For the second time in five months, an American city erupted in protests and unrest following a police killing of an unarmed black person. On Saturday evening, scores of people took to the streets of Baltimore to protest the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in police custody a fortnight ago.
City officials reported that 31 people were arrested, and a half dozen police officers hurt, after demonstrators clashed with police, destroyed a few cruisers, smashed storefront windows, and ransacked several convenience stores.
Christie Lleto, a reporter with CBS Baltimore, reported breathlessly, “This seems to be the work of a few outside agitators.” Another anchor on Baltimore’s Fox affiliate actually remarked, “The police have said that outside agitators are responsible for this, so it must be true.”
In fact, according to the mayor, only one of those arrested hailed from outside Baltimore. But “outside agitator” is an old slur. As Richard Seymour, writing in Jacobin at the height of the Ferguson protests last August, put it, the term “reeks of good old boy vigilantism, the co-mingling of race-baiting and red-baiting that was typical of Southern counter-revolution in the dying days of Jim Crow.”
The biases and allegiances of these journalists affected their coverage. Lleto’s voice was tinged with sadness as she and the in-studio anchor, Denise Koch, applauded the protesters who invoked the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” gesture.
“Those are the good protesters,” the anchor said.
Earlier in the evening, an anchor at NBC Baltimore applauded the cops for showing restraint, after letting the viewers know that one of his friends was a cop. Another anchor on Fox Baltimore attacked the protesters for attempting to bait the police — calling to mind a notorious episode from last December when the same TV station selectively edited a video to make it appear as if demonstrators, protesting the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, were chanting “kill a cop.”
Anchor after anchor, reporter after reporter, complained about how the protests disrupted the traffic and prevented Baltimore Orioles fans from heading home after the game concluded.
The protesters, strategic in their choices of targets, converged on Camden Yards — home to the Orioles. They destroyed some commercial property and got into skirmishes with onlookers who were there to enjoy the baseball game, as news helicopters hovered above. The police argued that because of the unrest, they were forced to lock down the stadium and force fans to stay put until the disturbances died down. Baltimore’s press dutifully blamed the protesters for this abuse of state power.
The media’s obsession with middle-class fans getting home from a ballgame and traffic problems in the restaurant quarter speaks volumes about how the news establishment acts as a mouthpiece for law enforcement and the government.
In February, the Guardian reported on a site in Chicago used by police there to illegally detain suspects. I asked Tracy Siska, executive director of the Chicago Justice Project, why local press hadn’t covered the issue, and he responded, “That’s the million dollar question. The problem is a lot of reporters agree with the police perspective.”
Naturally, the media doesn’t portray all rioting mobs in the same fashion.
In 2013, the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl. Mostly white fans then flooded the streets in what NBC Baltimore labeled a “celebration.” It was not entirely peaceful, however. The same station described Saturday’s demonstrations as “tense and violent.” The double standard is familiar. When white people spread chaos in the streets, they are drunks who’ve made drunken mistakes; when black people erupt in justifiable rage after decades of oppression, they are depicted as violent and intimidating agitators.
It’s little wonder then that black protesters over the last eight months have lashed out at members of the media. After Michael Brown’s killer, Darren Wilson, was not indicted last November, a protester shouted “Fuck CNN” at Don Lemon, who had earlier that night found a marijuana joint that perplexed him. In August, after Fox News reporter Steve Harrigan called Ferguson protesters children, one of the demonstrators confronted him on air. Once more, viewers were treated to a satisfying “Fuck Fox.”
As Baltimore protesters vented their rage, a mere 40 miles away in Washington, D.C. elite journalists rubbed elbows with other insiders at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. That night, cable news networks provided scant coverage of the clashes in Baltimore; CNN opted to cover the narcissistic red carpet of Washington’s Nerd Prom, while Fox News and MSNBC showed documentaries.
Ultimately, there’s no such thing as objective journalists, particularly as it pertains to police killing unarmed black people. We all have our perspectives, biases, and experiences. Univision’s Jorge Ramos had it right when he said:
The best of journalism happens when we take a stand—when we question those who are in power, when we confront the politicians who abuse their authority, when we denounce an injustice. The best of journalism happens when we side with the victims, with the most vulnerable, with those who have no rights. The best of journalism happens when we, purposely, stop pretending that we are neutral and recognize that we have a moral obligation to tell truth to power. . .We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
It appears, however, that much of the media has taken the side of the oppressor.
Despite it all, Freddie Gray’s broken spine will always be more important than the broken window of some store in downtown Baltimore.
Editor’s Note: February 2, 2016
After uncovering misattributed quotes in stories written by Juan Thompson, a former staff reporter, The Intercept conducted a review of his work. The anonymous quotes from television anchors in this story could not be confirmed.
Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP
Sometimes you have to add a song into the mix to express your frustration. Here’s one for our friends in the streets:
http://www.reverbnation.com/biffthuringer/song/23460329-white-mans-world
see
Police Were Harassing Students Before Monday’s Outrage
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13739
Eyewitnesses: The Baltimore Riots Didn’t Start the Way You Think
motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/how-baltimore-riots-began-mondawmin-purge
Rise of the New Black Radicals
truthdig.com/report/item/rise_of_the_new_black_radicals_20150426
Have you already seen this, Juan?
