For Abolition: Prisons and Police Are More Than Brutality, They're State Terror

By Frank Castro

In his speech "Terrorism: Theirs and Ours," now deceased Professor Eqbal Ahmad elucidated five types of terrorism: state, religious, mafia, pathological, and political terror of the private group. Of these types, the focus in mainstream political discourse and media has almost always centered itself on discussion of just one: "political terror of the private group"-organizations like al-Qaida, the Taliban, and ISIS. But as Ahmad ( and Ben Norton ) pointed out, this is "the least important in terms of cost to human lives and human property." Rarely discussed is state terror, which has the highest cost in terms of human lives and property. According to Norton, Professor Ahmad estimated that the disparity of "people killed by state terror versus those killed by individual acts of terror is, conservatively, 100,000 to one."

Undoubtedly, the professor's observations were meant to provide insight into the material costs of global militarism, where millions, if not billions, have found themselves caught in-between or on the receiving end of state domination. While this may invoke imagery of American drones scalping the Middle East and North Africa for resources, its aircraft carriers patrolling international waters, or even thousands of refugees huddled into camps outside cities under siege, these are only instances of the United States' most visible crimes. They are the sites of its most demonstrative, and yet least diffuse, violence. In the turmoil and spectacle of U.S. foreign policy, often other forms of state terror remain relatively unknown, their intersections with overarching structures of oppression obscured beneath overt cruelty.

But Professor Ahmad's analysis of state violence can be applied directly to operations within state borders as much as it can be applied internationally. Militarism outside America, paired with its domestic institutions of terror, ought to be viewed inseparably as two sides of the same coin. Here, imperial power compliments prisons and policing as institutions for producing obedient, governable subjects, both locally and globally. It does so in a variety of ways: By supplying local police departments with an ever-escalating arsenal of repression, by constantly reconstructing the context for social control, and by extending white supremacy and colonial rule into the 21st century. Combined, governments like the United States' have been responsible for far more terror than any private group, possibly, in history.

Our task is to understand and to decide what we are going to do about it.

Bigger Than Police

Though widely used, "police brutality" is an isolated term. In some ways, and for many people, it obscures the more encompassing descriptor of state terror. Criticizing police is not necessarily an indictment of America's entire patriarchal, white, and capitalist power structure, but rather it pinpoints only that structure's enforcers. It compartmentalizes state violence and creates a focal point that, perhaps, is more comfortable since it feels manageable, more capable of bringing in line with a vision of the world that is not so painful that we can move through it without feeling its weight. On the other hand, "state terror" drafts far more questions into our hearts, the answers to which would indict everything about the world in which we live. And like Pandora's Box, once you see you can never again claim ignorance.

Police are meant to enforce the law. But law in any society reflects the values and prejudices of the empowered class, and therefore provides a measure of control to its benefactors. Crimes in Western society have ranged from atheism to murder, homosexuality to bribery, miscegenation to sedition. The intent of bourgeois law has been to uphold a specific moral code inline with a patriarchal, white, and capitalist status quo. And though criminal acts are committed by all sorts of people, the overwhelming number arrested, convicted, and imprisoned are poor, Black, Brown, Native, and/or LGBTQIA. They are disproportionately imprisoned not because they are "criminal" and white, upper class people are not, but because they have been made "targets of "law enforcement" and are discriminated against by police, by courts, and within prisons."

We have long known that police have been, first and foremost, an institution of terror erected to control the political and economic potential of the labor class in the North and slaves in the South. In the Carolinas in particular, slave patrols modeled the evolution of its police force by providing a form of organized deterrence to potential runaways and slave revolts. Yet a critique of police alone is insufficient if it does not dislodge the entire edifice which mandates its existence. Our analysis must include a broader view of state violence which challenges its moral and ideological underpinnings, and which excavates its techniques of power from the imperial to the interpersonal. After the death of TT Saffore, a Black, trans woman from Chicago, organizers published a statement that captures the scope necessary to reimagine a world without police:

"State violence is more than just police shootings. It is the police and prison systems themselves. It is the criminalizing of sex work, of the survivors of abuse. It is a legal order which treats Black, trans, and cis women who defend their lives as insolent, in need of punishment. It is homelessness. It is the calculated impoverishing of Black communities. It is the closing of public schools and mental health clinics, the slashing of HIV prevention and other healthcare services, while militarization devours the lion's share of public funds. It is gentrification. It is the poisoning of natural resources. It is all the structures-including the police and prison systems-which uphold and depend on violent masculinity, reinforcing the disposability of women and femmes, of trans and [gender nonconforming] communities, of the earth itself."

From Battlefield to Battlefield

War profiteering has a formulaic pattern. No conflict? No problem. The Pentagon will just create one and enrich a tiny minority (remember the Bush administration's claim that Saddam Hussein had " weapons of mass destruction "). The pattern continues by pointing out the devastation of war, then, like a revolving door, it uses the conflict it stirs as justification for more. This is how the United States has been embroiled in the Middle East for the better part of 50 years, how it armed and supported Osama bin Laden as a " freedom fighter " against the Soviets only to later have cultivated the forefathers of al-Qaida and ISIS. Meanwhile, weapons manufacturers have steadily supplied arsenals to the battlefield, and like any capitalist enterprise, it requires new markets-and new battlefields-to survive.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon introduced the ultimate market to arms manufacturers. The "War on Drugs" provided increased federal funding to local police departments. But more importantly, in 1990 Congress enacted the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which enabled the Secretary of Defense to "transfer to Federal and State agencies personal property of the Department of Defense, including small arms and ammunition, that the Secretary determines is-(A) suitable for use by such agencies in counter-drug activities; and (B) excess to the needs of the Department of Defense." Section 1208 states further, under the "Conditions for Transfer," that any property transferred must be "drawn from existing stocks," meaning any purchased surplus can be offloaded to local police agencies with little to no obstruction.

The consequences of which have been far reaching. Today, municipal police departments serve as a release valve for the overflow of military grade weapons produced by arms manufacturers. Amended versions of the NDAA have provided local law enforcement agencies with armored personnel vehicles, grenade launchers, high-caliber assault rifles, and an ever-escalating stockpile of combat-ready equipment. It is not just weapons either. Imperial war has imported the ideology of military combat, blurring the distinction between the "Rule of Law" and the "Rules of Engagement," and brought it to bear upon the intimate details of everyday life. We have seen an escalation of military-styled "special ops" teams within police agencies, the dismantling of the 4th amendment, and heightened advocacy for complete submission to the state in the name of national security, no matter how intrusive.

But no matter what manifestation state violence takes, as physician Gabor Maté accurately observed, it is never waged against inanimate objects, it is waged against people. In the case of the "War on Drugs," "we are warring on the most abused and vulnerable segments of the population," an observation that remains true internationally as well. If there were no wars waged against the most vulnerable of the planet, none to constantly supply with arms to subjugate the poor, it stands likely that there would be drastically less weapons to be wielded against the addicted and destitute in our streets.

Expanding State Terror

As New York State prisoner David Gilbert noted, there is simply no way the "War on Drugs" was a "well-intentioned mistake" with Prohibition having proven such an abysmal failure. Rather, he writes, it "was conceived to mobilize the U.S. public behind greatly increased police powers, used to cripple and contain the Black and Latinx communities, and exploited to expand the state's repressive power." Gilbert's poignant observations notwithstanding, the "War on Drugs" did not mark the first time U.S. government used drugs as an instrument to develop state dominance. It has been done many times before. In " Drug Wars," Professor Curtis Marez demonstrates how the United States has historically wielded the drug trade not to end it, but to channel its flow in order to enhance imperial power:

"The use of drug traffic to support the state is evident in a number of ways. First, the United States has supported drug traffic to finance imperial wars. U.S. participation in the cocaine trade as a means for funding rightwing military proxies such as the Contras could be viewed as the refinement and expansion of the strategies first deployed during the Vietnam War, in which the United States promoted heroin trade in order to support anti-communist Hmong forces in Laos. Second, at the same time as it fostered drug traffic internationally, the state used the "drug problem" as an excuse for the criminalization and suppression of domestic dissent… And finally, the United States has indirectly promoted drug consumption as a method for controlling people of color… Drugs have been deployed, in other words, as weapons of counterinsurgency that aimed to dissipate or sedate oppositional energies."

The techniques of wielding the drug trade have roots closer than Vietnam or Central America. They rest in U.S. attempts to disrupt and destroy indigeneity, first with alcohol through the 1800s, but more recently through substances such as peyote. By prohibiting or restricting access to drugs, government creates the pretext for selective enforcement and criminalization, and ultimately generates substantial leverage for social control. Marez reveals the circularity of this process, noting that "criminalization generates the very forms of criminality it is supposedly mean to prevent, which in turn provides new opportunities for further criminalization." In other words, "the law does not work simply through the prohibition of crime" but also through a "production of criminality" placed principally upon minorities.

Political prisoner Leonard Peltier once wrote, "When you grow up Indian, you don't have to become a criminal, you already are a criminal." Through the drug trade, U.S. government has effectively marketed the policing and imprisonment of minorities as the key to public safety, and therefore marked them as targets of state terror. This unearths how Native men can be incarcerated at four times the rate of white men, how Native women can be incarcerated at six times the rate of white women. It demonstrates how the flooding of crack cocaine into Black communities during the '70s correlated with a sharp increase in minimum sentencing laws that helped put 1.7 million Black people under some form of correctional control. It reveals how native Hawaiians, who represent just 20 percent of the state's population, can comprise 40 percent of the its incarcerated.

It also explains, in part, how America's imprisoned population exploded to 2.4 million since the start of Nixon's "War on Drugs"- an increase of 700% . But mass incarceration, like most drug policy, has little to do with safety and everything to do with the maintenance and expansion of state power. With the exception of capital punishment, the ability to revoke a person's freedom, to condemn one to a lifetime in a cage, is the ultimate exercise of state violence. To visit Michel Foucault's seminal text " Discipline and Punish," "There can be no doubt that the exercise of the [state] in the punishment of crime is one of the essential parts of the administration of justice. […] The right to punish… is an aspect of the [state's] right to make war on [its] enemies: to punish belongs to 'that absolute power of life and death.'"

As we have seen, however, when "crime" is engineered around selective enforcement it is constructed to control the political and economic aspirations, and the very bodies, of the oppressed. Indeed, of minorities and the poor it fashions enemies of the state with the intent to exercise terror. From the origins of police, to the school-to-prison-pipeline, to the vast network of U.S. incarceration, this has been the enduring legacy of the American judicial system-not safety, and certainly not justice. For the legal system which reigns over the poor, the marginalized, and the disenfranchised has not been of their own design, but was created entirely by a white, patriarchal upper class that is incapable of expressing anything but malcontent for those whom struggle against it.

Follow the Money

Answering a nation-wide call to stop prison slavery, September 9, 2016 marked the beginning of the largest prison strike in U.S. history. According to Popular Resistance, an estimated "72,000 incarcerated workers in 22 states refused to provide their labor to profit the prison industrial complex." One of the first of its kind, the nationally coordinated effort has targeted combating what many workers identify as slave-like labor conditions. The U.S. Constitution's Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, at least partially, but it left a loophole for people convicted of crimes. This means that prison workers can legally be paid little to nothing for their labor. Prison administrators, in response, have attempted to break the strike by shutting-off access and communication to the outside world.

Private prisons have morphed into a multi-billion dollar industry since the "War on Drug" started. The companies reaping the largest profits from America's prison industry are Geo Group and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), operating upwards of a 170 incarceration facilities with juvenile and undocumented detention centers included. Earlier this year the Guardian reported that "CCA made revenues of $1.79bn in 2015, up from $1.65bn in 2014," while "Geo Group made revenues of $1.84bn, a 9% increase on the previous year." How the private prison industry continues to increase profits can be explained in one of two ways: Increasing the incarcerated workforce (meaning jail more people) or squeezing existing laborers for more production. For many years it has pursued both.

Of course, it is not just private prisons that incentivize incarceration. There is an entire supporting cast dedicated to its proliferation as well: The aerospace industry and arms manufacturers (which supply drug enforcement planes, helicopters, drones, armored vehicles, weapons, ammunition, and surveillance technology), chemical companies (which produce the poisons often used to sedate and execute prisoners, as well as the tear gas used in prison strikes and protests), the bail bonds industry (which finance the ability or inability for a person to await trial in or out of jail), U.S. banks (which launder billions of dollars for drug cartels and finance the prison industry), and of course numerous politicians (which accept money from these industries in exchange for pushing favorable legislation).

The end result is a sprawling cornucopia of state violence supported at every level of America's social structure-and which relies principally on police for enforcement. After all, we should never forget that every single person convicted for a violent or a non-violent crime, every single person wrongly convicted, every single person corralled for simply being different or standing up for justice, every single person unable to navigate poverty, homelessness, or addiction, who is placed in a cage to work in servitude or slavery, was put there by a cop. It follows that if ever we are to mobilize to dismantle mass incarceration, it must also be a movement to extract the final breath from policing itself, and to abolish for all time every manifestation of state terror.

Towards Abolition

In the struggle for freedom, an abolitionist framework is indispensable. It enables us to identify the correlations between the imperial, the police, and the prison, and to say the name of its intersections aloud. Doing so illuminates how separate deployments of state terror scaffold each other: how, like a relay race that never stops, each cannot begin or end with itself but must always recruit and pass on power. It also teaches us how to better build and sustain the communities necessary to fight back, and how to generate movements that do not create silos of resistance but identify fulcrums to dismantle oppression for the benefit of all. As Dan Berger wrote, abolition "pushes us to think and act better than the systems that confine, cage, and kill," and it "names a past as well as a future: it reminds us… that structures of violence have a beginning and can therefore have an ending."

Because the edifice of state violence rests atop a myriad of oppressions, accepting that any effort to uproot the entanglements of its power centers on confronting dangerously racist, gendered, and classist hierarchies is the first step towards abolition. It recognizes that battles will be waged both within ourselves, as we attempt to deconstruct everything we once believed about policing and incarceration, and in the world around us as we confront state institutions with our minds, our energy, and our bodies. And though our task is enormous, we cannot let the daunting reality of our ambition swallow us. If ever we feel lonely, it is not a testament to our inability to impact the world, it is a testament to the need for connection. The place where we realize our fullest capacity to generate change is in communion with each other.

In 1974, Ursula K. Le Guin reminded us that collective strength is the only path towards freedom: "The individual cannot bargain with the State," she said. "The State recognizes no coinage but power: and it issues the coins itself." When we understand the magnitude of state terror, we must remember that we are not meant to suddenly feel inspired to challenge it alone. There is an unavoidable degree of loneliness and helplessness embedded within its realization. And refusing to confront these feelings is part of how the system functions to subvert resistance, by substituting isolation and alienation for opportunities to collectively learn, live, and fight for freedom in ways we may have never dreamed possible. But we must always reserve room in our hearts to build bridges-too many depend on us for it.

In the words of prisoners themselves:

"We need support from people on the outside. A prison is an easy-lockdown environment, a place of control and confinement where repression is built into every stone wall and chain link, every gesture and routine. When we stand up to these authorities, they come down on us, and the only protection we have is solidarity from the outside. Mass incarceration, whether in private or state-run facilities is a scheme where slave catchers patrol our neighborhoods and monitor our lives. It requires mass criminalization. Our tribulations on the inside are a tool used to control our families and communities on the outside. Certain Americans live every day under not only the threat of extra-judicial execution… but also under the threat of capture, of being thrown into these plantations, shackled and forced to work."

Abolition, then, is the only answer to a system whose currency is terror.

To Live Among Broken Men: Theorizing Rape and Incest

By Danny Shaw

On April 9th, Ronald Savage rocked the hip hop world with his testimony about the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of Zulu Nation founder, Africa Bambaataa. Initially, the Zulu Nation dismissed the allegations "as nothing more than a continuation of the decades long HIP HOP COINTELPRO campaign to discredit and destroy the Universal Zulu Nation." However, as more survivors of Bambaataa's abuse emerged, the momentum shifted. It was clear that Bambaataa had abused children, other leaders had covered up for him and that a thorough investigation and process of healing was necessary.

While many people are understandably shocked that sexual abuse could penetrate the inner-most circles of pioneering Zulu Nation, this is also an opportunity for our communities to reflect on just how commonplace sexual abuse, incest, pedophilia and rape is.

The May 21st gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl in Brazil by 33 men and Brock Turner's rape of a 23-year old woman behind a dumpster at Stanford University are the latest high-profile examples of the everyday terror exercised against women.

Ronald Savage's story, my family's story, my story and so many other stories of survival highlight the need for a Marxist historical interpretation of sexual violence & incest. Marxism-the painstaking, socio-economic investigative method-does away with the vacuous theory that sick, depraved abusers are merely an aberration of the human spirit. The wide prevalence of sexual violence speaks volumes about the criminal, decadent nature of capitalism. There is a specific system that engenders the widespread abuse of women and children. The facts speak for themselves-one in four girls will be sexually abused before they turn 18 years old and one in five women will be raped at some point in their lives.[1] 40-60% of Black women are abused before they reach 18 . 3% of men report they were raped.

A political orientation towards sexual violence and trauma reveals that it is the product of a specific, temporal confluence of factors. The dialectical materialist method, a profound examination of the deep-seated causes of a social phenomenon, explains why sexual violence and incest are both widely prevalent and inevitable under capitalism.

This article will examine the connections between poverty, patriarchy, rape and incest both in my own life and family and in the writing of organic intellectuals and community leaders who have honestly grappled with this urgent issue.

My story

I am a survivor of sexual abuse. Two different AAU basketball coaches, Jim Tavares and Jack McMahon, whose teams I played on, were known pedophiles. A 1999 Sports Illustrated article , "Every Parent's Nightmare," outlined the sexual abuse that hundreds of us survived at the hands of Jim Tavares.

Tavares preyed upon me and other young boys who came from poor homes where there was only one parent trying to make ends meet. He gained access to our homes by giving us money and taking us on trips across the U.S. to play in national Junior Olympic AAU championships. If I had a father or a family with money, I would not have been an easy prey.

Just as the marksman knows how to hunt and snipe, the molester knows how to prey on children and attack.

There is no need for me to repeat the details as the article outlines Tavares' pattern of abuse. Predictably, the authors, William Nack and Don Yaeger treat Taveres and the other coaches as society's outliers, extremely demented individuals who went astray. This article argues a different perspective-that rape and incest are inevitable and predictable products of a specific social system that we have the power to unmask, confront and overcome.

Theorizing rape and incest

I was raised by woman warriors. Many of the women in my family survived horrific episodes of rape, incest and sexual terrorism which I have written on elsewhere. From my earliest memories, I felt the pain and trauma of my mother, my sisters, aunts, grandmother and other women in my family seethe through my own being. Why did my loved ones and I endure degrading, sadistic abuse? Their scars and my own have been formative in my story. With no strong male role models, I was mentored by the pain and survival of women. All of the suffering they experienced and survived made me question from an early age the source of so much horror.

Sexual violence is bigger than African Bambaataa, the priests convicted of child molestation within the Catholic church and the sexual violence that occurred within my own family. Sexual violence is an endemic, society-wide phenomenon that we must tackle and resist with a broad, revolutionary approach if we want to spare our children from the trauma so many of us survived.

My family of mixed Irish, Scottish, English and Finish roots was not unique in terms of the intensity of what we survived. As I discovered through my travels to other continents, hearts, islands and memories, there are survivors of rape and incest spread across the world. The U.S. has the thirteenth highest rate of rape in the world.[2] My family, then, was not an exception, but rather the very incarnation of larger social forces at work.

