As I have watched the city of Baltimore burn over the past
two days, once again displaying images of a savage and uncivilized United
States across international media outlets across the globe, I decided that
there are some issues here that are worthy of discussion for you. It is quite evident as I write this that the
United States is quite polarized concerning economic capital, political views
and race, and the question often forms in my mind whether that polarization
will continue to deepen, as it is at times obviously purposely incited by media
and other outlets, or whether American society will develop methods, reform or
reformations to relieve and deescalate polarization and better society by the
time your children are born and raised.
The current rioting and destruction in Baltimore is loosely
based on the death of a 25 year-old black American male named Freddy Gray. While I do not place much stock in main
stream American media, on April 21 2015 ABC reported a timeline of events
pertaining to the arrest, and eventual death, of Freddy Gray:
“Sunday, April 12 8:39 a.m.: Police said officers were
working in a West Baltimore area with a history of violence and drug deals, and
a man, later identified as Gray, was seen at the corner of North Avenue and
Mount Street. The officers approached
the man, who then fled on foot, but the reason for the approach remains a part
of the ongoing police investigation, police said. 8:40 a.m.: A police officer was heard telling
dispatch that officers had one person at 1700 Presbury Street, two blocks south
of North and Mount, police said. 8:42
a.m.: A “wagon,” or van, was requested for transport, according to Baltimore
police, and that Gray asked for an inhaler.
8:46 a.m.: The driver of the van believes Gray is acting “irate,” police
say. An officer asks the van to stop so the paperwork can be completed,
according to Baltimore police. At this point, Gray is taken out of the vehicle,
placed in leg irons and then put back in the van, police said. 8:54 a.m.: The vehicle cleared Mount Street,
heading toward central booking, police said.
8:59 a.m.: A request was made by the driver of the van for an additional
"unit" to check on Gray, police say. There was some undisclosed
communication with Gray at this point. 9:23
a.m.: Emergency medical services directed a technician to respond for an
injured patient, as heard on a recording of the call that was publicly
released. 9:24 a.m.: Police officers
requested paramedics to the Western District to transport the man to an area
hospital. In a subsequent charging document, police said, “During transport to
Western District via wagon transport the Defendant suffered a medical emergency
and was immediately transported to Shock Trauma." 9:37 a.m.: On-scene medical responders said
Gray was not breathing, according to EMS reports. Thursday, April 16: Gray was
said to be in a coma by his attorney. Sunday,
April 19: 7:00 a.m.: Gray died. A vigil
has been scheduled for this evening and the six officers involved have all been
placed on paid leave.” [1]
The first problem with this scenario is that the officers
involved were suspended “with” pay. If
there was enough evidence to suspend an officer of law, then “with pay” should
not have been an option. It should never
be an option when police break the law, when police commit sexual assault, or
when police break the trust placed in them by the state and the people. They are to serve the people, not oppress,
extort, injure or take advantage of the people.
I understand the extremely difficult and dangerous situations that American
police deal with on a daily basis and I respect the majority of them for it, as
there are horrible elements of humanity in our society, but at the same time
when a human is invested with the power to take a another’s freedom, has taken
an oath to uphold law and justice and to protect the masses, and even hold the legal
position take another person’s life (if the situation warrants it)….I believe
that police officers should be held to the highest level of penalty for any
unjust or illegal actions whether that is corruption or excessive brutality,
any other infringement or civilized law or against basic universal human rights. We have seen various cases of police
brutality and outright police murder (Oscar Scott’s murder comes to mind) over
the past decades, and we have also seen an increase in hostility and mistrust toward
all police elements from vast percentages of minority communities in America,
most specifically by the young and disenfranchised. While there are indeed negative issues within
police departments throughout the United States, there are also major social problems
in the culture of the United States and we, as Americans, have yet to truly
look in the mirror and assess our current condition with rationale, with realization
of the negative trends we have developed, and react to improve ourselves.
The cell phone video footage taken by a witness of the
Freddy Gray arrest doesn’t seem to begin with the original ‘suspect’ apprehension
point and there is a verbal mention of Gray being tasered prior to the
beginning of the footage by the person filming the footage. Either the footage started after the
apprehension point or main stream media is misrepresenting the footage, in
which I am unable to offer an opinion.
The information on how Gray’s neck was broken, ultimately causing
his death, has not been officially released (and we may never know the truth of
what happened). He looked functional on the
original entry into the arrest van during the film footage, but there is also
mention in the ABC report of Gray being removed from the van after an act of
being irate, having leg restraints applied and placed back into the van. Could the broken neck have occurred at that
point, possibly due to police throwing him back in, or at the original time of
apprehension? There is a possibility
that those facts will never be known in truthful entirety. Gray has a long list of arrests, some of
which were typical under the private sector-profiting “war on drugs” while a
few of the arrests show a negative trend toward self- and community destruction.
Gray Arrest Record:
“March 20, 2015: Possession of a Controlled Dangerous
Substance. March 13, 2015: Malicious
destruction of property, second-degree assault.
