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October 2009
October 22nd is a
Good Day to Standup for Justice
Michael T. McPhearson, October 22, 2009
October 22nd is a day of
action and events to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the
Criminalization of a Generation. The October 22nd
coalition was formed in 1996 in response to acts of police
aggression. The about section of the Coalition’s website,
www.october22.org explains the significance of the date.
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“October 22nd was the negotiated date for NDP (National Day
of Protest) in 1996, the year that it started. The groups
involved wanted to have it in October, because students
would be back in school, and before the elections, so that
people could have a way to express themselves in the
streets. It did not have a significance in its own right.
The first year was so successful that people said, "let's do
it again!" October 22nd then became significant as the date
on which people nationally protest police brutality. |
 I have been blessed
that I have never been a victim of police brutality. All of my
encounters with the police have worked out fine. I have been
arrested during an act of civil disobedience to bring the troops
home from Iraq. I have to engage
police during protests. There have been a few moments where a
traffic stop could have turned negative, but I have always been able
to read the officers and keep the moment from escalating into
something ugly and still keep my respect as a citizen.
I appreciate the
fact that police have difficult jobs. I will not hesitate to call
the police if I feel reason. I was brought up in a lower middleclass
one parent family by a mother who had an eye toward upward mobility
for her children. Thus she taught us to respect police and think of
them as an ally when there is trouble. She did not exactly teach us
that all police are officer Friendly, but we were not taught to fear
them either. Actually we were not taught to fear anything at all
except her. But all my life the signals that police could be deadly
and hurt me were there. I distinctly remember Ma Patty, my
grandmother referring to the police as the bull. Anytime she saw the
bull in the neighborhood she made us aware. As I got older and
traveled I was warned by residence of various cities where it was
safe to travel as a Black person and where I might likely be pulled
over by the police for simply being myself in the car. This became
known as driving while Black.
 The
1991
Rodney King’s beating, the 1997 torture of
Abner Louima, the 2006
Sean Bell killing and the 2009
fatal shooting of
Oscar Grant are four names and horrifying stories of
police misconduct etched in my mind. But the 1999 killing of
Amadou Diallo and the subsequent
acquittal of the offending officers hurt me. Amadou’s death felt
personal. He was dead because he did not know how to act. His crime
was that he did not know as a Black man when facing the police, it is best to raise your
hands over your head. The State arbitrarily
took his life and it was OK. No one was held responsible. That could
have been me. It could have been my son. I felt uncomfortable in my
American Skin and I did not like it.
(Read my essay about it here.)
As I have already
stated, I appreciate the fact that the police have difficult jobs;
however it would be foolish and possibly fatal for me ignore a
deadly reality. Franz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth
speaks to the use of the State power to control the oppressed.
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 The colonial world is a
world cut in two. The dividing line, the frontiers are shown
by barracks and police stations. In the colonies it is the
policeman and the soldier who are the official, instituted
go-betweens, the spokesmen of the settler and his rule of
oppression. In capitalist societies the educational system,
whether lay or clerical, the structure of moral reflexes
handed down from father to son, the exemplary honesty of
workers who are given a medal after fifty years of good and
loyal service, and the affection which springs from
harmonious relations and good behavior--all these aesthetic
expressions of respect for the established order serve to
create around the exploited person an atmosphere of
submission and of inhibition which lightens the task of
policing considerably. In the capitalist countries a
multitude of moral teachers, counselors and "bewilderers"
separate the exploited from those in power. In the colonial
countries, on the contrary, the policeman and the soldier,
by their immediate presence and their frequent and direct
action maintain contact with the native and advise him by
means of rifle butts and napalm not to budge. It is obvious
here that the agents of government speak the language of
pure force. The intermediary does not lighten the
oppression, nor seek to hide the domination; he shows them
up and puts them into practice with the clear conscience of
an upholder of the peace; yet he is the bringer of violence
into the home and into the mind of the native. |
The full quote
gives great insight into the the use of State dominated
socialization and State sanctioned violence to maintain order. The
last sentence in particular illustrates the relationship between the
police in their role as protectors of owners, their property and the
status quo on one side and the poor, disenfranchised and those
challenging the status quo in the name of justice on the other. The
victims of police brutality tend to be those who are most
vulnerable, communities who have been or are being exploited and
persons challenging the system itself. I am part of both. I also
realize that the relationship is complex because most time the
police are working class people who come from the same communities
facing the brutality. For a time my life in some respects
paralleled that of a police officer. I was once the soldier to which
Fanon refers. I could have been a policeman.
 My
intension is not to demonize the police. Some are bad, most are good
people. Whatever the case may be, Police Brutality, Repression and
the Criminalization of a Generation must stop. Good police must
breakdown the
Blue Wall of Silence. They sully their honor by allowing their
duty to protect and serve be subservient to fraternity.
October 22nd
is an important day, because it is a day of resistance to the abuse
of power by the State at its most profane; the unrestrained use of
violence and the taking of life. It is a great day to standup for
justice.
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