into the murky digital unconsciousness

I’ve been thinking about the recent shooting of the young man on the BART platform on NYE and the resulting protest/riot.  I’ve also been monitoring craigslists ‘rants and raves’ section out of a realization that it’s a kind of electronic-id; a place where people can go to vent the darkest bigotries and warped fantasies in all their irrationality.  Because people tend to respond to extreme expressed positions with equal extremity, rarely do cooler heads prevail and even rarer is the post which objectively assesses what’s behind the vitriol.

After going on there and seeing all kinds of vile sentiments about who “deserved” what, stuff about cleaning up “ghetto scum” and whatnot, I decided I wanted to respond to the hatred.  Not react, but respond.  So i did.  Here’s what I posted:

I’m an African American guy who will turn 40 tomorrow.  I definitely went through my angry-young-militant phase (and have the recorded material to prove it).  I’ve monitored this whole Oscar Grant situation from the beginning until now: the police action, the result, the community reaction.  I’ve withheld my own response until my feeling told me: “now”.  So, on the eve of the halfway mark of my time on this planet, I am going to take this opportunity to have my say.  Many have made and will continue to make critical observations about the execution of Oscar Grant.  I will try to add something novel to the discussion.

 

It is abundantly clear the officer shot the young man dead in cold blood.  He was handcuffed on the ground and helpless.  The point where he was reduced to that state is the point where whatever perceived threat he posed to the public peace was neutralized. Whether he was speaking belligerently is not the point.  Police, while they are to be respected, do NOT have the right to take a person’s life for the way they are speaking.  To those who insist he was a gang-banger and a thug, I don’t recall any news coverage revealing him as engaging in gang activity.  What I did hear was that he worked TWO JOBS.  If simply communicating in a loud and animated way qualifies somebody as a “thug” then we can chalk conversations we overhear in public places, discussions around us where the decibel level reaches a certain point, up to “thuggery”. Some well off looking people in expensive clothes hollering into mobile phones qualify for that.   So give me a level – how loud does someone have to be before they cross the thug threshold?  These terms are bigoted projections as far as I can make out.  And even if Grant WAS a so-called thug, why would his murder be more justifiable than incarceration?  I mean.. neither of those actions would be remotely warranted but: just what is it that validates murderous police activity over everyday killing done by “street thugs”?  Because it’s sanctioned by the state?  The holocaust was, in essence, state sanctioned mass murder.  The various purges in Soviet Russia were state sanctioned mass murder.  Genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, etc., could all be thought of as mass murder initiated by people in power who categorized large portions of the population with labels very similar – when not actually identical – to “street thug”. 

 

There is no compunction about calling the abovementioned events examples of state-sponsored terrorism.  Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima, Rodney King, Greg King Jr., Sean Bell and on and on; let’s call these murders what they are – individual demonstrations of state-sponsored terrorism.

 

To those who would call this execution justified, those who would cheer it on and wish for further such actions: what do you suspect is achieved here?  “Law and order”?  By now it should be self-evident that the exact OPPOSITE of law and order is the result.  People are outraged, scared, deeply hurt, insulted and tired.  They took to the streets to express what was not expressible in any other apparent way.  All firsthand accounts attest to the activities as primarily geared toward support for the Grant family, demanding justice, non-violent street theater and respectfully confronting the police with hard hitting questions.  A oversized emphasis was placed on the riotous spinoff.  Destruction of the property and businesses of folks not in any way connected to the terrible act is regrettable.  I think it is right to condemn random, hurtful acts committed against those simply conducting community-supporting enterprises which feed their families.  But there is an underlying point which must be apprehended:  the net effect of attacking and killing unarmed people – of ANY race – is not law and order but the perpetuation of conflict.  Some of you need only turn your gaze upon your own expressed beliefs and positions; the hatred and bigotry, retaliatory fantasies, the veiled and overt threats.  What would you see then?  If you’re really as incensed as you portray yourself to be, then a state of peaceful, agreeable calm (which is a key element of “law and order”) is not being achieved.  You, by your OWN ACCOUNT, are prepared to pose a law enforcement challenge.  Whether or not you are prepared to make good on your utterances, your racist venting is not conducive to bringing about resolve of the issues.

 

At this point I think it’s appropriate to bring what’s happening in Gaza into the picture.  As I write this, an Israeli citizen is speaking on KPFA to Dennis Bernstein about how the occupation of Palestinian lands and violent, indiscriminate oppression is not aiding peace efforts in Israel.  America should have learned from Britain the folly of trying to use state-sponsored violence to subdue the people of Iraq.  It might have learned the same lesson about Afghanistan from Russia.  It has not.  There is something about the notion of “American exceptionalism” that makes many in the US believe our military might makes right.  Time and again this exceptionalism is vigorously contested on the streets of Basra and Baghdad, Kabul and Kandahar.  It is tragic logic indeed that America’s inflated sense of its righteous might manifests in enforcement of the law on the Oakland transit system.  The BART police evidently do not fall under the jurisdiction of the city, leaving the mayor, ‘Do-Nothing-Dellums’, no recourse but to plead with the protesters seven days after the fact.  As of now it is unclear whether there is any way to hold the offending officer accountable at all.  Even a cursory glance at the long, sordid history of imperialistic endeavor will reveal that unaccountable state-sponsored terrorism aimed at particular ethnic groups NEVER has the effect of producing lasting peace and the “rule of law”.

 

I guess there’s no telling how long this post will remain up.  As vitriolic and rancorous as the mood is on rants and raves, I suspect it may be flagged.  There’s nothing I can do about that.  But at least someone has finally told it – the truth that dare not be spoken.  I hereby relinquish responsibility for it.  Take it how you will.  And realize, if it is you who moves to have this post deleted, that erasing my words does NOT ERASE THE TRUTH.