“They call it due process and some people are overdue… Somebody said ‘brother-man gonna break a window, gonna steal a hubcap, gonna smoke a joint, brother man gonna go to jail.’ The man who tried to steal America is not in jail… And America was ‘shocked.’ America leads the world in shocks. Unfortunately, America does not lead the world in deciphering the cause of shock…”
We Beg Your Pardon (Pardon Our Analysis) by Gil Scott-Heron
No matter how many times I live through moments like these, it never gets any easier. Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, John T. Williams, Henry Glover, Juan Herera, Amadou Diallo, Iman Morales, Eleanor Bumpers, Vincent Chin, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Denise McNair, Emmett Till… There are so many more names to recall. There are so many names I don’t know. And they number into the millions, over centuries as we are reminded over and over again that for people of color in this country, our lives are cheap.
I think my friend Dennis said it best when he observed that Trayvon was convicted of his own murder.
My heart goes out to Trayvon’s family and all of us who are feeling the trauma and pain in this moment. It is wrong. It is an atrocity. There’s no way this verdict would have gone down if Trayvon was white. The legal argument that led to this verdict, which is centuries old, could not exist without de facto acceptance of racism as legitimate motive and Blackness itself as life threatening.
With each of these cases, we find ourselves in a kind of shock. As in how could the country that brought you slavery, the Alamo, small pox blankets and waterboarding do such a thing? Again? Many of us believe there is a “real” America, which is noble and great and if only we could take her “back” and let her be as she was intended, everything would be alright.
I’m betting that that’s going to work about as well as any other abusive relationship. It’s time for a change.
Let’s face it. The Zimmerman trial was essentially an opportunity to lay more legal groundwork to advance vigilantism. This is a standard ‘go to’ move in the white supremacy handbook. The vigilante state is particularly important when the “majority” becomes a “minority” as a way to hold power without the pretense of democracy. Unlike Malcolm X in his famous 1964 speech The Ballot or the Bullet, white supremacy works to hold down the ballot and the bullet. It is not an “either or” proposition.
What is most important, however, is the structural analysis and strategy that undergirds their work. Much of our work – in stark contrast – is focused at the level of individual casework. And it’s just not enough.Yes, we should support efforts to bring Zimmerman up on civil rights charges and boycott the companies that fund groups like ALEC that are responsible for the law that made his acquittal possible. We also need a DOJ investigation and suit to address the blatantly racist patterns in the application of stand your ground type laws and extrajudicial killings in general. We must also be more adept at leveraging human rights tools at our disposal to take our efforts beyond the limited framework of the Constitution and reimagine remedies at a macro-systemic level including, yes, even reparations.
Of course, there is work to do to build the kind of shared values, people power and authentic solidarity that this kind of transformation requires. And there are thousands of organizers working to make it happen.
Let’s hope that this latest wakeup call will inspire us to work smarter and build the kind of compelling, structural transformation movement that ensures we are never caught sleeping again.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
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