Racism, Police Brutality, & Economics
Why do the police kill Black people? Is it that we're dangerous criminals who tote around guns? Are We homicidal maniacs who need to be dealt with, with extreme prejudice and deadly force? The truth is that the killings of Black people by White cops is only symptomatic of a deeper, more insidious problem. While Our people are out there protesting and marching, chanting "Black Lives Matter" and "No Justice No Peace," the real problem is hidden in the background noise and very few ever address it. Let's be clear. We appreciate Our brothers and sisters who are out there protesting and marching in the streets in support of Black Live Matter. You are keeping national attention on the issue of police brutality. If not for you, these killings of Our people by the police would go unacknowledged and kept out of the national spotlight. Already We have conservative pundits, law-and-order hacks, and Black conformists attacking the Black Lives Matter Movement. They say such things as "All Lives Matter" and "Blue Lives Matter," entirely distorting the point of "Black Lives Matter." They want to make Us out to be anti-law enforcement for criticizing the police for disproportionately targeting Black people. The Black Lives Matter Movement is in danger of losing and being marginalized. Our people seem to have forgotten that the killing and brutalizing of Our people by the police is nothing new. It's just that today with cell phone cameras everywhere, these incidents are now being captured more on video than ever before. But let's not forget Rodney King, Eric Garner, and others who were brutalized or murdered by police on camera and the police got away with it. So protesting and marching alone obviously isn't working. We've been doing that for years too, seemingly every time one of Our people is the victim of police brutality. But nothing really changes because it ends up happening again and again.
The Black Lives Matter Movement has a perfect Opportunity to bring about fundamental change. The point of protesting and marching is to agitate, that is, to stir public discussion and arouse public feeling. Black Lives Matter has done that. But now that We have the public's attention, particularly the Black public, what now? We must educate Our people about the real cause behind all these police shootings. The real problem isn't just racism or bad policing. It goes deeper than that.
The real problem is the economic exploitation. we live in a capitalist society. In such a society there is the rich and there is the poor. The police are nothing but an extension of the state apparatus and are charged with maintaining the status quo. ,although poor Whites are often the victims of police brutality and misconduct, like with almost everything else in American society, Black people fair far worse than Whites in this. Black people are more likely to be shot and killed by the police than White people. Black people are more likely to be arrested, convicted of a crime, and sentenced to excessive time in prison than white people.
The economic exploitation of Black people can be traced to slavery, Black Codes, and Jim Crow. White people amassed substantial wealth off the backs of our people as result. They used terrorism to destroy Our homes and businesses, to steal our land. and to take jobs and other economic opportunities from Us. The wealth stolen from Our people by White racists was passed down to their descendants, who, as a result of this, have an unfair advantage today over Black people. Because of this a disproportional percentage of Our people live in poverty and a disproportional percentage of Our communities are socially dysfunctional, plagued by drugs and violence.
The passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, which outlawed segregation didn‘t fundamentally alter the imbalance of wealth and power between Blacks and Whites, and racism became institutionalized. What integration did was give White people a more insidious way to economically exploit Black people. Priorto 1964, Black people overall were more economically self-sufficient. We owned more businesses and owned more land. We benefited more from Our labor, skill, talent, genius, and dollars. After 1964, Our best and brightest defected out of the Black community and went to work for White owned and White controlled institutions, so now White people benefit more from Our labor, skill, talent, genius, and dollars. As a people, We‘ve sold Ourselves out.
Now, how does this play into the narrative of police brutality? Because the victims of police brutality are usually the poor and powerless. Again, Black people, due to institutional racism, are disproportional poor and powerless. Overall, we don‘t own nothing. We don't run nothing. And We have little or no control over Our own neighborhoods. So these police come in and do what they've done since the slave patrol: keep the niggers in check. This isn't all that hard to figure out. If We weren't protesting and marching so damn much, We Would have probably figured this out by now.
We can't blame White people no more for what's happening to Us. We invite abuse and mistreatment. We spend most of Our money with White businesses that take this money and enrich their communities. They can provide jobs for their children. Their tax dollars go into their schools. And what do We have left? Who do We think pay the bills of the rogue cops who come into Our communities and shoot Our children? We hardly even vote in local elections. We're playing Ourselves everyday by failing to invest in Ourselves. If We want to stop being the victims of racism, then We need to consolidate Our wealth and power and build Our own social, political, and economic institutions so that We not only benefit more from Our labor, skill, talent, genius, and dollars but also have a greater influence in who police Our communities.