Things to Keep in Mind About Our Tradition of Brutality
A few things to keep in mind as the days continue, and the inevitable onslaught of radioactive bullshit gets slung:
Today is the 58th anniversary of the first publication of Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." The degree of its continued relevance is as much a reason to celebrate and remember his genius as it should be an occasion for us to be ashamed as a nation. It's continued relevance is due to exactly what it is written about. Given the rest of the content which follows, I thought it important to note this.
More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
Chicago PD operated Homan Square, their own Abu Ghraib style "black site" where they tortured suspects. They were disappearing people into this place and torturing them. I include this, in part because its important to remember the death of Adam Toledo is absolutely no way the first modern instance of police violence in Chicago. It's really worth understanding what Chicago's place in American history is as one of the first "Black" cities resulting from the Great Migration, and how police brutality has shaped Chicago itself, and our idea of what a modern American city is.
Chicago PD also shot and killed Laquan McDonald, which then mayor Rahm Emanuel helped cover up so the mayoral race could continue and not interrupt his campaign for re-election. Fun fact, when I pointed this out as Emanuel's name was being put forth for a cabinet position in the Biden administration, the response was, "Democrats lose because lefties are always undermining our best street fighters, like Rahm," and not just one one occasion was this suggested. Right now, some folks are I'm sure responding to this information as if it's some kind of conspiracy theory, but go take a look at the timeline of events surrounding Laquan's murder. Again, the police, DA and mayor's office made a bunch of false claims, and did everything within their power to keep footage of Laquan's shooting from being released. The Inspector General later cited 16 officers in the coveru. Take a look back at Rahm's response to the shooting throughout the timeline to the coverup being exposed.
There already have been doctored photos circulating of Adam Toledo with a gun in his hand. I have no doubt there are going to be racists finding photos of all manner of young Black men posing menacingly with guns, claiming those photos are of Adam Toledo. First, they did the same shit to Trayvon Martin, and the photos weren't of Trayvon. Second, the number of people who are going to be claiming this is some kind of excuse for police to murder Black people, and also love to pose in pictures with their guns is mind blowing. The overlap between people who believe there can and should be no regulation of gun ownership, at all, because it is an unalienable right, and also believe a picture of a Black person with a gun means police were within their rights to shoot that Black person is damn near a circle in a Venn diagram.
It's also probably worth considering that the same people who believe unwaveringly in an absolutely unfettered reading of the Second Amendment are very vocal about the dangers of policing being an excuse for police to execute anyone they deem a threat because, "they could have a gun." Now, I'm real skeptical of the entire conversation around guns, because the majority of the vocal participants are real okay with throwing folks under the bus, almost without fail people who are already discriminated against, the two most vocal positions on gun control just have different attitudes about how those folks get under the bus. It's pretty clear you can't have a society with more guns than people, and not have law enforcement be worried about anyone they approach having a gun, but you can't really have a free society where law enforcement can just shoot anyone they are worried might be in possession of something which is legal either. These folks will tell you that we can, if only "they" would act right. "They" being criminals, who apparently deserve a death sentence for everything. Anyone who somehow has a hard time believing the centuries of political and cultural criminalization of Blackness and lots of other "Others" doesn't have something to do with this is an SJW whose out here cancelling everything and therefore, shouldn't be listened to though.
Current Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot was elected on a "progressive" platform of reform. Reform of the police department was a big part of that platform. Take a look at how well that's going, and keep that in mind as all of these reform policies are keep being proposed. Take a look at where they've been introduced, and how they've actually worked in the long term. Most of them are already in place in departments in different parts of the country, and take a hard look. Don't just accept some article which is basically written from the perspective of local politicians or police "celebrating their success." You'll find all of the most popular programs for "reform" are already being used in different places. I already know how they work, but it doesn't matter if I tell you, because the people who need to see the results aren't going to believe me, because I'm a "far left radical," not someone who is already familiar with the base information we have on those programs and proposals. De-escalation training, diversity training, community oversight boards... All already in place in a lot of places. Read up on how well they work, overall, long term.
Related material on police misconduct and violence:
Read Radley Balko's Rise of the Warrior Cop. I get nothing from suggesting this, other than the satisfaction of knowing I've suggested some excellent reportage on a subject which couldn't be more important right now.
Read Radley Balko's Rise of the Warrior Cop.
Let me say it again, read Radley Balko's Rise of the Warrior Cop.
Angela Davis - Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment
Elizabeth Hinton - From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America
Los Angeles Sheriff's Department is infested organized criminal activity. It's worth noting how similar this is to the Rampart scandal which rocked LAPD in the earliest years of the new century. These both share a shocking similarity to the facts in the Baltimore Gun Trace Task Force case.
Tasers don't prevent police shootings.
Civilian review boards don't work because they are vulnerable to both lack of cooperation by police, and being undermined by local politics.
De-escalation training is in no way a sufficient response to the problem of police brutality without a host of other solutions being implemented simultaneously.