Category: White Supremacy

Meet the New Boss … Same As the Old Boss

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
November 10, 2020

Despite

  • more than a quarter million mostly preventable deaths from COVID-19
  • thousands of children imprisoned in concentration camps
  • at least 660 children who may never again see their parents
  • hundreds of asylum seekers who were sexually assaulted, physically abused, and then deported to hide the evidence
  • hundreds of women whose uteruses were involuntarily/unnecessarily removed and who are now being deported to hide the evidence
  • a $2 trillion increase in U.S. debt
  • 12.6 million unemployed
  • 40 million on the brink of eviction
  • and 12 million who lost access to health care

while

  • a handful of billionaires increased their wealth by $1 trillion
  • the president, his family, and cronies stole millions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury
  • the president violated the U.S. Constitution daily since January 20, 2016
  • he and his staff lied constantly (thousands of times)
  • and the president, his children, son-in-law, and staff committed treason

more than 71 million U.S. citizens voted to keep the current administration in office. And many of them lied about it. Because the only reason 99 percent of them had to vote for him is to support white supremacy.

And yet, despite four years of numerous analysts explaining in myriad articles, Twitter threads, YouTube videos, Facebook posts, etc. that racism is their primary reason for supporting him, there are still people insisting we need to “understand” why people vote for white supremacy and that we must not blame them for doing so.

Mike Stanfill, who creates Raging Pencils, went so far as to claim voter fraud in favor of the president because “in no rational universe could that walking bolus of bile and malice garner 71 million votes, 8 million more than in 2016, without significant covert aid.”

The only reason for anyone to not understand why and to not blame the people who subjected BIPOC, LGBA, transgender and two-spirit folx, immigrants, non-christians, people with disabilities, and others to four years of abject terror is to assuage their own, covert racism and/or white supremacy.

Black voters, Indigenous Americans, and many other people of color fought attempts to disenfranchise them; risked their lives; lost wages they couldn’t spare; traveled for hundreds of miles; stood for hours in the rain, the heat, the snow; registered thousands of new people to vote, and drove those who had no other way of getting there to the polls. All so they could hold their noses, after eschewing more progressive and representative choices in the primary, and vote for the slightly less evil, racist white man who has only marginally better impulse control. Because, they knew they couldn’t count on white voters to make the right decision last week.

“White pundits and talking heads still cannot say White folks voted for racism,” Marley K. said on Sunday. “When you can’t get White people to acknowledge there was no reason on earth to vote for Trump except racism, there’s no way in hell you can address the problem.”

Anyone who is still shaking their head, “reaching out” to racists, trying to understand why people vote for a narcissistic con man, is complicit in white supremacy, whether or not they’re an active participant.

More than 71 million U.S. citizens voted for a treasonous criminal because he allows them to brazenly display their hatred for people who are not straight, cis, white, xtianist, third generation; to be proud of their homomisia, transmisia, Islammisia, xenomisia, misogyny, and racism; to deny anyone they see as other civil rights, access to medical care, housing, food, bodily autonomy if they’re not cis males; and “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

That complicity includes the entire Democratic party that

  • actively worked to prevent any progressive candidate from topping the ticket
  • sabotaged progressive candidates for vulnerable Congressional seats only to have the moderates they supported for those seats lose to the Republican incumbents
  • within moments of network news declaring a winner began haranguing against any attempts to move the party toward the left.

If “we are going to run on Medicare for All, defund the police, socialized medicine, we’re not going to win,” House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) proclaimed despite

  • at least half a dozen Democratic centrists losing their seats in the House
  • every single swing seat member who co-sponsored Medicare for All winning re-election
  • only one of the 93 House co-sponsors of the Green New Deal who ran for re-election losing

Because white people in the U.S. will forfeit healthcare, retirement, affordable education, childcare, breathable air, drinkable water, etc. rather than allow BIPOC the same benefits. The people who were comfortable with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal because Black people were deliberately excluded, their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren consistently vote to impoverish themselves rather than improve the living standards of a single BIPOC.

“White Americans are the rich world’s most hostile, ignorant, violent, cruel, and selfish social group — by a very long way,” Umair Hague explains.  “White Americans want America to be a failed state — and that is its fundamental, deep, and long standing problem.”

So, while liberals wring their hands and shake their heads, while they try to understand, while they believe the “long nightmare” (four years isn’t long when your people have been oppressed for four centuries or four millennia) is over because the oligarch was elected instead of the autocrat, the reality is that for anyone who isn’t white, straight, cis, neurotypical, and abled; for all the people who stood in line for hours and hours; for those already at work in Georgia on the runoff elections, the nightmare continues, as it has for centuries.

