4/30/2015
First of all, spare me any #notallwhites vitriol because *you* haven't
personally lynched any black people today. [Incidentally, it may be a frivolous
aside, but can there be any more depressing harbinger of non-change that
this--Lynch--is the last name of the newly installed Attorney General?] If that
is your initial reaction, you have already missed the points I haven't even made
yet. You might want to stop reading here (though you in particular should
probably read the whole thing). It is a thing of sheer beauty--terrible, evil
beauty to be sure. But beauty nonetheless in the way that a near perfect, almost
poetic conflation of hubris, hyperbole and hypocrisy can be admired for its
boldness and bluster: Resistance to oppression is required to be polite, and to
conform to standards of politeness set by the very oppressors themselves and
their allies, witting or un-. FUCK YOU. The youth of Baltimore are rising and
expressing a pent up rage that is centuries in the making. It is not for me to
tut tut and impose my idea of political organization. The left needs to watch,
and learn. Look at who is protecting whom, who is threatening whom, who is
siding with whom. Judge the media. Judge the police state. Judge a white
supremacist society in all of its tentacles that shape our perception and
experience in so many fields. This is the lens through which to understand
what's going on.
 As one friend sardonically observed, " White people care more about
white property than Black lives, which is ironic, considering Black lives used
to be white property. Through memes and social media, friends probe the irony
of white people rushing to defend the property rights of a megacorporation
whose greed for profit has destroyed more local businesses in Baltimore than
'looters' ever could, spawning the hashtag #jesuiscvs and 'White people be like
#AllStoresMatter.'
The rising body count from what seems to be unchecked police violence is old
news to those raising black and brown children in this society. These tips of
the iceberg that gain national attention are a window into the daily worries of
our communities, shedding light on what a challenging and scary proposition it
is--some of the dangers and fears parents of white children rarely have to
confront. This is probably why outside observers completely miss the
significance of the now viral footage of the black mother beating her son in
public in Baltimore. Police and media tout her as a model mom, implying that
she was against the protests or thought her son should respect the police. The
simple fact was far less dramatic--in her own words she just didn't want her
son to be another Freddie Gray--a fact immediately obvious to those in the
community, but perhaps lost on those who thrill at the idea of
someone--*anyone*--beating down a young black man. For our own part, we want
our son to be focusing on first year finals next week, not out posing as target
practice for killer cops. Parents tend to be a bit conservative when it comes
to kids' lives--can you blame us? That is why we also need to watch, listen and
learn.
 While we were right in the middle of tweeting, texting and sharing
about what police brutality's Enabler-in-chief called the 'senseless violence'
in Baltimore, it happened again like clockwork. Unarmed 20 year old
TerrenceKellum was shot 10 times by Immigration police (working jointly with
Detroit police) in his parents home just a few hours ago. But please tell us
again about 'bad apples' and 'isolated incidents,' and how 'some police
officers did the wrong thing.' Really.. I'm all ears. My cousin was taken in by
these same people a few years back. Guess we're lucky he made it out
alive...
What is also shocking (to some of us) is how invisible this internalized
perspective is. The white jury watched *video* footage of Rodney King and just
couldn't see police brutality. White observers see footage of a black mother
running in the street with toilet paper and diapers. Instead of a desperate
mother trying to provide for her family at the end of a month (thanks for the
cuts in food stamps btw) they see a violent thug. And in public, many whites
aggressively pursue and defend this point of view. I was in a bar recently and
had to try to keep my composure while a patron droned on and on about how the
cop who drove into that kid at 50 mph had "no other choice." And all the while
I'm supposed to worry more about a killer cop's twisted ankle than the survival
of my own son and brothers. Are you fucking kidding me? On what planet?? This
stands at the very core of white supremacist thought--even when the "thinkers"
are ignorant of it.
 We need to amplify our collective voice and speak out--and encourage
and support those kids on the front line who are speaking truth. We are up
against the most sophisticated propaganda matrix the world has ever seen.
Remember Malcolm: "If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating
the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the
oppressing." Above all, we need to be careful. But not in the way politicians
and handwringers like to think: My people have been killing you for centuries.
But please, let me tell you how to resist. Or lead your movement--even
better.
The utterly depressing thing about the now ubiquitous comparisons to the
'riots' of the 60's is that, 50 years later, conditions are actually *more*
hopeless. Inequality is measurably, tangibly worse. There is no talk of a
national commission or legislation to address the elephant in the room. No
opposition to the status quo of the police state is tolerated from any quarter
taken seriously; there is no organized dissent or political force to push back.
Moreover, and even more dangerous, the increased repression is part and parcel
of a global assault on all the peoples and countries of the Global South--a
worldwide Jim Crow, as it were--by an ever-more-bloodthirsty unipolar war
machine. Scary, depressing shit.
 This is a *global* struggle, folks. The fight to eliminate broken
windows police terror at home is inextricably linked to the struggles of our
global south peoples to push back against the systemic and overwhelming
violence that fuels endless imperial wars. They symbolic and real juxtaposition
of Palestinian and American youth, cast in rock-throwing positions side by
side, raised the tag 'Baltimore Intifada.' What they use against these kids is
what has been, is being, and will be trotted out to repress dissent not only
against them, but any of us who try to resist. Cartoonist Matt Lubansky penned
a hilarious and pointed piece titled "Great Moments in the History of Peaceful
Protest." Example: "1791: Haitian slaves ask very nicely to be freed and are
immediately liberated by all those reasonable white people." It is a brilliant
prebuttal to all the fools who can't repress the need to preach to the next
generation of revolutionaries how they would get much farther if they would
just calm down and circulate a few petitions. And vote for
Hillary! |
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