A critical view of rape and incest challenges the widespread view that men intrinsically act like "pigs" and "dogs." No one can dispute that many of us men act like pigs and dogs, but what explains the pigicization or dogification of male behavior?

Feminist sociologist Maria Mies explains that "human sex and sexuality have never been purely crude biological affairs. 'Human nature' has always been social and historical. Sex is as much a cultural and historical category as gender is" (Patriarchy and Accumulation 23). In more proletarian terms, men are not born as piglets but are rather pigified-or groomed to be pigs-over time. The inverse is also true; we can fight to undo patriarchal socialization and create a safer, healthier world to raise our children in. It is this political orientation towards sexual trauma that guides our work as revolutionaries. We fight for another world not just because of the pain of the present but because of the infinite promise of the future.

Scarred children

The social scientist seeks to unearth the nature of the childhood that the rapist / molester experienced. A baby is not born a rapist or a sadist. The mainstream media's dominant perspective that rapists are biologically-flawed, unredeemable sociopaths projects a pessimistic view of humanity. While there may be individual examples of perpetrators who were biologically or mentally engineered towards violence, this is a rare exception and not the rule.

According to Family Violence Interventions for the Justice System, men who witnessed their fathers' violence are 10 times more likely to engage in spouse abuse in later adulthood than boys from non-violent homes.[3]

Men who commit brutal violations of children's inner-sanctity most often experienced this violence themselves as children. They internalized their own skewed view of themselves and the world. They never knew what it meant to be complete, integral, loved or healthy. Broken from an early age, if not in the period of gestation, they learned to reproduce the insidiousness. Buried in their own self-torment and self-hatred, they struck out against what was most precious and vulnerable around them, children and women. Deprivation begat deprivation.

A system of patriarchy shapes the behavior of the rapist who shows an utter disregard for the humanity of women. The potent combination of poverty and patriarchy mold the acting out of the self-depreciation in a particular way. Having never known inner peace, the impoverished and unhealthy psyche annihilates the peace closest to it. Only a thorough exploration of the violator's childhood and formative years can begin to connect the missing dots.

Broken men

In addition to being criminal and perverse, sexual violence against children, women and men is a self-effacing behavior. To subject a defenseless child or woman to sexual abuse is the work of a broken man. The question before us is what overarching forces convert so many men into vile, demented creatures, who carry contempt for life itself in their fractured hearts?

Black Panther Soledad Prison Field Marshal, George Jackson asserted before white supremacy: "You will never count me among the broken men!"

A 25-year-old sociologist-with a PhD earned in the streets of LA and the prison cells of San Quentin-Jackson theorized about the outward reflexes of the broken man. Informed by a keen understanding of the wanton ruthlessness that surrounded him in America's internal colonies (ghettos) and prisons, Jackson refused to become ensnared in the trap that pitted Black on Black, man against woman, and oppressed against oppressed.

In Soledad Brother, Jackson charted the source of the broken reflexes-petty fights, alcoholism, rape and murder. From solitary confinement, within an 8-by-12 foot prison cell, Jackson sought to dominate the insidiousness so that it did not dominate him.

Like another great anti-colonial thinker, Frantz Fanon, who was writing in the same time period in Algeria, Jackson observed how his contemporaries acted out their trauma in reactionary ways because of their conditioning and precisely because they were deprived of a penetrating, revolutionary understanding of social reality.

The political economy of rape, Part I: The abuser

It is only in the social laboratory of intense class exploitation and misogyny that so many rapists can be called into existence. My analysis is not an attempt to justify Bambaataa's abuse nor apologize for the rapist but rather an effort to explore the malignant social forces that call so many rapists into existence.

In such a profoundly patriarchal society, different social-psychological forces act on men and women's psyches. Men are expected to be protectors and breadwinners. But what happens when their whole world-and with it their entire self-image-has been obliterated by material reality?

Too many men-conditioned by misogyny and deprived of employment and dignity-are broken men. In their deranged psyches, formed in the crucible of a materialist and patriarchal society, they seek to assert and insert themselves in twisted ways as "men" in a society that rejected and emasculated them. The inability to live up to their socially contrived ideals renders them depressed and broken.

Women in oppressed communities are hit the hardest by rape. Some 34.1% of Native American women have been raped. The next highest percentage was among mixed race women, 24.4% of whom reported being raped.[4] Incapable at this historical juncture of articulating their social rage in a revolutionary direction, the oppressed misdirect their fury in reactionary ways.

Rape is about power. Rape is one demented form of misdirected vengeance in which the oppressed assert power when they have lost control over their surroundings. Soldiers, under stress of battle, also often become ruthless perpetrators of rape, or gang rape, while pillaging the wealth of the conquered.[5] Alcohol and drugs-the traditional opiates of the oppressed-further distort reality, ensuring the stunting of proactive, revolutionary sentiments.

The origin of patriarchy

Two questions now confront us: what is the nature of the dog-eat-dog, patriarchal rat race that defines everyday working-class survival and how did we arrive at this point?

Bourgeois science argues that sexism and racism are inevitable. Because they see these learned behaviors as a product of man's nature, they seek to convince everyone that these systems of domination have always existed.

History proves otherwise, debunking the prevailing ideas of the historical defeatists.

Friedrich Engel's The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State documents the existence of matriarchal societies for thousands of years. Thoroughly researching what he calls "primitive communist societies," Engels shows that for the bulk of the human timeline, women were in positions of power in the family and community.

One prominent example was in the Taíno culture of Quisqueya, what is today Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The warrioress and cacica (chief), Anacaona, went off to battle and led resistance against the Spanish invaders, with her partner, Caonabo, taking charge of the home and raising the children. In 1503, upon capture she was publicly executed because she refused clemency in exchange for being the concubine of one of her captors. The Spanish colonizers were determined to eradicate the leaders of any resistance to their double enslavement of Native and African women.

Marxists pinpoint the emergence of private property, surplus and profits-or class society-as the origin of patriarchy. The origins of rape, incest and violence against women are the result of what Engels called the "world historic defeat" of women. With the development of private property and "the right" to inheritance, the son was elevated above the daughter as the heir to the estate. Just as the enslaved of the colonized countries existed as chattel property for the colonizers, women too were converted into their property; the masters and lords could do as they wanted with "their" women.

Under feudalism, the lord's "droit de seigneur" empowered him to take a "serf's wife" into his bed before she married and slept with her husband for the first time. In other words, the lord was allowed to rape the daughters and mothers of the exploited class because they were his property. This "droit" or "right" also entitled the lord of the estate to prey on peasant girls and to violate their virginity whenever he chose. This was often ceremoniously witnessed by male members of the court who were powerless to intervene.[6]

Social systems theory

Every social system merits its own analysis but feudalism, slavery and capitalism share these predominate features: 1) the sanctity of private property 2) the prioritization of profits over human dignity and 3) the relegation of women to a position of the slave's slave in the productive process.

Where does patriarchy fit into this exploitive economic base?

Maria Mies' Patriarchy and Accumulation tracks how for centuries women's unpaid, invisible work enabled the massive theft of the surplus labor of the wage earner. The productive process rested on the exploitation of the workers' labor which was not possible without the wife's behind-the-scenes toil. The woman then was the serf's serf, the slave's slave and the wage laborer's laborer.

To dig up the historical roots of the monstrous epidemic of rape and incest in the U.S. context requires a profound historical reckoning with one of its original sins-slavery.

The legacy of slavery

Through the dehumanization of Blackness, the slavocracy justified infinite predations upon the bodies of Black women and Black men.

The entire slave quarters were at the disposal of the slave traders and masters. The Portuguese slavers built their castles with a master bedroom that had two doors leading to two corridors. One corridor led to the slave quarters, where there was an army of slaves at the master's sexual disposal. The other corridor led to confession, where the slavers asked their priests and their gods for forgiveness for their acts, before committing the next round of transgressions.

W.E.B. Du Bois' masterpiece Black Reconstruction in Americacaptured the white Southerners' attitude toward the Black man and woman. In order to capture the dehumanization process, Du Bois cited a visiting German sociologist, Carl Schurz, who was hired by President Andrew Johnson to study the South: "Men who are honorable in their dealings with their white neighbors, will cheat a Negro without feeling a single twinge of their honor. To kill a Negro, they do not deem murder; to debauch a Negro woman, they do not think fornication; to take the property away from a Negro, they do not consider robbery."[7] In his gripping sociological portrait of the antebellum South, Du Bois breached theunbreachable and spoke the unspeakable: "Southerners who had suckled food from black breasts vied with each other in fornication with Black women, and even in beastly incest. They took the name of their fathers in vain to seduce their own sisters. Nothing-nothing that Black folk did or said or thought or sang was sacred" (p.125).

The very essence of slavery was the breaking of the Black mind, body and soul.

A culture of white rape of Black women-hiding behind its antithesis, the publicly-flaunted, genteel South and morally-robust Bible Belt-has traversed centuries. The myth of the "Black rapist" was used to mask the identity of America's original rapists-a wealthy class of roughly 60,000 white slave owners. The myth of the Black rapist served to deflect focus away from the slave master's abuse of Black and white women and funnel mass discontent into "populist" campaigns, such as lynching and state executions. Society was mobilized in pursuit of "the boogey man" while the true "boogey-man" held the noose.

Describing the typical slave master, Du Bois wrote: "Sexually they were lawless, protecting elaborately and flattering the virginity of a small class of women of their social clan, and keeping at command millions of poor women of the two laboring groups [Black and white] of the South" (p. 35).

Lawrence Konner's remaking of Alex Haley's Roots in June 2016 served as a vivid reminder that the slave owning class used rape as a weapon against the Black family.

Slavery birthed patterns of rape and incest that our society has yet to heal from.

Rape and brokenness in Beloved

Toni Morrison's Beloved is a gripping account of the twin terrors of sexual violence and slavery.[8] A cursory examination of the central characters of Beloved reveals the wanton, white supremacist terror unleashed on Black America.

Halle and Paul D represent generations of Black men pinned down and broken by slavery. Sexual violence against Black men, women and children was one of slavery's preferred weapons "to break" their slaves.

Halle was Sethe's partner and father of her children. After witnessing a gang of white men rape his wife, Sethe, and then drink her breast milk, Halle went crazy. Feeling powerless, he disappeared for ever from the family unit because what "he saw go on in that barn that day broke him like a twig" (68).

Paul D, Sethe's friend, confidante and a fellow slave, alludes to a rape he suffered on the Sweet Home plantation: "Saying more might push them [Sethe and Paul D] both to a place they couldn't get back from. He [Paul D] would keep the rest where it belonged: in that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. Its lids rusted shut. He would not pry it loose now in front of this sweet sturdy woman, for if she got a whiff of the contents it would shame him" (73).

The scars from the whip, tattooed onto Sethe's back, form a chokecherry tree, symbolizing the slave experience. The barefoot, poor white woman Amy who helps Sethe deliver her fourth child, Denver, describes the scar: "A trunk-it's red and split wide open, full of sap, and this here's the parting for the branches. You got plenty of branches. Leaves, too, look like, and dern [darn] if these ain't blossoms. Tiny little cherry blossoms, just as white. Your back got a whole tree on it. In bloom" (79). According to Morrison's' poignant metaphor, "the fire on her back" is the Black nation, which despite the indescribable abuse, is strong and full of life, giving birth to future generations who will carry the scars but resolutely confront the slave master's terror.

Slavery and rape pushed Morrison's characters to extremes. When the slavecatchers came to abduct Sethe's four children and sell them out of state, Sethe resisted the only way she could. As she breastfed her youngest daughter, Denver, she simultaneously beat her other daughter, Beloved, to death, to save her from the horrors of slavery. Her two young boys and Denver were soaked in their sister's blood and only survived the grueling scene because of the intervention of another slave.

Toni Morrison recreated these tormenting images in order to bring slavery alive for the reader. Without understanding this original sin, little else can be understood in the American narrative.

Historical trauma

Dr. Joy Degruy Leary explored the effects of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome on generations of African Americans.[9] The slave system was a breeding ground for incest within the slave quarters, as well. Upsetting the traditions and stability of the family, slavery disempowered the husband figure and humiliated the father figure. Slavery was crafted to make the oppressed internalize a sense of shame and humiliation.

Men, women and children were packed into barns and stables unfit for human existence. In his autobiography, Frederick Douglas described the barbarism he was born into in Baltimore, Maryland.[10] Deprived of space and privacy and unable to clothe their children, the masters packed multiple families into shacks, without mattresses, blankets or adequate clothing. Slavery was a vortex of bestiality that spiraled out of control destroying human connections.[11]

Unable to stand down the oppressor, the emasculated slave-the trapped lion-projected his hatred towards those at home.[12] Sexual transgressions were the reincarnated transgressions of the master, once again unleashed on the double victims, Black women and children.

This historical trauma-set in motion-by a four-century long reign of terror reappears in families today. The conventional wisdom and oft-repeated, racist claim that "slavery occurred so long ago and Black people should just get over it" is designed to disconnect the terror of the past with the terror of the present. Sethe, Baby Suggs, Beloved and Toni Morrison's other characters remind us that the legacy of slavery lives within, and part of that legacy is sexual trauma.

History offers context for the harrowing fact that 40-60% of Black women are sexually abused before they are 18 . Failure to spiritually and consciously come to terms with the historical trauma damns the present fighters to wallow, unconsciously or semi-consciously, in the past. This is an apt metaphor for the survivor of sexual violence, whose only way out of the trauma, is through it.

From chattel slavery to wage slavery

The enslavement of Africans in the Americas was one branch of the patriarchal system Engels denounced and the most vicious reenactment of boss-worker relations which played out in other social systems. Slavery was America's original sin, upon which the descendant systems of exploitation were based.

The heir to slavery, capitalism-through its disempowerment of women-continues to be a breeding ground of sexual violence.

The following formula synthesizes the reproduction of the class system and the cycle it sets in motion. An exploitative economic base (i.e. serfdom, slavery, industrial and extractive capitalism) gives birth to internalized discord, self-hatred and a distorted sense of identity among the exploited, leading to the acute need to numb and escape (i.e. alcoholism) which is intertwined with violence projected outward and acted out at home, resulting in the victimization of the next generation, which grows up damned by both the exploitative economic base and a demoralizing family environment.

This exploitative economic base and internalized oppression again sets in motion a cycle that repeats itself with individualized symptoms that are reflective of the same disease.

The political economy of rape, Part II: The abused

The disempowerment of women is both economic and psychological and transcends national borders. Rape has a specific economic, not geographic, terrain. Not unique to the U.S., the dominant economic model-patriarchal capitalism-produces dependency.

Because housework is not compensated, the mother figure finds herself trapped.

Deprived of an empowering education, self-esteem and social and economic rights, many oppressed women cannot see beyond their immediate environs. The coterminous forces of women's oppression feed off one another, trapping women and children within the male-dominated, misogynist household.

Testimony

The testimonies and writing of organic intellectuals struggling against patriarchy and capitalism highlight the fact that the political economy of rape traverses national boundaries.

A scene from Germinal, Émile Zola's epic novel, captures the power dynamics within the miner's home. Half-starved and still sullen from the coal mines, the protagonist, Maheu arrived from the bowels of the earth demanding his dinner and sex. Showing total disregard for his wife, Maneude's humanity, he bends her over, raping her in front of the children, as they prepare to bathe in a basin. This scene from a French mining family's home was a snapshot of the twin evils of capitalism and patriarchy that have acted upon women for centuries.

In Don't Be Afraid Gringo, Elvira Alvarado described the typical social existence of the Honduran campesina (peasant woman). In her testimony, Elvira provides poignant snapshots of the cruel social terrain where patriarchy and economic disempowerment produce violence against women and children. Like the French miner a century before, the banana plantation worker existed to produce surplus value for transnational business. The housewife in the plantation worker family produced the conditions necessary for the exploitation of the wage laborer. She was doubly exploited. For both the boss and the sub-oppressor, for 365 days a year, it was open season on women like Elvira Alvarado.

Describing her everyday routine, Alvarado explained that she worked the land and attended to her husband and eight children: "Even when we go to sleep, we don't get to rest. If the babies wake up crying, we have to go take care of them-give them the breast if they're still breast-feeding, give them medicine if they're sick. And if our husbands want to make love, if they get the urge, then it's back to work again. The next morning, we're up before the sun, while our husbands are still sleeping" (p. 52). Robbed of autonomy in both spheres of her life, Alvarado existed to produce for the oppressor and sub-oppressor.

Enraged by his powerlessness, Elivira's husband subconsciously recreated his exploitation lower down on the social hierarchy where his violence had no repercussions. The state's monopoly of violence ensured that his humiliation had no positive, externalized revolutionary social outlet. Meanwhile, he was socially sanctioned to drink himself into oblivion and lash out at home. Family was the private domain where the exploiteds' pent-up anger crystalized. Having learned well from his boss, he recreated the violence onto his wife and children, the only social figures disempowered enough to tolerate the wanton abuse.

What the husband considered sex or "his marital right," constitutes rape for many women like Elvira Alvarado. Her words deliver the point home: "I've heard that there are men and women who make love in all different ways, but we campesinos don't know anything about these different positions. We do it the same all the time-the man gets on the woman and goes up and down, up and down and that's it. Sometimes the woman feels pleasure and sometimes she doesn't. We don't have any privacy either, because our houses are usually one big room so we have to wait until everyone is asleep and then do it very quietly. We just push down our underpants and pull them back up again" (47). For the Honduran housewife, sex, like cooking and cleaning, was a chore or an obligation. Stripped of her self-determination, both the home and the wider society were a forcing house of male domination.

'Stay in your place'

Employing the same literary genre as Elvira Alvarado, the Bolivian mining activist, Domitila Barrios de Chúngara, wrote Let me Speak! The Testimony of Domitila A Woman of the Bolivian Mines.[13]

Her autobiography deepens our understanding of patriarchy as a weapon to divide the miners. The misnamed "barzolas" were working class women employed by the mining bosses as reactionary shock troops to attack and humiliate the miners' wives.[14] When the Housewife Committee refused to stay quiet and confined in their homes and came into the streets to protest, the "barzola" shock troops threw tomatoes at them, accused them of sleeping around and physically attacked them.

The disempowerment of the Housewives' Committee was the disempowerment of the working class. Preoccupied with secondary contradictions, the exploited protagonists-the miners-lost sight of the primary contradiction between labor and capital. Blind before the oppressor's strategy to keep them in their confinement, they prevented the fruition of class unity. The divide and conquer strategy sought to confine women to the home, "shame" them and stunt their ability to make world-historic change.

"Women hold up half the sky" but when they are held back, the entire working class is confined to a social inferno. Capitalism and patriarchy have a codependent relationship; they feed off one another. The crushing of one hierarchical system necessitates the overthrow of its twin.

Women's liberation is humanity's liberation.

The role of class

Centuries of state-sanctioned and state-enforced rape established a legacy that continues to play out today.

Angela Davis' Women, Race and Class looks at the triple burden Black women confronted the span of American history.[15] Davis examined the rampant sexual abuse committed by white male employers within the home against Black women forced by poverty into domestic labor. How many bosses, supervisors, sex tourists and other men in high positions still believe they have unfettered access to Black and Brown women's bodies?