If* the president-elect takes office, he plans to “work with all my heart with the confidence of the whole people, to win the confidence of all of you,” making it clear that he learned nothing from the previous administration in which he served as vice president about what happens when you put bi-partisanship over getting things done.

He refuses to back programs that eliminate insurance companies as arbitrators over who gets access to health care; has given only lukewarm support to the Green New Deal, which although it might have been meaningful a few years ago, now is in itself inadequate; will do nothing to stop police from murdering BIPOC; and has made it clear he has no intention of mitigating a Supreme Court poised to reverse Roe v. Wade and Obergefell v. Hodges. The latter is despite

  • the fact that the vast majority of the people who live in this country approve of both women’s bodily autonomy and marriage equality
  • there’s no restriction in the U.S. Constitution on the number of SCOTUS judges
  • five of the nine justices were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote and confirmed by a senate representing fewer than half the people in the U.S.

The protests will continue despite whoever is in the White House, because the occupant doesn’t really matter to those who are poor, houseless, hungry, BIPOC, LGBTQ2S, immigrant, non-christian, different abled, neurodivergent, etc. (and it’s no coincidence that many of those categories overlap).

The problems in this country that feed white supremacy — racism, patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, misogyny, homomisia, transmisia, Islammisia, xenomisia — are systemic. They are literally built into the foundation (and founding documents) of the U.S. and all attempts to remove them, from the very beginning, have failed.

I am not alone in the belief that 400 years of white supremacy, genocide, colonialism, never-ending wars, planetary destruction, unfettered exploitative capitalism, patriarchy, and enslavement/murder of BIPOC is enough.

The coup* started June 1 when the president ordered the U.S. military to attack civilians exercising their First Amendment rights. Defense Secretary Mark Esper had no problem with that, although he apparently drew a line in the shifting sands wide enough to get himself fired Monday, paving the way for someone with even fewer scruples. Also on Monday, Richard Pilger, the director of the Department of Justice’s elections crime branch, stepped aside after Attorney General William Barr — who has actively been trying to suppress dissent for the past six months by arresting protesters on trumped up (pun intended) federal charges — released a memo making it clear he intends to have the DOJ interfere in the election results. The second U.S. Civil War is already in progress.

Older Black voters who consistently pull the U.S. back from the brink of self-destruction are tired and dying. And the younger ones, who are in the streets now, see no reason to continue the colonialist wars of aggression, extraordinary resource theft, and oppressive racist systems that the rest of the world learns from (e.g. German Nazis).

The reality is that this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a United States. It’s a bunch of very different states with very different values, and with many value differences within individual states. The GOP, unsatisfied just controlling a bunch of states where not many people live, has been working for decades to force the rest of us to fall into line with its colonialist, patriarchal vision of America circa 1784.

None of this started with the current White House occupant and it won’t end if/when he’s removed from power. The slaughter/incarceration of BIPOC didn’t pause under the previous administration. Children were still separated from their parents at the border. The concentration camps that this administration stuffed full were built before this president took office. The Shelby County v. Holder decision gutting the Voting Rights Act is named after the previous administration’s attorney general for a reason … it was handed down in 2013.

The Affordable Care Act didn’t get health care to BIPOC because it was written to appease insurance companies and then eviscerated by various states. So BIPOC are dying in far greater numbers from COVID because they don’t have access to medical care and because even if they have insurance they’re turned away from hospitals and their symptoms ignored. (Did no one else notice the not-so-subtle shift in the administration’s attitude toward the virus when the numbers came out that more BIPOC were dying than white folks?)

People in the U.S. are houseless. They are starving. The police are beating and murdering them. They are dying for lack of medical care. In much of the world people are drowning because of climate change the U.S. and its fossil fuels companies caused. And the president-elect will not do one damn thing to change any of that.

The biggest difference if he is able to boot the current occupant from the White House? Liberals will blithely brush off their hands as if they had accomplished something when all they did was put some crazy glue on the massive crack opening in the dam.

Standing Still While Moving Left

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
October 29, 2020

I grew up in the U.S. “south” and experienced explicit racism firsthand, both as an observer of how Black and other people of color were treated, and as a victim for not being white enough and not practicing christianity. I have spent most of my adult life in the U.S. “north” where the racism was always implicit, but no less systemic.

I always speak out against bigotry and intolerance in all its many forms: racism, misogyny, homomisia, transmisia, xenomisia, etc.; step up when and where I can to defend victims; use my words in an effort to explain harm and persuade change.

But, during my lifetime I have watched the animus and bitterness of the reaction to small gains in civil rights for Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; freedoms for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and other Queers; acceptance for people who are transgender; and independence for women grow rapidly in the United States, far out of proportion to the relatively minor advances that were made. The acrimony comes couched in pious but authoritarian terms: “law and order,” “America first,” “religious freedom,” “pro-life,” “border protection,” “individual liberty,” etc.