Chicago Cop Beat Wife in Homan Square ‘Black Site,’ Document Shows
By Ken Klippenstein and Paul Gottinger, Reader Supported News
28 April 15
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/29871-focus-chicago-cop-beat-wife-in-homan-square-black-site-document-shows
On the internet (not here, though) you see a lot of comments implying that riots are an inherently black phenomenon. That’s complete nonsense, of course. Under certain conditions, any population will riot. In the Ukraine, for example, stuff happened that is way more extreme than anything in Baltimore. In Odessa, a bunch of protesters/activists for one side built some Molotov cocktails and then proceeded to burn 32 of their opponents alive.
Good lord, in North America white people riot over winning sports championships.
New York Times covers up fascist atrocity in Odessa
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/05/05/time-m05.html
the Ravens celebration was peaceful until a black kid stabbed and killed another black kid. He was prosecuted and found guilty. I don’t care what is going on, there is no excuse for the thug type mentality that these non outsiders brought to Baltimore. this is pure and simple just being on civilized human beings
So they were rioting against black on black crime? Okay. . .
key points made by @billmon! regarding libertarian reformers.
https://twitter.com/billmon1/status/592894372028542976
I don’t think libertarians are hypocrites so much as the left is still reeling from 1968 and remain politically impoverished. And so the debate, as billmon says, has been reduced to the low bar of negative liberty- whether or not black people should have a right to live. This is our political imagination on life support, only capable of finding a pulse in conservatism.
billmon’s other great point here is the ‘bad apple’ trope needs to be shot out of a cannon. It’s not good cops v bad cops. It’s apartheid v no apartheid. Predatory capitalism v democratic socialism. Law enforcement is the reflection.
Minsky quote in the thread
http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp404.pdf
All the hand wringing over property damage v. actual human lives illustrates the point. The war on poverty ended up warring on the poor, to protect the economy.
Header image: https://prod01-cdn03.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2015/04/AP723044900704-article-display-b.jpg
nonono.
“Stop police killings. ALL LIVES MATTER.”
This is part of why things will only spiral further.
“And a half dozen police officers hurt”
That’s a start, perhaps that will get these hired thugs attention?
Stupid article full of racist lies. Can you hate on whites anymore you ignorant piece if turd
A person is dead because his neck was broken and his voice box was crushed. The Police claim that they have no idea what happened. They get all upset that people get upset while they continue on beating and murdering citizens. Fuck the police and the news organizations who can’t seem to grasp whats really going on in this country. These riots were not spontaneous, they were a natural reaction to justice not ever being served.
?t is American spring! My heart with Black people
Baltimore is about 65% black. It has a black mayor, a black police commissioner, a black deputy police commissioner, and a majority black city council. It’s been more than 20 years since Sheila Dixon waved her pump at white colleagues and declared the shoe was on the other foot. If a civilian government cannot get control over its police force, then what? A state takeover? A federal takeover? I have no clue, but all the evidence seems to suggest that the Baltimore Police Department is a reckless and overly aggressive force that lacks any significant accountability or control. By the time Dixon had become mayor in 2007, she was under strong pressure to address the recalcitrant level of violent crime in the city. The race angle doesn’t seem to fit this particular example. Except, perhaps, in one paradoxical way. Historically, in a city like Baltimore, public service jobs like firefighters and law enforcement were protected for Irish Catholic family members. Since the 1980s, concerted efforts have been made to diversity the personnel, and I believe blacks are something like half the force. This would be consistent with other findings that have suggested that similar efforts to diversity police forces have actually been followed by increased incidents of harassment and excessive use of force. Unfortunately, a situation develops where the relentless facing of urban crime allows a certain level of emotional detachment, cynicism, and indifference to that world to set in among law enforcement officers. Combine that with the type of personalities that are drawn to law enforcement in the first place and poor leadership, and you have a recipe for a pathological police force. Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions.
Why Baltimore Rebelled
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/04/baltimore-freddie-gray-unrest-protests/
National Guard deployed in Baltimore after anger erupts over police killing
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/04/28/balt-a28.html
Right on.
I have NO sympathy for the cops, or the politicians at this point. They’ve repeatedly allowed police off the hook for assaulting and murdering citizens. All the cops could die, and I’d really have a hard time giving a shit. They are reaping what they have sown.
That attitude isn’t helpful. It is the exact same one that allows the “cops and politicians” to dehumanize others.
Have you already seen this, Juan?
Chicago Cop Beat Wife in Homan Square ‘Black Site,’ Document Shows
By Ken Klippenstein and Paul Gottinger, Reader Supported News
28 April 15
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/29871-focus-chicago-cop-beat-wife-in-homan-square-black-site-document-shows
I live rurally in Maryland a away from city life in Baltimore. First off Baltimore is not in flames, “thugs” have not taken over the town. There was a “Hot Time in the Old Town” last night for sure but it could have been far worse and widespread. Many were injured but other than the Young man killed previously in police custody by luck or Grace no one else has died, 1968 this is not.