There is also sexual abuse in other layers of class society. Daughters and sons of rich families have survived sexual trauma. The widespread occurrence across class divides illustrates the omnipotence of sexism under capitalism. A rich woman may also find herself psychologically stuck. In contrast to a working-class woman, she may possess the economic resources to flee but may face the judgement of her family who will threaten to "cut her off" if she dares to forge her own independence. Raised to be pretty and thin, some upper class women may not possess the skills to move on. Patriarchy is pervasive and even privileged women-who from an outside perspective appear to have it all-struggle within their gilded cages.

A culture of impunity

In addition to raising the rapist, capitalism offers the rapist free reign.

The story of the anonymous young woman who was drugged and raped behind a dumpster at Standford is chilling. Although her rapist, Brock Turner was caught and found guilty by a jury, a judge only gave him six months in jail because "a prison sentence would have a severe impact on him."[16]

Turner's light sentence is not the exception. Factoring in unreported rapes, only 6% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail; 15 out of 16 will walk free.[17] Every 107 seconds a woman is raped in the U.S. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, twenty million women in the United States have been raped. The study asserts that the number could be three times as high because only 1/3 of sexual assaults are reported.[18] There is no accountability. There are no popular reprisals. In too many cases, no one dares confront the perpetrator. Often, the sadist moves from one generation to the next.

In my own abuse case, when I was 16, I contacted the Plymouth county District Attorney's office in 1997 to file a report. It was four years after the abuse. The DA said he had 73 similar complaints against the basketball coach, Jim Taveres. After hearing my statement, the public official concluded, for at least the 74thtime, that he "did not have conclusive proof" to put Jim Tavares back away in jail.

Capitalist society, from the U.S. to Brazil is, in essence, a school of unchecked patriarchy and pedophilia.

On May 21st on this year, a 16-year-old Brazilian girl was gang-raped by 33 men, some of whom then went on social media to boast about their acts. It is tragic that it took such a heinous case to re-highlight the rape culture that threatens every Brazilian woman.

In Brazil, the statistics are even more deplorable than in the U.S. According to the Brazilian women's organization, Rio de Paz, every 72 hours, 420 women are raped in Brazil.[19]

The liberal observer remains shocked at the harrowing rape statistics while failing to realize the very cause of the horror; a depraved system can only produce depravity. Incest and rape are not natural or inevitable phenomena, but rather symptomatic of the current economic and social order. Token efforts to raise awareness among children about their rights and to facilitate violence prevention workshops are important in the short run but will do little to erase the overall problem. An end to the suffering requires a systematic overhaul of existing class relations.

Denial is complicity

There is another rung in the social inferno that is oppression to which we must descend in order to more fully understand the plight of the survivor.

There are other social actors who become complicit in the crimes spawned by a criminal system. Many mothers-too traumatized to stare the truth in its eyes-became indirect apologists for the offender, giving cover to the crimes with their silence. Feeling powerless before the crime of the century, too many times they have internalized and projected their own subconscious guilt and self-hatred onto the victims. Instead of appearing on the historical stage as the ultimate defenders of their daughters, how many mothers have appeared as collaborators of the crime?

Silence, reproduced between generations, extends the lease life of the pain. Silence within the family is collusion. Denial is collusion. Covering up is collusion.

Sapphire's novel Push, brought to the cinema in the 2009 film Precious, graphically documented the complex relationships that resulted from incest.[20] Sixteen year-old Claireece "Precious" Jones is pregnant with her father's second child. The heartbreaking novel examined how Precious' mother, Mary, instead of protecting and defending her daughter from her rapist husband, Carl, turned the blame on her daughter. Precious was the object of her mother's scorn. Stripped of a childhood and her parents' affection, Precious had to learn to navigate society on her own.

The mothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles who looked the other way were knee-deep in the swamp of insidiousness. Patriarchy pervaded their lives; more concerned with protecting the reputation of the family before the good town-folks, they sacrificed their children's health and happiness-their childhoods-so they could keep smiling at church on Sundays. They too were deeply affected by patriarchy and rape culture. Converted into silent bystanders, enablers and perpetuators of the insidiousness, they ignored the truth and blamed the victim. They too were broken; the illusion of an "American dream" was worth more to them than truth and redemption.

Internalized blame

When we paint the entire sorry portrait, we see the convergence of the different social-emotional factors acting on the survivors. Overwhelmed by the insidiousness, the matriarch escapes into booze or god. The primary witnesses often subconsciously rewrite history. Denial buries the dagger deeper into the chest of the abused. Searching for acceptance and validation, they find blame and hatred.

Unable to externalize their anger; the pain consumes the survivor, resulting in the cyclization of the insidiousness i.e. heroin, addiction, cutting, anorexia, morbid obesity, alcohol etc. Every form of self-injurious behavior is an agonized cry for help.

Heroin, bulimia and other self-loathing behaviors are a giant middle finger to America; no one ever cared about me, so why should I care about myself? Heroin and bulimia are rebellions devoid of direction and grit, a quest without a compass.

Robbed of support from the patriarchal society, the survivor slips into self-torment. Nince Inch Nails' lyrics, famously covered by Johnny Cash, capture the "Hurt:"

I hurt myself todayTo see if I still feelI focus on the painThe only thing that's realThe needle tears a holeThe old familiar stingTry to kill it all awayBut I remember everything.

What have I become?My sweetest friendEveryone I know goes awayIn the end.And you could have it allMy empire of dirtI will let you downI will make you hurt.

The Somali writer, Warsan Shire writes: "Not everyone is okay with living like an open wound. But the thing about open wounds is that, well, you aren't ignoring it. You're healing; the fresh air can get to it. It's honest. You aren't hiding who you are. You aren't rotting."

The suppression of pain is ineffective because pain will only find other outlets. We, survivors, can run and escape all the way to the grave but until we cough up all of the pain, there can be no thorough-going healing. Silence is not an option. Some form of therapy is necessary to help survivors understand the roots of their self-harm and to find meaning in an alienating society.

Ronald Savage and other survivors of abuse are heroes. Protectors of future generations, the survivors fought to overcome "the shame" patriarchy imposed on them and tell their stories.

Digging up and speaking the pain is the first step but it cannot happen without outside support. Because class society seeks to atomize and isolate the survivor, there must be an effort to collectivize our pain in a supportive, conscious community setting. There are 12 step programs and support groups called Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous and Incest Survivors Anonymous. There are also research-validated treatments such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that are effective for assisting those whose trauma has led to severely self-harming or suicidal behavior. These methods help the survivor see things differently and not blame themselves. Healing occurs when the survivor recognizes that they are good and beautiful and let's go of the poisonous negative thoughts and low self-esteem that the abuser and patriarchy have instilled within them.

As I argued in an article on trauma, addiction and capitalism, a survivor who is able to theoretically grasp the hell-hole they were born into, begins to empower themselves to turn on the class system, the source of their trauma. A revolutionary's work is to provide a political orientation towards trauma. If overcoming fear and denial is the individualized part of healing, revolutionary organizing against the monster, responsible for the crimes of the century, is the collective part of healing.

Therapy, support groups and the party, working together, all play their role in helping the survivor rise up on the society that violated them.

Our responsibility

Afrika Bambaataa was a pioneering hip hop voice who resisted injustice and capitalism, but this did not mean that he was beyond all of its insidiousness-patriarchy, white supremacy and homophobia.

On June 1st, 2016, Julien Terrell, cofounder of The Renaissance Zulu Chapter 64, issued the following statement condemning the covering up of Bambaataa's sexual violence against teenage boys and announcing the chapter's separation from the traditional Zulu Nation: "Many have said that Bambaataa's accomplishments in hip hop should not be included in the critique of his so called personal life. I say that any so called political and cultural commitment that does not transfer to your personal actions is NOT a commitment at all. It's nothing but talk and the time for putting ego aside has come. He [Bambaataa] is still lying but there is space for humility and compassion that the victims have offered despite the pain he caused. I hope those that are close to him support him in stepping to the allegations with integrity. That is what this culture is supposed to represent."

As revolutionaries and community leaders, we all carry the social baggage of the old world and must hold one another accountable for our actions. As Terrell explains, we have a responsibility to uproot and go to war with all of the contradictions, less they chaotically spill out and hurt others.

Socialism is healing

Experiments in rehabilitation in the U.S. are limited today because of the "lock them up and throw away the key" strategy of the state. In a transformed society, the abuser would undergo isolation, therapy, rehabilitation and slow reintegration. Reconciliation would involve the recounting of their own childhoods and the social crimes they went on to commit. There is no healing in denial. Anything short of a full, public admission and acceptance falls short of justice.

In a socialist society, inherited with all of social baggage of capitalism it will take generations to do away with all of the wicked inheritance-white supremacy, sexism, homophobia, individualism, consumerism etc. As the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and other socialist societies can attest, in a new world born of the old-with all of the birth marks of wickedness and depravity-there will be no shortage of challenges for nations reborn.

The ruling class vilifies these human experiments in social re-organization in order to contain our dreams and ground our visions, less we conceive of emancipation from the current social disorder. The unofficial religion of the U.S. today is anti-communism, for this very reason.

From the perspective of the extractors of surplus value, what has to be protected is not the right of a little girl to a childhood but their own unfettered access to profits. The anonymous survivor of rape at Stanford, the 16-year-old Brazilian girl, Ronald Savage and all of the nameless survivors-caught in the crosshairs of patriarchy and exploitation-demonstrate the urgency to organize for the toppling of the capitalist system.

Dr. Martin Luther King called for "a revolution in our nation's priorities." A socialist society would immediately and decisively intervene to halt and reverse the monstrous patterns of incest and rape.

Towards a culture of women's liberation

What would a world based on freedom-as opposed to necessity-look like? There is no way to predict the future but we can assert that it will not look anything like the degradation-what Engel's called "pre-history"-that today's oppressed communities and families confront.

In a healthy future, crystal meth, domestic abuse, and trauma itself will be remnants of a dark, distant past from which we will have emerged.

The goal then is to convert our current society into a school of women's liberation.

Society's superstructure must be torn up from the roots and reorganized to concretely confront the scourge of misogyny. The advertising industry sexually objectifies women. Viacom, General Electric and the entire mass media produce music and videos based on chauvinist caricatures of women as objects, shallow gossips, video vixens, hoes, thots and gold-diggers. Many actors in capitalist, consumer society are guilty in playing a role in the reproduction of rape culture. They cannot be let off the hook.

Socialist society will project empowering reference points through billboards, education, TV and social media.

In Cuba, where class relations are organized differently, the incidence of such crimes against women and children is far less common. After 1959, Cuba outlawed the exploitation of women in advertising. Housing, education, transportation, health care and a job were guaranteed social and economic rights. A society that had ceased to be a patriarchal, dog-eat-dog world took the bite out of the dog.

Though we can only make conjectures about the future, we can be sure that it will look nothing like this hell-on-earth that exists today.

Only a new, socialist society can provide real healing and in the words of martyred Irish revolutionary, Bobby Sands: "Our revenge will be the laughter of our children." We fight so that no little child or adult ever again has to live with what Ronald Savage and all survivors live with-the pulsating scars of incest, abuse and rape buried beneath their skin.

Thank you to Emmanuella Odilis for the feedback, edits and support. As the tears and truths emerge, the words and strength stream fourth…

This was originally published at Liberation School.

Notes

[1] "Statistics about Sexual Violence." National Sexual Violence Resource Center. 2015.

[2] Chemaly, Soraya. "50 Actual Facts about Rape." Huffington Post. December 8th, 2014.

[3] 1993.

[4] National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence against Women Survey. 1998.

[5] It is not uncommon for cops to use their batons to violently penetrate their captives. This has nothing to do with homosexuality, but are rather acts of aggression, power and contempt.

[6] Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's well-known opera Marriage of Figaro is about precisely this, peasants and servants, in the early dawn of the revolutionary movement in France, conspiring and outsmarting a philandering count who sought to prey upon the young women of an Italian village.

[7] Page 136. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1935.

[8] New York: Penguin. 1987.

[9] DeGruy, Joy. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. Uptone Press, 2005.

[10] Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Boston: 1845.

[1] Frederick Douglas' testimony conjured up images of what Haitian families endure today in exile in the Dominican Republic. According to my research living and organizing within the Haitian communities of the D.R., the results are eerily similar with women and children twice victimized - by a system of anti-Haitianismo and by the alienated male sub-oppressors within the exploited Haitian community.

[12] There is a reactionary, "nationalist" trend that posits that Black men are damaged because they were not allowed to play a "traditional" patriarchal role. This chauvinist position submits that the solution is to allow the Black male to assume their "proper" place as patriarchal protectors. It should be stated that patriarchal "protection" in any class society, including pre-colonized Africa, has its own antithesis of rape and abuse.

[13] Originally published in Spanish as Si Me Permiten Hablar. New York: Monthly Review Press. 1978.

[14] This group expropriated the name of Maria Barzola, an Aymara activist assassinated in 1951 by the Bolivian government.

[15]On the plantation, Black women were at the same time domestic, breeder and field slave. As she picked cotton, tobacco or sugar, she laid her baby down beside her just out of arm's reach. Still reeling from the pain of childbirth, she was forced to contribute to the productive process. She was thrice enslaved.

[16] Fantz, Ashley. Outrage over 6-month sentence for Brock Turner in Stanford rape case. CNN. June 7, 2016.

[17] Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) calculation based on US Department of Justice 2010 Statistics.

[18] "Raising Awareness about Sexual Abuse Facts and Statistics. U.S. Department of Justice.

[19] Bearak, Max. "Women's Underwear Strewn on beach in Rio to protest Brazil's rape culture." The Washington Post. June 8th, 2016.

[20] Vintage. 1997.

There is No "Honor" In Killing: The Problematic Language Used To Describe Violence Against Women

By Cherise Charleswell

The term "honor killing" is used to describe an act of murder against a relative, usually a girl or woman, who is perceived to have brought dishonor to the family's reputation by engaging in what is deemed an "immoral" act within their given culture or society. In this respect, they can be looked at as a form of domestic violence, one that is colluded and facilitated, not only by a family, but also the external members of the same community; patriarchal views are used to justify these murders. Also, in many cases, these murders are carried out based on rumors and unfounded suspicions, which resemble witch hunts. It is believed that the only way to restore the family's "honor" is through murder - or punishment by death. These "honor" killings have been carried out by fathers, brothers, and cousins; and female relatives, including mothers - out of fear and/or cultural indoctrination - often are complacent and remain silent about these murders. Even worse is the complacency of society, in that these murders often go unpunished. There are no arrests or trials carried out to seek justice for the deceased. Instead, it seems that the social norms justify the murders - finding the women guilty of inappropriate behavior and thus deserving of capital punishment.

Currently the practice is most commonly associated with regions (and cultures) in North Africa and the Middle East, and with those in the Islamic faith; however, these acts pre-date Islam, and have been carried out in other regions of the world. The practice has a long history, and this likely has much to do with the fact that women and girls, for many centuries, have been subjugated and treated as nothing more than property. It was carried out in the ancient world, including ancient Rome, where the pater familias, the senior male of a household, was afforded a number of rights that were not extended to Roman women, including the right kill a daughter or other female relative engaged in pre-marital sex, or a wife having extra-marital relations (Goldstein, 2002). In fact, the Roman law justified homicide "when committed in defense of the chastity either of oneself or relations". (Blackstone, 1966). The Hammurabi Code of the Babylonian civilization had a number of rules that pertained to adultery, and among these rules was that an adulterous wife must be tied to her lover and thrown in the river to drown. The specific text is as follows for laws 132 and 133:

[132] If the "finger is pointed" at a man's wife about another man, but she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the river for her husband.

[133] If a man is taken prisoner in war, and there is a sustenance in his house, but his wife leave house and court, and go to another house: because this wife did not keep her court, and went to another house, she shall be judicially condemned and thrown into the water.

While ancient civilizations in the Americas, such as the Aztec and Incas, allowed their own form of "honor" killings: Inca laws allowed husbands to starve their wives if they were suspected of adultery, while Aztec laws permitted stoning or strangulation as punishment for adultery (Goldstein, 2002). Honor-based murders were also codified and practiced in medieval Europe, where early Jewish law mandated death by stoning for an adulterous wife and her partner (Brundage, 1987). Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of England's King Henry VIII, was beheaded based on allegations of adultery, as was the fictitious character Desdemona, in Shakespeare's play, Othello.

Women's roles, and increased independence, sexual liberation, etc., did not begin to take root until the 19th century, and was not advanced until the latter half of the 20th century. For many women in the world, these things have not yet been achieved, and the persistence of "honor" killings is an example to this. The following are some of the recent and brutal murders that have been described as "honor" killings:

- The killing of a 26-years-old Pakistani social media star and model Fauzia Akeem, known as Qandeel Baloch, by her brother in the name of preserving their family's honor. Fauna challenged social norms with her glamorous photos and videos that she posted on social media on sites such as Instagram. Reports about her death stated that she was strangled and/or subjected to things that were far more sinister.

- The case of Mohammad Shafia an Afghani man residing in Ontario, Canada, who murdered his three daughters, Zainab 19, Sahar 17, and Geeti 13, after he deemed them to be treacherous. Shafia's anger stemmed from the fact that he felt ashamed that his eldest daughter married a Pakastani man, and he reportedly stated the following when speaking about his daughter's deaths, "I would do it again 100 times,"

- The 2008 movie, The Stoning of Soraya M., is based on the true story of an Iranian woman who was falsely accused of infidelity by her husband, because she refused his request for divorce so that he could marry a 14-years-old girl, only to be ostracized by her community, rejected by her sons, and ultimately sentenced to death by stoning. Soraya was subjected to beatings by her husband before he began the plot against her, and his need to rid himself of her was because he could not afford to support his wife, their children, and the other bride that he sought after. Soraya's story was recounted by her aunt, to a French journalist, and it provides an example of how barbaric these acts of violence against women are, while also illustrating how vulnerable women are in various societies and within their families. This vulnerability stems from the fact that a family's honor is tied to a girl's/woman's body, ultimately stripping them of their rights to decide how to adorn their body, in which settings to allow themselves to take up space, whose company they can keep, and most importantly who they share their bodies with. There was also the movie Sound of Tears, made by Cameroonian director Dorothy Atabong and set in Canada. The movie followed the lead protagonist, a young woman and immigrant, who made the decision to forego a pre-arranged marriage in order to run-off with the man who she loved, and whose child she carried; a man who happened to be White. The movie ends with her being murdered by her brother, and closes with a scene of her mother knowingly sitting in a chair, waiting to receive confirmation that the deed had been done.

These twisted and illogical beliefs allow people within these communities to deem the act of murder as "honorable", or capable of restoring honor, and these out-dated beliefs continue to be a problem in the modern world, where according to United Nations statistics, some 5,000 "honor" killings are reported a year, worldwide. This count, of course, does not include the murders that go unreported. Further, they are not a problem that only affects those living in the Middle East or Africa, as there have been cases taking place in the United States, Europe, and Canada. In 2015, a report found that there were 23 to 27 documented honor killings in the United States each year (again, does not capture what is undocumented). In 2009, a report released by the Council of Europe warned that so-called honor killings were far more extensive in Europe than previously believed. The Department of Justice of Canada has even launched a preliminary examination of so-called honor killings.

