How does removing or destroying history help POC today?
Over recent weeks, ever since the murder of George Floyd, we have been seeing statues of people involved with slavery being toppled by protestors in the US and Europe, or they have been removed by local authorities. Also, classic brands like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, which yes, are inherently racist are being renamed, but honestly, will this change anything in 2020, will 1/3 of Americans suddenly become accepting of people of color? realistically no, if anything it will cause these racist assholes to double down, making the life of people of color even more difficult, because their racist heroes have been toppled.
My take is, lets put history in context, instead of glorifying it, I don’t believe we should ever destroy history, we should learn from it. Americans seem to have very short memories, it amazes me how quickly anger dies down after a mass shooting, especially those that involve children, and every time a black person is killed by police, which results in zero action being taken. I really hope that these multi-racial protests continue; to force our lawmakers into making real change, not platitudes to appease the masses,, this is what I see the removal of statues and renaming brands as, no real change will come of it.
#DefundThePolice
I was watching the TYT Juneteenth special and Cenk Uygur posed the question is “defend the police” a good slogan for political change. In my opinion, I agree with Cenk’s assessment that the term “defund”, for most people means, to stop funding, i.e. abolish the police. Or even worse, put funding of law enforcement in the hands of private equity, we already have private prisons, so private police is not a big leap. I do understand that “defund the police” is a term to reallocate funds to other services to lift the African American, and poor communities up and out of poverty, creating a level playing field for everyone.
Politically, running a “defund the police” campaign is political suicide, not everyone is like me, a person that does their research to understand the issues. Most people hear soundbites like “defund the police” from the mainstream media, who rarely go more in-depth than repeating the soundbite, and automatically think abolish the police. This is why independent media and social media is so important to get the facts out there, mainstream media will not tell you the whole story unless it suits their bottom line.
The youth are the people who follow independent media and are active on social media, this is why so many 16 to 30-year-olds of all races are out on the streets protesting. But the reality is that most of the voter base is 40 plus and the idea of no police scares them, especially coupled with the mainstream media propaganda that black men are dangerous and black women are just “angry black women”. I think people campaigning for change in regard to race and policing needs to be smarter with their slogans if they want any desperately needed change for POC, the poor and even the middle class this November.
I understand that the black and brown community are angry, I’m angry, as a British white man, albeit with a black wife and bi-racial kids living in the USA, that people of color are still fighting the same damn battle, 56 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But straight-up anger, destroying the history that so many older white Americans hang onto, will only hinder progress. Obviously, the rebranding of Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima is a business decision, to protect their bottom line, these CEOs don’t give a damn about the black community, I don’t really consider this progress in regard to race relations in the United States.
I desperately want change, on many fronts, changing police culture, change American culture and attitude in general, changing our government to represent the people, not the corporations and wealthiest Americans. I am thankful that my kids are light-skinned enough, to more than likely not have to worry about being killed by police, being shot in the back, like Rayshard Brooks and Andres Guardado. But, I do not take that for granted, so I will teach my kids to be careful around law enforcement.
A few bad apples, really?
I think we can comprehensively dispel the myth that there are “a few bad apples” in police forces across the US. Two Buffalo, NJ police officers aggressively pushed a 75-year-old man, Martin Gugino to the ground, who was no threat to them, then walked over him as he was lying unconscious and bleeding from his ear, later, Gugino was confirmed to have a fractured skull. The two officers, Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski, were charged with second-degree assault, and all 57 members of the police riot response team resigned in protest, to be clear, all 57 did not quit the police, just the riot response team.
In the Rayshard Brooks shooting,, where the officer, Garrett Rolfe, who killed Brooks was fired and charged with murder. His fellow officers proceeded with a sick-out in solidarity with Rolfe. A few bad apples, you say? if you say that, you’re full of shit. Police officers shoot a black man in the back, and they get all bent out of shape because the officer has to face the music. Any officers that support’s murder, just because the person committing the crime wears a badge, should quit now, the whole barrel is bad, not a few bad apples, just look at the avalanche of evidence from the past few weeks since the murder of George Floyd, we have video after video of police assaulting people exercising their 1st amendment right.