Police and vigilante murders of African Americans rooted in national oppression (Masks coming off)

On July 17, Eric Garner, an African American father of six, was choked to death by New York City police, who then went through his pockets instead of calling an ambulance. Three weeks later, Michael Brown was shot at least six times and killed by policeman Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. His body was left in the street and no medical help was called. For more than a week the police refused to release Officer Wilson’s name and turned in no official police report. All of this shows that another cover-up is underway in the murder of Michael Brown.

Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Jordon Davis and Trayvon Martin and just the most publicized of the recent string of police and vigilante killings. Across the country Black and Brown men are being hunted down, some guilty of nothing more than “walking while Black,” while others are accused of petty crimes where the police have acted a judge, jury and executioner. These killings are but the tip of the iceberg. For every murder by police and vigilantes, there are thousands of Black and Brown men and women who are singled out by racist police, racist laws and courts set up for the rich and powerful, filling the prisons of this country.

One of the foundations of U.S. wealth is the oppression of African Americans. For the first 200 years of the British colonies and then the founding of the U.S., millions of Africans were taken from their families, homes and people to work as chattel slaves in the Americas. Millions died in the infamous “middle passage” between Africa and the Americas, and those who survive have been forged into an oppressed nation, with a common culture, language and economy in the U.S. South.

To suppress the slaves’ fight for freedom, the U.S. institutionalized local government militias to put down slave revolts. After the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, founded by former Confederate general Bedford Forrest, along with the with the use of African American prison labor in the infamous chain gangs saw the union of racist vigilantes and the system of police and courts, to enforce a system of U.S.-style apartheid segregation known as Jim Crow. This is at the root of the criminalization of Black people in the U.S.

Legal segregation was broken in the 1950s and 1960s by the African American freedom struggle known as the Civil Rights movement. This struggle not only brought about gains in the rights of, and opportunities for, African Americans, but also set the stage for Chicanos, Latinos, Asians, Native American, women, and LBGT people to launch their own movements for liberation. The 1960s was also a high tide for labor struggles and strikes, and saw the beginnings of many government programs such as Medicare, Head Start, Medicaid that benefitted the elderly, children and poor.

But the 1% who rule America rallied under President Nixon behind a two-fold strategy to deal with the Black Liberation Movement. On one hand, there was a wave of repression, centered around the FBI COINTELPRO to murder and jail African American leaders and organizations such as the Black Panther Party. At the same time, there was a conscious development of a new sector of Black capitalists and government managers. While traditionally Black-owned businesses were based in African American community and needed the support of the working masses, this new sector of elite African Americans was to serve at the highest level of U.S. corporations, military and government. One result is the traditional Black national bourgeoisie was weakened as mainstream corporations took their markets.

We can see this strategy at work today. On one hand there is the militarized response to the protests that rocked Ferguson for more than a week, complete with storm-trooper like police to military armored personnel carriers. On the other hand there are a few African Americans at the highest levels of power, from former military Chief of Staff Colin Powell, to Attorney General Eric Holder, to McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson, to president Barack Obama.

But the masses of Ferguson and their supporters from the Saint Louis area and around the country withstood both the police repression and the efforts of established Black leaders to cool out their fight. They rejected the police attempt to criminalize Michael Brown and to justify the shooting. While the media have been echoing the police claims of “outside agitators” across the country, in fact, the vast majority of those arrested were from the Saint Louis area.

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization hails the African American working masses of Ferguson and Saint Louis as heroes for standing up to intense police repression and continuing to fight, night after night, for justice for Michael Brown. Just as the Civil Rights movement attracted supporters from across the country, the fight in Ferguson is drawing people to the struggle today. Political consciousness is spreading, from rap artists who take up the cause to local politicians who side with the protesters and not the police.

New challenges will face the movement. Police body cameras, which many people hope will limit police brutality, are now being turned on the protesters to try to criminalize them. Officer Darren White has not been arrested, and instead the case has been turned over to a secretive grand jury under the direction of a prosecutor with strong ties to the police. Their plan is to drag out the proceedings behind closed doors for months and hope that the movement dies down, allowing them to let Darren Wilson go free.

There is a saying that there are many Black leaders, but there is no leadership. What is needed is leadership from a new generation of Black youth, who can organize and lead the working masses of African Americans in the ongoing struggle for justice, equality and power. Just as the Student National Coordinating Committee or SNCC emerged out of the Feb. 1, 1960 Greensboro sit-in and the wave of civil disobedience against segregation that followed, so today what is needed is grassroots, militant organizations that can rally a broad movement against racist police and vigilantes and for equality and power.