These acts of violence carried out against women by their relatives should not be referred to as "honor killings" because they are actually dishonorable in nature. There simply is no honor in carrying out brutal and premeditated murder. Therefore, I offer a few suggestions to replace the term "honor killings":

• Family-Directed Killings

• Patriarchal Killings

Masculinity So Fragile

What these acts of violence against women and girls, and in some cases men, particularly LGBTQ men, make clear is that masculinity is extremely fragile, in that the actions of another, and what they choose to say or do with their bodies, allows men to feel as if their masculinity has been diminished and their honor ruined. Any time someone chooses to tie their worth and dignity to the actions of another, it speaks to their fragility. It also speaks to their need to overcompensate and protect their fragile masculinity through the use of brute force and oppression.

Ultimately, masculinity is so fragile and readily becomes problematic because it is often steeped in patriarchy, which not only oppresses and negatively impacts women and girls, but also the men who have to uphold it. Patriarchy dictates to them what actions are deemed acceptable, such as what color clothes they should wear, how close they can respectfully sit next to another man, as well as making it shameful to cry or show any emotion. Consequently, patriarchy makes masculinity fragile, leaving men in a constant and daily battle to protect it. This constant assertion of manhood is often done at the expense of women and girls, and is carried out through oppressive and sexist cultural and social norms, and in some cases through public policy. An example of the political aspect would be laws such as those in Saudi Arabia which prohibit women from driving. To be clear, it is not an official or state law, but one that is upheld by societal views, based on deeply held religious beliefs of clerics who wield a great deal of power and influence. They argue that female drivers "undermine social values." There has been a great deal of pushback to these archaic beliefs, such as the 2011 campaign "Women2Drive" organized by women in Saudi Arabia, which encourage women to disregard the laws and to even dare to post images of themselves driving on social media in an attempt to raise awareness and spark dialogue for reform. Unfortunately, campaigns such as this have not been a major success, and women continue to face punishment for getting behind the wheel of a vehicle. In this case, masculinity is so fragile that the mere thought of women being able to move about freely without the approval and assistance of men is viewed as a challenge to their manhood - a manhood that once again depends on the actions of another.

So, this is what makes masculinity so fragile - the fact that it can be diminished and stripped away by the actions of another. It is extremely problematic in that the ways in which men must prove their masculinity- through specific labels and behaviors - often result in mental, emotional, and physical consequences for both men and women.

Your Honor Cannot Be Based on Ownership of Women's and Girl's Bodies

The most critical problem with "honor" killings is the fact that the entire concept of honor is based on ownership of women's bodies. The ability to dictate what the women in one's family does with their bodies, and being able to show or prove that they have adhered to these rules, and have not rebelled or done what is forbidden. Even when the forbidden involves them taking agency over their bodies and lives.

This cannot be stated in a more simple manner -- No one's honor can be based on the ownership of women's and girl's bodies.

A joke made by comedian Chris Rock comes to mind when thinking about this topic of honor-by-ownership. It is a joke where he shared that his "Only job in life is to ensure that his daughters stay off of a pole," or something to that effect. Basically, stating that his honor as a man and success as a father is inherently tied to his daughters' sexuality and personal decisions. One can only imagine what would occur if father's of the millions who engage in sex work, such as strippers, decided that their daughter's profession was so dishonorable that they too had to be punished by death. Another problem with the joke is that it exemplifies the sexist views held by many, and reinforced by both women and men. It is the same view that deeply condemns, vilifies, and looks down upon the strippers but not the men who spend their money and time to simply gaze at naked women's bodies. Their morality is not called to the table. Also, these views are the same that criminalize prostitutes while not applying the same degree of scrutiny and punishment to the johns that pay for sexual services. In many societies, including those in the Western World that likes to pretend it is more progressive, prostitutes - including those who are forced into sex trafficking -- are ostracized, while the men who exploit prostitutes are again often free from shame and public scrutiny. Many former prostitutes or those still engaged in this work often speak about this shame and how it affects their ability to return home to their communities, villages, etc. and ever have a "normal life." (More on thathere,here, and here)

These "honor" killings uphold a patriarchal dichotomy that views women as either Virtuous or Whores. There is no in-between, and worse yet men are not held to similar standards. They are not deemed to be whores based on the number of sexual partners that they may have had, or their chosen style of dress. In fact, the opposite occurs. Men are praised for their sexual prowess, and are often referred to as "lady's men" when their sexual exploits gain notoriety. Even within cultures where these "honor" killings take place, men are not condemned to death or shunned if they engage in premarital sex, sex with prostitutes, or sex outside of their marriages. These acts are acceptable because of the perceived belief that men have sexual needs and desires that must be fulfilled, while ignoring the fact that women may have the same. So, men can engage in dishonorable and immoral activities as long as they have control over women's bodies. This control can be used to ensure that their honor remains intact.

Before We Condemn Let's Discuss Western Hypocrisy

When hearing about these so-called honor killings it is easy to respond with condemnation, as well as xenophobic reactions about a certain culture and religion - particularly Islam - but the truth of the matter is that those responses are hypocritical. Violence against women, particularly rape culture, is just as problematic for women in the West, and within other cultures and societies. Sure, those carrying out these acts may not be carried out primarily by relatives (although incest, pedophilia, intimate partner violence is often carried out by relatives), it does not take away from the fact that women and girls are victimized by gender-based sexual violence. A recent study in the UK, referred to as the "Femicide Census," found that the vast majority of homicides and violence committed against women were due to the result of intimate partner violence (More on thathere, and here). These killings may not be motivated by a need to restore "honor," but they have commonality in the need to control women and their bodies. If the United States government would restore funding for gun violence research originally earmarked by the 1996 Dickey Amendment (which interestingly restricted the CDC from using its funding to "advocate or promote gun control"), I am quite sure that a similar pattern regarding homicide and women would be revealed. One-hundred and forty-one medical, public health, and social organizations, including the Southern California Public Health Association, for which I serve as President, have joined in on a coalition being led by Doctors for America, which is urging Congress to Restore Funding for Gun Violence Research. Letters have been sent directly to four senior members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committee. (See the press release from Doctors for America here)

The language used to discuss violence against women and girls is quite problematic globally, because it is steeped in patriarchy and masculine fragility which normalize victim blaming. Those who speak out against street harassment and molestation are simply told that they are being whiny and cannot take a compliment, even when that compliment involves another person believing that they have a right to place their hands on another's body. These arguments are being made despite the fact that women/girls have been killed for simply stating 'no' - for saying that they did not want to give a man their number or didn't want to stay in a relationship with a man. One of the most graphic examples of this occurred when a young woman was stabbed to death in the middle of a crowded commuter train in Chicago. At the root of these retaliatory acts of violence is the fact that these men felt not only rejected, but as if they had been dissed--and thus disrespected. In other words, they too believed that their honor was diminished.

Normalized language of violence against women/girls made it possible for people like Daniel Holtzclaw, a former Oklahoma police officer convicted in December 2015 of rape, sexual battery, forcible sodomy and other charges, to sexually abuse and exploit women; as well as for the exploitation of Celeste Guap in Oakland, California, who has spoken out about engaging in sexual acts (while under the age of legal consent) with dozens of police officers from throughout the Bay Area under the guise of protection. Guap's ordeal has led to a scandal that involves the resignation of a number of police chiefs. In each case, the women involved remained silent because of the way they are viewed in society, and referred to by the media. They are rarely seen as the victim, and in other cases victims are simply blamed for what has transpired against them. This is the basis of rape culture, and rape culture has become so toxic with the advent of social media that men have used these platforms to harass, stalk, and make threats of rape and murder against women (Examples of this problemhere,here, and here).

In consummation, the current language used to describe violence against women and girls is beyond problematic. It helps to perpetuate patriarchal views of ownership and control of women and their bodies, particularly in the use of the term "honor killings," which ties a man's perceived honor to the choices made by a woman, regarding her life and body. There is absolutely no "honor" in killing.

References

Matthew A. Goldstein, "The biological roots of heat-of-passion crimes and honour killings," Politics and the Life Sciences 21,2 (2002): 28-37.

William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765- 1769, Book Four, Public Wrongs, (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1769, reprinted by Wildy & Sons Ltd., London, 1966): 181.

James A. Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987, 55.

Violence, Counter-Violence, and the Question of the Gun

By Devon Bowers and Colin Jenkins

In June 2016, the Democrats had a sit-in on the House floor to push for gun legislation that had been blocked. It has been noted by numerous writers the myriad of problems with this bill[1][2] [3] as well as the hypocrisy of the sit-in itself.[4] However, this article is to talk about something deeper: the question of violence, so-called "gun control," and how these issues relate to politics and the working-class majority in its place within the socio-capitalist hierarchy.

There are arguably three main types of violence which will be premised in this analysis: state violence, group violence, and revolutionary violence. The first two forms of violence, coming from the state and groups empowered by the status quo, are designed to oppress. The third form, coming from revolutionaries and the systematically oppressed, is designed to strike back at this oppression for the purpose of liberation. The first two types (state and group) are violent, or offensive, by nature. The last type (revolutionary) is counter-violent, or defensive, by nature.

State Violence

Violence and politics are historically intertwined, so much so that the definition of the state is "a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." [5] Due to this monopoly of violence, the state is able to put restrictions on what kinds of weapons people can have, and if they can have any at all. Because of the state's monopoly on the use of violence, which is directed at citizens of that state whenever deemed necessary, the issue of "gun control" is rather peculiar. It is also fairly unique to the United States, a country that was born at the hands of the gun, and a country that has been largely shaped by the degrees of "liberty" reflected in gun ownership among the populace. In modern society, gun control seems like a common-sense measure as it is quite obvious to many that people shouldn't have the right to possess tanks, Javelins, Scuds, nuclear weapons, and other military-grade weaponry. However, as technology in weaponry increases, so too does the power of the state in its monopoly of violence. Because of this natural progression of state power based solely in military hardware, a side effect of gun control is that it creates a polarization of power between the state and its citizenry. In other words, the state continues to build its arsenal with more powerful and effective weaponry, while the citizenry continues to face restrictions on access to weaponry. While this scenario may seem reserved for the Alex-Jones-watching, prepper-obsessed fringes, the reality is that, within an economic system (capitalism) that naturally creates extreme hierarchies and masses of dispossessed people, it is (and has been) a serious problem in the context of domestic political and social movements.

In the U.S. (as with many countries), there are underlying class and racial issues related to the state's monopoly of violence and its restriction of access to guns for its citizens. Looking from a historical perspective, when it comes to violence at the hands of the state, it is regularly used on the side of capital. One only need look at the history of the American labor movement during the first half of the twentieth century, which was an extremely violent time. Within the context of class relations under capitalism, whereas the state represents moneyed interests and a powerful minority, the working-class majority has faced an uphill battle not only in its struggle to gain basic necessities, but also in its residual struggle against an increasingly-armed state apparatus that is inherently designed to maintain high levels of dispossession, poverty, and income inequality. A primary example of the state using violence to aid capital is the Ludlow Massacre.

In the year 1913, in the southern Colorado counties of Las Animas and Huerfano, miners (with the help of the United Mine Workers of America) decided to strike. They argued for union recognition by the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, an increase in wages, and an eight-hour work day, among other things. In response, the company kicked a number of miners off of the company land, and brought in the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency which specialized in breaking coal strikes. The Agency initiated a campaign of harassment against the strikers, which "took the form of high-powered searchlights playing over the colonies at night, murders, beatings, and the use of the 'death special,' an improvised armored car that would periodically spray selected colonies with machine-gun fire." The purpose of this harassment "was to goad the strikers"[6] into violent action so the National Guard could be called out to suppress the labor strike. It worked.

In October 1913, Governor Elias A. Ammos summoned the National Guard, under the command of General John Chase, who declared martial law in the striking area. Under control of the National Guard, a state-controlled militia, a number of atrocities took place against the striking workers, such as the "mass jailing of strikers, a cavalry charge on a demonstration by miners' wives and children, the torture and beating of 'prisoners,' and the demolition of one of the [workers'] tent colonies."[7]

The situation came to a gruesome ending when on April 20, 1914 gunfire broke out between the striking miners and National Guard troops. When miners who had taken up arms to protect themselves and their families went to a railroad cut and prepared foxholes in an attempt to draw the National Guard away from the colony, Guard troops sprayed the colony with machine gun and rifle fire and eventually burned the tent colony to the ground. An estimated 25 people died that day, "including three militiamen, one uninvolved passerby, and 12 children."[8] Unfortunately, this example of the state using its monopoly of violence to represent the minority interests of capital against the majority interests of workers. The state had previously come down hard on the side of union-busting with violence in the 1892 Homestead Massacre in Pennsylvania, and in 1894 when President Cleveland sent out over 16,000 U.S. Army soldiers to handle the railroad strikers in Pullman, Chicago.[9]

In 1932, state violence targeted a large group of war veterans who had assembled in Washington, D.C. demanding payment from the federal government for their service in World War I. The Bonus Army, an assemblage of roughly 43,000 people consisting primarily of veterans, their families, and affiliated activists, marched on D.C. to demand payment of previously received service certificates only to be met with violent repression. First, two veterans were shot and killed by Washington, D.C. police, and then, after orders from Herbert Hoover, Douglas Macarthur moved in on the veterans with infantry, cavalry, and six tanks, forcing the Bonus Army, their wives, and children out of their makeshift encampment and burning all of their belongings and shelter. "Although no weapons were fired, cavalry advanced with swords drawn, and some blood was shed. By nightfall, hundreds had been injured by gas (including a baby who died), bricks, clubs, bayonets, and sabers."[10]

Later in the 20th century, state violence continued, yet it had switched targets from union members and striking workers to political activists. An example is the Kent State shootings, where on May 4, 1970 "members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University [antiwar] demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine."[11] Kent Mayor Leroy Satrom had requested Ohio Governor James Rhodes to summon the Guard due to "threats had been made to downtown businesses and city officials as well as rumors that radical revolutionaries were in Kent to destroy the city and the university."[12]

The rhetoric of Governor Rhodes escalated the situation as he called the protesters "the worst type of people in America and [stated] that every force of law would be used to deal with them," which created a perception among both soldiers and university officials that "a state of martial law was being declared in which control of the campus resided with the Guard rather than University leaders,"[13] and on top of this, all rallies were banned. This helped to foster an increase of tension in an atmosphere that was already extremely tense.

On the day of May 4th, around 3,000 students gathered to protest the Guard's presence on the campus. At noon, it was announced the General Robert Cantbury, the leader of the Ohio National Guard, had made the decision that the rally was to disperse; this message was delivered to the students via the police. When this was met with shouting and some rock throwing, the Guard was sent in to break up the protest and, due to the students retreating up a hill and on to a portion of the football field, the soldiers who followed them ended up somewhat trapped between the football field's fence and the protesters. The shouting and rock throwing continued as the soldiers began to extract themselves from the football field and up a hill, and when they reached the top, the soldiers fired their weapons back toward the crowd, with a small amount firing directly into the crowd.

No matter how one looks at it, the entire point of the National Guard being deployed to Kent State University was to squash the protesters who had gathered under their perceived constitutional rights to express their collective displeasure with the Vietnam War. The state chose to deploy its monopoly of violence as a tool to end these public protests.

Assassination campaigns by the state, directed by the FBI or CIA, and often times carried out by local police departments, have also been deployed under this monopoly of violence. There is the notably disturbing case of Chicago Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton, who was assassinated by Chicago police due to his political views and membership in the Black Panther organization.[14] There is also speculation and credible evidence that the U.S. government was involved in both the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. [15] and Malcolm X.[16]

Today, state violence has manifested itself in daily public displays of police brutality and violence against citizens. This endemic use of state force has become so bad that a recent report from the UN Human Rights Council noted concerns "for police violence and racial discrimination" in the U.S. [17] Yet, despite this widespread recognition of state terror being directed at citizens, we see that the federal government (the highest level of state) is protecting its enforcers, with President Obama signing into law what is effectively an Amber Alert for the police[18], and states such as Louisiana passing 'Blue Lives Matter' bills which designates "public safety workers" (a clever euphemism for police) as a specially protected class of citizens, opening the door for possible "hate crime" legislation that further protects those who carry out state repression.[19]

This rampant use of state violence against U.S. citizens has also gone international. In the age of the Global War on Terror, the U.S. government has gone so far as to decide it has the power to use its monopoly of violence on its citizens abroad. The case of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who was killed via drone strike in Yemen in 2011, provides a notable example of this.[20] The significance of this extension to the parameters of "international warfare" or the often vague "fight against terror" is that any U.S. citizen deemed to be under suspicion of associating with "terrorists" may be immediately executed without due process. Since al-Awlaki, the U.S. government has officially acknowledged that it has killed four American citizens abroad, while claiming that three of those deaths were by accident.[21]

In looking at the state's (in this case, the U.S. state at multiple levels) monopoly of violence and its continued use against its own citizens, we see that this deployment of violence is always done in the favor of capital (a small minority) in order to expand and strengthen capital's influence, through its state surrogate, over the working-class majority with no regard for life.

Group Violence and Its Enablers

Group violence manifests itself in numerous citizens joining together in a common cause to perpetrate violence against other citizens who in some way fit the intended target of that cause. When discussing group violence, it should be noted that the subjects are non-state actors. While these groups may be directly or indirectly supported by the state, they essentially carry out their acts of violence as groups autonomous from the state apparatus.

The Ku Klux Klan (which is currently attempting to make a comeback[22]) has for decades engaged in numerous acts of group violence, from public lynchings to terrorism and coercion to bombing churches.[23] The purpose of this group violence has been to maintain a social order in which Anglo-Saxon, Protestant white men are able to keep their hands on the reins of power in the U.S., if not systematically, then culturally and socially.

In many cases, because they may share interests, group violence intertwines with and complements state violence. During Reconstruction following the U.S. Civil War, the KKK had well-known ties to the more official southern state apparatus of power. In the modern era, white supremacists who adhere to notions of group violence have purposely and strategically infiltrated formal arms of state violence, including both the U.S. military and many local police departments around the country.[24][25] A similar group that is making major headway today is the Neo-Fascists, who can be seen in Europe being legitimized and assimilating into mainstream political parties such as Greece's Golden Dawn, the UK's UK Independence Party, Austria's Freedom Party, and France's National Front. Like the Klan, these groups seek to maintain a race-based, social status quo that benefits their own group. In the polls, they seek to gain some influence on the use of state violence, whereas on the streets they adhere to group violence and domestic terrorism.

A difference worth noting between the old-school group violence of the Klan and the new-school group violence (or at least contributing to an atmosphere of violence) that neo-fascists encourage and enact is that the new-school violence has been legitimized in many ways by both the media and the public at-large. In other words, we now have large segments of the population who are openly defending the neo-fascists through legitimizing means.

Back in the heyday of the Klan, there was violence, yet no one defended it under the banner of free speech or attempted to legitimize it through mainstream channels. It was certainly supported by mainstream power structures, and even gained steam through the insidious white supremacy which characterized American culture, but it wasn't openly defended. The KKK often carried out its operations in a clandestine manner, attacking and terrorizing at night, and wearing hoods to maintain anonymity. And many black people actively took up arms to defend themselves against it. [26][27] Today, the situation has been turned on its head, with many people arguing that fascists have the right to free speech and that they should be protected.

