A message to America’s mayors, governors, city managers, local officials, police chiefs

You had one job -- to protect and defend your people -- and you failed.

It should go without saying: Do not kill your people. Do not put your knee on the neck of your people or tackle them and put them in a chokehold. Do not shoot them in their cars or break down their doors as if you were leading a violent home invasion or pull the trigger on them when they’re playing cops and robbers with a toy gun in the park. Do not attack your people. Do not squirt chemical mace or pepper spray in your people’s faces. Do not drive your cars into your people as they are exercising their First Amendment rights. Do not club your people with nightsticks. Do not shoot your people when they congregate to demonstrate, even if your guns are only loaded with rubber bullets. Do not fire tracer rounds at your people. Do not arrest reporters and medics: whatever you think of the jobs they do or the views they hold or what they write about you: they are your people, too.

You have done all these things – and thus proved the anger of your people to be righteous.

The only question now is how you will make amends.

The answer is basic – and like many basic things, it’s not particularly hard but it does take courage.

You have to meet with people you disagree with. You have to sit down with many who have organized the protests or been the victims of your policies. You have to listen. You have to hear their anger. You have to accept that their anger is directed at you, personally. And then, working jointly, respecting and understanding that rage, you have to spend the time to come up with concrete steps for the future – a plan of action that you will announce together.

It is likely that this process will take you far out of your comfort zone. The people you meet may hold views you consider radical. They may be former residents of your jails. They may speak differently than you do. But you have to seek them out and break bread with them. You have to drill down into your community. If the flyers or texts about demonstrations were sent out by groups you don’t know, have your staffers find out who these people are and go talk with them. If you have no way of finding out who they are, you do not deserve to be leading your cities.

And remember: this is bigger than politics. Some of your constituents will no doubt disparage you and will claim that you surrendered to violence. The guy in the White House, for sure, will flame you. Pay no attention to their derision. This is not about your image or your polling data or your projection of strength or your victory in the next election. It’s about a fundamental principle of governance that you have been neglecting. In this country, government reflects the will and consent of the governed and, at this moment, the governed have made it amply clear: they never gave their consent to these things you have done.

Also: stop blaming others. It’s time for you to shoulder your burden. You’re in charge. When you ran, when you took the oath of office, all the old problems became yours. In fact, you probably started in politics by asserting you could fix these things.

It’s also disingenuous for you to blame the current unrest on outsiders. People visit your cities all the time. When they are in your house, they are your people too.

Know, too, your rank and file cops are scared of many of your people and treat the very people they have sworn to protect and defend as less than human. It's time for you to take responsibility. If you cops kill or maim or mistreat someone -- whether with a knee, a chokehold, a baton, a toilet bowl plunger, or a bullet, or simply by accosting them for no reason other than the color of their skin -- it is as if you have killed or maimed or accosted someone, for they are all your cops, under your command and control. You need to take responsbility. When your cops have done wrong, you have done wrong, and it is your job to hold yourself accountable and make amends by fighting for serious, lasting change so that these things can never happen again. If you can't do this, you are in the wrong job.

This is not rocket science. It is common sense. What is needed right now is for you to get out into the community, to listen to the people whose voices have not been heard, whose voices you have hitherto not respected, and then work with them to create the lasting solutions that will ensure these deaths and injuries will never happen again. Then, and only then, people will get out of the streets.

This is the moment. Seize it and make the change you know is needed.