For blacks, America is dangerous by default
from Mariame Kaba at WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/08/22/for-blacks-america-is-dangerous-by-default/
In 1900, a 15 year old black New Yorker named Harry Reed recounted his ‘clubbing’ at the hands of police:
“We five boys were sitting on the seat of an open Eighth Avenue car. When we got at the corner of 37th Street and Eighth Avenue we saw a mob, and the mob called out, ‘There’s some niggers; lynch them!’ and they made a rush for the car, and I jumped out. Then I ran up to the corner of 38th Street, where there were four policemen. Of these four policemen three were standing on the corner, and one ran into the street to stop me. When he saw me coming I was running hard, as fast as I could. When I reached this policeman in the street, he hit me over the head with his club. He hit me twice over the head, and I saw the other three policemen coming, and I fell down. I thought if I fell down the others would not attack me, but they did; they hit me over the legs and on my arm, when I raised it up to protect my head, and they hit me in the back…”
Harry’s story was not exceptional. Historian Marilynn S. Johnson suggests that urban residents began complaining and organizing against police brutality in the mid-19th century. In fact, the first major investigation into police misconduct was launched in 1894 in New York City through the Lexow Committee. This committee documented police abuses including corruption, brutality and perjury. In the late 19th century, the most common complaint from urban residents against the police was about “clubbing” which was “the routine bludgeoning of citizens by patrolmen armed with nightsticks or blackjacks.”
. . . Many young black people tell me that they feel under siege by the police in their neighborhoods. They are consistently harassed and hassled for no reason other than their youth and skin color. As Brunson and Fine point out, “young black men typify ‘the symbolic assailant’ in the eyes of the police.” Frustration and anger with such unfair and unjust targeting has and continues to find expression in hip hop culture and in rap music. One only needs to listen to Tupac, NWA, or Jasiri-X in order to hear the exasperation and the barely contained rage at the treatment of blacks by police. Daily police harassment is experienced by young black men as micro-aggressions that they have little power to resist without suffering potentially lethal consequences. This takes a toll on their physical and mental wellness. Negative and violent law enforcement experiences are extremely harmful.
In his book “Youth in a Suspect Society”, Henry Giroux writes about the ‘punishing state’ and its growing power and impact over the lives of youth of color. The police have always been the gatekeepers and enforcers of the punishing state. The militarization of schools with their security cameras, metal detectors, and police patrols reinforces the idea that young people of color are dangerous threats. Giroux also speaks to a “politics of disposability” that serves to remove young people from the realm of being deserving of support and resources. Over the past 20 years, young people of color have become increasingly the targets of policies and rules suggesting that they are in some ways already assumed to be “criminal” or at the very least “dangerous” by default. In 2014, young people are being managed and controlled through the lens of crime, repression, and punishment . . .
read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/08/22/for-blacks-america-is-dangerous-by-default/
This is a guest post from Mariame Kaba. Kaba is a Chicago-based organizer and educator who directs Project NIA, a grassroots juvenile justice organization.
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