i would like to honor the sony hackers because it is tomfoolery at it’s most sophisticated. and we certainly can't let it be forgotten how awesome it is to have high ranking executives called to task for unprofessional behavior revealed in their emails. however, the unknown hackers did apparently promote violence and are seen as a “terrorist” organization. that is not to be supported on any level. now, it seems rather apparent that the north korean government is not behind this, but sometimes trusting the government is not a bad idea. so, we take the governments warnings at face value and assume that this is a great matter of national security in order to be sensitive toward the american way of life. so, the rabble rouser of the month award goes to other main news story.
throughout the month of december, in opposition to the grand jury non-indictments of recent police actions, people from the cleveland cavaliers, to the oregon ducks basketball team, st. louis rams, to all other sects of society have worn shirts, staged die-ins and all other support for the #BlackLivesMatter issue. perhaps the best was from the #WhiteCoats4BlackLives protests. medical schools all around the country protested enmasse for the cause, such as the chicago school of medicine:
the protester was time magazine’s person of the year in 2011, due primarily to the memorable occupy wall street movement that expanded to nationwide camps protesting elite corporate control over the people. that movement has not died over the past three years, nor is it anything all that new. it started in this country with the revolutionary war, or actually with the first siting of white men. modern day, it gained a bit more steam with the anti-WTO protests in seattle, 15 years ago in late 1999. that kind of struggle will always continue. that is precisely the kind of struggle that lives on in the protests of ferguson and #BlackLivesMatter protests. incidentally, the ferguson activists were time magazine's runner up for the 2014 person of the year.
this struggle has been anything but universally supported. some people don’t get it. opposition to the cause has been fierce. "what do they have to protest?" "why aren't we protesting #AllLivesMatter?" "michael brown was a thug that got what he deserved." these were all questions that i heard on repeat. certainly, i don't have all the answers, nor should i have very many at all. i live in the middle of nowhere and have barely delved into any of this. i do get to see a different side of people that are completely detached from the news worthy world and it’s interesting to think about these things from a location where nearly everyone can afford to live equally.
on the surface, people in ferguson and elsewhere around the nation were protesting the killing of michael brown, but there is such a deeper level to be considered. if what protesters had to say was only about one kid getting killed, and it was police evidence versus citizens observations, it wouldn’t have spread to every city in the country. thousands of people don’t take to the streets in every city of the country on thanksgiving day, on christmas day, to protest for the fun of it. when that many people put their lives on hold that is an indication that there are real problems and the voices need to be heard. the saddest part of michael brown is that the people will never know the truth. so much was covered up and so many significant questions that people continue to ask will never be addressed.
regardless of what actually happened august 9, 2014 in ferguson, the aftermath has been ugly. and if people can’t trust the police or media handling of events in the aftermath, then there should be little reason to trust things were done honorably in the first place. what people are really protesting in ferguson and everywhere else is the fact that the media and certain sects of society have turned a blind eye, for too long.
the reason people chant #BlackLivesMatter and not #WhiteLivesMatter is because white lives are largely protected and precisely the civil rights that have been such a hard fight don't seem to have progressed very far, if anywhere at all. ny daily news had an article showing 179 people have been killed by NYPD cops since amadou diallo, with only three convictions. and it’s not just the numbers, it’s the manner in which they died. consider some then vs now scenarios:
1999: amadou diallo was shot 41 times by NYC cops. he was unarmed, though even if police needed to disarm him, taking him to the butcher is not the way that should be condoned. 41 shots is clear case of hatred. the four policemen were eventually acquitted of any wrongdoing and the city of new york paid a $3 million settlement to his family. 1997: abner louima was arrested and then beaten to the point that during his interrogation in the precinct bathroom, a police officer shoved a broken piece of a toilet plunger up his rectum. that is beyond any rational interrogation method and shows a blatant disregard for humanity. in that case, the main officer responsible was sentenced to 30 years in a minimum security prison. but, who has learned from it?
2014: eric garner, who was wanted for selling untaxed cigarettes, was approached by police, who promptly strangled him to death on the street. is that an executable offense and are the police judge and jury? the protocol would be to put handcuffs on him, search him and place him in the back of a patrol car. not only did the video corroborate that the police acted irrationally, but the person who took the video was indicted in an apparently separate charge, while the evidence, including garner's autopsy, showed that the police used a banned choke hold, no indictments were given by a grand jury. also in 2014: michael brown was killed by police, controversial as it may be, the police still left his body in the street for four hours. there is no excuse for such a blatant disregard for human life. even if he was a "thug" authorities still need to be held to higher standards, and again i wonder, if they couldn't even get that part right, why should i assume that they got any part of the situation right?
then, as now, such examples, such stories happen everyday in cities across america, continuously. gawker gives detailed information of 69 cases of black people killed by cops since 1999 in less than humane fashion. and not to worry if 69 people doesn't seem evidence enough, there are at 713 replies, mostly of people that were not the list.
consider another time capsule:
1969: fred hampton is assassinated by the chicago police. FBI agent gregg york said, “we expected about twenty panthers to be in the apartment when the police raided the place. only two of those black niggers were killed, fred hampton and mark clark.” does this not show a clear case of hatred?
2014: cleveland area police officer aaron mcnamara wrote on youtube, “abolishing slavery was the worst thing we could have done. these people should be exterminated.”
if these examples don't show a problem with racism consider a critical fact in CNN's statistical analysis from early december. they showed propublica's statistic that, "the 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police." that is more than statistically significant. that is mind boggling. very clearly, there is a police bias against black people when young black people are 21 times more likely to be killed by police.
anon put the matter astutely when they compared the #AllLivesMatter question to an analogous argument of feeding the hungry. instead of saying “we should feed the poor and hungry” try saying “let’s feed all people”. that's how inane the #AllLivesMatter argument is. there is a time when certain things matter more than others. and when black people feel that they are still living in the 1960s and evidence clearly can support that, then that’s not progress. they feel they deserve some attention and to be treated equally.
that’s why people have lost trust in society and are taking to the streets in protest. the idea of protesting just happens to be more prevalent now than it was in, say, the cocaine addicted 1980s. the memories of hundreds of people who died needlessly and continue to die needlessly is a cause for concern and has finally reached a boiling point.
still, to say this is a race matter is partially the case, but a bit shortsighted. in the end, most of the problems, including these protests, can be linked back to the subjugation of people in lower classes. when people go on prison labor strikes, hunger strikes, minimum wage strikes, these are not spearheaded by people like al sharpton. these are spearheaded by people sick of extreme and vile conditions, by a society starting to suffer collective PTSD. the al sharpton’s are simply some of the people capitalizing off the melee.
that is why this is not so much about race, as about a battle of the haves versus the havenots. and it so happens that people of color are mostly in the have not category. to that end, this could be considered a race issue. still, it is mostly about the little guys getting fucked. people are tired of it. that’s why these protests have been going on so long. thanks to social media and the ability of everyday people to go out and show the truth in the streets straight from their cell phones, major media has become less relevant and the struggles have been more pronounced, more advertised and getting more attention over the last few years. as long as the bullshit justice continues, expect the protests and riots to continue. no matter your opinion on the protests, the fact that they will continue is evidence that there is a lot of bullshit at play.
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