The Taking In Of Ferguson, 3

STATUS QUO SUPPORTERS/TRADITIONALISTS AND MINORITIES

Those outside the case, who knew little of the case particulars, but who nevertheless strongly supported Officer Wilson, were numerous. 

And usually white.

They had common themes:  Respect authority.  Believe authority.  And especially police authority.

 

It sounded rather like the Germans of 1932.

“He deserved it.”  Far too many whites didn’t have empathy, let alone sympathy, over Michael Brown’s death.  They live in their echo chambers and give comfort to themselves and each other that it is all the individual black man’s fault.  Always.

White people often want to let themselves off the hook of confronting racial injustice—and especially, confronting their own white privilege.  Even while they hold within them remnants of discrimination, they tend to think that discrimination is largely over (unless, of course, it’s reverse discrimination). 

The mad rage that erupts over injustice can lead to rioting.  Many white people focus on this “riot porn,” as it gives them satisfaction that “those people” are “animals” who “tear up their own neighborhoods,” never minding that protesters have locked arms and protected businesses and buildings from rioters.  People’s confirmation bias is quite strong.

Far, FAR too many white people, with their established white privilege, grasp for any straw that will comfort themselves and justify that “that person/those people did wrong” (notice the code talk) and then leave unsaid what they’re thinking: “my (white) person/people did right.” Or worse, start a self-righteous lecture about what “those people” should have done/be doing, entirely oblivious of all their advantages under white privilege and the marked disadvantages of those without that privilege.  Ah, if only one’s skin color or ethnicity changed every year, how different things could be.

The shooting, whatever the unclear particulars, is unfortunately part of a wider tragic pattern.  Every 28 hours a black male is shot dead by the police.  Pervasive racism exists.  So does pervasive fear and intimidation, along with pervasive non-accountability.  Black people—unarmed ones—are being killed at the hands of those who are supposed to be their public servants and protectors.  Racial injustice and police violence are becoming commonplace, and what we appeared—briefly—to be learning from and getting smarter and better about has instead regressed.  25 years after Do The Right Thing, we have Eric Garner dying in virtually the same manner at the hands of the police as the character in Spike Lee’s film.

We do not have a single justice system, but really two systems, and sub-systems within them. 

One is for the well-off, and one for the not well-off.  And within them, one for whites and one for everyone else.  Since blacks differ—in many white minds—more than any other group, they get the most differential treatment, helped along by a tragic history of slavery and overt racism.

This lack of confidence by minorities in the fairness, integrity, and thoroughness of the “justice” system is borne out by statistics that demonstrate that lack of confidence is well warranted.  Even many middle and upper class African-Americans, including some who have traditionally been silent about or even critical of the actions of  many working class African-Americans, have spoken out to condemn the entire process in the Brown case.

To African-American communities, the unpunished killings—indeed, the almost casually dismissed killings—of unarmed African-American males connects agonizingly perfectly with the lynchings of the past.  It is, they feel, the sending of a message: “You minorities may be increasing in numbers and influence, but don’t try to mess with us.  Know your place—or else.”

The humiliating rage, fear, and trauma that African-American males must often feel is perfectly understandable.  Maybe Michael Brown felt that too.

Anyone treated like that would feel that way.  But especially so to black males with years of enduring profiling and subtle and not so subtle demeanings and persecutions.

“Our lives don’t matter!  Our lives don’t matter!” protesters shouted after Darrin Wilson was not indicted.  Indeed, those lives do not appear to matter.  John Crawford, Eric Garner, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, Sean Bell, Amadour Diallo, Vonderitt Myers, Darren Hunt, Trayvon Martin, Kendric McDade, Tamir Rice, and many more all shot down by police under at best questionable circumstances.  Even though white males outnumber African-American males greatly, African-American males are 21 times more likely to die at the hands of the police. 

“Hands up, don’t shoot,” became the previous rallying cry, and one which showed the hypocrisy of a US which is so smug in condemning other countries but bristles when it is called to task.  And the even larger pattern of boundaried poverty and radically different rates of incarceration—often for the same offenses—speaks to a systemic subtle and not so subtle persecution.

Black cops who shoot whites have a much higher chance of negative repercussions than white cops who shoot blacks.  For “regular” black citizens that do so, it means almost certain negative repercussions.  So when one hears the common refrain from status quo whites that “how come you don’t hear the media talking about when a black person shoots a white person?” here’s the answer:

Because it doesn’t happen all that often.  But more importantly, because the shooter is very frequently brought to justice and held to account.

As Newsday said: “It seems like every time something like this happens so many people pick sides based on who looks more like them, who earns more like them, who lives more like them or talks more like them.  We are a terrified nation, scared of “the other.” We are an angry nation, sure that ‘they’ are getting away with something. We are a frustrated nation, feeling unheard and convinced that the other side always gets the megaphone…We are a devastatingly divided nation, because of our history, our behavior and our prejudices.”

The disconnection that Vance Packard tried to warn us about—disconnection made worse by the insulating effects of modern electronics, games, and internet—has made it much harder to see our common societal bonds.  And so, so often, we don’t.

Being divided serves the plutocrats well.  Being pitted against each other, in a plutocratic economy where each race is stressed out, provides the perfect diversion for the 1%, and, especially, the .1%, to live well.

The rule of law has become corrupted and with different standards for different classes, different racial and different ethnic groups.  Minorities are the new “civilized barbarians” of Roman times, with the same level of partial acceptance and partial rejection.  The good news for minorities  who are about to become the new collective majority is that white privilege will eventually (by violence or not) give way to rule by the new majority.  The bad news is no one knows how long that will take—could be generations.