Riot is not the solution and it is a tool that plays into the hands of police state proponents. We are all being played against our differences by those that believe the needs of the few rich and powerful out-weight the needs of the many. Freddie Gray’s death was the initiator but the cause of the explosion runs deeper. The transgressions of the past even slavery can be worked though with a Civil War and a century plus of Civil Rights movement. The question now for black and many other youth is the loss of opportunity and hope for the future. How we restore opportunity and hope is the big question? I can reason with a hopeful man, a hopeless man is often beyond reason.
The American public is being manipulated into thinking that any protest against the system is illegitimate, irrational, and will lead to unrestrained violence and destruction. The television focuses on the flames to make civilians (who SHOULD have grievances against the bipartisan fascist warmongering, authoritarian agenda) fear that THEIR stuff will be on fire soon enough if the unruly natives in their own city get the crazy idea to foment chaos.
The corporate media and political establishment know what they’re doing. The ruling “elites” want to keep the exploitative, violent, hierarchical social, political, and economic (dis)order the way it is, and are determined to prevent challenges to this (dis)order by the oppressed. They have to delegitimize and disparage people who are protesting the ruling class’ violence, and they have to maintain and (do their best to) restore confidence in the coercive agencies of the state.
As Frank Furedi describes in his excellent book, New Ideology of Imperialism, the “tendency” on the part of the ruling class “to query the authenticity of anti-colonial nationalism was preceded by a phase of anxious anticipation. Anti-colonial nationalism was nervously expected some time before it actually emerged
as a coherent force. Throughout the interwar period alarmist reports tended, if anything, to invent or at least to exaggerate the peril from Africa and Asia…. The characteristic feature of the Western response to the colonial world during these years was to anticipate dangers that were imminent but still unclear…. The adjectives used to describe the peril of nationalism were extravagant and even sensationalist. Yet discussion about the problem of these as yet unformed nationalisms is singularly uninformative concerning the nature of the challenge facing the West. It is important to emphasize this point: the reaction of almost panic-like proportions actually precedes the emergence of mass anti-imperialist movements!”
Colonial administrators and publicists would spread fear, often having no resemblance to reality, about anti-colonial resistance and nationalism. Their warnings, this “presentiment of danger”, served multiple purposes, including the prejudicing of the public against other poor people (in effect undermining class solidarity–the ruling class has long used divide and rule strategies), and the diversion of attention away from the violence and looting by the 1% of the 99%.
A lot has changed in the past 24 hours; there’s no longer doubt of community involvement in the violence, but the real source of that violence still needs to be examined. In live coverage I saw reporters looking at a line of police on one side and stores being looted on the other, and the police were content to stand around. An alderman proudly told either CNN or FOX that he had persuaded the police not to come down into his neighborhood, because the people would take care of it themselves… and he was standing right there in front of the store being looted.
There is a whole crooked class war game in American cities. Every alderman is married to a realtor, and every realtor is making a killing on urban renewal. But before the renewal there has to be a blight. So there needs to be a sense of impunity, so insurers won’t write policies, so bankers won’t write loans, so buildings aren’t built and aren’t repaired, while police stand off to the side. Property values plummet, the poor blacks sell for next to nothing, or eventually they get eminent domained for nothing and their land is handed over to private developers. So somebody can put up 20 blocks of flat parking lots surrounded by some of the nicest condos and townhouses in town, and lucky chance, guess whose land they’re on!
But in Baltimore, I’m suspicious there’s something even rottener at work behind the rotten. If you look on #FDL some top cross-posted tweets mention #RT. An RT reporter is seen being robbed on the 25th. Given the generally crooked nature of alderman politics, I want to know if the Russians got somebody to play let’s make a deal with them. It wouldn’t take that much money, really, to get the whole city council scheming about how to make the city burn – not when poor blacks are already seen as the enemy, as a burden that the city has to shift to somebody else if it doesn’t want to go down like Detroit. Something smells, and I wish someone could dig to the bottom of it.
and probably in every city is a shadowy organization that represents the interests of the rich, and whose membership is comprised of the officials from the private and supposedly public sector.
so for example, in Richmond, VA, there’s Venture Richmond.
http://www.venturerichmond.com/info/who/board.html
Wow. Good catch.
Hyper gentrification is bad enough as it is, but this sounds like hyper ‘blockbusting’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting
“Orioles COO John Angelos offers eye-opening perspective on Baltimore protests”
By Ted Berg
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/04/orioles-john-angelos-baltimore-protests-mlb
“After protests in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray turned violent on Saturday, Baltimore sports-radio broadcaster Brett Hollander took to Twitter to argue that demonstrations that negatively impact the daily lives of fellow citizens are counter-productive. Orioles COO John Angelos, son of owner Peter Angelos, seized the opportunity to respond with a qualified and brilliant defense of those protesting.
“You can read the whole thing in Angelos’ Twitter replies, but it’s transcribed here for clarity. It’s all here because it’s all so good. Read the whole thing:
“Brett, speaking only for myself, I agree with your point that the principle of peaceful, non-violent protest and the observance of the rule of law is of utmost importance in any society. MLK, Gandhi, Mandela and all great opposition leaders throughout history have always preached this precept. Further, it is critical that in any democracy, investigation must be completed and due process must be honored before any government or police members are judged responsible.
