Adrienne Brown is hot like fire.
– We need ongoing supported focus on police brutality and accountability, even as we develop our own peace zones. It’s no longer sufficient to get furious when a civilian is killed by police, and maintain that fury until the officers are acquitted or resign. For the past 10 years it has been nearly impossible to get sustained support for this kind of work from the foundation world, so as organizers we have to sustain this work in other more community-based ways. I definitely want to shout out The Gathering, who have picked up this unpopular issue as it relates to juvenile justice, with the commitment of Harry Belafonte – they are joining the Oakland community for actions next week. I have also heard that Uhuru will be hosting a meeting tomorrow evening to discuss accountability and healing. – we need to express our gratitude to groups like Community Justice Network for Youth (CJNY), who identified the gaping hole that exists in the non-profit and organizing community of Oakland in terms of police accountability work. CJNY stepped up in a major way for today’s nonviolent action, but they can’t maintain this effort on their own. Bay Area groups who focus their work on young people of color, this political moment needs you. – And I know I am biased by the perspective of working at The Ruckus Society, but we need to engage in the deep training and skill development around pulling off large scale strategic direct actions. There are ways to pull together mass actions in a short time period that gain media, build the power of our positions, and help the community to see and understand the situation and how they can get involved.
More here. And here. Over at ta-nahesi's spot a group of folks have been questioning why black people don't rail against black on black crime as much as they do against police crime. Maybe a year and some months ago, the then-outgoing Philadelphia Chief of Police asked that the organization 100 Black Men begin to police Philly streets, after a particularly vicious crime streak that left dozens of black youth murdered. The men were not to be paid, not to be armed, and only trained moderately. Some men jumped at the chance–black anti-crime rallies are the norm in black neighborhoods. This was my response. In a nutshell why should we put our lives on the line to do a job we pay taxes for, a service that we implicitly sign the social contract for? I've got it–because in our case, the rights we have are not rights at all, but privileges that are given to us when we act right.
I'm not seeing too many open-air drug markets outside the barrio and the hood, and in these, more in the latter than the former. Progressive politics on this specific law and order issue are about as stupid and confused as most social conservative politics.
Neighborhoods ruled by young men are incompatible with the normative social order. So either they are restored to management by older, more responsible, and communitarian men, or, they are subject to colonial occupation by paramilitary police.
and low intensity warfare between competing black market entrepreneurs whose business rivalries and disputes can not be adjudicated in civil courts due to the prohibition.
“why should we put our lives on the line to do a job we pay taxes for, a service that we implicitly sign the social contract for?”
I could not agree with you more.
I'm going the other way on the issue. I applaud the Police Chief's initiative and imagination. Expecting the police to solve our problems sounds overly entitled. We can't expect to outsource our sense of civic responsibility. If the crime is this bad, we should encourage a partnership between the police, the schools, and the neighborhood instead of paying some MAN with a gun to solve the issue.
Craig,
You seem to assume that drug dealing is an aspiration rather than an expedient for young black men with few employment options. I've never seen any evidence that supports that assumption.
Don't let my use of the terminology “black market entrepreneurs” excite or confuse you Malik…,
I haven't qualified the activity as either operational or aspirational – the entertrainment industry on the other hand, has gone to great lengths to glamorize and romanticize it.
Question brother –
How can the Black community justify the outrage displayed over “Police shootings” but operate with such underwhelming concern about Black on Black homicides?
I accept the fact that a police man shooting a Black man is a more “qualitatively” significant shooting incident than if a thug with a gun does so in the act of robbery. The police will always have a higher standard to which they must be held to.
However, when we cross reference “quality” with “QUANTITY” of killings within our community and worse, the low “Homicide Closure rate” that allows some killers of Black people to walk away with impunity – this entire episode is shown to be a ruse.
I am NOT placing a point of obfuscation regarding the serious issue of the conflict between Blacks and the Police. But for some people to pretend that the contextual backdrop of violence and murder that takes place within our communities is nothing short of dishonest.
Being one who is asked to proved SOLUTIONS to accompany my frequent criticisms of the Black Political and Civil Rights Establishment – I am made to wonder if THEY with their antics in regards to amplifying the police conflict but effectively keeping the Black on Black violence muffled – want a SOLUTION or just are interested in practicing in the space of their forte.
From the Archives: Oscar Grant, and the Black Political Long Now http://t.co/g7YHeYn0