An example of this changing paradigm regarding right-wing extremism and group violence could be seen after a recent fight between Neo-Nazis and antifascists in Sacramento, California in late June 2016.[28] The incident brought out many defenders. Sacramento police chief Sam Somers stated that "Regardless of the message, it's the skinheads' First Amendment right to free speech." [29] Debra J. Saunders, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote in an article that "the bullies who were protesting against fascists seemed to have a lot in common with fascists - they're also thuggish and simpleminded" and that "An informal army of anarchists uses violence to muzzle unwanted speech."[30] The Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote that they agreed with Antifa Sacramento that racism shouldn't be tolerated, but "What we disagree with is the idea that skinheads and neo-Nazis, or anyone else with a wrongheaded view, shouldn't have a 1st Amendment right to free speech." [31]

There are a number of problems with these statements. First, by defending fascists through arguments couched in free speech, such commentators are not only ignoring the underlying group-violence historically perpetrated by these groups, but also misusing the First Amendment itself. The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." [32] Note, the Amendment says nothing about how other citizens may respond to free speech, nor does it say that groups of citizens can't abridge free speech; rather, it specifically applies to Congress and its prospective legislation. In other words, the Constitution of the United States applies strictly to the government and how it relates to its citizens, whereas the laws created by the government apply to the individuals and how they relate to the government.

Then there is the matter of ignoring power dynamics and creating a false equivalence. These responses create the illusion that each side is doing something negative and so neither side should be supported. This ignores the fact that one side (the neo-nazis and fascists) are assembling with the purpose of oppressing others, while the other side (the anti-fa and anarchists) are assembling to stop (violently, if necessary) the one side from oppressing. While the former adheres to violent means to oppress people based on the color of their skin, or their sexuality, or their Jewish heritage, the latter adheres to violent means to resist this oppression, or essentially oppress the oppressor. To equate their motivations is irresponsible and dangerous. This false equivalence that has been deployed by much of the media, both liberal and conservative, amounts to placing a murderous and whip-lashing slave owner in the same light as a rebelling slave who murders the slave owner to gain freedom. By using this hypothetical, it is easy to see that there is a fundamental difference between violence and counter-violence.

Another side effect of this public defense of the oppressor, and subsequent legitimization of group violence, is that it is used to increase state violence. Marcos Brenton, a writer at The Sacramento Bee, argued that "I would bet that future demonstrations will see a shared command center between the CHP and Sac PD instead of what we saw Sunday: CHP officers overwhelmed by warring factions. […]Law enforcement wasn't ready this time, but they have to be next time. In a climate where life isn't valued, life will be lost."[33] This is an argument that is implicitly in favor of an increase in state violence from an already hyper-militarized police force. And, when used in this context, the deployment of state violence will almost always be directed at those who assemble to stop oppressive group violence, because arguments housed in free speech and false equivalencies erase any and all distinctions between violence and counter-violence.

This is where the connection between state and group violence often manifests itself. As mentioned before, there is a rather long history of the police and the KKK being connected: On April 2, 1947, seven black people in Hooker, GA were turned over "to a Klan flogging party for a proper sobering up" by Dade County Sheriff John M. Lynch. In Soperton, GA in 1948, "the sheriff did not bother to investigate when four men where flogged, while the sheriff of nearby Dodge County couldn't look into the incident"[34] due to his being busy baby-sitting.

There is also the famous case of the Freedom Riders, three Civil Rights activists who were killed by the Klan, which amounted to three individuals being "arrested by a deputy sheriff and then released into the hands of Klansmen who had plotted their murders." [35]

This connection has yet to end. In 2014, in Florida, two police officers in the town of Fruitland Park were linked to the Klan [36] and in 2015 in Lake Arthur, LA, a detective was a found to be a Klan member and even attended one of the group's rallies.[37]

These connections allow for the state, and all the power and resources it wields, to be used directly to further the ends of white supremacy and empower fascistic, racist group violence in the streets. It also puts racial minorities from within the working class at greater risks since many of these bigoted individuals who carry out group violence on their own time are also allowed to carry out state violence while on the job. As agents of the state, they can kill, terrorize, harass, and imprison racial minorities with impunity vis-à-vis their roles as state enforcers and are further empowered by the public's and media's reverence of oppressive forms of assembly and "free speech," as well as the police officers who defend this.

Revolutionary Violence

Revolutionary violence is realized in two distinct forms: self-defense and/or counter-violence. It is a type of violence in which the goal is either self-defense for an oppressed people and/or full liberation for a people, whether that liberation take the form of autonomous communities, a nation state, or something else. It is also resistance to encroachment on the land by oppressive forces, such as in the case of indigenous resistance to expansionist Americans. Revolutionary violence may come in different forms and be carried out through various means. It includes everything from individual acts of "propaganda by the deed" to large-scale revolutions against a state.

Examples of revolutionary violence are abound throughout history, and include the slave revolts of Spartacus and Nat Turner, the Reign of Terror against the French monarchy, the Spanish revolt against the fascist Franco regime, Alexander Berkman's attempted murder of Carnegie Steel manager Henry Clay Frick, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Reconstruction-era blacks taking up arms against the KKK, the Mau Maus in Kenya [38], the Cuban revolution[39], and a number of national liberation movements in the mid-twentieth century that occurred around the world.

Revolutionary violence is different from state and group violence in that it manifests itself as a response to violence often stemming from one of these two opposing sources. For this reason, it is strictly counter-violent (or defensive) in nature, designed to break the violent oppression that its adherents find themselves under. The benefit of being able to deploy revolutionary violence is obvious in that it allows the oppressed to strike back at their oppressors. It is in this beneficial scenario where the question of guns and "gun control" come back into the mix. How are people supposed to free themselves, or even defend themselves from state and group violence, if they are unable to have guns? How are people able to protect themselves from oppressive violence if they do not have access to the same weaponry used by their oppressor?

When faced with systemic violence that is rooted in either a direct extension of the state (police, military) or an indirect extension of the power structure (the KKK, the Oath Keepers, neo-Nazis, neo-fascists), written laws constructed by the same state and power structure aren't typically useful. And when doubled-down on by media and liberal establishment cries of free speech and false equivalencies, oppressed sectors of the population become even more vulnerable to state and group violence. Often times, armed self-defense becomes the only option to protect oneself, one's family, and one's community from these deeply embedded, existential threats.

Formulating revolutionary counter-violence and self-defense measures became a staple of the American Civil Rights movement. From Malcolm X's calls to defend the black community "by any means necessary" to the original Black Panther Party's organizational emphasis on armed self-defense, the Civil Rights movement as a whole gained strength due to these more militant strains centered around revolutionary violence. In 1956, after a "relentless backlash from the Ku Klux Klan," Robert F. Williams, a Marine Corps vet, took over the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP and strengthened it with militancy by "filing for a charter with the National Rifle Association (NRA)," forming the Black Guard, "an armed group committed to the protection of Monroe's black population," and delivering weapons and physical training to its members.[40] In 1959, following the acquittal of a white man who was accused of attempting to rape a black woman, Williams summed up the need for oppressed people to take up arms in their own self-defense. "If the United States Constitution cannot be enforced in this social jungle called Dixie, it is time that Negroes must defend themselves even if it is necessary to resort to violence," responded Williams. "That there is no law here, there is no need to take the white attackers to the courts because they will go free and that the federal government is not coming to the aid of people who are oppressed, and it is time for Negro men to stand up and be men and if it is necessary for us to die we must be willing to die. If it is necessary for us to kill we must be willing to kill." [41]

Revolutionary violence often finds itself up against difficult odds, being deployed by marginalized peoples with limited resources against powerful state and group entities with seemingly unlimited resources, professional military training, and advantageous positioning within the given power structure. The 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising reflected this exact scenario, as a Jewish resistance in the hundreds, armed with handguns, grenades, and Molotov cocktails faced off against the powerful Nazi paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS). When reflecting on the uprising over two decades later, one of the Jewish survivors, Yitzhak Zuckerman, encapsulated the need for an oppressed and degraded people to strike back:

"I don't think there's any real need to analyze the Uprising in military terms. This was a war of less than a thousand people against a mighty army and no one doubted how it was likely to turn out. This isn't a subject for study in military school. (...) If there's a school to study the human spirit, there it should be a major subject. The important things were inherent in the force shown by Jewish youth after years of degradation, to rise up against their destroyers, and determine what death they would choose: Treblinka or Uprising."[42]

This human spirit referred to by Zuckerman is the same that compelled Nat Turner to take up arms against slave-owning whites, the same that led to the formation of the original Black Panther Party, and the same that motivated Robert F. Williams in 1950s North Carolina. Without access to weapons, this human spirit would result in nothing more than gruesome massacres at the hands of state and group violence. With weapons in hand, this spirit is presented with a chance to stunt pending attacks of physical oppression and terrorism, if not repel them.

Conclusion

The modern gun control debate has taken on two, stereotypical, opposing sides. The first side is representative in the Congressional sit-ins on the House floor this past June. They represent a common liberal viewpoint that gun-control measures should be taken to restrict or, at the very least, delay the acquisition of guns by citizens. Popular demands coming from this side include the banning of all automatic or semi-automatic weapons, the blacklisting of certain people (including those suspected of "associating with terrorists," the mentally ill, and felons), and the implementation of more stringent forms of clearances. The other side is represented by a reactionary right, mostly white, that is backed by both the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its surrogate, the Republican Party. These who oppose the liberal attempt to stifle the Second Amendment historically come from privileged strata of the status quo, including whites of all classes and those occupying advantageous positions in the socioeconomic hierarchy.

Both sides of the modern gun-control debate cling to very problematic positions and ideologies that are tantamount to their respective arguments. Both sides, in their own ways, reinforce the embedded racial and class privileges that repress much of the working class, the poor, and people of color - in other words, those sectors of the population that are most likely faced with extremely dire economic situations, occupying police forces that resemble foreign armies, and (literally) daily, life-or-death interactions with both police (state violence) and vigilantes (group violence). The liberal or Democrat argument for gun control, like those represented by the Congressional sit-in, almost always target extremely marginalized groups, like felons who have been victimized by the draconian "drug wars" of the '80s and '90s, as well as those who have been victimized by the "war on terror" and find themselves on terrorist watch lists for little more than their chosen religion or Islamic-sounding name. The reactionary opposition to gun control, represented by the NRA and Republicans, remains embedded in white supremacy, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and classism, and thus also ends up targeting these same marginalized populations. This latter group's motivation is evident in the overlap between fringe groups that historically adhere to group violence, like the KKK and Oath Keepers, and the more "mainstream" operations of the NRA.

Both sides of the gun-control debate, whether consciously or subconsciously, are motivated by what Noam Chomsky (paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson) recently referred to as a fear of "the liberation of slaves, who have 'ten thousand recollections' of the crimes to which they were subjected." These "fears that the victims might rise up and take revenge are deeply rooted in American culture" (in racialized institutions of slavery and white supremacy) with reverberations to the present."[43] The liberal insistence on preaching strictly non-violent and pacifist tactics to poor, working-class, people of color exposes their privileged, white-supremacist leanings. The fact that they do this while also passing draconian legislation that has led to the virtual genocide of an entire generation of blacks (through drug laws and mass incarceration), and in the face of brutal, daily murders of black citizens by police, further exposes them. The recent silence from the NRA regarding the police killing of Philando Castile [44], who was licensed to carry a gun in Minnesota and properly identified his status to officers before being shot for no reason, has exposed the NRA's white supremacist leanings. Also, the split that occurred within the Oath Keepers when one of their members in the St. Louis chapter, Sam Andrews, encouraged black residents in Ferguson and Black Lives Matters protestors to practice their Second-Amendment rights [45] has exposed their own white supremacist leanings which they regularly disguise as "constitutionalism."

While white supremacy has an intense and insidious hold on every aspect of American culture - social, economic, political, etc. - it is especially strong within the gun-control debate. So much so that it drove then-California governor, Ronald Reagan, in 1967, to sign extensive gun control legislation under the Mulford Act[46] in response to armed patrols by members of the Black Panther Party. The classist nature of gun control can be found in the targeting of the most marginalized of the working class, along with the historically brutal state repression against workers collectively striking or standing up for their rights against bosses. The most common argument from the authentic, anti-capitalist left (not liberals or Democrats) against the idea of workers collectively exercising their constitutional right to bear arms has been housed in the insurmountable strength and technology owned by the government's military. Left-wing skeptics claim that an armed working-class will simply have no chance against an overpowering military. The problem with this is that it is preoccupied with a large-scale, pie-in-the-sky revolutionary situation. It ignores the reality faced by many working-class people who find themselves in small-scale, daily interactions with police and vigilantes, both of whom are heavily armed and not afraid to use their weapons to kill. It is in these very interactions, whether it's a black citizen being racially profiled and harassed by police or an activist being terrorized by reactionary groups, where the access to a gun may become vitally important and life-saving.

Advocating for disarming those who need protection the most simply doesn't make sense, especially in an environment such as the modern U.S. - a heavily racialized, classist landscape with over 300 million guns in circulation. Nobody wants to be drawn into a violent situation that may result in the loss of life, but our current reality does not allow us that choice. Unfortunately, we live a society where police oppress rather than protect; where violent reactionary groups are allowed freedom to carry out their terrorizing of marginalized people; and where politicians readily use their monopoly of violence to enforce capital's minority interests against masses of workers. Because of this, modern gun control can only be viewed as anti-black, anti-woman, anti-immigrant, anti-poor, and anti-working class because it leaves these most marginalized and vulnerable of groups powerless in the face of a violent, patriarchal, white-supremacist power structure that continues to thrive off of mass working-class dispossession. The conclusion is simple: If the oppressor cannot be disarmed, the only sane option is to arm the oppressed. In the U.S., the Constitution makes this a practical and legal option.

"Sometimes, if you want to get rid of the gun, you have to pick the gun up."

-Huey P. Newton

Notes

[1] Philip Bump, "The Problem With Banning Guns For People On The No-Fly List," Washington Post, June 13, 2016 ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/07/the-no-fly-list-is-a-terrible-tool-for-gun-control-in-part-because-it-is-a-terrible-tool/ )

[2] Alex Pareene, The Democrats Are Boldly Fighting For A Bad, Stupid Bill, Gawker, http://gawker.com/the-democrats-are-boldly-fighting-for-a-bad-stupid-bil-1782449026 (June 22, 2016)

[3] Zaid Jilani, "Dramatic House Sit-In on Guns Is Undercut by Focus on Secret, Racist Watchlist," The Intercept, June 22, 2016 ( https://theintercept.com/2016/06/22/dramatic-house-sit-in-on-guns-is-undercut-by-focus-on-secret-racist-watchlist/ )

[4] Tom Hall, "Congressional Democrats stage 'sit-in' stunt on gun control," World Socialist Website, June 25, 2016 ( https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/06/25/dems-j25.html)

[5] Fact Index, Monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, http://www.fact-index.com/m/mo/monopoly_on_the_legitimate_use_of_physical_force.html

[6] Mark Walker, "The Ludlow Massacre: Class Warfare and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado," Historical Archaeology 37:3 (2003), pg 68

[7] Walker, pgs 68-69

[8] Walker, pg 69

[9] Ronald J. Barr, The Progressive Army: U.S. Army Command and Administration, 1870-1914 (New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1998), pg 7

[10] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/peopleevents/pandeAMEX89.html

[11] Thomas R. Hensley, Jerry M, Lewis, "The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The search for historical accuracy," The Ohio Council of Social Studies Review 34"1 (1998), pg 9

[12] Hensley, Lewis, pg 11

[13] Ibid

[14] Ted Gregory, "The Black Panther Raid and the death of Fred Hampton," Chicago Tribune, July 3, 2016 ( http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/chi-chicagodays-pantherraid-story-story.html )

[15] The King Center, Assassination Conspiracy Trial, http://www.thekingcenter.org/assassination-conspiracy-trial

[16] Garrett Felber, "Malcolm X Assassination: 50 years on, mystery still clouds details of the case," The Guardian, February 21, 2015 ( https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/21/malcolm-x-assassination-records-nypd-investigation )

[17] Natasja Sheriff, "US cited for police violence, racism in scathing UN review on human rights," Al Jazeera, May 11, 2015 ( http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/5/11/us-faces-scathing-un-review-on-human-rights-record.html )

[18] Gregory Korte, "Obama signs 'Blue Alert' law to protect police," USA Today, May 19, 2016 ( http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/19/obama-blue-alert-law-bill-signing/27578911/ )

[19] Elahe Izadi, "Louisiana's 'Blue Lives Matter' bill just became law," Washington Post, May 26, 2016 ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/05/26/louisianas-blue-lives-matter-bill-just-became-law/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.6d262fdb3218 )

[20] Joshua Keating, "Was Anwar Al-Awlaki Still A US Citizen?" Foreign Policy, September 30, 2011 ( http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/09/30/was_anwar_al_awlaki_still_a_us_citizen )

[21] Adam Taylor, "The U.S. keeps killing Americans in drone strikes, mostly by accident," Washington Post, April 23, 2015 ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/04/23/the-u-s-keeps-killing-americans-in-drone-strikes-mostly-by-accident/ )

[22] John Bazemore, "Ku Klux Klan dreams of making a comeback," The Columbus Dispatch, June 30, 2016 ( http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2016/06/30/0630-is-klan-making-a-comeback.html )

[23] Southern Poverty Law Center, Ku Klux Klan, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/ku-klux-klan

[24] Hampton Institute, Rising Nazism and Racial Intolerance in the US. A report gathered and submitted to the United Nations, http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/Rising-Nazism-and-Racial-Intolerance-in-the-US.pdf (April 30, 2015)

[25] FBI report on white supremacists infiltrating law enforcement agencies in the US. http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/402521/doc-26-white-supremacist-infiltration.pdf

[26] Rebecca Onion, "Red Summer," Slate, March 4, 2015 ( http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2015/03/civil_rights_movement_history_the_long_tradition_of_black_americans_taking.html )

[27] Akinyele K. Umoja, "1964: The Beginning of the End of Nonviolence in the Mississippi Freedom Movement," Radical History Review 85:1 (2003)

[28] Ellen Garrison, Stephen Magagnini, Sam Stanton, "At least 10 hurt at chaotic, bloody neo-Nazi rally at Capitol," The Sacramento Bee, June 26, 2016 (http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article86099332.html)

[29] Ibid

[30] Debra J. Saunders, "Saunders: Freedom of speech stifled by Capitol rally fracas," San Francisco Chronicle, July 2, 2016 ( http://www.recordnet.com/article/20160702/OPINION/160709984)

[31] Los Angeles Times Editorial Board, "How anti-racists play into the skinheads' hands," Los Angeles Times, June 28, 2016 ( http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-neo-nazi-rally-20160627-snap-story.html )

[32] Legal Information Institute, First Amendment, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment

[33] Marcos Brenton, "Madness came to Sacramento, and the cops weren't ready," The Sacramento Bee, June 29, 2016 ( http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/marcos-breton/article86556112.html )

[34] David M. Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan, 3rd ed. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987), pg 336

[35] Civil Rights Movement Veterans, Mississippi Civil Rights Martyrs, http://www.crmvet.org/mem/msmartyr.htm

[36] Michael Winter, "KKK membership sinks 2 Florida cops," USA Today, July 14, 2014 ( http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/14/florid-police-kkk/12645555/ )

[37] Bill Morlin, Police Chief Demands Resignation of KKK Cop, https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2015/09/01/police-chief-demands-resignation-kkk-cop (September 1, 2015)

[38] "Mau Mau Uprising: Bloody history of Kenyan conflict," BBC, April 7, 2011 ( http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-12997138)

[39] Andres Suarez, "The Cuban Revolution: The Road to Power," Latin American Research Review 7:3 (1972)

[40] PBS Independent Lens, A synopsis on the film, "Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power," http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/negroeswithguns/rob.html

[41] Ibid

[42] A. Polonsky, (2012), The Jews in Poland and Russia, Volume III, 1914 to 2008, p.537

[43] Hampton Institute, On the Roots of American Racism: An Interview with Noam Chomsky, http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/chomsky-on-racism.html (April 22, 2015)

[44] Brian Fung, "The NRA's internal split over Philando Castile," Washington Post, July 9, 2016 ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/09/the-nras-internal-revolt-over-philando-castile/?utm_term=.b0f673e3221c )

[45] Alan Feur, "The Oath Keeper Who Wants To Arm Black Lives Matter," Rolling Stone, January 3, 2016 ( http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-oath-keeper-who-wants-to-arm-black-lives-matter-20160103 )

[46] Wikipedia, Mulford Act, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act

Racism is the Status Quo: Relinquishing the Reigns of White Power

By Susan Anglada Bartley and Samuel Burnett

Three days after the murder of Alton Sterling, two days after the murder of Philando Castile, one day after the sniper attacks on police in Dallas, four hundred plus years after the start of the trans-continental slave trade, we come together, in the highest state of white privilege--a white male college student and his white female former teacher--at a coffee shop in Portland, Oregon, computer screens ablaze, to discuss how we might respond to the current political moment in a unified response that will help other whites to own, understand, and relinquish our white power in favor of a revolutionized society. Perhaps due to privilege, perhaps due to never being pulled over and harassed for a busted tail-light, never being followed in a store (even when I, the teacher, really was stealing at the age of 12), never being questioned and certainly never being beaten or detained for crimes we did not commit--perhaps due to these factors, or perhaps due to the tendency of our European ancestors to dream of utopian visions that we never fulfill, we have the audacity or the pretense to believe that this other society is still possible.