Hands of a white-passing person in focus in the foreground holding a Black Lives Matter sign with a Black person, out of focus, on a bullhorn speaking to a crowdWhen the Civil Rights movement made open racism more unpopular and awareness curtailed racist speech, the evangelical crusade — started before the U.S. Civil War to fight the growing movement to abolish slavery — shifted gears. Inspired by women’s access to hormonal birth control and the U.S. Supreme Court Roe v Wade decision, which combined gave women in the U.S. unprecedented control over their own bodies, evangelicals transferred their focus from keeping “coloreds” out of their schools, jobs, unions, and neighborhoods to “saving” the lives of “unborn children”. This campaign flourished despite biblical declarations that life begins at first breath, specification that a fetus has a lower value than a person, inclusion of an abortifacient formula (for unfaithful wives), and the fact that no statement against pregnancy termination was even once attributed to Jesus in the text.

Meanwhile, U.S. legislation and practices that prevented non-whites from owning homes, obtaining a quality education, earning equivalent income and benefits, and securing access to political influence, continued. The 1994 crime bill (sponsored by then U.S. Senator Joe Biden and signed by then U.S. President Bill Clinton), combined with the zero tolerance policies enabled in the Gun-Free Schools Act signed the same year, exacerbated the impact of the school-to-prison pipeline sending people of color, especially young Black men, into the for-profit carceral system built and codified after the Civil War to replace slave labor.

Still, white, especially male, resentment simmered, albeit below the surface in “polite” circles. It emerged as the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish, anti-LGBQ, anti-Trans, anti-reproductive health care biases spread by right-wing organizations across the globe. Attempts to address harm done to BIPOC, LGBTQ, women, and non-christian populations through affirmative action met with fierce backlash and ludicrous accusations of reverse discrimination.

Straight, white, cis, male entitlements — the pillars of systemic racism and patriarchy — allow mediocre heteronormative people with lighter skin tones to continue reaping the rewards of advantages bestowed those who fit within privileged classes. And that, more than anything else, is what the melanin challenged refuse to give up, whether they are willing to admit it or not.

While they may claim to abhor racism; express regret and anger about the deaths of BIPOC routinely slaughtered by police, especially but not exclusively in the U.S.; berate and ridicule those who call the cops to report folks who are just trying to work, deliver packages, drive, park, picnic, swim, play, bird watch, or even just exist while Black; there is a limit to how much they are willing to personally sacrifice for the necessary changes to end systemic racism and patriarchy.

Once upon a time, I labeled myself a Democrat. But, as the Democrats moved to the center-right to fill up the void left by Republicans’ radical shift to the authoritarian right, I renamed myself a liberal, even though my views did not seem to have changed all that much. But then, more and more, I encountered only neo-liberals and hypocrites branding themselves with the “liberal” label. So, I switched my identification to progressive.

But now, five months into world-wide protests against police brutality that have been met with even more egregious police savagery, while media constantly equate protester vandalism with police violence, so-called officers of the law continue to kill Black and other people of color, district attorneys continue refusing to charge police with any of the crimes they commit, and elected officials across the United States and in other countries continue ignoring the public outcries demanding they strip funding from police departments.

And yet, I still hear “liberals” and even “progressives” enthusiastically embrace a tough-on-crime ticket for U.S. president and vice president, rallying behind the man who helped create the school-to-prison pipeline that has swallowed so many Black lives and communities, voicing their ardent support for the pro-cop/pro-prison woman who locked up and terrorized BIPOC and trans Californians because she has dark skin. That back-the-blue endorsement spits in the face of the millions in the U.S. who took to the streets, at the risk of arrest, injury, and even death, to demand abolition of the carceral system.

As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his August 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, where he was imprisoned after he defied a state court’s injunction and led a march of Black protesters without a permit, in response to a statement, published in The Birmingham News, written by eight moderate white clergymen criticizing the march and other demonstrations:

“I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.'”

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “white moderate” is today’s liberal and progressive. And, personally, I just cannot identify with those who find it acceptable to support two people who have done so much harm to communities of color and LBGTQ people. Bigotry and white supremacy behind a polite, civil, congenial facade is still bigotry and white supremacy.

So, now, I apparently am a radical abolitionist. I already had come to accept the utter impossibility of reforming a police force of racist white supremacist bullies who do not believe the law applies to them, whose organizations began as slave patrols and whose progenitors were protectors of property that belonged to well-to-do white men and union busting thugs. But even though I have always been well left of center, “radical” seemed too far, especially as a senior citizen.

Is believing that all people — whatever their skin color, sexuality, gender, faith, ethnicity, nationality, financial status, age, mental acuity, ability, etc. — are entitled to the same protections under the law, the same civil rights, the same access to basic needs such housing, food, and medical care, really that radical?