“That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.
“The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, and ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importances of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ballgame irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.
“Gray, a 25-year-old Baltimore resident, suffered a spinal injury while in police custody after his arrest on April 12 and died seven days later. Six city police officers have been suspended pending an investigation into Gray’s death.”
I’m concerned about the the narrative/dichotomy that is being set up; Police vs African Americans. Not that there isn’t a long history of police violence against African Americans or that their aren’t legitimate complaints about the substandard services and economic opportunities in African American neighborhoods. I lived there, so I know. I’m just wondering why the bi-weekly mass shootings of civilians have stopped and now we have a recent increase in the deadly violence on the part of the police, just before a long hot summer. I’ve heard the violence blamed on the militarization of the police, the transfer of military gear to police departments across the country and counterterrorism training in Israel for use against a civilian population. All of this may be true, but I have another theory. African Americans are being set up to be scapegoated for when some right wing nut runs for President…and promises law and order.
Many of the police officers currently serving are former military who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. This is a different mindset from community policing which requires different training. But I like to make a point, that many will consider conspiracy theory. Military doctors would have had access to them, which means they could have been micro-chipped without their knowledge. Once you are micro-chipped, you can be controlled and with a push of a button, your emotional state can be switched to pure rage (a tell tall sign is loud ringing in your ears). I have watched video after video of lesser known incidents, with police behaving in an extremely violent manner toward compliant subjects. I lived for two years from 2001-2003 in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Brooklyn, with drug dealers every half block. I didn’t particularly like the police at that precinct, but I never once saw them behave with pure aggression. I wonder what’s changed since 2001…
It is not because the Indo-Chinese has discovered a culture of his own that he is in revolt. It is because “quite simply” it was, in more than one way, becoming impossible for him to breathe.
– Fanon, in “Black Skin, White Masks” (in the section, “By Way Of Conclusion”)
Why focus on a bunch of people standing around holding signs, chanting, and giving articulate interview responses when you can focus on the sensationalism of a few miscreants causing property damage? I also think the ‘Black Lives Matter’ thing is a bit misdirected. Granted, I agree that blacks are indeed much more likely to get killed or have generally bad encounters with law enforcement, but that doesn’t mean everyone else can’t be subject to abuse. I think the protests would have more support from non-blacks if they focused more on the police abuse than who the victims are. The race shouldn’t be the focus and it seems like both sides are doing that, one very much intentionally to maintain the ‘us vs them’ mentality, the other possibly less intentionally. No one who is unarmed should be shot and killed by the police, regardless of race. All lives matter.
An example of how I would change the narrative, was when I saw the clip of the 73 year old Tulsa sheriff’s deputy shooting and killing the unarmed black man. Yes, they can focus on the fact that the victim was black, that the deputy was white, that he was old, basically bought the right to play cowboy and was probably seriously under-trained & possibly mentally and/or physically unfit for the work he was doing. Those are all valid points. But what seems to be getting overlooked is that he claims he was reaching for his taser instead of his gun. Notable weight & balance differences aside, the real question is why the fuck was he reaching for his taser in the first place? The man was pinned to the ground face down with multiple able bodied officers around. That and the complete disregard for human life shown after he was shot by the other officers at the scene. Tasers and guns shouldn’t be go to solutions to deal with any type of non-compliance. Officers need to be trained in non-violent conflict management and how to identify and deal with mentally ill people. And bad police need to be removed from their jobs, or screened out from getting them in the first place. Cops shouldn’t be protecting terrible actions, they should be condemning them; it makes them all look bad for supporting blatant wrongdoing.
see: https://www.wsws.org/en/topics/socialIssuesCategory/us-police/
We have a right to be in the streets for Freddie
http://socialistworker.org/2015/04/27/in-the-streets-for-freddie
Selma, Obama and the Colonization of Black Resistance
counterpunch.org/2015/03/13/selma-obama-and-the-colonization-of-black-resistance/
Why are they afraid of Ferguson?
socialistworker.org/2014/11/21/why-are-they-afraid-of-ferguson
If I could say one sentence to these people it’d be to stop saying “black lives matter” and realise they should be saying “all lives matter”.
I feel like Sharpton & Co. are partially responsible for this. He makes it into a race issue, because he realizes if it was a police brutality issue, he wouldn’t have as big of a voice. He benefits from the oppression of blacks.
Getting Rid of Al Sharpton and the Misleadership Class
http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/4232
Where are all of the Tea Party ‘small government libertarian’ hypocrites during this? Probably at home watching Fox News, hoping Baltimore implements curfews and martial law.
Well, we can’t negate the fact that there’s still racism around, still institutional racism around, and it is true that police brutality and our skewed justice system disproportionately affects African-Americans. But it is also true that other Americans of color, poor Americans, and even those mentally ill have also been disproportionately affected. So I also have to agree that yes, we should be saying all lives matter. One big reason I feel is that we need to get more people to realize that if this is not affecting them immediately, it may only be a matter of time. – remember that old poem – ‘and then then came for…’.
