difficult questions about how we approach the problem of policing. Do we fight for reform? Or do we look for ways to fundamentally rethink the institution as it exists? |
My Tuesday column was on the uses and abuses of history, and especially the attempt to analogize the circumstances of today to those of 1968. |
| All of this gets to a larger point. History can be incredibly useful for analyzing and understanding the present — that is, in fact, the aim of much of my writing. But we shouldn’t forget that our circumstances are not theirs, and our future cannot be divined from the events of the past. We simply do not know what comes next, nor can we predict the events that — as we have seen with the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd — can move an entire nation from one path to another. |
My Friday column was on the idea of a “police riot” and what it means for our democracy. |
| What we’ve seen from rioting police, in other words, is an assertion of power and impunity. In the face of mass anger over police brutality, they’ve effectively said So what? In the face of demands for change and reform — in short, in the face of accountability to the public they’re supposed to serve — they’ve bucked their more conciliatory colleagues with a firm No. In which case, if we want to understand the behavior of the past two weeks, we can’t just treat it as an explosion of wanton violence, we have to treat it as an attack on civil society and democratic accountability, one rooted in a dispute over who has the right to hold the police to account. |
If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to friends. They can sign up here. If you want to share your thoughts on an item in this week’s newsletter or on the newsletter in general, please email me at jamelle-newsletter@nytimes.com. |
 | | A re-enactment of the Boston Massacre, in Boston, Mass.Jamelle Bouie |
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While in Boston I took this photo of the nighttime re-enactment of the massacre. I was pleasantly surprised I was able to capture this, given how my digital camera is a little older and doesn’t do as great in low light as its more recent successors. |
Now Eating: Rancho Gordo’s Borracho Beans |
I have been a member of the Rancho Gordo “Bean Club” for about five years and have gotten pretty good at preparing beans in a variety of ways. One of my favorite ways to have beans is this simple preparation, which relies on aromatics and roasted chiles for its flavor. The bacon is optional — sometimes I use it, sometimes I don’t — but the smokiness is nice. A healthy amount of smoked paprika (I’d say at least a teaspoon and a half) is a more than suitable substitute. The recipe comes from the quarterly Rancho Gordo newsletter, which I get in the mail along with my beans. |
- ½ pound bacon (optional)
- 1 pound dried Flor de Mayo beans (or dried pinto beans), picked over and soaked for 4 hours
- 1 large white onion, diced
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 bay leaf
- 4 green chiles like Hatch or Anaheim
- 1 bottle Modelo Negra dark beer
- Salt to taste
- Fresh cilantro and minced white onion for garnish
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In a large pot or Dutch oven, sauté the bacon if using. When cooked, reserve on paper towels. Add the onion and garlic to the bacon fat and fry until soft, about 5 minutes. If you aren’t using bacon, use 2 tablespoons olive oil instead. |
Add the bay leaf and the beans and their soaking water, as well as enough additional water (or chicken or vegetable stock) so that the beans are covered by about 1½ inches. |
Bring to a hard boil for 5 minutes, then reduce heat to a mere simmer and cook until the beans are soft, checking for doneness after about an hour. Add salt just when the beans start to soften. |
In the meantime, roast the chiles: Preheat the broiler and arrange the chiles on a baking sheet. Place the baking sheet directly underneath the flame and roast for 8 to 10 minutes, turning the chiles occasionally with tongs so that they char evenly. Transfer the chiles to a bowl, cover with a dish towel and let them steam for 10 minutes. When the chiles are cool enough to handle, the skins should rub off easily. Remove the stem and seeds, then chop the chiles. |
Add the beer to the beans and additional salt to taste. Add the chiles and crumble in the reserved bacon (if using) and heat through. Serve with cilantro and diced raw onions. |
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