In an epiphany-inspiring article she wrote about how whiteness dilutes voices of color at public radio stations for The American Prospect, Laura Garbes, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, wrote:”Public radio and the broader academic world are liberal or progressive in their thinking, but are not radical. They are not about to jeopardize their own comfortable situations by fostering fundamental change” (boldface emphasis is mine).

And therein lies the crux of the difference between liberals/progressives and radicals. It is fine to talk about equality and police reform, but liberals and progressives are not willing to do the necessary heavy lifting of completely rebuilding a system that was designed to create “equality” only for straight, white, cis, property-owning men, a Republic that built slave patrols into its Bill of “Rights” (what that “well-regulated Militia” in the Second Amendment refers to).

Many liberals and progressives are not even willing to confront their fanatically white supremacist, homomisiat, transmisiat, and/or xenomisiat friends and relatives because that might mean giving up the pleasures of a weekend brunch or the comfort of a holiday dinner. They are certainly not inclined to support zoning changes that would provide more houseless people places to live if that would also allow apartment complexes in the neighborhoods of their single-family homes; services for the mentally ill in the same building as their fancy, high-rise apartments; or tent camping in their church parking lot. They won’t support defunding the police because then who would they call if someone stole a lawn ornament or took shelter in their doorway or painted anti-fascist graffiti across the street?

Fundamental change requires extensive sacrifices. And most people who identify as progressives and liberals are only willing to make small efforts toward the illusion they are working to offset the injustices that fuel their privilege: making commensurately small donations to crowd-funding campaigns, food banks and/or social justice organizations; recycling paper and cans; giving up plastic straws; signing meaningless petitions; adding a Black Lives Matter border to their social media profile picture; and maybe even writing a letter to the editor or showing up for a night of protest or two. However, they are not ready to sacrifice any of their own comforts, even to save someone’s life (unless it is someone they know personally, but sometimes not even then). They are not willing to recognize that the planet cannot sustain a capitalist lifestyle, that the privilege that allows them to own a home or condominium and one or more personal vehicles (even electric ones) is killing BIPOC around the world.

The liberals and progressives reveal themselves when they fervently urge you to vote blue, as if that would result in any substantial changes, and explain how they firmly believe that peaceful protests are perfectly acceptable and should be permitted, but they draw the line at looting, graffiti, setting fires, pulling down statues of colonizers, and other acts of vandalism. That translates to the colonialist concept that “white people’s property has more value than Black lives”. The excruciatingly brutal police response: bloody beatings with night sticks and arrests for “disorderly conduct” and “interfering with a peace officer” echo across centuries of violent oppression.

Although liberals and the progressives, especially in the U.S., know, and quickly recite or post, every MLK quote about non-violence, they conveniently forget that he was assassinated because agencies of the United States government considered him a dangerous radical. And they never quote from his April 14, 1967 speech, “The Other America”, given at Stanford University one of the many times he referred to rioting:

“I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. … But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities, as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. So in a real sense, our nation’s summer’s riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”

Oregon LEO Favor Racism Over Reform, Again

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
September 29, 2020

A few Proud Boys came to Portland, Oregon, on Saturday, threatening anyone who got in their way. Believing their blustering boasts that thousands would participate in their rally, Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed a state of emergency Executive Order on Friday.

She handed control over “law enforcement coordination” to the Oregon State Police (OSP) and Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO). This was done deliberately to bypass court orders and feeble attempts by elected officials’ to restrain Portland Police. Putting the city cops under OSP and MCSO command, removed the (often-ignored) prohibitions against attacking and arresting the reporters and legal observers who document their violent nightly assaults on protesters.

As part of this, the U.S. Marshals Service deputized 56 Portland Police Bureau (PPB) officers and 22 Multnomah County Sheriff’s Deputies as federal marshals early Saturday morning. This was in addition to approximately 50 Oregon State Police troopers who were deputized in July for one year as part of Brown’s deal with the Trump administration to return the responsibility for beating, gassing, and arresting Black Lives Matter protesters to OSP, MCSO, and PPB, relieving U.S. Marshals, Federal Protective Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations, etc.

Racism Over ReformAnointing local officers as federal officials allows federal prosecutors to charge protesters with federal crimes. Most importantly for local cops, federal marshal status allows the U.S. Attorney’s Office to bypass progressive Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt. Elected by more than 75% of voters, Schmidt has a mandate to change the criminal justice system. The resounding defeat of the handpicked successor of previous law-and-order District Attorney Rod Underhill led him to resign five months early in a fit of pique. And Schmidt’s refusal to prosecute protesters for crimes that do not involve violence or property destruction has angered local police.