I wrote this in the wake of these police killings and if you or anyone by chance hasn’t seen it:
http://observergal.blogspot.com/2014/12/protest-poem.html
And now for my new sign off: “Divided = Conquered BUT United = Empowered!”
feline16, here is the problem: by declaring a scope you create the lines that are used to keep people not in that ‘tribe’ from caring. Put another way it increases prejudice and separation instead of increasing the (truthful) belief that when it comes to police brutality skin colour doesn’t mean anything. It increases the gap. Militance won’t win, it will just create deeper dividing lines. True of any “class”. It shouldn’t be about exceptionalism. Exceptions caused this.
Hi there…ummmm – I’m with you on this, did you notice?
You agreed that all lives matter but I don’t believe you agreed that it is dangerous tk call out any group. And then they came for is exactly why it needs to stop being called out – history shows getting rid of one out group creates a different one. It’s all a distraction; the real question isn’t who the victims are, it is why they are victims. Cui bono?
HUH? Maybe you understand the “and then they came for…” differently than I do… my take on it is that we ALL are possible victims and should unite. The lesson is that TPTB could come after whoever as it suits them…as to why —- doesn’t it seem clear? If TPTB get away with oppressing one group, it’s probably just a matter of time until they move on; I guess the why is the lust for keeping their tribe in power.
“Divided = Conquered BUT United = Empowered!”
BALTIMORE Culture of Police Abuse,The sad fact is that this problem will not get better by itself. Baltimore residents must be both more aggressive and smarter in advocacy.
Also Must insisted on a reorganizing of the baltimore police department, including firing the police chief.
In a broader sense, if we want to change the situation across the country, we need to be focused on removing not only officers with patterns of racial abuse, but officers who are abusive, period. While it may be interesting to talk about the odd problem member on the police force in this small town, the much greater and more immediate problem is that we have too many former schoolyard bullies working as police officers.
We need to be focused on removing officers who have patterns of explicit and implicit bias, but we also need to be focused on ensuring that people who are prone to abusive and violent behavior do not become officers in the first place. Workable way to handle the problem with police murdering citizens ,and brutality is to have an outsider audit the departments in an impartial way and do away with those who have a history of violence.
We also need to adopt, at long last, meaningful national standards for use-of-force training for all police officers.
Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time reading and exploring education policy, and specifically, how we train and evaluate teachers. If teachers were, say, graduating failing elementary school classes at the rate that police were shooting people—and if there were absolutely no accountability, as is the case with many police departments—we’d have a national outrage. In fact, we have a national outrage over teacher performance right now, even though teacher failure is likely less pervasive than police shootings.
All of that is to say . Given the degree to which good policing requires a sound head, this is just astounding. It would be as if we didn’t check teacher applicants for criminal charges, or let them lead classrooms without any certification. The same goes for national standards for use-of-force training—we require teachers to get regular certifications, we should do the same for police officers.
And yet, plenty of Americans can muster outrage for bad classroom performance, but shrug when it comes to police shootings and bad conduct.
Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, who co-founded the Center for Policing Equity at UCLA, has researched why police officers act aggressively toward black men. He showed that while racism is an important factor, officers can also be influenced by what they perceive to be threats to their masculinity. In fact, he showed that more than 80 percent of incidents involving police use of deadly force were triggered by this kind of perceived threat. Predilection toward this kind of behavior is the kind of thing you can detect prior to giving someone a badge and a gun.
The DOJ should also issue best practices guidelines on the selection and retention of local, state, and federal-level law enforcement officers—guidelines that would include the sort of screening or personality testing that we spoke about earlier, which would work to weed out those who harbor any form of bias or other personality problems that might contribute to their abusing or even killing any of the fellow Americans they are supposed to protect.
please read:
Roots of the Civil Rights Movement
http://www.isreview.org/issues/45/civilrights.shtml
There is no excuse for putting a knee on someone’s neck and fatally breaking it.
So true
MLK several weeks before his assassination:
Thank god for The Intercept…I was about to pop a gasket at my Twitter feed, which is all CNN tsk-tsk-ing and Chris Rock being condescending. The Intercept once again saves my day with some intelligent commentary.
It’s sad to say this, but rioting is too often how things actually get done. Progressive movements tend to get whitewashed as completely non-violent–resulting in middle-class America thinking it is the end-all-be-all strategy of effective social change, defanging angry populaces–but too often, these movements see their demands ignored for years UNTIL radical elements back up the words with violence. It’s a very sad truth of our nature, as I see it: non-violence legitimizes a movement, but it doesn’t get anything material done unless it has teeth. The African-American Civil Rights Movement, the suffragettes fighting for the vote, labor reform…all had radical, violent elements that have been edited out of history, but without which the movements would have been ignored into oblivion. Where do people think The French Revolution would have gotten if all it involved was the holding of some signs and singing of songs? Did boycotts and petitions alone win the American Revolution? I wish there were another way, and I’m eagerly open to alternatives, but history’s precedent tells a pretty bleak story about our nature.
Baltimore Orioles COO John Angelos in response to a pearl clutching sports radio host’s remarks on his twitter about the protests in Baltimore:
(In full)
Brett, speaking only for myself, I agree with your point that the principle of peaceful, non-violent protest and the observance of the rule of law is of utmost importance in any society. MLK, Gandhi, Mandela and all great opposition leaders throughout history have always preached this precept. Further, it is critical that in any democracy, investigation must be completed and due process must be honored before any government or police members are judged responsible.
