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Politics 365
Aug 22 2014
#Ferguson: Past is Prologue
"America, that has been ringing the bells of the world, proclaiming to
the nations and the peoples thereof that she has democracy to give to
all and sundry...America that has arraigned Turkey at the bar of public
opinion and public justice against the massacres of the Armenians, has
herself no satisfaction to give 12,000,000 of her own citizens except
the satisfaction of a farcical inquiry that will end where it begun,
over the brutal murder of men, women and children for no other reason
than that they are black people seeking an industrial chance in a
country that they have laboured for three hundred years to make
great." Marcus Mosiah Garvey - July 8, 1917
On August 9, 2014, ninety-seven years after Marcus Garvey gave his
speech in East St. Louis, IL an 18 year old African American young man
named Michael Brown, Jr. was shot and killed in Ferguson, MO by a
white police officer, Darren Wilson. There are still facts and
details yet to be determined but we know that Michael Brown, Jr. was
unarmed, was surrendering to Officer Wilson with his hands above his
head and he was shot at least six times (twice in the head).
In recent history, like Eric Garner before him (July 17, 2014) in
Staten Island, NY, Sean Bell (November 25, 2006) in Queens, NY and so
many others, going as far back as the Rodney King beating (March 3,
1991) in Los Angeles, CA, there has been and continues to be a
disproportionate or asymmetrical brutal and all too often deadly
response by police towards unarmed African American teenagers and
young men.
It is imperative that we honestly come to grips with why this is
happening. For Ferguson, MO, Staten Island, NY and so many other
communities, past is prologue.
Analyzing very limited FBI data, USA Today determined that a white
police officer killed an African American person on average twice per
week from 2005-2012. Eighteen percent of African Americans killed were
under 21 years of age compared to eight percent of whites. When the
police focus on their color they fail to see their humanity.
This is limited data but it indicates trends in law enforcement
tactics as well as indicates which communities are targeted and
victimized by them. The question is why? Are African Americans and
Latinos more inclined to engage in violent criminal behavior?
Numerous studies have indicated the answer that question is no.
What leads a police officer to believe that people of color are more
likely to be involved with a firearm? Why do the police tend to shoot
people of color first, without seeing a gun, then ask questions later?
Perception and the emotional responses to these perceptions play a
large part in the development of policies and the employment of
tactics used by law enforcement. It is evidenced by a recent speech
given by NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton at Israel's National
Conference on Personal Security in Jerusalem. Bratton told the
audience:
""My country in the 1970s was just coming out of the turbulence of the
1960s in our society, the civil rights movement, the anti-war
movement, a society that was wrestling with what we thought to be too
much government control...As my country moved into the 1980s there were
several additional societal trends that began to have a significant
negative impact on our ability to keep our streets safe. The growth of
a drug market and a drug culture, particularly the more problematic
drugs of heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine. The increasing number of
young people coming out of a society that was no longer educating
them, no longer controlling them, a dissolution of many of the
families in our society, particularly among the poor and in the
minority communities."
Bratton's articulation of "social trends" in "poor and minority
communities" having a negative impact on his ability to keep streets
safe, outside of the larger context of the historical racist social
constructs that have created these problems takes me to the continual
discussion about racism (white supremacy), its perceptions, and
emotional responses that we deal with all the time. Poor people of
color are the enemy that white law enforcement officials must
neutralize.
Dr. Francis Cress Welsing defines racism (white supremacy) as the
local and global power system structured and maintained by persons who
classify themselves as white, whether consciously or subconsciously
determined; this system consists of patterns of perception, logic,
symbol formation, thought, speech, action and emotional response, as
conducted simultaneously in all areas of activity (economics,
education, law, etc.).
Too many of these communities are being policed by individuals who do
not look like them and do not come from the community. As of 2010,
67.4 percent of Ferguson's 21,000 residents are African American and
29.3 percent are white. According to Ferguson Police Chief Thomas
Jackson, his department has 53 officers, 50 white, 3 African American
or 94 percent white and 5.6 percent African American.
These issues of racial imbalance and perceptions of threat are
exacerbated by the increased militarization of our police forces.
Through the DoD 1033 program that has provided "excess" military
equipment such as armored personnel carriers, heavy duty weapons and
gear, and sound cannons, neighborhoods are turning into occupied
territories. Military-style tactics (SWAT) and training are replacing
the old approach of "keeping the peace" and "to protect and serve".
According to U.S. News and World Report recent data shows "SWAT teams
were more likely to be deployed on blacks and Latinos than on whites ...
Often, these SWAT encounters use excessive violence, knocking down
doors with battering rams, throwing flashbang grenades and sometimes
injuring the people inside, shooting their dogs or destroying
property."
The late Manning Marable was correct when he wrote, "There will be no
racial peace in America until millions of whites come to terms with
the uncomfortable truth that black oppression, poverty, and high
unemployment rates are hardly accidental, are hardly symptoms of an
absence of the work ethic among blacks. Institutional racism and
class domination are structural and elaborate, benefitting certain
privileged classes at the cost of common misery for others." (Black
Leadership, p. 159)
The realities playing out for us every night on our televisions are
modern and real-time examples that for Ferguson - past is prologue.
Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/Host of the Sirisu/XM Satellite radio
channel 126 call-in talk radio program "Inside the Issues with Wilmer
Leon"
http://politic365.com/2014/08/22/ferguson-past-is-prologue/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Aug 22 2014
#Ferguson: Past is Prologue
"America, that has been ringing the bells of the world, proclaiming to
the nations and the peoples thereof that she has democracy to give to
all and sundry...America that has arraigned Turkey at the bar of public
opinion and public justice against the massacres of the Armenians, has
herself no satisfaction to give 12,000,000 of her own citizens except
the satisfaction of a farcical inquiry that will end where it begun,
over the brutal murder of men, women and children for no other reason
than that they are black people seeking an industrial chance in a
country that they have laboured for three hundred years to make
great." Marcus Mosiah Garvey - July 8, 1917
On August 9, 2014, ninety-seven years after Marcus Garvey gave his
speech in East St. Louis, IL an 18 year old African American young man
named Michael Brown, Jr. was shot and killed in Ferguson, MO by a
white police officer, Darren Wilson. There are still facts and
details yet to be determined but we know that Michael Brown, Jr. was
unarmed, was surrendering to Officer Wilson with his hands above his
head and he was shot at least six times (twice in the head).
In recent history, like Eric Garner before him (July 17, 2014) in
Staten Island, NY, Sean Bell (November 25, 2006) in Queens, NY and so
many others, going as far back as the Rodney King beating (March 3,
1991) in Los Angeles, CA, there has been and continues to be a
disproportionate or asymmetrical brutal and all too often deadly
response by police towards unarmed African American teenagers and
young men.
It is imperative that we honestly come to grips with why this is
happening. For Ferguson, MO, Staten Island, NY and so many other
communities, past is prologue.
Analyzing very limited FBI data, USA Today determined that a white
police officer killed an African American person on average twice per
week from 2005-2012. Eighteen percent of African Americans killed were
under 21 years of age compared to eight percent of whites. When the
police focus on their color they fail to see their humanity.
This is limited data but it indicates trends in law enforcement
tactics as well as indicates which communities are targeted and
victimized by them. The question is why? Are African Americans and
Latinos more inclined to engage in violent criminal behavior?
Numerous studies have indicated the answer that question is no.
What leads a police officer to believe that people of color are more
likely to be involved with a firearm? Why do the police tend to shoot
people of color first, without seeing a gun, then ask questions later?
Perception and the emotional responses to these perceptions play a
large part in the development of policies and the employment of
tactics used by law enforcement. It is evidenced by a recent speech
given by NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton at Israel's National
Conference on Personal Security in Jerusalem. Bratton told the
audience:
""My country in the 1970s was just coming out of the turbulence of the
1960s in our society, the civil rights movement, the anti-war
movement, a society that was wrestling with what we thought to be too
much government control...As my country moved into the 1980s there were
several additional societal trends that began to have a significant
negative impact on our ability to keep our streets safe. The growth of
a drug market and a drug culture, particularly the more problematic
drugs of heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine. The increasing number of
young people coming out of a society that was no longer educating
them, no longer controlling them, a dissolution of many of the
families in our society, particularly among the poor and in the
minority communities."
Bratton's articulation of "social trends" in "poor and minority
communities" having a negative impact on his ability to keep streets
safe, outside of the larger context of the historical racist social
constructs that have created these problems takes me to the continual
discussion about racism (white supremacy), its perceptions, and
emotional responses that we deal with all the time. Poor people of
color are the enemy that white law enforcement officials must
neutralize.
Dr. Francis Cress Welsing defines racism (white supremacy) as the
local and global power system structured and maintained by persons who
classify themselves as white, whether consciously or subconsciously
determined; this system consists of patterns of perception, logic,
symbol formation, thought, speech, action and emotional response, as
conducted simultaneously in all areas of activity (economics,
education, law, etc.).
Too many of these communities are being policed by individuals who do
not look like them and do not come from the community. As of 2010,
67.4 percent of Ferguson's 21,000 residents are African American and
29.3 percent are white. According to Ferguson Police Chief Thomas
Jackson, his department has 53 officers, 50 white, 3 African American
or 94 percent white and 5.6 percent African American.
These issues of racial imbalance and perceptions of threat are
exacerbated by the increased militarization of our police forces.
Through the DoD 1033 program that has provided "excess" military
equipment such as armored personnel carriers, heavy duty weapons and
gear, and sound cannons, neighborhoods are turning into occupied
territories. Military-style tactics (SWAT) and training are replacing
the old approach of "keeping the peace" and "to protect and serve".
According to U.S. News and World Report recent data shows "SWAT teams
were more likely to be deployed on blacks and Latinos than on whites ...
Often, these SWAT encounters use excessive violence, knocking down
doors with battering rams, throwing flashbang grenades and sometimes
injuring the people inside, shooting their dogs or destroying
property."
The late Manning Marable was correct when he wrote, "There will be no
racial peace in America until millions of whites come to terms with
the uncomfortable truth that black oppression, poverty, and high
unemployment rates are hardly accidental, are hardly symptoms of an
absence of the work ethic among blacks. Institutional racism and
class domination are structural and elaborate, benefitting certain
privileged classes at the cost of common misery for others." (Black
Leadership, p. 159)
The realities playing out for us every night on our televisions are
modern and real-time examples that for Ferguson - past is prologue.
Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/Host of the Sirisu/XM Satellite radio
channel 126 call-in talk radio program "Inside the Issues with Wilmer
Leon"
http://politic365.com/2014/08/22/ferguson-past-is-prologue/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress