The St. Louis
Symphony was
interrupted right after intermission with about 50 people
dropping banners and singing “Justice for Mike Brown.” The woman
pictured above was caught on camera, apparently wondering why her
previously-pleasant evening was being so brazenly disrupted. The
fellow beside her, looking up at the balcony, was filmed moments
previously, smiling broadly. The St. Louis American piece
reports that “Some onlookers were outraged and start spewing
expletives. Others stood up and started clapping. Most seemed stunned
and simply watched.“
The singing was a
response to the Michael Brown killing and its tense and sometimes
chaotic aftermath. “On Saturday afternoon, Brown was shot to death by a police officer while
apparently walking, unarmed, from a convenience store to his
grandmother's apartment in Ferguson, a working-class suburb north of
St Louis, the main hub of this midwestern state.” Ferguson police
later introduced a videotape of Brown exchanging angry words with a
convenience store clerk. It initially appeared that Brown stole some
cigars, but a
look at the whole tape showed he did no such thing and Darren
Wilson, the policeman who shot Brown, wasn't
aware of what had happened in the convenience store in any event.
Cartoons of course,
routinely present situations in exaggerated and hyperbolic ways, as
the
one pictured here does. But the line between hyperbole and real
life becomes blurred when other police officers in the same
geographical region demonstrated a similar police response to
another citizen. “Cops say [Vonderrit Myers Jr.] fired a gun.” Problem
is, non-police eyewitnesses, who saw Myers beforehand, maintain that
all he had in his possession was a sandwich. There has been no
independent confirmation that Myers ever had a gun. Police
Chief Sam Dotson, of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police
Department, claims that a 9mm Ruger handgun was retrieved from the
scene and ballistics tests are being run on it, but Myers was already
wearing an ankle bracelet for a charge of gun possession and both the
mother and pastor of Myers say he absolutely did not possess a gun.
A piece from Popular
Resistance adds details that cast even more doubt on the charge
that Vonderrit Myers Jr. posed any sort of threat to the off-duty
police officer who shot him. The piece also goes into the question of
why our police seem to be getting out of control lately and
apparently now pose a greater threat to unarmed citizens than to
criminals. Privatization seems to be a real driver of this new
unaccountability. Privatization changes the mission of police forces
so that what the public needs is no longer important. What the
private interests who pay the salaries of police need becomes the new
priority. A very disturbing case was that of San Francisco 49er Ray
McDonald and his pregnant girlfriend. She called for police
assistance as he was beating her, public policemen showed up, but a
private policeman was already on the scene. “In the case the first
officer on the scene worked for the 49ers and represented the
interests of Ray McDonald.. What was said? Not said? Was the victim
intimidated? Was evidence hidden, destroyed? Was McDonald prepped by
his employee as to what he should say or not say?”
Another problem was
pointed out by The
American Prospect. Exactly how are brutal, out-of-control police
punished for bad behavior? The answer isn't comforting and goes a
long way to explain why police feel invulnerable. If cases are won
and civil penalties are assessed (Hard to do as the public is very
supportive of police departments generally), then steep payments are
made. But payments generally come out of city funds, and by
extension, they come from city taxpayers, not by the particular
police department that behaved badly. As police operating budgets are
rarely affected, there's no reason for police to avoid bad behavior.
So how do we judge
the response of the St. Louis region's black community to police
abuses? The US Social Forum
(Coming to Philadelphia in June 2015) takes an “all-of-the-above”
approach to resolving social issues, or a “full-court press” as
basketball players would say. It's good to use street demonstrations
and a peaceful demonstration is always better than a violent one, but
getting involved in voting and long-term organizing is a critically
necessary element to achieving long-term success. That's just
what the black community of the St. Louis region is doing.
“...3,000 Ferguson residents (total population is 21,000)
have registered to vote. And that’s good. Certainly some of the
problems that led to Brown’s killing have to do with a political
system that is not representative of the citizens it is charged with
governing. In a town that is two-thirds black, only one of its six
city council members is also black. If more than 6 percent of the
black residents had voted, there would likely be a different mayor,
and perhaps a different police chief.”
Actions like the
singing at the St. Louis Symphony and more routine, less photogenic
actions like registering new voters, are both necessary elements in
making progress towards a more fair and inclusive society.
_______________
_______________
The St. Louis
Symphony was
interrupted right after intermission with about 50 people
dropping banners and singing “Justice for Mike Brown.” When the
office who shot Brown was identified, the Ferguson police muddied
up the issue by introducing a tape of Brown exchanging angry
words with a convenience store clerk. The full tape showed that Brown
did not commit a crime. Is the cartoon here an exaggeration of
police-citizen relations in the area? Unfortunately,
not by much. The later shooting of Vonderrit Myers Jr. appears to be
even
less defensible than the Michael Brown shooting was. Why are
these shooting happening? Privatization
of police and the lack
of any direct connection between penalties and the misbehaving
police departments both appear to be factors. What to do? Well, the
US Social Forum (Coming to
Philadelphia in June 2015) takes an “all-of-the-above” approach
to resolving social issues and the black community of Ferguson
appears to be taking that approach as it's getting
lots of voters registered.
Food Stamps for Thought!
"In aggregate, the map of the territory Romney won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country. Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income areas and living off various forms of government welfare..."
If we want fair elections, have party affiliation removed from all candidates names and ballots and force the voters to vote for the candidate's beliefs and not for any party.