But we see a paradox. The path to the real "America" requires us to fully relinquish our privilege. For many white individuals, myself included (the student) discussions of race and privilege bring with them a slight discomfort, partly due to the knowledge of my ancestors brutality and savagery, but even more so because these discussions cause me to address a grim truth: I am, at some level, despite years of education from liberal mentors, despite deep analysis of how racism and racist practices are perpetuated at a state and international level, and despite an overpowering desire for equity, racist. This racism is not conscious--I don't actively mentally discriminate based on the color of a human's skin. But simply through growing up in a predominately white neighborhood, watching and engaging in mainstream media (which perpetuates negative stereotypes and tropes of black and brown individuals), and refusing to speak out against racist comments made in institutional settings, I developed a latent racism. The truth is this: for white America, modern racism isn't your "antiquated" aunt who comes to ruin Thanksgiving dinner; it isn't your grandfather who grew up during legalized segregation and viewed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a "radical." It is you. The status quo in white America is racism, and while it is not pleasant to admit, while it brings me no pride to say, and while it forces me to confront my innermost demons and my external family and friends at the same time, it is a truth I cannot remain silent about. Until we admit that we, as privileged white individuals, have been indoctrinated into a racist system since the moment we were born, we cannot achieve the real American Dream. We cannot achieve equity--in fact, we promote the racist violence that continues to plague us.

On Facebook, Twitter, any social media site, I see many brave individuals speaking out and protesting against police brutality and targeting of minority communities (a practice that has been going on since the slave trade, but has only recently caught widespread attention). When it comes to being on the front lines, when it comes to speaking out in a board meeting, or in a political discussion with other whites, these individuals remain where they were--behind the computer screen. The historical moment requires us to consider the meaning of brave. Posting and sharing informative and supportive pieces on social media sites certainly requires some elementary level of guts, but true bravery in these situation is to, as a white individual, challenge yourself to combat your latent (or manifest) racism. Recognize you have been set up to operate with racist undertones, and refuse to be spellbinded by them. Scan your memories for times you let this racism influence you, and be resolved to eliminate it from your mental channels entirely. Bravery is using your whiteness to shield people of color at protests from unruly officers. Bravery is speaking up to your acquaintances, friends, and yes, even family, knowing that some bridges may be burned along the way. But if someone refuses to consider your sentiments when you question a racist comment they made, do they deserve your friendship? More importantly, do you really want theirs?

Along with the whites who create anti-racist posts, I also see an alarming number attempting in futility to justify the murders of minorities. Why is it that so many white individuals relate more to white police than to black or brown civilians? I (the teacher) remember looking up to my older brother as he refused to wear anything other than his policeman suit for several years of our childhood. While he also became a radical activist, and was raised by leftist parents who participated in anti-racist work during the 1980s, even he--and even I--developed the concept that police were there to protect me. The concept of white policemen as a key representation of the pinnacle of white masculinity engenders an extremely strong bond of trust in police for many whites in society. I can only imagine how deeply ingrained the (very paternalistic) concept that police protect the community is inside the homes of officers and their families. Many of these families must revere the men and women who leave their homes every day, risking death, to work among the 80% of us who will never own much more than our names and our legacies. Still, and this is the reality that is toughest to swallow, making a sacrifice for society does not mean that you are not a racist. Often, the very same paternalistic concept that motivates an officer to do police work leaks into an us-against-them mentality--a cops vs. thugs philosophy if you will, that is code for just-above-poor whites against stereotyped people of color.

How is it impossible to believe that police operate in a racist institutional framework, and that some of them are aware and actively perpetuate this racist framework? Police officers are as vulnerable to this latent racism as the rest of us, and for them too, racism is the status quo. Officer Nakia Jones of Warrensville Heights spoke out against police malpractice, and this is something we need more of--police within the racist justice system speaking out and actively trying to revolutionize it, as opposed to perpetuating racist practices. Yet, it is indeed fascinating that we have not yet seen a viral video from a white police officer who is willing to confess to the massive racism that Jones documents. Racism is a white problem, a problem whose consequences unfairly manifest themselves in minority communities. But it is a problem that abhors the entire human condition, and undermines all but those who benefit the very most from it. We are once again fortunate to live among such heroic black activists who refuse to allow us, as white people, to continue to profit from what Jesse Jackson termed the mental disease of racism. Instead of accepting the polarization of black Americans against the police, we must admit the omnipresence of racism in society, in ourselves, and even in the coffee cups we sip as we stare at our screens.

Privileged, white male scientist Stephen Jay Gould wrote, "I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." It was a wonderful remark; now it is time to refuse to accept this reality, to admit our responsibility to end the Apartheid state, to extract it from ourselves, and to refuse to propose a utopian vision for a new society without the presence of people of color who possess as much or more genius and insight than we ever will. Our vision, then, is not a portrait of shiny, happy people holding hands; but of fellow whites admitting, admonishing, and eliminating the latent racism in which we have been bred, and buttered.

Why There Will Be Another Trump: Focusing on the Cause, Not the Symptom

By Sean Posey

June was not kind to Donald Trump. After a brief bump in the polls when he secured the status of presumptive nominee, The Donald's numbers began their march to the basement . He now finds himself in a deeply unenviable position. An increasing number of pundits (and, judging by the numbers of them avoiding the upcoming party convention in Cleveland, politicians) are suggesting Trump's candidacy could be a disaster on par with Republican Barry Goldwater's landslide defeat in 1964 or Democrat George McGovern's in 1972.

Writing off Trump might be presumptuous at this point (since the media and other experts missed almost every salient facet of Trump's seemingly improbable rise). Yet even if his campaign encounters electoral bankruptcy in November, the specter of another Trumpian figure emerging in the future remains highly probable.

Consider the numbers : Between 1928 and 1979, the top 1 percent's economic share declined in every single state; between 1979 and 2007, the share of income going to the top earners increased in every state. In 19 states the top 1 percent of earners took in at least half of the total growth in income. The consequences of the 2007-08 financial crisis further exacerbated the situation: Between 2007 and 2010, median family income declined by almost 8 percent in real terms. Median net worth fell by almost 40 percent.

Yet with the stock market rebounding nicely (at least, until the Brexit) and unemployment seemingly on the decline, politicos saw nothing to disrupt a predictable genteel war between the Clinton and Bush dynasties; instead, the face behind The Apprentice, a businessman seemingly straight out of the Gordon Gekko era of the 1980s, emerged to trounce one of the largest fields of candidates in recent GOP history. He's now the second-most likely person to become our next president. And while (not undeservedly) a large measure of reporting fixates on Trump's wild remarks and nativist proposals, the economic dynamics that led to Trump's candidacy are underappreciated.

As Trump expertly demolished the GOP field, a coterie of the conservative establishment rushed to denigrate not just The Donald's quixotic quest, but also his base ( Kevin Williamson ofNational Review singled out ) - a large chunk of the white electorate.

"The white middle class may like the idea of Trump as a giant pulsing humanoid middle finger held up in the face of the Cathedral, they may sing hymns to Trump the destroyer and whisper darkly about 'globalists' and - odious, stupid term - 'the Establishment,' but nobody did this to them," Williamson wrote. "They failed themselves."

Did they? Or did the people for whom they voted fail them? Starting with Ronald Reagan and continuing through the administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, recent presidents of both political parties arguably have championed America's globalizing business interests over those of its workers.

While the recovery passes up wide swaths of America, the professional class of the Democratic Party looks to the stock market and to the select parts of the country where life is good and incomes are on the rise. For evidence, we need only to look to President Obama's reassuring (albeit also self-serving) remark in his final State of the Union Address: "Let me start with the economy, and a basic fact: The United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world … anyone claiming that America's economy is in decline is peddling fiction."

The fact is that for Trump's voters - and perhaps voters who have yet to decide how they will cast their ballots - that worldview is not fiction at all.

While the American economy is indeed a relative bastion of stability compared with much of the world, a large portion of the population is experiencing a marked reversal of fortune. This is true both in the United States where labor, a traditional part of the Democratic base, is on the decline, and also throughout Europe, especially in places such as the Rust Belt towns of Great Britain that voted for "Brexit." As economist Branko Milanovic points out, "For simplicity, these people may be called 'the lower middle class of the rich world.' And they are certainly not the winners of globalization."

Thomas Frank's poignant analysis captures the class divide for the Democrats:"Inequality is the reason that some people find such incredible significance in the ceiling height of an entrance foyer, or the hop content of a beer, while other people will never believe in anything again."

That kind of despondency has fueled Trump's apocalyptic populism. And despite his many repugnant policy positions, he's hit the pulse of a large portion of America that is aware, quite correctly, that the middle class is fading; the real growing middle classes are in Asia today. When Trump says he'll turn the GOP into a "worker's party" and that NAFTA will be ended or renegotiated, economically left-behind workers in many states listen.

Trump's voters can be found in regions of the country almost entirely bypassed by the post-Great Recession recovery. This covers a lot of territory: Between 2010 and 2014, almost 60 percent of counties witnessed more businesses closing than opening. That contrasts sharply with the period following the recession of 1990-91, when only 17 percent of counties continued to see declines in business establishments. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, a mere 20 counties produced half of the growth in new businesses.

The real danger is that the Democrats will win a runaway victory in November and fail to heed any of the lessons behind Trump's rise. With Clinton's campaign actively wooing disaffected Republicans, chances are considerable that the populist strands of both Trump's and Bernie Sanders' campaign will receive little but lip service. "If Hillary Clinton goes for the Republican support," remarked longtime journalist Robert Scheer, "she will not be better. And then four years from now what Trump represents will be stronger." Paul Ryan's doubling down on austerity politics - the same ones thoroughly rejected by Republican voters in the primaries - will add fuel to the fire.

With the recent decision by Great Britain to leave the European Union, it seems that reactionary populism in the West has won a major victory; it should perhaps come as no surprise. A recent study by the Centre for Economic Policy Research found that far-right parties gain the most politically in the wake of major financial crises. While the research focuses on Europe, it's clear that the mix of populism and nativism brewing there is echoed by Trump here. And even if he loses in November, without a major change from both parties, someone else will tap into the vein of anger and discontentment that he's so expertly mined.

This article originally appeared at billmoyers.com

Our Enigma and Its Solution: An Ideological Criticism of the Student Body at Spokane Community College

By Christopher Martin

The Otherness of Law

Nearly everyone wants to become a complete person without any lacks. If a person psychologically develops smoothly and does not experience mental disturbances, then all the better. This goal is achieved and that person becomes a whole individual, flourishing in life. The truth of the matter is no one develops through life without running into intra- or inter-personal conflicts. A conflict simply put is a contradiction in needs or values. Should these conflicts persist unresolved, they will impoverish the personality and pull us into the despair of life.

To make matters worse, when a mass of people come together and exchange relations, the pathologies (i.e. mental, social, or linguistic abnormalities or malfunctions) individually, but unconsciously, experienced in social relations are reflected in the institutional procedures and its historical development. Unresolved conflicts in relationships perpetuate pathologies in social personalities.

Our student body, herein called étudiants, i.e. is a class of students within the modern capitalist economy, is lost in an intra- and interpersonal conflict.

Simply put, the studentry is determined by the government, who manifests via the administration. The Board of Trustees is the giver and determiner of what degrees, programs, certificates, activities, etc. are provided at the college. Therefore, the Board of Trustees determines the qualitative nature of the student mass. Without a determinate Self to identity and participate with(in), multiple pathologies develop in social relations as the institution develops historically.

This disturbance in our institutional relation is the perpetuator of the pathologies of border line personality disorders and narcissism. First, there is a disturbance in relation to the student's own Self. The rapid flux of students entering and exiting the intuition accounts for the feeling of an unstable sense of Self. Our dependence on the Board of Trustees is the source of a distorted sense of Self. When a person become a student and cannot find their means of succeeding in their program, they may consider committing suicide, i.e. quitting being a student altogether. The stress from classes will perpetuate stress-related paranoia.

Student engagement has decreased dramatically. Graduation and transfer rates are low: ~30% and ~20% respectively. Clubs are increasingly being defunded to this disengagement from each other.

Pathological narcissists hide behind a "grandiose self" structure "seen as a core patterning of self-other representation designed to protect the illusion of self-sufficiency at all costs, because in pathological narcissism it is also disguising the individual's lack of a fully individuated identity." [1] Students are not efficient enough to be students individually. Students who do not study with each other do not have the opportunity to be inspired to continue being a student. The workload becomes overwhelming, and the student further isolates themselves, threatening success. Acting individually based on the illusion of self-sufficiency is a perpetuator of our narcissism; however, our narcissism comes from a greater source.

The fall of social-political revolutions of the 1960s succumbed to spiritual cults and "self-help" of the 70s. The self-help narcissism developed into a rejection of an Other in the 80's totalitarian anti-totalitarianism. Afterwards, with the emergence of the Internet, the masses identified with it, creating a false self within the various communities of the Internet. With the introduction of the new century, liberalism collapsed into itself: politically with the collapse of the Twin Towers, and economically, seven years later.

With a decaying confidence in itself, the Western proletariat lost its substantial Self, collapsing into Another Self. The breaking down of a substantial centralized, national Self is what pushed for the decline of political activism, for to engage with an Other, there must be a kind of Self, and since the West has lost its substantial Self, it cannot engage with its Other, I.e. the bourgeois.

As described by Alain Badiou, a contemporary Parisian philosopher, in his In Praise of Love, he sets out to find the historic definition of love hitherto, then sets to redefine it. He explains, in the social-political revolutions of the 60s, radicals put love in politics, where an Other must exists. The issue here, is that love cannot destroy the Other, which is the sole task of politics. Now, adding to this equation, a shift occurred at the failure of loving the Other. A love for Self developed, and eventually the collective lost themselves in it with the denial of the Other…

When the Community Colleges of Spokane was created, it was meant to calm conflicts by uniting the institutions (Spokane Community College and Spokane Falls Community College) in a common direction; however, this only caused more problems. The problem, here, was not solely between the colleges, but rather between the étudiants and the college's operator itself: the Governor of Washington and his Board of Trustees.

The Governor's domination on the development of social personalities on the étudiants infringes on the students ability to be independent. They are not allowed to develop as themselves, for themselves, but rather always being bound by their parent/Other (the government, or specifically Law-in-general). This domination of an Other as Self is the procedure which perpetuates our pathologies at CCS.

Presented herein is the development of student personality from Law, and a method of escaping our rotting conditions.

Development of étudiants from Law

To borrow the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek's contributions made within his essay A Framed Frame, found in his 2015 piece, Absolute Recoil: Towards a New Foundation of Dialectical Materialism, we can infer the content which is determined by the framework simultaneously determines the framework by accepting the frameworks influence on the content.

To interpret this in a meaningful context, our administration accepts the rules mandated by the Governor, the State Board of Community and Technical Colleges, and the federal/legislative government. By accepting these rules, the administration binds itself to Law and acts in its behalf.

Once the framework of the administration is developed, it can be implemented with the development of a Self which adopts and implements administrative procedures carried out by board policies. When the Other in the content is formed, a Self in the content can emerge which has the characteristics being Studentry.

The framework contains one thing, however, existing in as a multiplicity: the Law and the administration (or Law-in-General). The content contains two things: the administration and the Studentry. Therefore, the administration is the mediator of the government and the people who constitute the student mass.

In order to fully understand the nature of these relationships, we must work out the dialectics of their emergence. We will begin with the Other, as it determines the Self in development of an individual psychology.

As it is mandated by 1.10.01 Board of Trustees Policies, the Governor appoints the Board of Trustees. From there, the Governor's authority is negated by the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees becomes our Other (as it is determined by the Governor) with this formally established sovereignty over the district. The Board of Trustees is the Other in the content, as it negates the will of the Law. Thus it is bound to the framework of Law, from which the content can further develop.

Once an Other is secure within the administration, a Self within the administration can begin to develop. The Board of Trustees are given the privilege to delegate administrative authority to a Chancellor. Once the Chancellor is determined and the Other's authority is negated, this person is permitted to become the Mask Over the Other (a false Self), as it is the Chancellor who adopts and implements administrative procedures to carry out board policies. The Chancellor is the Self, as it has the freedom to self-engage as well as other-engage, however bound to the Other (Law) it is.

Here are the conditions from which the administration develops: the Governor and Board of Trustees are the Other within the administration (as it is determined from without the administration) and the Chancellor is the Self within the administration. The framework enters the content and the content accepts the framework's determining will, thus allowing it to move the content accordingly. When the body of the administration is matured it begins preforming it's duty, i.e. it begins to make laws to govern its district and their subjects in order to condition the student to meet local economic needs.

There exists a multiplicity within Law-in-general who is the Other to the étudiants. The regime determined by and implemented by the Board of Trustees and the Chancellor is herein defined as concrete Law which are applied by the institution on the institution. All other laws imposed on the institution by the federal and State legislation are herein defined as abstract Law, it is the abstract framework which imposes itself on the concrete Law.

Now that the nature of the administration's Self and Purpose is understood, we may begin to clarify the nature and Purpose of the students attending the Community Colleges of Spokane. To do this, we must examine the relationship between the étudiants and Law-in-general.

As the administration develops and becomes contained within the framework of abstract Law, the étudiants can begin to develop. As abstract Law permits with RCW 28B.50.0990 (6)(c), the Board of Trustees can develop its own concrete laws in determining where services go as well as degrees, certificates, and programs which will be available to students. Through abstract Law, the administration develops concrete Laws enabling it to develop the qualitative aspect of its étudiants. When abstract and concrete Law is formed, the quality of studentry emerges from the Other. Thus, the Self of the étudiants is its own Other.

