Posts tagged guns.

— The World Cries for Newtown’s Children, but Few of Us Think About Dead Brown Babies, Dr. Boyce Watkins (via eastafrodite)

Gun violence is rarely discussed except for when a horrific mass shooting takes place. Still, even with the nation’s eyes focused on this particular issue, there is one type of kind of gun violence that is continually ignored: Police killings of unarmed citizens.

In my experience, liberal gun control advocates are the most silent on this issue. I’m not sure why but if I had to guess I’d say it’s because they are predominantly white middle and upper class folks, so for them, police are good guys who they trust to protect them.

It’s quite the opposite in poor communities of color. Just ask Rekia Boyd, Ramarley Graham, Sean Bell, Alan Blueford and Manuel Diaz, all people of color who were unarmed when killed at the hands of police officers.

In June of this year, I attended a panel at Netroots Nation titled, “Gun Politics after Trayvon and Tuscon: New Life for a Deadly Issue.” Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) was one of the panelists.

Though Trayvon’s name was used in the title, the panel failed to address the violence perpetrated against young men of color by police, who they often fear just as much and sometimes even more than they do other types of violence, with good reason. This legitimate distrust of police has led to a “stop-snitching” culture that impedes murder investigations and discourages some residents from calling the police in instances of domestic violence.

It was in this context that my friend and Truthout outreach director, Joe Macare, asked the Netroots panel to address police gun violence, highlighting the shooting death of Rekia Boyd by an off-duty Chicago police officer.  The panel responded with stunning silence until Mark Glaze spoke up and dismissed the question as having nothing to do with the larger issue of gun violence.

Macare followed up by citing the time New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, “I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world.” Glaze laughed at Macare, saying something along the lines of “that didn’t really happen,” even though it definitely did. Ironically, the organization that Glaze directs was co-founded by Mayor Bloomberg, who also happens to be its largest funder.

The NYPD (Bloomberg’s private army) is notorious for shooting unarmed people of color with near impunity (i.e. Ramarley Graham, Noel Polanco, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Shem Walker, Reynaldo Cuevas). The same is true of the Chicago Police Department, the Oakland Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Anaheim Police Department and so on. While it’s great that U.S. mayors have collectively organized against gun violence, they defend, in the same breath, the deadly use of force by their police departments. With this in mind, it’s hard to take  Mayor Bloomberg seriously when he calls for action against the “epidemic of gun violence.”

As Collin Benjamin at the Black Star News put it,  ”isn’t the mayor being a little hypocritical here when he says not one word regarding the shoot-Black-men-dead then ask-questions-later policy that far too many have in the New York Police Department?”

A question or two later, Sarah Jackson, an assistant professor of communication studies at Northeastern University, slammed the panel for their disrespectful response to Macare’s legitimate question and criticized them for using Trayvon’s name in the title of the panel in light of their failure to address the systemic racism (racial profiling), very much prevalent among police, that led to his murder. The crowd showed their approval of Jackson’s remarks with loud applause but again, the panel changed the subject.

Just because gun violence inflicted by armed citizens outnumbers police violence, it doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to ignore the routine killing of unarmed people of color nor does it do anyone any good to pretend it’s not a serious problem with serious consequences.

An investigation published by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) earlier this year found that in the first half of 2012 at least 120 black men, women and children, the majority of whom were unarmed, were killed by police, security guards or self-appointed law enforcers. That’s one black person killed every 36 hours by “good guys with guns”, as the NRA like’s to call them.

Perhaps more significant than the actual killings is the sheer lack of accountability for these executions. According to the report, less than 9 percent of those responsible for the deaths have faced charges (four police officers and six security guards and self-appointed law enforcers).

The report’s authors describe how police impunity is largely a result of  a common pattern of events in the aftermath of a police shooting:

“The standard procedure in most jurisdictions is for police involved in fatal shootings to be given paid ‘desk-duty’ while the department conducts an investigation of itself. The press applauds their fine records while it screams about the criminal records of the deceased. Almost all killer cops are routinely exonerated and quickly return to the street. Grieving families who invariably ask the modest question, ‘why did he have to die?’ are ignored. If there is some demonstrated community outrage the case may be further investigated. The legal system almost never charges these executioners and even if they do, the killing continues.”

With gun violence finally receiving the much-needed attention it deserves, let’s not forget that police around the nation are armed to the teeth. But this police state is directed almost exclusively at two groups of people: activists engaged in civil disobedience (i.e. Occupy Wall Street) and poor communities of color.

In fact, many of the members of MAIG are often the same mayors who use their police forces to suppress peaceful protests (Michael Bloomberg all the time, Rahm Emanuel during the NATO summit, Jean Quan during Occupy Oakland, etc.) while shielding their most abusive officers from any accountability for countless killings in minority communities. I’m amazed they’ve been able to find time in between to organize against illegal guns.

rumagin:

“In large part, the shooters and arsonists who are behind many, if not most of these events in America, are white men. In large part, these men have either come of age in the shadow of September 11. They have watched the media, heard Department of Homeland Security officials, and followed as mostly white male (and some female) politicians have given the anxious go ahead to wage an enormous war against Muslims abroad (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan) or at home (in the form of the War on Terror). Several of them have served in a military that follows the orders of two U.S. Presidential administrations by training their men to shoot, invade, drop rockets from helicopters, and drones controlled remotely from Syracuse, NY and other air force bases in the United States. These white men have learned their lessons well, whether in the military or from hours of media news: the frustrations of a scared (white) America can be dealt with waging a war using guns, bombs, chemicals, and drones. They have learned that it is ok to kill those who you believe to be behind threats to your comfort. They have internalized the message that those you fear can be addressed without words, without dialogue, but with violence, with power, with coercion. They have learned that some religions are automatically evil and that those who adhere to those religions must be destroyed. And these white men reflect an ideology of violence that has permeated America in the name of the War on Terror. Sadly, that ideology, perpetuated by our white men and women in power, carried out by American soldiers, and endorsed by a lapdog media, isn’t fading away. It’s becoming bigger, stronger, and more murderous. These men are not mad or crazy. They are the well-trained students of American foreign and domestic policies. They have learned well the United States’ message: that violence and mayhem are the answer. We need to change the scripts, and confront the fallout of a decade of the War on Terror—and other excuses for state-led violence quickly”

— Falguni A. Sheth

generalbriefing:

motherjones:

WTF is wrong with people?! Someone is selling Trayvon-inspired shooting targets online. Seller says, “My main motivation was to make money off the controversy.” He sold out in two days. 

He sold out in two days.
He sold out in TWO days.
HE SOLD OUT IN TWO DAYS.
TWO DAYS.
TWO.
2.

Excuse me while I go puke. Fuck.

cordjefferson:

“Coulter: Black Americans Should Arm Themselves”

There is now a Venn diagram to be made for Ann Coulter and Malcolm X.

—

New York Times journalist Charles Blow, on his own fears after hearing about the shooting of Trayvon Martin (via nothingfalseabouthope)

Post racial America: Where fathers and mothers still fear for their children for merely walking on the streets and existing. This fear is so fucking palpable that it shakes our very core.

(via wildeblackseoul)

ethiopienne:

Your Daily Dose Of Naomi

i feel like many of my followers need this gif.

yassss. And the laughter at the end! 

ebonix:

Realness. smh