Power To The People

America is a nation built on stolen land, by stolen people, that has no inclination to reconcile with its past wickedness, turning Indigenous property into conquest, and Black lives into property. For too long, this guise of structure has served as a satisfying image of liberty. It gives its people the right to assemble, a right that is often unimpeded, depending on who exactly is assembling. The status quo that we recognize is a concept of order based on oppression, it is a negative peace. The pursuit of a positive peace, however daunting, is vitally necessary. If you can recognize the centuries of injustice endured by Black people, you cannot also chastise them for exerting their will towards justice, simply because their method is inconvenient to you. It’s important that you not be more horrified by the response to injustice than by the injustice itself. 

The very idea of a protest is to cause disruption. A protest suspends the usual order, in the pursuit of inciting those in power to make changes, and deliver justice. However, if you wish to appeal to the conscious of an oppressive force, you must first acknowledge that an oppressive force has no conscious. Therefore, civility, while an available means of protest, is not necessarily the optimal means of protest. A protest is an exasperation that does not seek sympathy, but demands attention. Protests are ignited frustration, intentionally designed to be uncomfortable, just as radical change is uncomfortable.  Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that peaceful protest is inherently more noble, as if there is an acceptable way to demonstrate against the persistent scourge of racism against Black people.   

There was an attempt at peaceful protest. We tried kneeling, but the powers that be had a problem with it. Reasoning hasn’t worked, moral and ethical appeals haven’t worked, it’s only through “acting out” in brazen, communal demonstrations across states and nations that seems to garner attention. It’s a message that’s echoed by millions of voices at a volume that shouldn’t be so easily drowned out by the sound of a shattered window. There is no equivalence between people and property, but capitalism would have you believe that the defamation of a statue, or a corporation’s smashed storefront is equal to, or greater than the loss of human life. I find it harder to sympathize with a damaged inanimate object than I do to empathize with an oppressed people demanding recognition. But hey, that’s just me. If you’re more worked up about property damage than institutional racism culminating in unjust murder, I urge you to reevaluate your priorities. 

If you fail to deliver justice at every conceivable instance, you cannot then suggest peace. You’ve created an untenable rage that culminates in aggression and violence, a language America is fluent in. It’s ridiculous to insinuate that violence isn’t the answer when there are multiple, nationally recognized holidays commemorating war; America’s preferred method of diplomacy. A country, whose elected officials are steadfast in their maintenance of an oppressive system, and equally as quick to regurgitate the same four Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quotes as consolation for centuries of racist brutality. A country with a sickeningly revisionist view of the way it treated Dr. King, framing him as a uniquely beloved figure, and while he remains one of the most influential people in history, was at his peak, targeted, harassed and smeared by the Director of the FBI. Actions that the white American majority didn’t object to. A country that abbreviates the legacy of Dr. King into soundbites and a vague understanding of non-violent protest. A legacy employed to insinuate that peace is the only answer, conveniently omitting the reality that his commitment to peace did nothing to stop him from being assassinated in broad daylight.

People will always find fault with the manner in which these protests take place, until the system of oppressive brutality is appropriately dealt with, there will always be opposition against justice for Black lives. It’s a distraction and a disservice to Black people’s pursuit of justice to insinuate that there is a manner in which Black people can defend themselves, and their civil liberties that will be universally accepted. We see this in the supremacist compulsion to denigrate these protests and the intention behind them for the most feeble of reasons. Now, whether you support the protests or not, you should sincerely consider whether there’s an arrest of the officer who murdered George Floyd without them, as well as subsequent charges for the three abetting officers. 

We can’t continue to diminish the severity of injustice by criticizing people’s reactions to injustice. You might beg for reason in response, but after centuries upon centuries of brutality and murder, an extreme response seems reasonable. The language of oppression has been clear, it’s a language of violence, and in order to get a message across you must then speak to the oppressor in their own language. Civility isn’t going to make much of a difference to those who refuse to respect you in the first place. Procedures of supremacy moved the goal posts and muddied the waters beyond reasonability in the first place. They ask, “What did you do?” “Why didn’t you comply?” “What happened before the video?” All of which is a frail attempt to justify why Black people’s rights as citizens are being stripped and ignored. If a Black person needs to be advised to behave in a way that will deter racist behaviour from police officers, we must recognize that the system is irrevocably broken, before acknowledging there isn’t a reason to be racist.