Individually, a typical person will become a student as a means to improve their socio-economic conditions. The intention of a student is to graduate or transfer, i.e. gain a degree, a certain set of skills which enables them to get a self-sustaining job in our economy. Currently, the purpose of students is to gain a set of skills to which the local economy or university can utilize the person in a purposeful way. Thus, students are conditioned according to local economic or educational needs.

When the Self of the étudiants is developed, it can begin to engage with itself and the administration. Students came together and decided to build clubs and events, volunteering to impose Services and Activities Fees as a tax on themselves. These programs and services were delegated to ASG by the Board of Trustees only on the basis that ASG works in the direction of the college administration.

This split in self-and-other-relation is the condition from which ASG emerged. Abstract law develops a concrete law. This concrete law continues to develop the quality of students by establishing a set of degrees, certificates, etc. available. From here, the Self of the étudiants emerges as an Other. As the developed étudiants engages with itself and its Other, that is the administration, a gap emerges and student-administrators develop, forming the Associated Student Government. It is through these development where the contradiction of étudiants-administrator emerged.

Towards a Redefinition of étudiants: How étudiants Can Overcome Law

The state is mandated to determine the framework of the Being of the étudiants. Students must exchange relations with themselves and their Other on the Other's terms. The Other builds itself with the étudiants as its base, and they must submit to the State's needs.

A problem here is the illusion of inclusion. Students merely have a voice in the decision making process, it does not have the decision making power itself. The student's voice is weak, therefore, their voice is often looked over within the school's bureaucracy. Thus the decisions are often administer or teacher oriented decisions. For example, despite the winter 2016 3% wage increase, the 2017 S&A budget, due to disengagement, potential budget allocation for all the clubs decreased; however, stipend funds for club advisers increased. The Board of Trustees makes the final decision on where S&A Fees are allocated, binding any Associated Student Government decisions bound to the Will of Law.

So the appropriate question to pose here is: how can we make the problem of arbitrary state despotism the solution to student oppression? How can we build upon the legacy we inherited from our Other?

Our first move should be to build an authentic Self.

ASG must build a Self for the sake of the collective it represents. No move should be made outside ASG before its Self is defined. The most effective definition of ASG's Self is a radical definition made in defense of the student interests, made by students themselves. The collective must eventually sit together and develop a mission and vision, in a democratic manner, and act upon that vision with the utmost fidelity.

Then, ASG should construct the conditions in which a Self will emerge from today's Othered Self. This relationship to Self must be restored by deconstructing the administrator in our Self. Rather than deconstructing the notion of administrator from the notion of student, thus collapsing into a naive pre-student-administrator notion, it must be radicalized in order to contain yet expand the meaning of étudiant-administrator while being consistent to its collective student identity and its vision (rather than submitting totally to the Law-in-General). Once this radical student is defined and materially supported, then an authentic alternative sense of Self within the étudiants can begin to emerge in the student-body. Only when the horizon of a legitimate alternative Self emerges can the narcissism within the étudiants be confrontment effectively.

The second step is to shift identification from the Other to the Self.

In the process of radicalization of the étudiants, the student subjected by the Board of Trustees ought to be reformed from such to a radical active subject. This radical self is such an individual who entered the contract of being a student at Spokane Community College, yet the person is contained and preserved in the collective student Being.

The power of determining who will sit in the Student Government should be transferred from the bureaucracy, which would otherwise vote itself in, to the students. This will democratize the government, thus beginning Selving the Other in their Self.

To ensure self-determination over other-determination, student should become the substratum of the administration by first Selving ASG, then the administration. Student councils could be created with a collective of self-related students with similar content which will elect an appropriate Senator. For example, a Nursing Student Council, made solely of nursing students, comes together, debate, and determines X will be the Nursing Senator. The point is students vote in their respected Senator who acts as defined by the Council. This will begin the process of shifting power from the beaurocracy to the students. Here, the students become the basis of the Student Government.

The étudiants must gain administrative control of their institution from the government by practicing participatory, direct democracy politically and economically. The rights defined within 1.10.01 Board of Trustees Policies ought to be revoked as it limits our self-determination, and a democratic spirit within the mass should be cultivated. The means to Self the Other is to de-Other it. The Councils can engage their students to collectively vote in who will sit as their Trustees. Here, the students become the basis of the administration, rather than the government.

Prioritize community development over economic development, i.e. Capital. Help business develop to help community needs rather than converting the community to meet business needs. Do this by helping the local poor. Build a facility to house homeless students or local at risk people. This will help to not only provide essential needs to students, but also local at risk peoples. To further engage the local public, the institution can open certain skills focused, or academic focused classes to the public. Here, locals are allowed to participate in the development of the College's Being.

Mandating programs which enforces all students to help the local needy by engaging in service learning, students get to engage to meaningfully engage with locals. Here, are allowed to participate in the development of the County's Being. A Community College connected to their community We must go beyond soothing the symptom of our poverty, and solve the problem itself.

Lastly, the étudiants must build a new macro Self.

To do so, we must challenge the global capitalistic order which perpetuated the problems we face today by co-optizing. Defy globalism by developing a localized economy. Defy capitalism by universalizing the means of production (collective the campus businesses; collective student labor is managed and owned by the student collective).

Where the Governor is the substratum of the administration who is the invisible determiner of our character, the students are the substratum of the Governor who rules the Governor. If we stand together, and demand the Governor to relinquish his rights to infringe on our Self-determination, it will surely succumb.

We must come together, not because we have nothing to lose, rather the very opposite: we must rise for we have everything to lose!

Negate the Other, or be negated by it.

Notes

[1] The Mirror and the Mask-On Narcissism and Psychoanalytic Growth. Philip M. Bromberg, Ph.D. Contemporary Psychoanalysis. 1983.

The Speech Heard Around the World: Jesse Williams, Hollywood, and Race

By L. Eljeer Hawkins

"This award, this is not for me. This is for the real organizers all over the country. The activists, the civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families, the teachers, the students, that are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do."

- Jesse Williams, Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards, humanitarian award acceptance speech, June 26, 2016.

Black Hollywood and BLM (Black Lives Matter)

The annual BET Awards is a star-studded affair as African-American movers and shakers congratulate one another for a successful year in music, filmmaking, sports, and other genres related to Hollywood.

This year's awards were punctuated by a resounding tribute to the iconic musician and artist, Prince, throughout the night, highlighted by an earthshaking tribute by Shiela E. and former Prince collaborators over the course of his legendary career.

The night witnessed the premiere of a new collaboration by two of the most famous artists in this current moment, Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar. The song 'Freedom,' an assertive anthem during this current phase of the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM), which has heightened attention to racial oppression, right-wing populism, and law enforcement terror. Quite surprisingly, 'Freedom' opened with an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King's, August 28, 1963, March on Washington speech, "I Have A Dream," which added to its message and sense of urgency.

This years' recipient of the BET Humanitarian Award was "Grey's Anatomy" star actor, BLM activist, and former history teacher in Philadelphia, Jesse Williams. In a speech that lasted 5 minutes, and 500 words, Williams not only stole the show but provided a much needed historical reframing of the birth of the nation and its history. What is remarkable is that Jesse's speech takes place on a television station (BET) with a grotesque history and record of depicting black folks and culture at the lowest common denominator throughout the ownership of black billionaire, Robert Johnson. Today, BET is owned by multi-media conglomerate, Viacom.

The Political Climate That Produced The Speech

This year's political climate, around the world and the US, is rooted in a deep global crisis of capitalism; although, individual capitalists are doing quite well -- mainly the sixty-two billionaires that can fit on one London, England bus. The working class, poor, and most oppressed from France, South Africa, Brazil, and Britain are rising. Through the methods of strikes, mass demonstrations, and protest, a total mistrust and rejection of the agenda of global capitalism and its parties of poverty, war, and violence have been the dominant features of this combustible period. In the US, this has been expressed following the Occupy Wall Street moment in 2011, the mass workers' battle in Wisconsin, the struggle for a 15 dollar minimum wage, BLM, and various student and youth protests against student debt, environmental destruction, and rape culture. The presidential elections have showcased the rise of both left-wing and right-wing populism, as both parties (Democrats and Republicans) find themselves in a crisis of legitimacy and support for workers, youth, and the most oppressed. The left-wing resurgence has been based in a search for an alternative to budget cuts, xenophobia, racism, and environmental extinction.

The rebellions in 2014 following the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray (in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland, ten months apart during the second term of President Obama) provided clear evidence that the post-racial paradigm was nothing more than a corporate market-driven brand for international consumption. Poverty, mass prison incarceration, mass unemployment, crumbling schools, dilapidated infrastructure, and black unarmed civilian deaths at the hands of law enforcement have all increased at an alarming rate. It is within this context that black workers and youth across the country and world raised the banner, Black Lives Matter.

Staying Woke In America

The anatomy of the speech on June 26 encompasses the long and vital history of the black freedom movement in the US. Williams is a graduate of Temple University, a campus located in black North Philadelphia within an impoverished community and ground zero of the gentrifying force invading the city. Jesse double majored in African American Studies and Film and Media Arts, earning degrees in both fields. For many, this is not his first rodeo in the public sphere raising deeper questions about race in America and state of black America, particularly following Ferguson, as he has graced various talk and radio programs. Jesse invoked the memory of those killed by law enforcement, like Sandra Bland and Tamir Rice on what would have been his fourteenth birthday. He heightened the role and sacrifice of black women in what would quickly become the ultimate "Say her name" moment. Jesse proclaimed with surgical-like precision, "So what's going to happen is we are going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function and ours."

He also focused on the well-healed and successful black artists and their social and political responsibility to the movement and moment. Entertainers with a platform can play an ancillary role in our struggle for freedom; but it is ultimately the potential power of a united working-class movement that is vitally needed to overturn the system and create something unique in our interest in the U S and globally. It is clear that, without a doubt, Williams understands that from his opening words to the speech. However, he is correct in his critical examination and challenge to Black Hollywood: "Now the thing is though, all of us in here getting money, that alone isn't going to stop this. Alright? Now dedicating our lives to get money just to give right back for someone's brand on our body, when we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies and now we pray to get paid for brands on our bodies."

Jesse pointedly admonished the critics of BLM: "The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That's not our job, alright, stop with all that. If you have critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down."

As he closed out the speech, he raised the question of whiteness and the appropriation of black culture that has caused a fury on social media and the public sphere. As he correctly exclaims, " We've been floating this country on credit for centuries, yo, and we're done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind, while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil, black gold. Ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit. The thing is, though, the thing is that just because we're magic, doesn't mean we're not real."

The Black Artist: Robeson, Belafonte, and Simone

Willams' activism, profile, and platform stand in the rich tradition of Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte, Nina Simone, Lena Horne, and countless others. Historically, black artists have used their talent and energy moved by the historic moment; the struggle to end American southern apartheid, speaking out against fascism, organizing in the grassroots, and advocating for revolutionary change. Jesse's voice is amplified because of the power and influence of BLM, increases in social struggle, and the turn to the left and toward anti-corporate moods by workers, youth, and the most oppressed in our society. He has produced a documentary about BLM on BET that chronicles the rise of the banner and its activists. Since the speech, he has received scorn, attacks, and doubts of his blackness.

The Backlash: Postive and Negative

Since June 26th, the speech is the most trended topic on social media, television, newspapers, magazines, in households, and on the street. It has both inspired and infuriated many. The right-wing pundits and commentators have called the speech an anti-white speech, and an online petition is calling for Williams to be fired from "Grey's Anatomy" as he continues to receive death threats on Twitter. In response, literary giant and activist, Alice Walker, penned a beautiful poem to honor his voice and courage to speak out against racism and law enforcement terror.

Even pop star, Justin Timberlake, tweeted to his over fifty million followers how "inspired" he was by the speech, which led to an interesting query by black writer and social critic, Ernest Owens, on Twitter to Timberlake, "So does this mean you're going to stop appropriating our music and culture? And apologize to Janet too." The Janet Jackson reference stems from the 2004 Super Bowl halftime performance and wardrobe malfunction which caused a major controversy and debate. It resulted in Jackson being vilified in the press and Timberlake being unscathed by the event, even reaching new heights of celebrity after the incident. In subsequent Tweets, this led to a firestorm from the black Twitter world, posing the question to Timberlake on why he does not speak out on social issues, ans well as demands for him to stop appropriating black music and style. Timberlake would apologize and state he was being misunderstood.

In one of the most troubling aspects of the backlash against Williams are questions of his skin color, privilege, and platform. He is one of three sons; his mother is white Swedish, while his father is black with a history of activism. Both are former public school teachers. They both were at the BET Awards as he gave them a shout out for teaching him comprehension over career, while also thanking his black wife who is the mother of his two children.

Colorism (dark skin and light skin) has plagued black folks from the very beginning in this nation, dating back to chattel slavery. Many enslaved children were the byproducts of sexual violence against black women by the slave master or white authority figures on the plantation. It led to a schism and an instrument for the master class to divide and conquer the slaves along color lines, giving slaves with a lighter complexion certain tasks off the cotton fields and often in the master's home. The development of "privilege" under the plantation slave system was a valuable tool to maintain power and influence over all the slaves, regardless of skin color. This paradigm has been socialized and inscribed for the past four hundred years in all of the institutions like media, film, and sports under capitalism, with institutionalized racism affecting the cultural and social consciousness of black workers and youth actively. It has even led to many light-skin black people attempting to pass as white in order to lessen the blow, or run away from, the sting of racism in America.

Jesse has expressed and acknowledged that his status and bi-racial lineage affords him the opportunity to hear and speak to a multitude of people from family, friends, and movement people - both white and black.

To color shame Williams is to attempt to de-legitimize the power of his speech at the BET Awards, his activism, and his profile. It calls into question, who is "black enough" to speak about our struggle and plight under capitalism and racism? If a lighter skin shade automatically minimizes one's words, should we discount the political and cultural work of Dr. W.E.B. Dubois, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, George Jackson and many others who were of lighter skin complexion in the black freedom movement? The question should not be focused on the color of the person that is speaking truth to our movement and masses, but rather the measuring stick should be the content, character, and genuine activism of the person standing before us and raising their voice for liberation.

We Must Build Our Movement and Defend Jesse Williams!

As the BLM banner continues to mature and grow as a social movement we must broaden the struggle to push back against big busineess and law enforcement attacks on activists and organizers like Jasmine Richards. The vitriol and right-wing attack against Williams and BLM organizations should not be taken lightly by our movement and supporters.

In the 1940s and 50s, under Senator Joe McCarthy's "Red Scare" campaign coordinated by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), the FBI unleasshed a covert war against communist and socialist organizations. Within this war, one of the most famous international stars of the stage and screen of the 20th century and a political beacon against racism, colonialism, and capitalism, Paul Robeson, became public enemy number one.

Robeson was hounded and attacked for his stance and support for the Soviet Union, international workers' rights, anti-colonial struggle in the third world, and democracy at home and abroad. Robesons' passport was even confiscated, denying him the right to perform and make a living. This took an unconsciousable toll on Robeson's health, career, and political work. Robeson would pass away in 1976, and his name and history have been erased from mainstream history books.

To defend our movement and its most fearless advocates like Williams and Jasmine Richards, we must strengthen our solidarity with ideas, program, demands, and historical memory to truly stay politically woke and break free from capitalism and racism.

Fueling the Mob: Differences Between the London Riots and Ferguson

By Kelly Beestone

For many in the United Kingdom, watching the news of the riots unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014, brought to mind images of the aftermath of Mark Duggan's death in London in 2011. In both cases, police officers responsible for the death of an unarmed black man were investigated and found guilty of no wrongdoing. In both cases too, the aftermath entailed widespread destruction of property, violence and a deepened distrust of police.

Beneath the surface, however, there are significant differences between the rioting in England and the Ferguson unrest. Most significantly, the English working-class has maintained a greater ability to collectively confront police injustice due, at least in part, to the history of class-based political organization in England. This is in stark contrast to the American context where elites have attempted (with a great deal of success) to divide its working-class through racism.

On August 4th 2011, police gunned down Mark Duggan, a twenty-nine year-old resident of Tottenham, London. Newspapers reported that police had killed Duggan in self-defence after they discovered he was carrying a gun. The Independent Police Complaints Commission [IPCC] revealed that Duggan was under investigation by Operation Trident and that two shots were fired by a policeman, known only as V53, which resulted in his death. Ultimately, a lack of forensic evidence proving that Duggan had ever been holding a gun at all caused several newspapers, including The Guardian, to issue an apology for misinforming the public but not before widespread community outrage boiled over into violence.[1]

On August 6th more than one hundred people protested in Tottenham. Two police cars were attacked. Rioting quickly spread from London to Birmingham, to Leicester, to Nottingham, Liverpool, and Manchester and to Bristol. The inquest into Duggan's death was adjourned on the 9th; the unrest lasted until the 11th (with some minor "aftershock" incidents even later in the week).

According to the BBC, at least 3,000 people were arrested for crimes relating to the riots during this period. [2] Many of these were in London where the riots initially broke out and manifested, as Ann and Aisha Phoenix note in their paper Radicalisation, Relationality and Riots: Intersections and Interpellations, as a "multi-ethnic" uprising. [3] That claim is, in fact, bolstered by Ministry of Justice statistics that listed 33% percent of those facing charges for riot-related incidents as "white," 43% as "black" and 7% as "Asian."[4]

Even more interesting is that while the above statistics reflect the riots overall, the arrest figures fluctuate wildly depending on the ethnic make-up of individual neighborhoods. For instance, white defendants in London made up 32% of those appearing in court, while in Merseyside, which also experienced significant rioting, the percentage of whites arrested in connection to the riots is closer to 79% of total arrests. [5] Of those convicted for riot-related crimes, 35% were claiming working benefits (the national average in the UK is 12%) and of those juveniles convicted, 42% were claiming free school meals (compared to an average of 16% nationally). [6] This uprising drew support across racial lines in the UK, but the overwhelming number of participants were still working-class people.

While the public reacted against the police, media coverage was quick to condemn the rioters. Several news outlets (including the BBC) attempted to place the blame for the unrest on the "black influence" on the (white) British working class. Historian David Starkey used his appearance on Newsnight to theorise that "the chavs have become black. The whites have become black" and to condemn the "nihilistic" attitudes of the rioters. [7] For all the problematic (and racist) implications of Starkey's commentary, however, he is one of the few commentators who attempted to link the white working-class response to Duggan's death to the black community's response.

Many media outlets highlighted incidents of individuals attempting to incite others to riot in areas such as Newcastle via social media, fixating on a narrative of opportunistic rioters interested primarily with mindless "battle" with the police,[8] because they were, somehow, inherently "violent"[9] and prone to behaving like "thugs" because of poor parenting.[10] The Telegraph went so far at one point as to call the children involved "feral." [11] At another point, conversely, the Telegraph's editors suggest that this disorder "was an assault […] on the established order of benign democracy" itself, no small feat for a mob of feral chavs, it would seem. [12]

Perhaps most telling of all however, was the media's exoneration of the police dealing with the Duggan case. An in-depth study by the BBC asserted that police were so stretched in London that volunteer police entered the fray without riot gear or training in order to defend against the rioters. This is intended to create a binary opposition between the 'brave' police who attempted to supress the violence and the 'hooded teenagers' [13] who perpetuated it. Meanwhile, the policeman who killed Duggan was found to be acting in self-defence by the investigation and cleared of the murder. Despite being pressured into resigning, no further action was taken against him and the final decision of a lawful killing due to an 'honestly held' fear for police safety was delivered on January 8th 2014. [14]

The situation in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 echoes that of Duggan in-so-much that Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, was shot on August 9th 2014 by white police officer Darren Wilson in dubious circumstances. Witnesses claimed Brown had his hands up in surrender when he was shot yet police claimed Brown was reaching for a gun, while simultaneously charging through a hail of gunfire, and that Darren Wilson acted in self-defence.

