Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Savant's updates on Baltimore





I don't know what makes you an expert on what "good" Black men care about. Men who are men, not punks, do care about our younger brothers and sisters--however misguided they are. Listen, buddy. I grew up in the projects of East Baltimore myself--a region certainly not better of than the West side ghetto in which Freddy lived, an in which live many of those angry youngsters who resorted to that unorganized confrontation. But I work everyday. I've a Ph.D., teach in a university, have never been to jail except for CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, and I was involved in those mass protests this past Saturday. I would have been at Freddy's funeral had I not been dealing with my students (some of whom I excused from class so that they could be at the funeral and console Freddy family). Even when I was coming up---and I'm roughly contemporary with Barack Obama---conditions were not as bad in the ghetto as they are now. And I don't blame our children (whom you, Nikki, Bmore's jive mayor, and Obama call thugs), but the city government, the corporate elites and institutional racism for the wreckage. I blame the police for their incessant harassment and brutality against my people. And I can assure that I and my family in Baltimore have all had experiences with the incompetence, brutality and stupidity of Bmore's fascist cops. Yes, I do give a damn about what happens to my younger sisters and brothers. For me this is a reminder that WE need to get our asses and gear and resume responsibilities to our own community. I don't blame the children as much as I blame the racist capitalist system which creates oppressive conditions, and also the "good" black men an women who won't commit themselves to shid, but then self-righteously think then can sit in judgment of the youth and the less privileged. Frankly, I don't blame the youngsters for being rebellious and angry. In their own misguided way they're showing more manhood and womanhood than passive bourgeois Negroes who do nothing, except aid in the oppression of their own people. I try tell the young---as my more conscious elders (veterans of the 1960s) taught me: It is RIGHT to rebel. It is right and sane to be angry as injustice. But there are effective forms of rebellions and ineffective. At least you kids have enough sense of self to rebel, but this is not the best way to do this. You must become organized, you must politically educate yourselves, and you must unite---and not just briefly in a revolt such as this." There's a clear line here: Either you're on the side of the oppressed, or on the side of the system, the oppressor. Everything else is BS. And for those "good" Black men (and women) who don't give a damn about the so-called "thugs," they thereby prove to me that they're NEITHER good nor really even men.

-Savant

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it is way past the point of useless talk about good cops and bad cops, or reform of the police. The police departments nationwide must be DISMANTLED, and replaced by a community force REQUIRED to LIVE in the community in which they work, and whose leadership is subject to appointment and recall democratic elections of the people. Trying to reform the corrupt, racist and fascistic (increasingly militarized) police is as pointless as trying to "reform" corporate capitalism, institutional racism and militarism. He who opts for this sets himself on a fool's errand. No, these corrupt and tyrannical structures must be done away with and replaced with democratic institutions that serve the people. The rest is BS. And to rectify the ills of our community we must have MASSIVE mobilization of popular energies to transforms fundamentally this bankrupt social order, the structural injustices and inequalities which underlie our social ills. History has proven that the more you raise the social consciousness of the people, the community, the more you also shrink the scale of dysfunctional and self-destructive conduct.

-Savant

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It's interesting that whites like Yim---who thinks he can lecture me on what a "good" Black man cares about---also thinks he know more about how cops behave toward Blacks than we do. What's remarkable is that there has been TONS of research (much of it by WHITES) which clearly show the persistence of police brutality against the Black community. There are even indications that UARMED Blacks have a greater chance of being shot than ARMED whites who explicitly threaten the police. (By the way, you may be able to find an article in AlterNet.org about whites who confronted police armed and were not killed. I forget the title, but will share it when I see it again). Even Black professionals are not exempt from dangers of police abuse. This has been reported by AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, the ACLU and even UN commissions on Racism an on Human Rights. Whites like Yim know nothing about all this, or dismiss it as liberal propaganda, but they readily swallow whatever they can find to reinforce their notions of black "pathology " or "criminality. ". There are some whites who are so far gone that it's hopeless trying to bring them back to reality--to break them out of their secluding bubbles of illusion. Instead of trying to tell me what "good" black men do or don't care about he should be trying to become a good person himself. And if he can tell me what good black men care about, maybe I can gie him a clue to what a good white man (or woman_) is like. For a few hundred of them were with us this past Saturday, including one who carried a sign reading "Blacks Lives Matter even MORE than White Supremacy." Now I wonder why that, and several days of our PEACEFUL protests,were worthy of less attention by the media than the misguided actions of some of our kids this past Monday?  (

-Savant

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That is not an unreasonable fear. East Baltimore was virtually untouched. Neither the inner city sections of East Baltimore where I grew up, nor the more middle class sections of North east has seen disturbances. Of course, I'd be surprised if something had erupted in Northeast Bmore with all those professionals.

-Savant

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