Also, anyone accused of assaulting a peace officer, a charge frequently made without justification, would now face severely harsher penalties for “assault on a federal officer”. Protesters filmed attempting to cover their faces or protect their heads with their hands are routinely charged with “assaulting” an officer. On Monday, PPB claimed that most of the officers working Saturday night/Sunday morning were on light duty due to “injuries”. As a public defender noted Sunday, “Nearly every time someone I represented was charged w/ assaulting a police officer, the wounds were self-inflicted. Bruised hands. Pulled shoulders. Twisted ankles. When you rush, push, punch, kick, & attack protestors w/ hundreds of other cops, you’re likely going to get hurt.”

Since July, federal charges have already been filed against a number of protesters including four announced on Monday. Despite the executive order expiring early Monday morning, the deputization will remain in effect through the end of the year — until after the election and whatever turmoil follows.

On Saturday, fewer than 200 white supremacists turned out at Delta Park in north Portland. They were armed with AR-15s and other long guns, pistols, paintball guns, bear mace, and shields. They were captured on camera (photographs and video) breaking various laws and ordinances, often in full view of police, including:

  • Smoking in a city park (“No person shall smoke or use tobacco in any form in any place in any Park. For purposes of this policy, smoking and tobacco are defined to include, but are not limited to: bidis, cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars, clove cigarettes, e-cigarettes, nicotine vaporizers, nicotine liquids, hookahs, kreteks, pipes, chew, snuff, smokeless tobacco, and marijuana.”)
  • Drinking alcohol in a city park (“Alcohol is not allowed on park property unless you have applied for and received a permit”. It should be noted that the Proud Boys applied for, and were denied, a permit partially because they significantly overestimated the anticipated number of participants.)
  • Violating the Weapons and Explosives section of Portland’s city code prohibiting the carrying of loaded firearms without a concealed handgun licensed. (“Oregon is one of the few states that does not recognize any other state‘s” concealed carry license. Many of the Proud Boys were from out of state and unlikely to have applied for or received an Oregon license. Police asked about this violation wouldn’t answer questions as to whether police had checked if any of the armed Proud Boys were licensed to carry.)
  • Operating an armed checkpoint preventing people from entering a public park
  • Assaulting at least three journalists including one who is Black and another who is Syrian, injuring at least one, and damaging their equipment; none of those involved in the assaults were arrested (Portland Police claim to be investigating the incident in which the Black journalist was kicked in the head, but took no action at the time. After the incident, Oregon State Police were seen talking and joking with the person who committed assault. The mugger has since been identified by anti-fascists as Samson Steele of Tangent, Oregon, an employee of Pacific Northwest Environmental, LLC in Damascus. No known attempt to arrest Samson has been made.)

No efforts were made to stop or arrest any of the Proud Boys, who were seen “chatting it up with cops”. However, police did prevent anti-fascists from unloading shields, and arrested someone who was helping them, at a Black Lives Matter counter protest.

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 anti-fascists gathered at multiple locations throughout the city for several peaceful counter protests that included speeches, music, mutual aid, food distribution, information sharing, and the 100th protest appearance of the no drama llama.

After only ninety minutes, the Proud Boys left Portland. As night fell, Black Lives Matter activists gathered downtown to continue the ongoing protests against #PoliceBrutality and police murders of numerous Black men and women. While they listened to speeches, Portland Police, still under command of OSP and MCSO, attacked them with a vicious fury that demonstrated raging hatred, suppressed by court orders and city attempts to rein them in.

[Content Warning: many of the following links are to videos that show graphic violence by police.]

After sitting around all day ignoring Proud Boys’ illegal activity, police had lots of energy to chase protesters. Police, who removed even the inscrutable numbers previously providing an almost-useless way to identify them, wore black uniforms with only the words “police” printed on their backs making it impossible to determine which agency they worked for. They:

More than 30 people were arrested, most for nebulous “crimes” which could all be interpreted as attempts to suppress freedom of speech such as disorderly conduct, interfering with a peace officer, resisting arrest, and harassment. Mug shots show many of those arrested with facial injuries, including multiple contusions, swollen lips and eyes, abrasions, and cuts. A number of people required medical attention.

John Rudoff, the 73-year-old photographer police threw to the ground, posted: “…the cops need to understand that an action like this — shoving a guy down on the cement with no warning — can fracture a hip or an arm or a skull, and can be a life-ending or career/mobility-ending move.” I responded on Twitter, “They do understand. They don’t care. They see injury/death as a way to get people off the streets.”

