This action by the state of California to require transparency in how prosecutors present possible indictment cases of killings by police to grand juries is a positive step. However, it only deals with a death that has already occurred, so it is not directly preventative of racist and far too frequent police use of guns. That is a much larger societal legacy of racism and the use of police to intimidate, incarcerate and shoot people of color and those of limited economic means.
JB: Agreed. I'm wondering if Gov. Brown also plan a more far-reaching overhaul of police tactics, presumptions and prejudice. And if his move will be taken up by other governors nationwide. Your thoughts?
MK: It would be presumptuous for me to predict the mind of any politician. I would certainly hope that grand jury investigations of killings would become more transparent in other states. I would go much further and argue that all police violent action should be open to transparent investigation and scrutiny. In fact, the details of all actions against citizens by the police should be publicly revealed. Law enforcement should work on behalf of the community, not just on behalf of those with power.
JB: Amen to that.
MK: The police are only empowered by the authority of the local, state and federal governments. There should be a wide-ranging reconsideration of aggressive police action and the enforcement of laws that are not applied equally to people of different races and classes. Given recent events, it has become glaringly clear that the exercise of police authority - including lethal force - is often taken as a means of "controlling" people who are considered disposable by society. This has been tolerated for far too long.
It is my personal opinion, in addition, that local police departments in particular do a pretty lousy job of weeding out applicants who should not be allowed to wear a badge and carry a firearm. Clearly - and common sense from what we have seen makes it indisputable - there are officers who are on the force who appear to enjoy having a legal umbrella that allows them to act violently, including the use of lethal force. This also includes police men and women who arrest protesters - often in violation of their First Amendment rights - with seething aggression. Moreover, it is incontestable that far too many officers are racist - and that little has been done to prevent such persons from being on police forces around the nation. Of course, a provocative but appropriate question is "does a lot of police culture incorporate those very reprehensible characteristics on behalf of the status quo?"
JB: You raise an interesting question there, Mark. Let's jump to a piece you wrote this week: Trumpism Is All About Racism, Xenophobia and Coded White Privilege [9.3.15]. Is Trump's candidacy another side of the racist strain in the police we were just discussing? Or are we making entirely too big a deal out of him, his bluster and his appeal?
MK: Police racism can only exist, as it has, as a result of structural racism within the society. Take the economically destitute urban areas that are inhabited by a multi-generational population of people of color in cities throughout the US. Little or nothing is done for these areas in terms of creating work for the residents. They are abandoned because society considers the populations as disposable. This goes back to the racism that was implicit and explicit in the white European colonization of the Americas, including slavery and the massacres of indigenous populations. This is not just history, it is a vein of contempt for the lives of non-whites that runs through our culture.
As a result, politically, society has assigned police departments to keep the people in these modern plantations of economic deprivation under control through harassment, arrest and imprisonment. Yes, political platitudes are offered up about creating "economic opportunity," but in reality, many whites view people of color disdainfully and as competitors for jobs. This then leads to municipal police forces becoming de facto armies of occupation meant to keep socially stigmatized people and areas from rebelling by facilitating a street or school to prison pipeline.
In turn, drugs become one of the few viable economic opportunities for young people in areas without factories, businesses or other significant employment. Given the nation's destructive "war on drugs," violence results because nothing is done to change the macro-circumstances of structurally tolerated indifference to the lives of people in such communities.
This is where Trump comes in. He is the new "white savior," a brash bombastic loudmouth in a business suit who blames "those people" or "the others" (people of color, in this case Mexicans - although they just represent resentment toward non-whites in general) for the perceived problems within the United States. The Washington Post ran a story the other day that the crime rate among Mexican migrants is no higher than the US crime rate in general. Yet, reality doesn't matter when reptilian racism that feeds the need for white self-esteem is in play - and Trump masterfully uses television as a tool to emotionally stoke racist, nativist emotional anxiety.
Trump represents a significant segment of the US population unhinged from reality, compassion, fairness and the consideration of thoughtful public policy. Television (remember, Trump is the ultimate billionaire reality TV show star), right-wing radio and the GOP cultivation of the Tea Party - along, of course, with our legacy of slavery and racism toward people of color as "alien" to white society - have been key factors in the rocket-propelled rise of Trumpism.
JB: Yikes: a potent brew, indeed. Well, this will certainly be an election cycle to keep a close eye on. What else would you like to talk about before we wrap this up?
MK: Personally, I think we as a society look far too much to politicians to address pressing issues that face this nation - and the world. The almost unending mass corporate media coverage of political election cycles - presenting political campaigns like horse races - represents how dire is our need of a national discussion of issues and not personalities and gaffes.
Perhaps it is far too simplistic for the complex social, economic and justice issues that we must confront to boil down our choice to this: either we are destined to accept an inevitability of privilege for some, hate for "the other" and distraction as the lens through which we see our nation - or we must move forward with an understanding that we are inextricably interconnected and equal as humans, that we must respect each other, and that we must advance economic fairness.
For fifteen years, my journalistic work as founder of and publisher at BuzzFlash - from 2000 - 2010 - and now as editor of BuzzFlash at Truthout, I have looked at news through the latter lens. I believe that it it is our only hope to avoid a dystopian future in which our soul as a nation becomes irretrievably lost.
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