Tag Archives: Race

Political Rants

Justice be not swift.

Well, the verdict is in. I say “verdict” only because the prosecutor in the Michael Brown shooting investigation presented a trial-like case to the grand jury that included extensive exculpatory evidence, such as hours of testimony from the suspect himself – an approach that even Justice Scalia has considered irregular (though he has not, to my knowledge, commented on this specific case). I say “verdict” because Michael Brown himself was on trial in these grand jury proceedings, much as Trayvon Martin was while his killer, wannabe-cop George Zimmerman, was sitting in the dock without a care in the world.

Mr. Myth Maker.St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch ultimately provided the grand jury with a distorted picture of Michael Brown that made him out to be a superhuman, hyper aggressive, predatory cop-hater. Darren Wilson’s description of Brown was surreal and, in my opinion, carefully concocted to create the impression that there was no other way to deal with this young man than with a hail of bullets. Brown’s face was like that of a “demon”; he had the strength of “Hulk Hogan”; while being shot, Brown was “bulking up” so he could somehow charge through the officer’s hysterical gunfire. This is myth making, pure and simple.

But the prosecutor’s office didn’t rely only on distorted racial myths in its quest to avoid an indictment. They also relied on distortions of the law, such as this item (as reported by Bill Moyers):

“[MSNBC host] Lawrence O’Donnell found that just before Darren Wilson testified, “prosecutors gave grand jurors an outdated statute that said police officers can shoot a suspect that’s simply fleeing.” SCOTUS ruled the statute unconstitutional in 1985.

To my mind, the issue that never truly gets examined is the question of whether a police officer is justified in firing that 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th shot, as opposed to shots 1 and 2. What kind of training did Darren Wilson have, that he would feel like a “5 year old” in a tussle with a young man like Brown? What prompted him to unload his handgun into someone who may not have been complying with orders, but who had evidently done nothing to warrant a summary death penalty? One could ask the same question of many other police shooters of young black men over the past … I don’t know … century.

There does appear to be a serious “I am Darren Wilson” movement out there amongst law enforcement. We heard this recently from Utica’s police chief:

“Our justice system is not perfect, but it’s one of the best in the world,” Utica police Chief Mark Williams said. “Whether it’s a police officer or civilian, everybody should be given their due process and justice isn’t always swift. There has to be an investigation, and you just can’t indict somebody just to appease people who have a dislike for police.”

So … are Brown’s mother and father just a couple of people “who have a dislike for police”? True, justice isn’t always swift, but with attitudes like this prevalent in the management of our police departments, it is at a positive standstill.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

War comes home.

Obama now has something like 1,000 American military personnel “on the ground”, as they say, in Iraq. The situation for the Yazidi families, while serious, was not as dire as the government had suggested apparently, as thousands had been escaping their mountaintop exile every night, according to the NY Times. Just yesterday, NBC’s Brian Williams characterized their plight as “a modern Exodus,” though I don’t recall him using that terminology to describe the thousands upon thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes in northern Gaza under withering Israeli fire (that would have been all his job is worth).

Mine proof assult vehicles. That's community policing?Still, the U.S. military action will continue in Iraq, sans dramatic justification. Neatly done. And we will continue to provide arms to the people fighting those other people we provided arms to. There’s a foreign policy for you. What’s even more worrying than that, though, is the degree to which our military have been providing arms, armored vehicles, and advanced tactical gear to police departments across the country, like the one in Ferguson, Missouri. In the wake of the seemingly arbitrary police killing of teenager Michael Brown, this mostly African-American community looks reminiscent of Soweto, South Africa, during the bad old days of Apartheid.

This is not limited to one small Missouri town. Police tactics with regard to young Black men appear uniformly driven by aggression and the presumption of guilt, even in the absence of any definable criminal transgression. Michael Brown was walking up a street with his friend. Eric Garner, in New York, was selling individual cigarettes. Ezell Ford, in Los Angeles, was lying on the ground, under arrest, when he was shot in the back by the police. We have seen this movie before, right? Only now, it seems, the tactics and firepower of the U.S. Military are being brought to bear to confront communities justifiably outraged by these killings. What are these police departments so afraid of? Why do they always turn the amp up to 11 when it comes to Black people?

There are many answers to that question, and they’re all pretty ugly. Suffice to say that there’s a culture of discrimination in law enforcement in the United States. After over a century of deliberately criminalizing Black life, it’s a hard habit for them to break. But we must break it … peacefully … with our collective resistance.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Race talk.

Okay, so why is a middle-aged white dude writing about race? Mostly because I experience it more from the perspective of the oppressor than the oppressed. A funny thing happens sometimes when I am alone amongst white folks – they occasionally say openly racist things, and they say them with the confidence of someone who is amongst his/her own kind; people who share their prejudices, and will likely concur with their grisly sentiments. I don’t believe I’m unique in this regard – I have to think that a lot of white people have this same experience.

Higgerson family reunionSo sure, I smirk a bit when I hear people opine that racism is dead and that the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow is behind us. Though it seems a little retrograde, I suspect racism is not only alive and well but concentrated amongst those of us north of age thirty, with generally increasing intensity as you climb the ladder of age; so, the average 70-year-old white person is more bigoted than the average 35-year-old. (The current under-thirty generation is probably the least bigoted ever with regard to race, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, you name it. That, more than anything else, gives me hope.)

I’m in my fifties, and I can tell you that if it hadn’t been for my vehemently anti-racist mother (thankfully still amongst us), my fair-minded working-class father,  and my very cool elder siblings, I would likely have been as racist as some of the people I’ve known over the years. Throughout my youth, all of the external inputs were negative. Schoolmates were almost ubiquitously white racists, particularly in New Hartford, where there were no people of color whatsoever. Some of my teachers were openly racist, particularly my third grade teacher in New Hartford, Mrs. Higgerson, who used the n-word as a show-and-tell item. (My junior high school swimming teacher, recently departed, once cautioned me that if his generation hadn’t won WWII, “you would have slanted eyes right now;” no lie. He was lecturing me for wearing a “Solidarity with Indochina” button, apparently unaware that the Viet Minh (precursor to the Hanoi government) fought the Japanese during the big one.)

So … with respect to racism, like most non-racist white folks I’ve whistling past the Klan meeting pretty much all my life. Just thought it was worth saying on this anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. We have a ways to go, folks.

luv u,

jp