That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.
The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, and ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importances of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ballgame irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.
John Angelos seems to know little about MLK, Gandhi, Mandela, and other figures and struggles against oppression.
Why do you have such a problem with the statement? I thought it really touched on some key issues and was quite thoughtful.
And Kitt, thanks for posting.
Well, for one, it’s historically inaccurate. Political education should be a topmost priority. This includes addressing the misconceptions which are fed to us and discovering and applying and refining our observations, analyses, theoretical understanding, strategies, tactics, and larger political program of both resistance/obstruction and constructive efforts.
Feline,
Angelos’ finger wagging re: “American political elite” misses the point. They’ve pursued and implemented policies that enrich the few at the expense of the many. They’re achieving their class interests. Angelos might as well whine about predators devouring their prey. The question before us is why is the American public so politically underdeveloped and confused, and what can we do about it? How do Americans develop their power? How can Americans liberate themselves of the counter-revolutionary orthodoxies and propaganda? How can Americans acquire an understanding of how the system works, knowledge of the development, anatomy and physiology of the system, where it is vulnerable, and how change (as we define it) actually happens? The mafiosos, the imperial policymakers, aren’t bothered by “dictatorships”, so why the moral lecturing? As Greenwald and others have documented, Washington loves dictatorships. And what of the devastation inflicted by the US government to billions of people over the past century? What of the numerous coups, covert operations, undeclared wars (more accurately: largely one-sided aggression), and imperialist violence? In other words, what is needed is not complaints about moral bankruptcy and betrayal, but clear-sightedness about the fact that the political establishment is an enemy of the American people and the 95% of humanity. Enough whining about corruption. Enough of the nationalist talking points that promote and legitimize the illusory special status of American citizenship. “It’s a class war, stupid.”
see:
http://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list
and
williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/united-states-bombings-of-other-countries
see also:
The Great Transformation: From the Welfare State to the Imperial Police State
petras.lahaine.org/?p=1903
The New Authoritarianism: From Decaying Democracies to Technocratic Dictatorships and Beyond
petras.lahaine.org/?p=1881
The ascendancy of Finance Capital: Record profits and rising authoritarianism
petras.lahaine.org/?p=1664
Twenty-First Century Imperialism: Militarism, Collaborators And Popular Resistance
petras.lahaine.org/?p=1928
European and US Working Class Politics: Right, Left and Neutered
petras.lahaine.org/?p=1871
The Logic behind Mass Spying: Empire and Cyber Imperialism
petras.lahaine.org/?p=1961
The Deeper Meaning of Mass Spying in America: Political and Economic Consequences of “The Spy State”
petras.lahaine.org/?p=1943
Being a card-carrying member of the 99%, off course I so recognize there have been abuses by the 1% – I still am learning about that. Would you have been happier if he put out a statement calling the protesters ‘thugs’? I don’t know Mr. Angelos nor anything about his background, but I didn’t have a problem with what he said about Dr. King, Ghandi, and Mr. Mandela.
Maybe he isn’t very radical, but I have to agree with Kitt that the statement for someone in his position was refreshing. There ARE some folks who see the light (at least somewhat) even if part of the “oligarchy.” FDR was often called a ‘traitor to his class’ for his populism (whatever one might make of that now). Certainly Eleanor Roosevelt was a champion for – well mostly everyone, right? And RFK became quite attuned to what common folks were saying and going through. I welcomeANY pinpricks of light.
And of course I had to reread your second post again. You’re asking, in your own way, something many of us have been asking, which is ‘How do we get folks to wake up?’ That’s one I ask myself as I try to have discussions with my cousin. Some things we can agree on, others – well, she still (I think) very much favors safety over privacy —– I can almost here her eyes glaze over if I mention Snowden over the phone(which I only do occasionally as to avoid arguments). And she’s quite educated and cognizant on some issues. But even connecting one more dot seems almost impossible for her.. And what of those not so educated or engaged, working two, three jobs, with kids? It’s no wonder they don’t wake up – they’re exhausted! So the only thing I can say right now is to continue to spread the word, one person at a time if necessary, Keep after the media, too – I frequently call say, ABC WNT if I feel a story was particularly biased. I know, I don’t know how much good it really does, but at least they know someone isn’t buying what they’re selling.
As far as reading – I have not read his book, but I think it would have some merit, as I’ve seen him on tv and was favorably impressed – I think Prof. Ian Haney Lopez would be good. I liked what he said in the wake of the OU frat scandal about becoming a fully integrated society. Oh, his book is called “Dog Whistle Politics.”
Hey, here’s an excerpt I found:
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/20/how_conservatives_hijacked_colorblindness_and_set_civil_rights_back_decades/
“Divided = Conquered BUT United = Empowered!”
You’re correct to point that out about that part of his statement. Still, though, for a person in his position to declare that the immediate events and uproar about breaking stuff and shit are irrelevant to the long game is quite a break from the usual, “Oh, My!” that we hear and read over and again from media and the various seats of power.