Before Saturday’s events, the governor stated: “Let me be very clear. Those who commit serious, violent acts will be charged, prosecuted and held accountable.” But her only response to the documented, horrific violence committed by Portland Police, Multnomah County Sherriff’s Deputies, and the Oregon State Police on Saturday night was to ask “Superintendent Hampton, Sheriff Reese, and Chief Lovell to review any alleged incidents involving officers from each of their agencies during joint operations last night.” In response, hundreds of Oregonians demanded an independent investigation via Twitter and telephone.

Multiple media outlets, which had filed voluminous reports about the clash that didn’t happen Saturday afternoon, mostly ignored the outrageous violence Saturday night as they have the previous four months of police brutality. At least one outlet regurgitated the standard police lies that projectiles were thrown at officers even though the only “weapons” confiscated from all the protesters arrested were the aforementioned “can of bear spray and a baton”.

Despite numerous reports of police attacking multiple members of the press, to say nothing about the abuse heaped on multitudinous protesters, the Independent Police Review of the Portland City Auditor’s Office which is responsible for “independent, civilian oversight of the Portland Police Bureau”, posted only that “the IPR is aware of video footage circulating on social media that shows an officer grabbing a press photographer and throwing him to the ground during a protest on the night of September 26, 2020. IPR has opened an investigation into this incident“. As one reporter asked, “If a person is grabbed by an officer and thrown to the ground and it’s not caught on camera/doesn’t involve a well-known person, does it get an investigation?”

The “Unified Command” responded to use of force concerns by stating: “Individuals who felt an officer’s action was unjust or excessive, should file a complaint with the officer’s department or review board. Each officer is responsible for following their agency’s use of force policy.” As previously noted, police made sure it was impossible to determine which agency they worked for.

On Monday evening, police continued to drive home the message that there are two sets of laws in Portland: one for white supremacists who support police and the racist in chief, and completely different standards for Black Lives Matter activists and anti-fascists. Despite ignoring much more egregious crimes listed above that Proud Boys committed Saturday, on Monday night/Tuesday morning, police:

  • Violated protesters’ Fourth Amendment rights by searching them and their belongings and seizing  their property
  • Viciously shoved a woman, who may or may not have been involved in the protests (she wasn’t dressed for it) to the ground, and when she regained her feet pushed her, dazed, to the sidewalk
  • Violently arrested multiple people for:

Police were also captured on video collecting rocks to use to support their daily fabricated tales about protesters throwing “projectiles” at them. Today, Portland Police even claimed that “at least 5 officers were sprayed by a chemical irritant“, attempting to imply that protesters had done so, even though multiple reporters had captured them carelessly spraying each other in attempts to injure more protesters.

When asked how to end the protests, one police officer specifically told a homeowner, that the only way they would stop abusing protesters would be “if people liked our trump government a lot more“.

Federal Troops “Removed” from Portland

F.I. Goldhaber2 Comments

I sent my monthly newsletter out this morning (you get kitty pics if you subscribe) and several recipients responded with questions along the lines of: were the Federal troops removed from Portland? Das Fuhrer (okay, that’s my moniker for him) is threatening to send them to my city and make things here much worse.

The answer is yes, no, and it doesn’t really matter.

Yes: the governor and the mayor made a big show of “negotiating” (Why would you “negotiate” with a dictator illegally using an armed force created under a piece of probably, but never-tested, unconstitutional legislation as his own, personal police?) to get the Feds “out” of Portland.

No: Although they haven’t come out and attacked protesters recently, we know at least 120 Feds are still stationed in the Portland area (although we don’t know precisely where) and they’re still kidnaping people off the streets in unmarked rental vehicle (boycott Enterprise).

It doesn’t really matter: Why? Because for five weeks before the Feds got here and ever since they “left”, the Portland Police have beaten, gassed, shot “less-than-lethal” bullets at protesters, and violently “arrested” them.

The only real differences is a) the Portland Police are required to “declare a riot” before they start shooting (something they never did before the temporary restraining order, something they do without any justification every since). Sometimes they remember to do so beforehand. Sometimes, like last night, they do it mid volley.

And b) the Feds seemed to have more tear gas to use, so they filled city streets, the parks, and nearby buildings with what was an horrific amount compared to what the cops use.

It should be noted, we do not know the long-term impact of being attacked with tear gas every night, although we do know that female-bodied persons have had their menstrual cycles screwed up.

Also, both the Feds and the cops are using expired munitions — protesters and reporters have found canisters with expiration dates that passed as long ago as 20 years ago — and we don’t know what the impact of those are, although we do know that expired CS gas produces cyanide gas, among other things.

We also do not know what the long-term environmental impact of prolonged tear gas exposure for trees, other plants, and the river will be.

But, every single thing the national media reported, and local elected officials berated, the Feds for doing, the local cops had been doing for weeks before the Feds got here and are still doing nightly, now. Haven’t heard a peep out of the elected officials (including the mayor, to whom the cops report, who made a big deal about showing up when the Feds were here and hasn’t been seen since). National media (and many of the white protesters) went home.