January 20, 2015: Fourth-degree burglary, trespassing. January 14, 2015: Possession of a controlled
dangerous substance, possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent
to distribute. December 31, 2014:
Possession of narcotics with intent to distribute. December 14, 2014: Possession of a controlled
dangerous substance. August 31, 2014:
Illegal gambling, trespassing. January
25, 2014: Possession of marijuana. September
28, 2013: Distribution of narcotics, unlawful possession of a controlled
dangerous substance, second-degree assault, second-degree escape. April 13, 2012: Possession of a controlled
dangerous substance with intent to distribute, unlawful possession of a
controlled dangerous substance, violation of probation. July 16, 2008: Possession of a controlled
dangerous substance, possession with intent to distribute. March 28, 2008: Unlawful possession of a
controlled dangerous substance. March
14, 2008: Possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to
manufacture and distribute. February 11,
2008: Unlawful possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of a
controlled dangerous substance. August
29, 2007: Possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute,
violation of probation. August 28, 2007:
Possession of marijuana. August 23,
2007: False statement to a peace officer, unlawful possession of a controlled
dangerous substance. July 16, 2007:
Possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute,
unlawful possession of a controlled dangerous substance (2 counts).” [Maryland
Department of Justice]
The Isolation Process and the War on Drugs:
Let’s analyze a few things concerning these reported arrests. If Freddy Gray was 25 in 2015, that places
him at approximately 17 at the time of his first reported arrest. Was this another lower economic young man
influenced by glamorized Hollywood images such as ‘The Wire’ or modern
so-called Hip Hop? We do not know,
because we did not know him as an individual person, nor in reality would we
probably want to due to his recorded history.
But there are some things we can study here. I tell you now and from experience that
drugs, whether one’s opinion on whether drugs are harmless or bad, are a sure
shot way to closing opportunities for advancement in society, becoming isolated
from advancement in society and an eventual destination inside the private prison
system or the grave. When the police
make mention of ‘high drug areas’, they usually are referring to lower economic
areas. Yet, our young men in this
country are foolish, uneducated and often influenced by the self-destructive
so-called entertainment industry to think they can carry drugs in public or in
automobiles at all hours of the night (which will eventually result in a random
police stop and arrest). It doesn’t
matter what people think. Drugs are
illegal in this republic, and nothing good can come of being arrested for drug
possession or distribution. The largest
misconception by young people in the United Sates is that they have been
hoodwinked into thinking that they live in a free country. There is no such thing, and certainly not in
the United States. Yes, you can make
choices that people in other countries are not allowed to make, like will I
work today or not, or will I go to the bar tonight or visit my kids, but you
are not free as no society throughout history has ever been free of laws and
structure. How do drug arrests impact
society and individuals of lower economic society? You must study the so-called war on drugs
that was implemented in the early 1980s.
This was a massive privatization scheme aimed to develop private prison
systems on the stock market and has advanced over the past three decades into a
massive laundering process of taxpayer’s money into private sector
coffers. The private sector prison system
basically works as follows: At some
point during the late 1980s, individual states stopped building state owned prison
systems and privately owned prison systems began to rapidly increase in number,
while tougher drug law sentences were implemented across the United
States. As drug arrest incarcerations
began to spike, the state prison systems could not house the inflow of inmates
(under tougher drug sentences and a growing population) and individual states
were required to house the increasing overflow of detainees in private prison
facilities instead of overcrowded state facilities at maximum levels. The state, using taxpayer dollars, were
required to pay the private sector prison corporations for each inmate housed
and fed in those private prisons (per day).
The so-called war on drugs and the private prison system in the United
States is something that should be mercilessly taught to the children of lower
economic communities and all American youth.
As the United States continues to compile an unrealistic amount of national
debt (due to domestic policies of subsistence, excessive DOD spending, and two
of the most expensive nation-building processes in history (Iraq and Afghanistan)),
recent trends of incarcerating non-violent criminals for drug related charges
have been drastically loosened because the individual states are unable to
afford such high incarceration levels at private sector pricing under trickle
down budget cuts. One last point
concerning the so-called war on drugs is that a high incarceration rate in the
United States actually diminishes the true unemployment rate in the United
States, as it is actually much higher than statistics show. The prison industry itself creates jobs.
Gray’s arrest record, if accurate, shows an increase in
criminal activity that begins with narcotics and ends in 2015 with alleged burglary
and assault (not that the circumstances of those events are documented to my
knowledge). Perhaps this young man was
one of the many socially and economically isolated young men in society with no
technical skills, no education, and a criminal record and was facing hopeless
circumstances. Maybe he was simply an
uncivilized thug. The point of this
letter is not to judge, but to discuss and learn from. We have talked about the importance of
technical skills and/or trade skills in previous conversations, and this is one
of the most important forms of value for a person in society that possesses no
capital. Remember that in a capitalist
society, one must have capital to generate capital….and a person with no
capital only has his own labor to generate capital. When considering education, it is not the
degree or the systematic process that is important. Self-education is a vital process to develop
one’s understanding of society and sociology, history and current events,
political systems and processes, capital, and many other areas which dictate a
person’s thoughts, actions, goals and planning.