This state of affairs led to widespread public outrage that culminated in rioting in Ferguson. However, in this case, it is not the "multi-ethnic" reaction witnessed in the UK but an overwhelmingly African American protest that emerges. Scenes of unrest from the protests show US police in riot gear firing canisters of tear gas and pepper spraying protestors. Several photos also demonstrators in defensive positions, kneeling before advancing police who were using these particularly aggressive tactics in order to pacify the protestors.

In the UK, police were called in to monitor demonstrations and to arrest those involved in riot-related crimes. In areas where there were rumours of riots brewing, such as in Newcastle, police stood outside train stations in order to deter potential rioters. In Ferguson however, the streets were patrolled by armoured cars and officers who were armed with assault rifles and stun grenades who fired rubber bullets into crowds of unarmed demonstrators.

Media reactions to the violence in the US varied. The right-wing media organization, Fox, included headlines calling for rioters to pay for the damage caused[15] and several headlines focused on the moral failure of the "rioters." Indeed, Fox's coverage seemed to imply that the police were acting with justifiable force to prevent what it characterized as criminal, not political, violence. CNN took a more nuanced view of the "protestors" (rather than "rioters"), even as the focus of their coverage was the violence and destruction of property resulting from the protests.[16] CNN also made an attempt to focus on the larger issue of public outrage at the police response in Ferguson, focusing on peaceful 'die-in' protests made by students in high schools and universities across various states. The August 26 th edition of the New York Times, often described as a liberal journal, featured a prominent photo of Michael Brown's family sitting behind Brown's coffin with the headline "Amidst mourning, call for change."[17] Largely absent from this coverage, however, were corresponding images of white rioters or of police reacting to white rioters with the sort of force that was marshalled against the people of Ferguson.

As far back as Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, we see racial legislation emerge to counteract the emerging solidarity between indentured white servants with indentured black servants which culminated in Jamestown burning to the ground with its colonial governor fleeing for his life before the crowd. In particular, the passing of the Virginia Slave Codes in 1705 severely limited interactions between white and black people and it was this type of legislation that would determine the parameters of interracial engagement amongst the working classes for decades to come in the English colonies in America. Historian Paul Finkleman notes in his book Slavery and the Law that this sort of legislation would ensure that white people, regardless of class, would occupy a privileged caste position in relation to black people. These legal limitations imposed on black people--including constraints on intermarriage, owning weapons and baptism--created a hard and fast caste order in which black people would always be considered inferior to white people, a state of affairs that inhibited class solidarity across (racialized) caste lines.[18]

Historian Eric Foner argues that the New York City Draft Riots of 1863 remains "the largest civil and racial insurrection in American history" outside of the Civil War.[19] The riots were caused, initially, by resentment that wealthy citizens could pay $300 to escape the draft. Yet, in the wake of white bosses' decision to import African American scab labour to break (Irish) union organization on the docks in the weeks prior, the violence that consumed New York City between the 13th of July and 16th of July in 1863 took on a disturbingly racial quality. Black citizens, exempt from draft laws, were scapegoated and as (predominately Irish) white rage erupted over competition for jobs, more than a dozen were killed in race-related incidents.

Working class whites in New York did not perceive working class blacks as comrades.

Unions such as the Longshoreman's Association believed the danger that James Gordon Bennett, editor of the (WHAT CITY?) Herald, evoked of a black population that would permanently undermine the interests of the white working class if Abraham Lincoln pursued universal emancipation. "Are you ready to divide your patrimony with the negro? Are you ready to work with him in competition to work more than you do now for less pay?" Bennett asked. [20] Rather than engaging them in solidarity, white working class rioters in 1863 New York chose instead to hang innocent, working class, African Americans from city lamp posts and burn an orphanage for coloured children to the ground.

Bennett's anxieties were not unreasonable. Lorenzo J. Greene and Carter G. Woodson observed in 1930 that after the Civil War, the American working class was economically weakened across the board, regardless of the individual skill of the worker. This was in part due to the increased competition generated by immigrant workers, but also because of the wide availability of a large, perpetually under-employed African American population which was a result of the "unwillingness of employers to hire Negro mechanics, and the keen competition for jobs, in which the white workmen were usually given the preference." [21] This arrangement often forced black workers to seek the most dangerous and distasteful of jobs, when they could find work at all. And when they could not find work, they remained as an ever-present (and perpetually resented) reminder to white workers to remain servile, replaceable as they were.

Economist Warren Whatley noted that throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, African-Americans were called upon for "almost every major confrontation between capital and labor." For many American entrepreneurs and businessmen, the boogieman of black scab labour was wielded as the perfect deterrent against strikes. As a result of racially discriminatory union policies that rejected class solidarity between white and black workers, African Americans had no incentive to respect white picket lines. Even when unions did not exclude African-Americans by constitutional provision, often the racism of the rank-and-file members made it impossible for black workers to earn union membership.[22] In modern-day America, there are still lingering traces of this divide.

While the working class as a whole has lost stability and security since de-industrialization, African-Americans continue to disproportionately suffer the effects of economic disenfranchisement when compared to whites. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that unemployment rates amongst African Americans in the last decade is consistently higher than it is amongst whites.[23]

The increase in financial instability and insecurity among working class people in the wake of de-industrialization is not unique to the US; in fact, this pattern has is not so dissimilar to the socio-economic and political realities of post-industrial Britain. In both places, this increased financial instability and insecurity among working class people has grown in tandem with an increase in police repression of working class people. In one way, the slaying of Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri represents a manifestation of this dynamic that is mirrored by the slaying of Mark Duggan of Tottenham. However, and significantly, the UK has manifested a capacity for meaningful transracial solidarity based on class identity, which does not exist in the USA. Through organizations such as Class War, ANTIFA and NUS, the UK allows for a more multi-racial foundation for protesting grievances amongst the working class, while in the US, the systematic destruction of multi-ethnic relations across the class system makes this impossible. As a result, when the UK protestors felt they had nowhere to turn to, the nation became aware that this was a riot founded in these economic problems. While in Ferguson, where such political organization did not occur, the riots were portrayed exclusively as a product of black rage and despair, shored up by the fact that no other outlets existed to channel the anger in a less destructive way.

Both Ferguson and the London unrest should give us pause for thought. In both cases, people have felt driven to destruction by the ineptitude of the judicial system. Yet for all their surface similarities, the significant differences between the two riots proves that the insidious racism preserved amongst the working-class in America continues to drive a wedge between the very people who ought to be united in their grievances. Until the disproportionate suffering of black citizens is addressed, it is clear that incidents like Ferguson will continue to be the only way many Americans believe they can let their voices be heard.

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Basu, Moni and Faith Karami "Protestors Torch Police Car in Another Tense Night in Ferguson" CNN.com http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/25/justice/ferguson-grand-jury-decision/ [date accessed 16/05/2016]

BBC News "England Rioters 'Poorer, Younger, Less Educated'" http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-15426720 [date accessed 15/05/2016]

Boisseron, Benedicte "Afro-Dog" in Transition 118 [2015] p.15

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Bush, Jonathan A. "The British Constitution and the Creation of American Slavery" in Slavery and the Law ed. Paul Finkleman [Maryland; Rowman and Littlefield, 2002] pp.379-410

Davey, Monica "Amid Mourning, Time For Change," New York Times, August 26, 2014 p.1

Dodd, Vikram "New Questions Raised Over Duggan Shooting" The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/nov/18/mark-duggan-ipcc-investigation-riots [date accessed 14/05/2016]

Dodd, Vikram and Caroline Davis "London Riots Escalate as Police Battle for Control" The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/08/london-riots-escalate-police-battle [date accessed 14/05/2016]

Foner, Eric Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 [New York; Harper and Row, 1988] pp.32-33

Gov.uk "Transcript of the Hearing 15 October 2013" http://dugganinquest.independent.gov.uk/transcripts/1207.htm [date accessed 14/05/2016]

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Kaplin, Karen"Black Americans are Closing the Life Expectancy Gap with Whites, CDC Says" L.A. Times http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-black-white-life-expectancy-gap-20151105-story.html [date accessed 16/05/2016]

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Kirkham, Elyssa "62% of Americans Have Under $1000 in Savings, Survey Finds" GOBankingRates http://www.gobankingrates.com/savings-account/62-percent-americans-under-1000-savings-survey-finds/ [date accessed 17/05/2016]

Lund, Jeb "Watching Ferguson Burn: What Constitutes Appropriate Rebellion?" RollingStone.com http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/watching-ferguson-burn-what-constitutes-appropriate-rebellion-20141125 [date accessed 16/05/2016]

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Footnotes

[1] Vikram Dodd "New Questions Raised Over Duggan Shooting" The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/nov/18/mark-duggan-ipcc-investigation-riots [date accessed 14/05/2016]

[2] BBC News "England Rioters 'Poorer, Younger, Less Educated'" http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-15426720 [date accessed 15/05/2016]

[3] Ann and Aisha Phoenix "Radicalisation, Relationality and Riots: Intersections and Interpellations" in Feminist Review, no.100 [2012] p.61

[4] BBC News "England Rioters 'Poorer, Younger, Less Educated'" http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-15426720 [date accessed 15/05/2016]

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid

[7] TruthCauldron, "David Starkey-BBC Newsnight 'The Whites Have Become Black'" Filmed 14/08/2011, Youtube Video, 10:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVq2bs8M9HM

[8] Vikram Dodd and Caroline Davis "London Riots Escalate as Police Battle for Control" The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/08/london-riots-escalate-police-battle [date accessed 14/05/2016]

[9] Lee Moran and Allan Hall "British Youths are 'the Most Unpleasant and Violent in the World'. Damning Verdict of Writer as Globe Reacts to Riots" Daily Mail Online http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024486/UK-RIOTS-2011-British-youths-unpleasant-violent-world.html [date accessed 14/05/2016]

[10] Ryan Parry "Young Thugs Got a Lift Home With Mum When They Finished Looting" The Mirror http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/london-riots-young-thugs-got-a-lift-146673 [date accessed 14/05/2016]

[11] Mary Riddell "London Riots: The Underclass Lash Out" The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8630533/Riots-the-underclass-lashes-out.html [date accessed 14/05/2016]

[12] Mary Riddell "London Riots: The Underclass Lash Out"

[13] Ibid

[14] Gov.uk "Transcript of the Hearing 15 October 2013" http://dugganinquest.independent.gov.uk/transcripts/1207.htm [date accessed 14/05/2016]

[15] Cal Thomas "Ferguson Unrest: Make Protestors Pay for Riot Damage" Fox News.com http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/12/02/ferguson-unrest-make-protesters-pay-for-riot-damage.html [date accessed 16/05/2016]

[16] Moni Basu and Faith Karami "Protestors Torch Police Car in Another Tense Night in Ferguson" CNN.com http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/25/justice/ferguson-grand-jury-decision/ [date accessed 16/05/2016]

[17] Monica Davey "Amid Mourning, Time For Change," New York Times, August 26, 2014 p.1

[18] Jonathan A. Bush "The British Constitution and the Creation of American Slavery" in Slavery and the Law ed. Paul Finkleman [Maryland; Rowman and Littlefield, 2002] p.392

[19] Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 [New York; Harper and Row, 1988] pp.32-33

[20] Albon P. Man Jr. "Labor Competition and the New York Draft Riots of 1863" in Journal of Negro History 36.4 [1951] p.379

[21] Lorenzo J. Green and Carter G. Woodson, The Negro Wage Earner, [Chicago; The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1930] p.4

[22] Warren C. Whatley "African-American Strikebreaking from the Civil War to the New Deal" in Social Science History 17.4 [Winter, 1993] p.529

[23] Bureau of Labor Statistics "Table A-2. Employment Status of the Civilian Population by Race, Sex, and Age" United States Department of Labor http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm [date accessed 16/05/2016]

Dallas Shooting: Where Peaceful Existence is Impossible, Violence is Inevitable

By Frank Castro

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Malcolm X famously commented "[President Kennedy] never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon… Chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad." Following the backlash of what many considered Malcolm's callous remarks, the Civil Rights leader clarified his original statement on air by saying the president's assassination was a result of the climate of hate in America, that ultimately it must be a reflection of something deeper. Half a century has passed, and still the significance of Malcolm's words linger not because so many people found them insensitive, but because he touched on the truthful lived experiences of those who have found themselves on the receiving end of United States empire. He was among the few of his time to acknowledge that America, sooner or later, would reap what it sowed.

Last Thursday night's events in Dallas, Texas, which culminated in the deaths of five police officers and several wounded, are again a matter of America reaping the future it has made for itself. It is through this realization that any discussion moving forward must pass if we genuinely are invested in sowing a better future. To condemn the actions of Micah Johnson, the now dead and alleged shooter, for resorting to violence or armed struggle without acknowledging the constant stream of brutality visited upon black people in America is disingenuous, hypocritical, unfair, and lends itself strongly to the rationale of victim-blaming. If the preexisting oppression suffered by all those with a complexion similar to Johnson is ignored, America will double-down on its trajectory of continued escalation. There will be more violence. More people will get hurt-and, as we have already seen, it will not just be those beneath a boot and a badge.

Abusive and Self-Centered

It was John F. Kennedy himself who said that those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable. If we can understand the former president's words but for a moment, it cannot be denied that continual brutality visited upon a group of people eventually will elicit an explosive response. Without total erasure, Micah Johnson's decision to "shoot back" cannot be viewed isolated from the 1,715 people police have shot and killed in the past 18 months, let alone the black men recently killed by officers inMinnesota and Louisiana (Philando Castile and Alton Sterling). The takeaway message behind Johnson's decision should be clear: The thin blue line has been put on notice that the business-as-usual of brutalizing black and brown bodies will no longer prevail-and that if it is to continue, there will be hell to pay. But if the past is any indicator, police will afford no sympathy and no change.

For decades the reactions among officers of all creeds across America to the horrors of police repression have been virtually nonexistent, or downright disgusting. In the wake of the shootings that killed Michael Brown and Antonio Martin, message boards reserved for law enforcement agencies were rife with pro-cop bragging, almost as if these young men's lives were trophies to be collected. Knowing this, it hardly can be argued that police are uninformed about the daily horrors served at their own hands, and so their lack of response or divergence from a culture of brutality can only be seen as devolving upon a condition of willful, collective complicity. The absence of remorse, empathy, and/or the willingness to change among police officers signals the institutionalized mentality of an abuser. And as has been the individual and collective history of abusers, they do not change unless they are forced to change.

As Lundy Bancroft, an expert on domestic and child abuse, observed:

"An abuser doesn't change because he feels guilty or gets sober or finds God. He doesn't change after seeing the fear in his children's eyes or feeling them drift away from him. It doesn't suddenly dawn on him that his partner deserves better treatment. Because of his self-focus, combined with the many rewards he gets from controlling you, an abuser changes only when he has to, so the most important element in creating a context for change in an abuser is placing him in a situation where he has no other choice. Otherwise, it is highly unlikely that he will ever change his behavior."

Transposed onto the institution of policing, there seems to be no remorse felt for slaying young men and women of color. The fear in Michael Brown's eyes had no effect on whether or not Darren Wilson unloaded six bullets into an 18 year old's body. It did not suddenly don on Daniel Pantaleo that Eric Garner might deserve better treatment than being choked to death on a Staten Island sidewalk. Baton Rouge officers cared far more about themselves than they did Alton Sterling or his family. And all the protesting in the world falls repeatedly on hardened, deaf ears because officers' focus on the preservation of a system where they gain power by controlling other people gives them no incentive to change. We ought to know by now that the most important element in creating the context for change of any kind, whether it is reform or abolishing the police entirely, is placing the institution itself in a situation where it has no choice.

Police Brutality is State Terrorism

In his speech "Terrorism: Theirs and Ours," now deceased professor Eqbal Ahmad elucidated five types of terrorism: state, religious, mafia, pathological, and political terror of the private group, or "oppositional terror." Of these types, the focus in mainstream political discourse and the media has almost always centered itself on discussion of just one: "political terror of the private group." As Ahmad pointed out, this is "the least important in terms of cost to human lives and human property." Rarely discussed is state terror, which, unsurprisingly, has the highest cost in terms of human lives and property. Ahmad estimated that the disparity of people killed by state terror compared to those killed by individual acts of terror was, roughly, 100,000 to one. Of course, there are subsets Ahmad did not mention that splice state terror apart, one being the state's enforcer class-the police.

We do not often talk about policing in the terms of terrorism because it is counter to everything we are taught, but a brief look into history can help us understand it as a function of the state. As David Whitehouse notes, the creation of modern police served two primary functions: To control the political and economic potential of the labor class in the North and slaves in the South. In the Carolinas in particular, slave patrols modeled the evolution of its police force by providing a form of organized terror to deter potential runaways and slave revolts. Whitehouse quotes one historian as saying "throughout all of the [Southern] states [before the Civil War], roving armed police patrols scoured the countryside day and night, intimidating, terrorizing, and brutalizing slaves into submission and meekness." The methods employed were certainly chilling: lynching, lashing, rape, and feeding slaves to hungry dogs, to name a few.

So why all the need for control? In 1984, George Shultz, the United States Secretary of State under President Reagan, described terrorism as "a form of political violence." Prior to the Civil War slavery was indispensable to the Southern economy in much the same fashion as low-wage labor was to Northern factories. In short, white supremacy was essential to America's economic and political power structure. Deploying an institution to forcibly maintain such a power structure can only be defined as an obvious expression of political violence. Today, fromprofiling policies like Stop and Frisk, to the War-on-Drugs which dis-proportionally incarcerates black (and brown) people, to itssentencing-laws that increase in severity if you are black, to the fact that a black person is killed by cops or vigilantes every 28 hours, policing remains a form of political violence precisely tailored to maintain America's classist and racist hierarchy.

Respect Existence, or Expect Resistance

In the aftermath to come, Americans should remain vigilant of the mainstream media's tendency toblame-both-sides equally, regardless of the lopsided casualties of police violence. And whether or not Americans will agree or disagree with Johnson's actions should not be the question we explore most. Focusing on his actions alone is a convenient diversionary tactic which enables America's white supremacist power structure to delegitimize his anger and sweep the issue of state terror back under the rug. Instead, we should ask how are we going to communicate to police officers that if they wish ever again to be secure from the consequences of their violence, their top priority must be to stop terrorizing black and brown communities. That if they truly desire their own safety, they will first have to stop murdering people-or else more chickens, inevitably, will come home to roost.

Finally, white people in America must reconcile with the fact that progress in this country has come primarily in name only, not in the lived experiences of its historically oppressed communities. Because white supremacy was built into the heart of the American judicial system, from policing to prosecution, Johnson's militancy is a reflection of a man who felt he had no other recourse. When Malcolm X choose to clarify his statements about John F. Kennedy's assassination, in the same breath he articulated the shallowness of superficial steps forward: "If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, that is not progress. Progress is healing the wound, and America hasn't even begun to pull out the knife." If the knife will not be pulled out voluntarily, the only moral, just, and righteous thing to do is to forcibly remove it. Only then can healing begin.