Good debate guys.
for a person in his position to declare that the immediate events and uproar about breaking stuff and shit are irrelevant to the long game is quite a break from the usual, “Oh, My!” that we hear and read over and again from media and the various seats of power. – Kitt
Yes it is, and my first thought on reading it was “I wonder how long he’s going to have that position?” Thanks for sharing that, Kitt – here’s hoping for more of that message from previously silent quarters.
Glen Ford on RealNewsNetwork
“Searing testimonies in favor of black community control of police”
I can “restore calm.” Shoot the damn rioters! RIGHT NOW!!
This article seems a bit disingenuous.
I was watching both WBAL and WJZ, the local NBC and CBS affiliates in Baltimore. If you pick and choose quotes, then I guess the article is right. And it’s easy to misquote any journalist when they’re on for hours at a time covering “breaking news” and just rewording the same story every couple of minutes because viewers are idiotically waiting anxiously for something to happen. From what I saw, WBAL said multiple times something to the effect that we’ll see if it was actually outside agitators. In fact, this afternoon during the 12 o’clock news, what did they say? That the comments by officials blaming outsiders appeared to be wrong because they checked the court records and found only 1 person arrested from outside of Baltimore.
But I’m sure tomorrow you’ll post another article about how the media is biased and portraying the protesters in a bad light and just being the government’s mouthpiece. As I type there’s more “protesting” as you put it. I don’t see how violent acts, looting, destroying property, and outright destroying the city is defendable and is somehow a nonissue. Maybe you can shed some light on that one.
Black people doing what they do best, destroying America one city block at a time.
We had segregation for a reason.
In Baltimore, as in Ferguson, a mere handful of violent people is held up as proof that the blacks are all no-good criminal racists who hate whites, with the predictable implication of “defensive” racism. White racism has always been “defensive”, even in the early 1900s when a black man would be accused of raping a white woman. We must reject any tendency to go down that well-worn trail to hell, and express our thanks to the thousands and thousands of peaceful protesters going about their un-newsworthy but well-intentioned work.
But I don’t think that’s all of it.
Recently ( http://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/11/25/ferguson-protests-russia-ukraine/ ) Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot has asked the question “I wonder, whose grants funded the organizing of the protests in New York, Ferguson, and Chicago?” Similar questions of Russian involvement have been asked about RT-backed protests against Chevron’s fracking in Romania (I can’t link it because the spam filter will kill my post, but it was in the New York Times). And of course the U.S. is alleged to have had a heavy hand in Hong Kong democracy protests and the Euromaidan protests in the Ukraine (I don’t doubt it – did you ever see that super slick “Putin Huilo” video?) Whether we recognize it or not, the Cold War is back on, and part of the Cold War was always a tendency to fund “protesters” to make mischief.
Now I recognize this idea is playing with fire, because COINTELPRO was one of the original mass-surveillance crimes, and used to justify terrible acts against black leaders like Fred Hampton. The distinction between the possibility that foreign money might be coming in somewhere and the harassment and worse of genuine Americans with the “wrong” ideas is not one that three letter agencies ever seemed able to make. Yet it’s one that we as consumers of the ideas and media out there need to make, because while foreign governments may back our causes, they never really believe in them and they are never here to help. For example, the U.S. government has pretended reverence for Tibetan Buddhism for 50 years, but all that ever came out of it was a run of the mill race riot in Urumqi – because our propaganda isn’t a rational, workable appeal to bolster freedom of religion in China, but a fantasy-land Seven Years In Tibet Shangri-La dream about the restoration of some kind of religious utopia in a place where Tibetans are now the minority. By the same token, we can expect that when a crew of stereotypical ghetto blacks is shown running away with a crying RT reporter’s backpack, this is not going to contribute to white-black harmony and the end of police violence. They just want to stir up bad blood.
Our ability to think creatively, to doubt what we read, to consider everything but demand proof before acting on it, this is the first and only real line of defense against foreign insurgency, and we had better man it.
The lessons of COINTELPRO
http://www.isreview.org/issues/49/cointelpro.shtml
I’d say the funding by George Soros (his various Civil action groups) and the participation by Malik Shabazz (New Black Panther Party) is grounds for concern. I would consider them “outside agitators”. Encouraging violence, which in turn only makes the police state grow.
Soros funds Ferguson protests:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/14/george-soros-funds-ferguson-protests-hopes-to-spur/?page=all#!
It will only be a matter of time until the Communist groups show up:
http://www.jbs.org/k2/communist-groups-behind-the-ferguson-demonstrations
I’ve been following BlackLivesMatter and all of these protests since the killing of Michael Brown. I haven’t heard or read the name “George Soros” mentioned one single time from any protestor, organizer, tweeter, article or blog writer or radio podcast host. For example, I just did a search titled: “Black Agenda Report George Soros.” This is what came up:There is currently no content classified with this term.
With all due respect Kitt, your researching skills are lacking. Running a search for “Black Agenda Report George Soros”, is not a good search technique. Maybe if you did a little research on what organizations Soros is connected to you would find that he runs Open Society Foundations. Then by finding the connection between Open Society Foundations and Black Lives Matter you can deduce that Soros funded the main player at the Ferguson protests, Black Lives Matter.