But the protests against police violence are still met with police brutality. (Again, it should be noted that on those few nights the police stay inside there is no violence. There is no riot, because the only rioting that’s been done in Portland has been police and Feds violently attacking protesters who are practicing their First Amendment right “to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

But the reason the protesters took to the streets (some Black, Indigenous, and Latiné protesters as early as 72 days ago), the reasons there are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of them in the streets every night, haven’t changed. Police routinely lie, violate the law, and ignore court-ordered restrictions, their own policies, and the demands of elected officials to whom they allegedly report. I saw at least three restraining orders, specific orders from an elected official, and several state laws broken by police just last night. (And, that was only one night’s observation, this happens every time the police venture out into the street.)

Cops break the law and any attempts to restrict or reform them with impunity because they have “qualified immunity” and will never face any consequences and because their “union” aka, in this case, the Portland Police Association (a private organization the headquarters of which the police attacked protesters to “protect” last night), will get them their jobs and pay back. They can’t even be bothered to obey orders to wear masks and we know there are infected employees of the Portland Police and Multnomah County carceral system (we just don’t know how many). If you watch the protests you’ll see most of the protesters wearing face coverings. Almost none of the cops do (their riot face shields do not protect against virus transmission).

And, if you think this isn’t already happening in your city, you’re either consuming the wrong media or aren’t blessed with the brave, independent journalists who risk injury, death, and arrest every night to report the truth about what’s happening in the streets of Portland. Because every report you read from Portland that was not written by one of those local journalists, was at best inaccurate and at worst outright copaganda.

The media in this country are owned (yes, even your “local” newspaper and television stations, look it up) by megacorps who benefit from GOP tax cuts and who are part of the cabal behind the Astroturf movement to “reopen” the U.S. They slant stories to meet their own agendas. And they won’t pay for journalists to do actual reporting so they regurgitate the lies that fill self-serving police press releases.

Many of our local journalists are working for tips (portlandpresscorps.com points you to where they can be tipped, but also to their Twitter handles so you can see some of the reports/video they’re producing). Reports that originated from other so-called “local” media (the local television stations and the Oregonian, specifically) are suspect.

Although Portland features prominently, you can probably find at least one example of police brutality where you live on this Twitter thread.

The first weekend of nationwide protests against the police who murdered George Floyd, T. Greg Doucette, a #NeverTrump 2A conservative who is also an attorney, posted 10 links to police violence videos of the most brutal incidents captured during the first 36 hours. But people kept sending them to him. So he kept posting them. And numbering them. Currently, there are more than 800 separate (he groups video from the same incident under the same number) reports of police brutality posted from just the United States, just the people who know to send the videos to him, just the most violent and egregious occurrences.

And, if you’re foolish enough to come on my blog and make noises about protester violence, you and your comments will be blocked for disseminating false information. Vandalism, including graffiti and pulling down monuments to white supremacy, is not violence. Throwing a water bottle in the general direction of police, is not violence (although the video of the Fed pretending to be injured by one that didn’t hit him is hilarious).

“We came out here dressed in T-shirts and twirling Hula-Hoops and stuff, and they started gassing us, so we came back with respirators, and they started shooting us, so we came back with vests, and they started aiming for the
head, so we started wearing helmets, and now they call us terrorists. Who’s escalating this? It’s not us.” — Mac Smiff, Portland, Oregon

Shooting people in the head, beating them with batons, hitting them with tear gas canisters fired at close range, is violence. Throwing them to the ground and kneeling on their neck is violence (and yes, at the protests against police brutality inspired by a man strangled to death by a cop kneeling on his neck, cops are horrifically brutal and have knelt on peoples’ necks). Pulling people’s masks and goggles off to spray mace in their face is violence. Throwing people in jail overnight in the middle of a pandemic when correction officers refuse to obey the governor’s orders regarding sanitation, knowing the bogus charges are going to be tossed, is violence. Lasers do not “blind” people. “Less-than-lethal” bullets fired directly at peoples’ heads blind people and have cost more than one reporter an eye.

Cops lie. They’re trained to lie. They are legally allowed to lie under some circumstances. And they do so by default. On Monday night, the cops claimed someone threw a “glass bottle” and used it as an excuse to violently attack protesters. But half a dozen independent journalists were streaming. At least three of those journalists, knowing that the “bottle” would be used as an excuse, made a point of asking everyone if anyone had seen anything thrown at the cops before the cops attacked. The only thing that had been thrown at the cops was an inflated pink pig and the only thing that hit was their egos.