In 2019 alone, police officers murdered 1,098 people, 24% of which were black. Only 13% of the US population is black meaning that they are 3 times as likely to be killed by white people, and 1.3 times more likely to killed while unarmed. We should also take into account that “blue lives matter” only ever sprouted as a retort to “Black Lives Matter.” If one considers the statement “Black lives matter” to be inherently anti-police, they should acknowledge the methods of police that are inherently anti-black. Recognizing that the reflexive response to Black lives demanding respect, is to automatically frame that request as an opposition to the police.  

Red: No Criminal Charges. Light Blue: Officer Charged. Dark Blue: Officer Convicted.

Between 2013 and 2019, US police officers killed 7666 people. Only 25 (0.3%) of officers were convicted, and only 74 (1%) of officers were charged, but not convicted. Which is to say that the police officers who murder men, women and children are free from consequence virtually 99% of the time. The system is so rife with self-preservation it leaves no room for accountability. You never hear about bad doctors the way you hear about bad cops, because medical professionals have to answer for malpractice, they can lose their license, they are typically held accountable. This is because there’s no room for widespread ineptitude in a profession in which you swear to protect people. 

If police officers can have the blatant audacity to murder a man, while knowing they’re being recorded, it’s because they have no fear whatsoever about facing repercussions.  It took days of international demonstration to get four police officers charged, illustrating a system that would rather continue to act with impunity before holding itself accountable. The best example of this is the police’s inability to refrain from committing police brutality and police brutality protests. When the roots of an institution are as fastened into suppression as those of the police are, it’s hard to fathom how revamped slave patrols would evolve into anything other than units designed to abuse and dehumanize people of colour. 

The framework of the police deals in complicity and overreach. In the wake of protests we’ve seen a militarized police force unambiguously brutalizing crowds of protestors. It is especially painful to witness ungoverned suppression during a global pandemic, as we see a country more prepared to quell racial equality than to handle a national health crisis. Their actions and priorities prove as much. However, it’s not just pandemic response, it’s schools, housing, clean water, and human rights that are all routinely shelved so that police officers can tote military grade weapons and equipment to systematically beat and subdue, Black people and those protesting next to them.  

The system was never developed to protect and serve, it’s an apparatus for control. It’s an expansion of dominance, not protection. It’s not a couple of apples, in reality, if a bunch of literal macintosh apples ended up killing this many people, we would see a national recall and suspension of apples. It’s not even a singular infected tree, it’s the whole orchard, and each of those apples grows on a tree that they used to hang Black people. When it comes to the protests some adjacent looting can derail the entire message, but “a couple” bad cops aren’t supposed to be representative of all law enforcement. 

Regrettably, as a requirement of their employment, police officers are sworn to enforce all laws, however, in practice they continually suspend morality, logic and ethics in order to subjugate and abuse those whom they have sworn to protect. As a police officer, if you witness or are aware of the sinister behaviour of other police officers, and you do nothing, you cannot be classified as a “good cop.” It’s simple, it’s been stated many times, but if you have 10 bad cops and 1000 good cops, but those 1000 good cops do nothing to thwart nor turn in the 10 delinquent cops, you have 1010 bad cops. Therefore, at its core, law enforcement is untrustworthy. Unregulated misconduct permeates all active units and unions, yet before they take an oath, prospective officers are willingly deciding to enrol in a historically racist system that has shown no significant signs of change or reform. By joining the force, both literally and figuratively, they become just as culpable as any other officer, whether they’re murdering and brutalizing Black people or not. 

They contribute to an institution that unjustly murders without consequence, despite pledging to uphold a justice that they notoriously disregard. No matter an individual’s belief system, when they put on the uniform of a police officer they are part of an establishment that encourages targeted discrimination, violence and racism. They help strengthen that foundation, a foundation that manifests in the murder of Black people and people of colour. The contract with order and justice, that we unspokenly agree to is not being, and has never been upheld. Therefore, we the people, would see it unfit to abide by the expectation of peace, seeing as our expectation of justice has never been served.