Above all, we must continue to focus on the demands: Justice for Michael Brown! Arrest and jail Darren Wilson and all killer cops and racist vigilantes!

white racist vigilantes murdering black Americans

Cosidering that whites outnumber blacks at least six to one the racist vigilante problem seems to be just the opposite as stated in the posted column.

FBI Homicides Statistics

Year of Stats	Race of Victims	Total	White Offenders	Black Offenders	Unknown & other
2012	White	3,128	2,614	431	83
	Black	2,648	193	2,412	43
2011	White	3,172	2,630	448	94
	Black	2,695	193	2,447	55
2010	White	3,327	2,777	447	103
	Black	2,720	218	2,459	43
2009	White	3,518	2,963	454	101
	Black	2,867	209	2,604	54
2008	White	3,643	3,036	504	103
	Black	3,024	230	2,722	72
2007	White	3,587	2,918	566	103
	Black	3,221	245	2,905	71
2006	White	3,709	3,026	573	110
	Black	3,303	208	3,034	61
2005	White	3,785	3,150	516	119
	Black	3,289	230	2,984	75
2004	White	3,727	3,123	522	85
	Black	3,067	228	2,784	55
1995	White	4,954	4,124	699	131
	Black	4,764	281	4,422	61

See my reply #13 for more.

struggle for justice claims the Freedom Road Socialist Organization

Holder says: U.S. a 'nation of cowards' on race discussions

Cowards? Like afraid to continue releasing Department of Justice interracial crime data that the Freedom Road Socialist Organization would otherwise have to 'splain?

The Dept of Just Us beginning 2009 no longer releases the data contained in Table 42 (Crimes of violence) in DoJ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) -- emphasis on survey; to wit, these are not police reports they are annual surveys of crime victims.

This was a survey of victims of crime from which data for the whole population are extrapolated. Table 42 showed interracial crime. If anyone can find Table 42 data for the Obama-Holder years please link to it. I already have the FBI tables of actual police reports showing arrests and homicides by race during the Obama years.

A little too much racial honesty, I guess, when it came to rape and sex crimes. Just to emphasize again.. the Criminal Victimization in the United States, [YYYY] Statistical Tables are not police records they are annual surveys of crime victims.

And the pattern of white on black "Rape/Sexual assault" seems odd perhaps one reason is the victim identified the offender as Hispanic not knowing correct description was white Hispanic.

Couldn't Holder's DoJ, et al explain the odd pattern instead of suppressing the data? If that is what they did. Seems like it to me. Maybe the pattern is real.

Table 42: "Percent distribution of single-offender victimizations, by type of crime, race of victim, and perceived race of offender"
"Rape/Sexual assault"

Year of Stats	Total Rape/ Sexual assault	Race of Victims	% White Offenders	% Black Offenders	% Not known & other
1995	255,260	White	78.7	15.3
	38,330	Black	7.9 *	92.1
1996	216,710	White	82.2	8.8 *
	44,890	Black	13.5 *	80.2	6.3 *
1997	234,800	White	74.8	8.0 *
	43,890	Black	0.0 *	93.7	6.3 *
1998	225,330	White	77.2	9.9 *
	47,430	Black	7.2 *	68.9	23.9 *
1999	274,020	White	79.4	7.3 *
	67,890	Black	0.0 *	79.3	20.7 *
2000	199,360	White	81.5	7.0
	33,780	Black	7.0	79.7	13.3
2001	183,160	White	71.3	17.1
	29,980	Black	13.4	65.5	21.1
2002	134,140	White	76.0	13.1
	59,490	Black	14.2	85.8
2003	131,030	White	57.9	15.5
	24,010	Black	0.0 *	87.9	12.1
2004	139,900	White	65.1	8.3
	39,300	Black	0.0 *	89.8	10.2
2005	111,590	White	44.5	33.6
	36,620	Black	0.0 *	100.0
2006	194,270	White	50.6	16.7
	17,920	Black	0.0 *	43.0	57.0
2007	185,430	White	75.5	7.6
	12,780	Black	0.0 *	100.0
2008	117,640	White	74.9	16.4
	46,580	Black	0.0 *	74.8	25.2

*0.0 Estimate is based on 10 or fewer sample cases
May not sum to 100.0 % due to rounding

My emphasis

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Criminal Victimization in the United States, [YYYY] Statistical Tables

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