Again, this is just one specific example of the constant lies being told by police. Every night, I watch the video. And in the morning, I see the police chief and his minions (and the mayor) lie about what happened. Every .Single. Night

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell 1984

Rotten Apples

F.I. Goldhaber4 Comments

People still keep saying a “few bad apples”, forgetting it figuratively and literally only takes one bad apple to spoil an entire barrel.

There are no “good” cops. Because if there were, they would report and testify against the “few” bad cops. They don’t. They work to make sure those “few bad apples” are protected from prosecution. On the rare occasion they are punished, that information is deliberately hidden from the public, any settlements with their victims are paid by taxpayers not the offenders, and because the information is hidden those “bad apples” get a job in another jurisdiction.

Policing is historically a white supremacist institution. It evolved from slave patrols and the Pinkerton security guards hired to protect rich people’s property and beat immigrant workers into submission. Much of our criminal code was written specifically to put Black and other people of color in prison where they could be used as slave labor.

The “War On Drugs”, for just one example, was specifically invented to imprison Black people and Hippies. But, white folks with money (and/or medical insurance) can always get drugs and rarely, if ever, get arrested for using them.

In reality, the entire carceral system, the for-profit prison pipeline, the criminal code, etc. need to be abolished for Black Lives to Matter in this country. Police reform has been tried. Reform does not work. The only way to address the white supremacy on which this country was founded is to abolish the carceral state and start over.

Our local paper prints the police logs. Lately, I’ve been reading them and checking off all the ways the calls could be handled better if anyone other than armed police had answered them: mental health professionals, mediators, social workers, traffic safety patrol, etc.

Even larger crimes, are not stopped or solved by the police for the most part. They show up after the fact and file a report. The evidence is gathered by evidence technicians and forensic specialists. The cops don’t “investigate” anything. They constantly post notices that are “asking for the public’s help in identifying the suspect from …” or “looking for information about …”

I’ve watched livestreams of the protests in Portland for the last six weeks. Every single time, the protesters (kids, most of them) are at worst mischievous (moving fences around, painting court and police buildings with graffiti, throwing dildos, pig food, and water bottles at cops). But most of the time, they’re listening to speeches, chanting, eating, and dancing.

Then the cops come out and attack them, shooting “less than lethal” weapons directly at them (including at their heads); pulling their masks down and spraying pepper in their eyes and mouths; beating them with batons and their fists; throwing them onto concrete curbs with enough force to break bones including spines and skulls.

The cops fill the streets with tear gas (a weapon banned for use against civilians in other countries) which makes people cough (during a pandemic), cry, vomit, etc. Tear gas can result in long-term major health problems, but the cops are filling the homes, offices, and cars of nearby residents and employees with that gas, and spraying it into cars that just happen to be driving by.

It also should be noted that most of the protesters wear their masks most of the time (and there are no indications the protests are causing community spread) while many of the cops refuse to wear masks.

The cops attack people who are obeying the orders they just gave. The cops have been photographed slashing the tires of those who are just there to feed others, throwing away food that was being donated to feed the hungry and homeless (who are also suffering from being tear gassed while they sleep), and stealing the supplies that volunteers were using to keep people safe including hand sanitizer and masks.

Every night the cops ignore court orders, police bureau policies and procedures, and the law itself including violating rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. They operate as if they were the Gestapo, specifically attacking reporters and legal observers, knocking cameras out of people’s hands or spraying paint on them to avoid being photographed and filmed. They cover their badge numbers and refuse to wear name tags so they can’t be identified. They have arrested people just for calling out their names (because they recognized them from previous encounters). They will fight (and have always fought) against reform. They must be eliminated or no one who is Black, Indigenous, Latiné, Asian, Muslim, female, or LGBTQ+ will ever be safe.

You Can Do More

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

Words have power. Images supposedly are worth a thousand words. So think about the difference between putting a “Black Lives Matter” circle border around your photo versus replacing your photo with an image that just says “Black Lives Matter”.

Those who choose the first example, are still centering themselves in the conversation, an endless problem for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) tired of explaining white supremacy, educating those who haven’t been paying attentionBlack Lives Matter about systemic racism, and consoling fragile white egos.

Performative “support” is almost worse than no support at all. It makes the person performing believe they’re doing something and allows them to believe they aren’t required to do any more.

But, there’s so much more we can/should do, so much more that needs to be done. Plenty of others on social media have listed some of the options, I’m not going to be repetitive. (Because quite frankly, if you don’t know what you can/should be doing you again haven’t been paying attention.)

The purpose of this post is to get people to think about performative support versus committing to action. The difference between signing a petition (which only gives your data to the petition site and is routinely ignored by recipients) versus tracking down names and addresses of politicians, sending them letters/emails, and making phone calls.

Chances are if it’s easy and makes you feel good, it’s performative and you can do more.