Summary: Political violence is a flare over society illuminating aspects of America about which we could otherwise only guess. This post attempts to describe things obvious but unstated in the flood of words about the riots in Baltimore and relate them to the quiet revolution now in progress. {2nd of 2 posts today.}
What can we learn from the riots in Baltimore? The most obvious lesson: they demonstrate our amnesia and inability to learn. We could send America’s journalists and the chattering classes on vacation and just rerun articles from the late 1960’s about their race riots. That would also show our limited progress from that dark time.
These riots are wonderful for the news media (“if it bleeds, it leads”). They’re fodder for America’s thumb-sucking intelligentsia (see examples below). They provide us with some dark humor. For example, the NY Times drolly reported that “… {new attorney general} Lynch’s aides said that improving police morale and finding common ground between law enforcement and minority communities would be among her top priorities” (Salon’s Elias Isquith reasonably replied “As the chaos in Baltimore has shown, it’s far too soon to shift our attention to the grievances of cops.”)
But the problem of weaponized police transcends partisan lines, as shown by the NY Times’ description of how Obama’s “Justice Dept. Routinely Backs Officers’ Use of Force“:
At the Supreme Court, where the limits of police power are established, Mr. Holder’s Justice Department has supported police officers every time an excessive-force case has made its way to arguments. Even as it has opened more than 20 civil rights investigations into local law enforcement practices, the Justice Department has staked out positions that make it harder for people to sue the police and that give officers more discretion about when to fire their guns.
… “There is an inherent conflict between people at the Justice Department trying to stop police abuses and other people at the Justice Department convincing the Supreme Court that police abuses should be excused,” said Ronald L. Kuby, a Manhattan civil rights lawyer.
More pointedly, these riots provide a teachable moment for the Left. William Teach at Right Wing News points out the evidence about the political failure which Baltimore’s flames illuminate. Increasing political participation of minorities was a solution to the 1960s race riots.
In no way should anyone defend the Baltimore PD. The information we’ve seen and the video puts the target for the issue squarely on their backs. … The city has a Black mayor, police chief, police commissioner, and 43% of the police department is Black. Eight of the fourteen city council members are Black.
The magnitude of this failure is documented by the $5.7 million in settlements paid for police brutality by Baltimore since 2011 (despite the odds against winning such litigation). Also speaking against the Democratic Party is the decay of so many formerly great cities in America under their rule (there are other factors at work, but without effective political response).
The key is not the event, but our response to it
It’s needless to predict that both parties will confess nothing and learn nothing from these events. Worse, even the best voices in the tragedy that calls itself America have descended into madness. Except in Disney films, herds of lemmings don’t jump off cliffs. But people do, urged on by cheerleaders like the usually brilliant Ta-Nehisi Coates, here urging self-harm as political theater — a form of dramatic self-expression.
When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is “correct” or “wise,” any more than a forest fire can be “correct” or “wise.”
Wisdom isn’t the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.
Others working this theme are worse, such Benji Hart at Salon: “Baltimore’s violent protesters are right: Smashing police cars is a legitimate political strategy“. His conclusion:
What kinds of actions will it take to make it widely understood that all policing is racist terror, and justice can only come with its permanent abolition? Black power, Queer power, power to Baltimore, and to all oppressed people who know what time it is.
For a good rebuttal see this by Fredrik deBoer (Purdue). Muddle-headed thinking like this has nil political effect on the streets, but shows the confusion of the classes from which political guidance might come — and why the rioters lack leadership, plans, or goals.
The response of police is equally sad. The evidence — especially from videos — shows that many of these incidents are police beat downs or outright executions (e.g., Tamir Rice, Eric Garner). The officers were not at risk. Yet the police I’ve talked with, and those who work with them, give the “officers felt threatened” defense. Along with the equally specious “they need more training” and “felt demoralized by civilian leadership” excuses.
The great constant in America is that nobody assumes responsibility. Not the communities with sky-high crime rates, not the police tasked with the impossible task of maintaining order in them, or the citizens of the great rich nation that has allowed these communities to rot.
Conclusions
These events provide the nucleus for effective political organization, the raw energy to mobilize powerful coalitions. But they tend to occur in inchoate peoples who lack a political vision of a better world (i.e., something more than dreams).
Their effect is to divide us even further. Resentments build in the Black underclass towards the police and society. Fears increase in the White middle class. The police become even more isolated and insular. The 1% smiles.
We are losing. We have been losing for decades. We will continue to lose until our politics change.
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
— Martin Luther King Jr. in Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
(1967).
Update: who started the riots
Mother Jones reports that eyewitnesses say that Monday’s riots in Baltimore started after police actions created a massive crowd of students facing police in full riot gear. Police stopped public transit, preventing students from returning home — creating a crowd in front of police lines. Exactly the opposite of standard tactic of dispersing crowds. It’s as if they wanted riots.
I see no other journalists investigating this story. As usual, the police narrative is the story.
Other posts in this series
- We’re strong and adaptable, but have a problem that might sink America.
- Enough analysis! America is broken. Here are some ways to fix it.
- Can we organize the political reform of America? Our past shows how.
For More Information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about police, about justice in America, and especially these about race riots:
- Tribalism and racism are the 1%’s best friends, as we see in the shooting of Trayvon Martin.
- Fighting America’s dark side. Fighting against those seeking to divide and weaken us.
- Will the Ferguson protest force development of African-American leaders?
- Our elites smile at events in Ferguson, MO. They’ll cry if it pushes Blacks to try 4GW.
- Why America has militarized its police and crushes protests,
- The protesters at Ferguson might have won, but choose to lose.
- Events from Ferguson explain why we are weak.
- Stories about a rising tide of black mob violence!