Tag: Tamir Rice

A Story (of Tweets) About America

As things have been happening across our country in response to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police in Minneapolis last week, I have been sharing my thoughts on Facebook. I have decided to share them here, as well, going back a few days. Here is what I posted Friday:

Some tweets this morning that tell a story about what is happening in Minneapolis right now, and about how you, my fellow white friends and family, should be reacting to events.

To begin with, Peter Dauo’s tweet: the reason things are happening in Minneapolis is because, first, of the actions of police officers bringing state power into George Floyd’s life, and killing him over something that doesn’t even come close to justifying capital punishment (as if anything ever could justify that kind of injustice, but that’s a post for another day), and second, because of the decisions of those in power in Minneapolis to justify the actions of those officers by refusing to hold them accountable. This is the same story that has been happening across our country for the better part of 400 years: the use of state violence to keep black and brown bodies in submission and constant fear of death. Those in the streets of Minneapolis, and those of us who stand with them, are over that shit.

So they marched last night, and yesterday, and the day before that, and four years ago in Baton Rouge #altonsterling, and five years ago in Ferguson #michaelbrown, and six years ago in Cleveland #tamirrice, and eight years ago in Sanford Florida #trayvonmartin, and 50 years ago in Watts and Harlem and Memphis and Selma, and a hundred years ago in the ruins of Black Wall Street right here in Tulsa, and so many countless other times that I know I’m missing, but Jesus there are so many to try and remember and honor and mourn. They marched because injustice happened, and as Dr. King reminded us, where injustice happens to one, it happens to all. They marched because it is their democratic right to do so, to hold their leaders accountable, to demand equal treatment under the law, to remind the state it doesn’t get to have unlimited life and death power over us, whom it derives its very power and authority from.

And instead of hearing and recognizing the pain and anguish and anger present in those marching, those in charge doubled down, and began attacking peaceful protestors, with rubber bullets and tear gas and batons and pepper spray. Let me say that again: they attacked PEACEFUL PROTESTORS less than a month after armed white terrorists marched on various state capitols around the country because they couldn’t get a haircut and got fawning coverage on Fox News and got called “some good people” by our President and didn’t get attacked or stopped or hardly even acknowledged by police and the powers that be. But some peaceful protestors tried to get the state’s attention and asked for justice, and all they got was pepper spray and the abuse of the police. You didn’t even have to be protesting to get that abuse either; just ask S. Lee Merritt, whose black body made him a target regardless of any actions he was or wasn’t taking. “Keeping the peace” my ass.

And so, as Tomi Lahren had to have pointed out to her by a real hero, by a powerful woman of color, when peaceful protesting didn’t result in change, but instead resulted in more state violence, the people responded in kind. They began burning and destroying property because, and the Hampton Institute reminds us, in a world where the only thing power understands is the commodifying of every damn thing, where stuff if much more important and valuable than people (and if you don’t think that’s true, just think back to the “thousands of deaths are the price we must pay to reopen the economy” crowd), then you start destroying commodities. Oh, hey. They got your attention now. Lifeless black bodies didn’t do it. But a burning television sure as hell did. Welcome to the party.

Now the protestors get accused of “looting” for taking the only actions that would be heard by the state and those with money and power who run that state. But you know what, Warren Gunnels is right: looting isn’t the burning of a Target and the anger of an abused people. Looting is getting rich off the bodies and lives of people. Looting is using pandemics and recessions and wars and fear to vacuum up every last dollar to stick in a bank account somewhere in Majorca, and at the same time, fund disinformation campaigns claiming those who want a decent living wage and basic health care and reliable access to food and water and a roof over their head without constant fear of eviction are in fact “communists” and “free loaders” and “takers”, instead of acknowledging that they are in fact just people who want to raise their children and live their lives and not be robbed from above. Looting is what millionaires and billionaires do to the rest of us every day, while the state stands aside, or even in most cases, helps.

