As we await the Grand Jury’s decision on whether to indict
Officer Darren Wilson for his murder of an unarmed man he apprehended for jaywalking
in Ferguson, MO, we are assaulted daily by the lies, and half-truths, and clear
media distortions I read, and see in the major media “news” about what’s
happening there.
Some of these distortions are rather subtle in focus or
emphasis. For instance, consider the story on CNN, “Gun Sales Spike As Ferguson
area braces for Grand Jury Decision” (http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/10/us/ferguson-michael-brown-shooting/index.html). Even though this article uses the journalistic
tone of seeming objectivity (avoiding opinion, just stating facts and stories
about what’s happening in Ferguson in a detached, impartial way), the story
directs you to look at the events in Ferguson through white eyes. There’s
nothing wrong with that in itself did it not immediately present the black
folks protesting in Ferguson (to say nothing of the deceased Michael Brown, the
victim of police brutality who was the catalyst for these protests) as other, as even not quite fully human.
The article strategically begins by interviewing a white man
who has decided to buy a gun because he’s afraid of what might happen if the cop who shot Michael Brown is not indicted by a
grand jury. The fact that the media chooses to emphasize, or cherry pick, this
perspective without showing the differing perspectives of the protestors, or
others who criticize this man, has the effect of presenting him as a somewhat
rational, and sympathetic, creature, a potential victim: what would you, dear reader, do if you were the
only white in this situation? He can answer somewhat casually:
"So maybe I get trapped
here or something and have to have a John Wayne shootout," (Dan) McMullen
says before interrupting himself, smiling. "That's the silly part about
it: Is that going to happen? Not a chance. But I guess, could it? I'm the only
white person here."
Yet, this article denies voice to, and dehumanizes, the
peaceful demonstrators who come together in a show of solidarity, unity, and
collective strength. It gives little credence to their fears about justice not being done in this case and in
ongoing instances of police brutality that have occurred since the shooting of
Michael Brown (whether in the form of individual killings that have an uncanny
resemblance to the lynchings of a century ago, or in the form of collective
state-sponsored martial law designed to keep Ferguson under the segregated
jurisdiction of the white power structure).[1]
The portrait of the poor, outnumbered, threatened white
insurance salesman looms large. This story portrays the possibility of such
vigilante justice sympathetically: white shop owners, or insurance salesmen,
arm themselves out of fear of getting shot. This helps justify the
“pre-emptive” (in scare quotes) proliferation of the paramilitary police force.
According to Dan McMillan, "People who aren't afraid are stupid
because fear keeps your mind alert and keeps yourself protected." But
such a definition of fear is dangerous, especially when it’s pushed like a
drug. And, like a drug, it tends to make the condition one was suffering from
worse, and escalate the tensions. Certainly the increased presence of armed
policemen represents this same fear, writ large.
CNN is certainly not alone in using fear as a drug that
pushes reason out of the room. TV knows that fear sells. As Mumia Abu-Jamal
recently put it, “American TV is awash in a cold splash of fear. Indeed,
virtually every channel is tuned to Fear TV.” This fear informs and feeds our
politics, as politicians use the fuel of fear to “build more prisons,
write more laws, increase drug sentences, imprison more children (and the U.S.
constitution itself) - all for lies spurred by fear.”
Many have pointed out how the mainstream corporate media has
demonized and dehumanized the young black male to help propagate a culture and
politics of fear. Today, in Ferguson, it is the demonstrators, who most
pointedly take a stand against fear—not just their fear, but also the fear of
their enemies. A large group of demonstrators is overcoming systematic obstacles
to stand united, not succumbing to debilitating fears in the face of tremendous
threats by the corporate-run state and its media propagandists.
Part of the point of these protests—let it never be
forgot—is to show how we don’t have to let our fears of the injustice of those
in power defeat us. Yes, the Ferguson protests, however “uncouth” some of their
language is (if judged by the standards of Martin Luther King 50 years ago),
are ultimately an appeal to reason, to passionate reason. And like Martin Luther
King, many of the protestors have been called “outside agitators” by Ferguson
police chief Thomas Jackson as well as many others in the corporate media. Dr.
King affirmed that “injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere.”
Similarly, today, Nyle Fort, a youth pastor based in Newark New Jersey, who has
joined the protests in Ferguson writes:
We
must reconsider what it means to be named an “outside agitator” in a system
whereby the very idea of blackness “agitates” – or disturbs – the “American
dream”. Within the gaze of white supremacy, all black people are potential
“outside agitators” But through the eyes of black folk, from Ferguson to
Flatbush, the real “outsider agitators” are the police officers who don’t live
here but come in to “agitate” black people. The real “outside agitators” are
the political leaders who work against our right freedom and justice.”
In addition, I’d argue that the corporate media (CNN, MSNBC,
FOX, etc) are also outside agitators, playing on the culture of fear to stir
national sentiment against the demonstrators, as well as to portray Michael
Brown himself as a gangbanger and thug in order to convince the grand jury, as
well as the court of (white) public opinion, that Darren Wilson should not be
indicted. Yet the media is doing far more than that. As Isabel Wilkerson points
out:
Images
and stereotypes built into American culture have fed prevailing assumptions of
black inferiority and wantonness since before the time of Jim Crow. Many of
those stereotypes persist to this day and have mutated with the times. Last
century’s beast and savage have become this century’s gangbanger and thug,
embedding a pre-written script for subconscious bias that primes many to accept
what they were programmed to believe about black Americans, whether they are
aware of it or not.
I’ve seen first
hand how this subliminal programming (whether through schools or rock and roll
documentaries) has created this subconscious bias among whites. The more one
becomes aware of it, the more one sees how it infects every aspect of our
culture. Media bias and racial bias go hand in hand, and, as Fort adds, “The
bullets that ended Michael Brown’s life emerged from the same system of
anti-black violence that ends the futures of millions of black girls and boys
across the US – be it through our failing school system, the growing prison
industrial complex or any of the other structures of racial hierarchy that
continually and systemically oppress black America.”
I applaud Talib Kweli for giving CNN the benefit of the
doubt, in claiming that their bias in the coverage of events in Ferguson may
very well be unintentional rather than simple outright racial hatred of the KKK, [2]
but that is what makes it so dangerous; as Martin Luther King wrote 50 years ago
”Shallow understanding from people of
good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill
will.”
Another recent story shows how such a shallow understanding
exists among the white citizens of Ferguson, including the former mayor Brian
Fletcher, who formed the “I Love Ferguson” group because they’re embarrassed by
the negative reputation Ferguson is receiving as a racist town. This attempt at
public relations is another preemptive act of aggression. Like Dan McMillan,
the white leaders of this group present themselves as the victims: “I’ve been
in tears several times because it’s my home town and it’s not being portrayed
as it is. The bigots, the racists left years ago. The whites who live here want
to,” said Fletcher. Yet, as Angelique Kidd points out, “People like Brian
Fletcher…care more about their image and property values.”[3]
Fear, indeed, is at the root of this; fear that somehow an empowered black
population will lower their property values!
Fletcher may not be a blatant bigot like the KKK who has
recently threatened to march on Ferguson, but he does exhibit that “shallow
understanding” which Martin Luther King so eloquently wrote about over 50 years
ago. King wrote that the:
great stumbling block in the
stride toward freedom is….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 goals you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct
action”; who paternalistically feels that 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 until a “more convenient season.”
What Martin Luther King wrote 51 years ago is deeply
relevant to what’s happening in Ferguson in 2014, and because he’s so eloquent
and such an icon of peace, I must quote the net paragraph:
I had hoped that the white
moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of
establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the
dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped
that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South
is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in
which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and
positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human
personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the
creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is
already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt
with. Like a boil that can never be cured
so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the
natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the
tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of
national opinion before it can be cured.
Some of the most articulate and eloquent speakers on the
ground in Ferguson have formed an organization called Millennial Activists
United (MAU). MAU is but one of the many black-led organizations (with
overlapping membership) that have taken a stand in Ferguson. They clearly
articulate their place in the perennial struggle of blacks for a
self-determination that has been systematically thwarted since the beginning of
Chattel Slavery 400 years ago, as Ashley Yates points out in this paragraph:
Ashley Yates:
We are the generation that was ignited by Trayvon Martin’s murder and placed
our faith in a justice system that failed us in a very public and intentional
manner. Most of us were raised by parents that inherited the fruits of labor from
the Civil Rights movement. They were placated, in a sense, by the stories of a
reality that no longer seemed an issue for them. So as we navigate a society
where those realities of segregation and oppression are supposed to be far
behind us, yet are more present than ever before in our lives, we say no more.
We are the descendants of those who already fought for these freedoms and we
will not let their sacrifices, blood, sweat and tears be swept away. We will
cash in on the heavy price they already paid.”
While Yates understands that the labor of Civil Rights
activists from 50 years ago bore fruit, this movement was also smashed and
accommodated by the power structure in the years following the assassination of
Martin Luther King. The media did a very good job of convincing many that the
realities of segregation and systematic oppression were, indeed, a thing of the
past, and in the process swept that tension back under the rug from which it
had emerged during MLK’s time.
Like Martin Luther King, Yates defines her group as
reformers rather than radicals or revolutionaries. She expresses a hope to work
within the system, and to change it from within, by exercising her
constitutional rights to free speech and peaceful assembly. Of course, the
media portrays MAU and others as law-breakers, who are not willing to negotiate
and work within the system, while the politicians declare a state of emergency
that allows them to suspend the constitution their police clearly violate.
Yet, these protestors remain undaunted in their fight for
justice, not merely in Ferguson, but in Oakland or in any city with police
brutality. Nor do they confine their fight to the justice system, but to the
structural racism that infects every aspect of this nation's culture.
MAU is dedicated to lifting
up the community of Ferguson first and foremost. We are committed to complete
and utter reform of the systems in place that are clearly designed against us.
Political education, community policing, grassroots organizing and on the
ground actions are the methods we believe are instrumental in achieving a
radical reform that will make the world our children inherit better than the
one we came into. People wanting to get involved with us can contact us via
twitter @MillennialAU or email us at millennialau@gmail.com
[1] For a persuasive essay showing the similarities between
lynching and the killing of Michael Brown, see http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/25/mike-brown-shooting-jim-crow-lynchings-in-common
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