Proof (look under sponsorships pg 2):
http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_Black_Lives_Matter.pdf
I do think America is a police state, and I do think that people should be protesting it. I support peaceful protest. But racially charged protest, designed to divide America and cause destruction is wrong and people need to realize that they are being played by Globalists like Soros. More rioting, looting, and violence = bigger police state.
Juan Williams seems to be encouraging violence. I have called him out on it before. When he quoted the ‘Jacobin” magazine above, I became convinced.
Good! In my view they are generally wrong in their prescription but often spot on in their diagnoses. Communists have a long history of being right about things before it is socially acceptable to hold the same position, e.g., Jim Crow.
And of course, when the People’s Communist Combine shows up, the cable news cameras will, linger lovingly over their identifying signs for a looooong time.
http://isreview.org/issue/81/black-liberation-and-communist-international
and
isreview.org/issues/01/cp_blacks_1930s.shtml
Ultimately Obama is responsible for letting things get to this point. David Duke may as well have been president for past six years for all the good Obama has done in improving the quality of life in Black communities. I can understand fully why Cornell West is so enraged.
Not sure I fully understand this comment.
I have a feeling that the Intifada is not going to be limited to Baltimore. Police all over the country have brought this on themselves. How much did they think people were going to take quietly? Black communities in this country are occupied territories with staggering rates of unemployment, poverty, substandard education, and racial profiling by the police.
C’est vrai
It is called gentrification, and it is conducted by big government, banks, and Globalists.
Coutney Reagan of CNBC just called protestors “aggressive” and reassured viewers the police were going to keep the community safe.
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000374700
Nevermind the looting carried out by the 1% through public policy, CNBC is all about poisoning its viewers against people of color:
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000374704
I know. I heard Wolf Blitzer say, when ppl were looting a check cashing joint today, that he’s never seen anything like this in America. I have to ask Wolf, have you been to Wall Street?
Oh, give me a break. Juan, let me put two hypothetical situations to you. In one, a tech-savvy thief has managed to compromise your PIN number and transfer $1,000 out of your account. In another, a masked man breaks into your home, sticks a gone in your face, and forces you to ride with him to an ATM and withdrawal $1,000 from your account. Is it your argument that both situations are equal because they both involve the theft of a thousand dollars?
We will change the paradigm of Police Brutality when it is treated as a Public Administration Problem not a Criminal Justice Problem.
C’est vrai
Just being white makes it impossible for me to understand in a visceral sense what you have been able to say in a manner that I can wrap my mind around, so thanks, Juan.
No problem.
Good article! Thanks
Thanks for reading.
There’s a conspicuous effort by the corporate media to promote the narrative of “good white cop vs black thug”, and to obscure the class function of the police as an institution of coercion and violence wielded by the 1% against the 99%
Check out the analyses at the BAR blackagendareport.com and the WSWS https://www.wsws.org/en/topics/socialIssuesCategory/us-police/
So true.
Of course, this is the same shite we’ve seen with Occupy. Reporters are no longer connected to the community philosophically or socially or economically. They have no idea what these protesters are even talking about, so they can’t begin to explain it in any objective or rational way. I can just HEAR the reporters little brains churning, much like during Occupy .. “What do they WANT?” How about to be treated like frikkin human beings. How about a meager slice of the American dream, where they walk down the frikkin street without fear of being gunned down by a roided out douchebag, maniacal power monger police officer. One level above that, how about an opportunity to own a home or at least rent a decent apartment without spending 60% of your pay … or healthcare .. or educational .. an opportunity to improve your life. A level above that, how about living in a world where your government doesn’t sell arms to everyone on every side of every issue just to make an obscene profit margin that would make Gordon Gekko blush .. where the US can actually act like the beacon on the hill and improve the world. This is going to come to a head, and I welcome it. I welcome the expression of violence, while at the same time mourning the injuries. I welcome the passion that will be required for change. And I welcome the visual of privileged Orioles fans pissed off, stuck in their cars, wondering what the hell is going on, waiting to get home to watch the next binge-watching adventure on Netflix. Wake, up, douchebags … human beings are suffering, and you pissants can suck a fart out of my ass. Sorry all, I need another vodka tonic ….
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/05/erin_burnett_voice_of_the_people/
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/04/andrew_ross_sorkins_assignment_editor/
NYPD ‘consistently violated basic rights’ during Occupy protests – study
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/25/nypd-occupy-protests-report
Occupy Wall Street: NYPD attempt media blackout at Zuccotti Park
theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/15/occupy-journalists-media-blackout
See also:
Ferguson and the Right of Resistance
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/26/ferguson-and-the-right-of-resistance/
Obama’s Legacy: Permanent War and Liberal/Radical Accommodation?
ajamubaraka.com/obamas-legacy-permanent-war-and-liberalradical-accommodation/
Democrats step up repression against protests over police killing of Freddie Gray
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/04/27/balt-a27.html
The police murder in Baltimore
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/04/24/pers-a24.html
The Richard Seymour piece in Jacobin linked above is worthwhile:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/who-is-an-outside-agitator/