Which brings me to the last tweet. From the man who became our president almost four years ago, who built his own immoral fortune by fleecing and looting and hurting regular, every day people. Who this morning went on Twitter, and called for AMERICAN CITIZENS – you know, those people who he works for (not the other way around), who he serves at the pleasure of – to be gunned down in the streets, because again, property in Minneapolis is deemed more important than human lives. This sad, orange little man who lives on the public dime like the welfare fraud he is, has the gall to look at the people he has made a life and career out of looting, screwing and demeaning, and actually think that he can just have them put down. He can find the ability to praise white supremacists marching in Charlottesville and cospatriots playing solider in Grand Rapids, but the name he gives to people demanding justice and fair treatment under the law “THUGs.” And all of those people who have stood behind every action he has taken for four years, who bend over backwards to justify his every action, no matter how much it may trample everything they once claimed to stand for, will again retweet him and praise him and fawn over him and scream MAGA and call for “thugs” everywhere to be put down like dogs. It’s sickening, and it leaves little hope in my heart for the future of our country, because about 35% has gone way off the deep end and is determined to take us there with them.

I’m angry this morning, in a way I’m usually not, and while usually I would apologize for being this angry and pointed in my language on Facebook, I don’t think today I will. If you are shocked by this, by whats happening, by how angry and upset and rage-filled people are: good. You should be. You should have been paying attention before (God knows you had every chance) and, well, I’m glad to see you are now at least. Support the Americans fighting for their basic rights in Minneapolis today. Join your local “#BlackLivesMatter rally. Resist powers that dehumanize. Stop valuing stuff more than people. Work for a country and world where the rich don’t get to loot the poor and force everyone into poverty in their deranged and demonic drive for MORE. And keep your thoughts and prayers; the only kind of praying we should be doing right now is on our feet.

Justice Denied for #TamirRice

Justice went unserved again yesterday, this time in Cleveland.

Tamir-RiceA grand jury declined to bring charges against the two officers who killed 12-year old Tamir Rice last year. Rice, an African-American, was playing with a toy gun in a public park near his home when the officers pulled up and opened fire on him less than 2 seconds after emerging from the squad car. No warning was given, and Rice was never instructed to lay down his gun or put up his hands. Officers simply saw a young black man and opened fire.

Just like so many other times.

And, like so many of those other cases, no one will be held responsible for the murder of a young black man. Tamir Rice’s death will be elicit the mouthing of sympathy from the city of Cleveland, from the police union, from politicians and officials across Ohio and America. But none of them will demand justice. None of them will defend Tamir Rice against those create excuses for why he had to die.

This is why we say Black Lives Matter. This is why we assert racism to be alive and well in the power structures of 21st century America. This is why we stand with those who have to fear for their lives everyday because our society has very little regard for them. As one person put it on Twitter today, “Racism doesn’t usually look like someone shouting slurs, it looks like people eagerly looking for reasons why a black kid had to die.”

Back in August, I wrote:

There is a legitimate problem centered around black men and women being gunned down by police officers prior to any opportunity for due process and the judicial system to do its work, and then those police officers walking away with no consequences. Read that last sentence again; it is the crux of what people are upset about. Far too many times have we seen stories about a black human being who may or may not have broken a law being killed by the officer they come in contact with, and then no consequences being handed down. Far too often, the death penalty has been meted out at the whim of a single, white police officer, for alleged “crimes” that in a court of law would merit a fine.

This is a real problem in a country that purports to believe in the principle of the presumption of innocence, and trial by jury. When we dispense with real justice, when we defend those who take it into their own hands to do the work of the courts and dispense “justice” without due process, we inevitably say that the victimized person was undeserving of the rights guaranteed to us in the America. That person just didn’t matter enough.

This is what is meant by the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” Too often, black lives don’t seem to matter. Black lives seem expendable, like they are merely the normal leftovers of creating a society that is supposedly “just” and “free” and “safe.” Every time a black man or woman is gunned down by a state actor, and no one is held responsible, it sends the message that Black Lives Don’t Matter.

BLM works to make this simple idea a reality: the lives of black people do matter.

Those words are as true today as they were back then. But in this case, there was no grey area of motive. Tamir Rice broke no law, violated no norm, did nothing wrong. But because his life was valued less because of the color of his skin, because he was viewed through the prism of a society that has reduced all young black men to the simple caricature of a “thug”, his life was forfeit that day.

And yesterday, when the prosecutor walked out of the courthouse and announced to the world that Tamir Rice’s life didn’t matter enough to pursue justice in a court of law, he announced that, once again, in the eyes of the white power structure, black lives still really don’t matter.

There is still much work to be done. We’ve made much progress this year, but yet it is still much too little. God give us the strength and the resolve and the righteous anger to keep fighting for a better world.