Ferguson Isn’t About Black Rage Against Cops. It’s White Rage Against Progress.

[Triana]

When we look back on what happened in Ferguson, Mo., during the summer of 2014, it will be easy to think of it as yet one more episode of black rage ignited by yet another police killing of an unarmed African American male. But that has it precisely backward. What we’ve actually seen is the latest outbreak of white rage. Sure, it is cloaked in the niceties of law and order, but it is rage nonetheless.

Protests and looting naturally capture attention. But the real rage smolders in meetings where officials redraw precincts to dilute African American voting strength or seek to slash the government payrolls that have long served as sources of black employment. It goes virtually unnoticed, however, because white rage doesn’t have to take to the streets and face rubber bullets to be heard. Instead, white rage carries an aura of respectability and has access to the courts, police, legislatures and governors, who cast its efforts as noble, though they are actually driven by the most ignoble motivations.

White rage recurs in American history. It exploded after the Civil War, erupted again to undermine the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision and took on its latest incarnation with Barack Obama’s ascent to the White House. For every action of African American advancement, there’s a reaction, a backlash.

The North’s victory in the Civil War did not bring peace. Instead, emancipation brought white resentment that the good ol’ days of black subjugation were over. Legislatures throughout the South scrambled to reinscribe white supremacy and restore the aura of legitimacy that the anti-slavery campaign had tarnished. Lawmakers in several states created the Black Codes, which effectively criminalized blackness, sanctioned forced labor and undermined every tenet of democracy. Even the federal authorities’ promise of 40 acres — land seized from traitors who had tried to destroy the United States of America — crumbled like dust.

THE REST:

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/11/25/ferguson-isnt-about-black-rage-against-cops-its-white-rage-against-progress

[Socal31]

1. Isn't there a way to get the point across without using......

..."Black Rage"?

Isn't the "Angry Black Man" stereo-type regarded as particularly harmful?

Anyway, the police issue in this country is not some plan to murder minorities. Trying to push that idea is actually hurtful to everyone in the community.

Local PD in the USA has a major culture problem. Its shoot first, don't de-escalate, steroid-fueled gang mentality which has no fear of being prosecuted if they get it wrong. They are under-trained, over-armed, and will always go for low-hanging fruit, such as poor neighborhoods with street drug dealers and gang members in high concentration. They aren't shaking down the dealers inside the Mcmansions, regardless of color.

[Luminous Animal]

2. Of course. Ir's all about white people.

[LostInAnomie]

3. How does that even make sense to the author?

It's like she came up with a "clever" title and then used a hammer to beat hundreds of years of history into an argument doesn't even support her proposition.

[Iggo]

4. You're half right.

It ain't black rage.

It's rage.

[GitRDun]

5. I agree 100%

The Mike Brown killing was inevitable. A white ruling authority using its police arm to extract money and maintain power over black subjects.

What kind of person would be a LEO in this situation? Someone who does not value black lives.

I believe we'll see more police killings, voter ID restrictions, electoral college manipulations before it's over as whites frantically try to cling to political and economic superiority.

[davidn3600]

6. Frantically?

I'd say they are succeeding quite comfortably well...

The economic gaps between whites and blacks hasn't changed in over 50 years. And there isn't much evidence to suggest it will change any time soon. The 1% has a firm grasp on both political parties.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/28/these-seven-charts-show-the-black-white-economic-gap-hasnt-budged-in-50-years

[GitRDun]

7. I hear ya

The reason I used that word is that we are on a collision course.

The "Blue Wall" from an electoral college standpoint is approaching 270, e.g., it's going to be pretty hard to get a Republican elected President. Unless the Republicans solve that "problem", they are screwed.

This is why we see voter ID laws and places like MI trying to find ways to split electoral votes, e.g., gerrymander the Presidency.

The use of the word "frantic" refers to their emotions and conduct in trying to maintain the status quo in the face of shifting demographics.

In the absence of "frantic" efforts to make white votes count more, whites will lose political power going forward. See California.

[Cha]

8. In so many instances, Triana.. Mahalo!

[KingCharlemagne]

9. It's a very interesting thought-piece. Thanks for posting it. - nt

[Number23]

10. This is the second Common Dreams piece I've rec'd this week

They have been knocking it out of the park lately.

White rage recurs in American history. It exploded after the Civil War, erupted again to undermine the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision and took on its latest incarnation with Barack Obama’s ascent to the White House. For every action of African American advancement, there’s a reaction, a backlash.

Yep. And she completely left out the rage faced during Reconstruction, black voting rights, desegregation (a TSUNAMI of rage there) and the Civil Rights movement.

[AverageJoe90]

11. True, all true, though I'd change a certain part of the title to.....

"White Reactionary Conservative Rage".....because, frankly, these reactionaries, politically active or not, are 90% percent of the problem.

[zentrum]

12. Yup.

No one ever talks about white rage.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

13. "No one ever talks about white rage."