If a person only listens to self-destructive rap music or watches
dancing with the Stars, that person’s thought process will be just as shallow
or self-destructive as those things that he or she concentrates on. Out of all areas within the United States, it
is the lower economic communities that should be engaged in self-education and
determination…as self-education not only improves oneself, but their children
through the knowledge of the parent. It
is difficult to break a vicious cycle because when a parent is uneducated or
uninvolved, a child is left vulnerable to the next negative cycle development. Last, but not least, the arrest record. All people, especially the young male or
female in society, make mistakes and bad judgments in life under various
circumstances, but continual degradation of situation and risk further isolates
a person with each arrest until finally there is no possibility of a future
left.
The Futility of Destruction and True Value:
Over the past few days, violence has erupted in the city of
Baltimore and buildings burned to the ground.
Indeed, the corporate advertisers have been extremely happy as the nation
has tuned in to the national news networks to watch the destruction. Similar to Ferguson and other areas that have
erupted in violence, original peaceful protests were at some point aggravated into
violence which began to channel and release deeply rooted anger, resentment and
outrage over social, racial and economic conditions that exist in American
cities. Internet supporters of the Baltimore
violence claim that the violence will get national attention that will bring needed
change to these pent up issues, but I disagree with these sentiments. Burning down buildings in a community only
hurts that community, and many people in the American black community have openly
voiced this common sense. One problem
that should be identified with this realization is that when the sentiment is
stated that “the rioting and looting is only destroying black communities”, it
hints at taking the destruction to other communities and that simply points to
a much larger racial divide than may be in existence. The size of the racial divide in the United
States is a topic up for debate, and I will not engage it in this letter, but I
often see a great promise in what the United States could someday be. At the same time, I would be a liar if I said
I have not come across statements of hatred from white Americans, as well as
black Americans. In any case, the destruction of community
during rioting has many flaws and is not a form of power in my opinion. First, when you burn businesses to the ground
it takes services and jobs from the community.
In Baltimore, a CVS was burned to the ground. The owners of the CVS were not “taught a
lesson of power” by this destruction nor did it hurt the state establishment in
any manner, as it is common sense that those businesses are fully insured. The corporate owner will be paid in full through
an insurance claim for that particular destroyed store and will probably choose
not to re-open in that area, utilizing his capital to a better area of town. What many American people do not realize is that
when a lower economic community is riddled with drugs, violence and crime….these
negative elements assist in capital flight (meaning a draining of remaining
capital in that particular lower economic community). Businesses close down and do not re-open,
which results in job loss and less taxation to be reinvested into the community,
streets, schools), and no intelligent business owner is going to open a new
business and create jobs in a high crime area outside of liquor shops or pawn
shops, and even those businesses that were possibly foreign owned have American
insurance policies in case of destruction.
What else was senselessly destroyed in Baltimore? A laundry mat was destroyed, which was
probably pretty important in a lower economic community for those without a
washing machine. A senior center for old
people was burned and destroyed (man, rioters, way to stick it to the man on
that one!). Apartment buildings were destroyed
(in which the people who lived there now have no place to live any longer, but
the building owners have insurance). Lastly,
there is the subject of looting and stealing from those destroyed stores and
this lack of discipline is what separates the individualistic United States
from states like Egypt, whose people united peacefully to remove a dictator
from power during the original Arab Spring.
It seems that in America, no true cause can be undertaken by the people
before a good majority of people begin looting and grappling for individual
gain (like the animalistic images from the annual Black Friday at Wal-Mart). What has been occurring in Baltimore is simply
destruction and the sad part about it is that it is incited and carried out by
those that have no true understanding of the destruction, no desire to improve
society during times of calm, and no historical knowledge of Frederick
Douglass, Benjamin Banneker , George Washington Carver, WEB DeBois, the
evolution of Malcolm X after Mecca, the speeches of King, Harriet Jacobs, the various
economic and political levels of American slavery and American segregation and
the ramifications of those periods, or any of the other great peoples that
changed history for the better by rising up and reforming the system with the
goal of bettering society in a positive manner.
There are those that have recently made statements such as “people power”,
but mass violence (the hurting of others) and the mass destruction of
communities is not power. Knowledge of
self and knowledge of one’s surrounding systems will open avenues of power and positive
reform within the system. Self-education
is true power and creates more value in self-determination than any materials that
can be purchased from capital, or destroyed.
[1] Katherine Faulders.
2015. Timeline of How Freddie
Gray's Arrest Unfolded in Baltimore a Week Before His Death. ABC News, April 21, 2015. http://abcnews.go.com/US/timeline-freddie-grays-arrest-unfolded-baltimore-week-death/story?id=30479617
No comments:
Post a Comment