Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Reflections on a month of rebellion and reckoning

Since this blog is ostensibly about my artwork, I will start this post with a picture of a curious object I embellished: a Chicago Police Department riot helmet from 1968.




I asked my dad if I could have it for the 2012 NATO march. His suggestion was to decorate it with flowers so that I wouldn't get accused of impersonating an officer. At the time, the vinyl letter slogan I put on the back was "OCCUPY" and I put a "99%" on the front. As you can see, it now says "Black Lives Matter."

I keep thinking of my own privilege as a the daughter of a retired police officer. When I mention my father, police officers usually treat me differently.

"Where did you get that helmet?" A perplexed riot cop asked me at the NATO march.
"From my father." I replied.
He left me alone.

I will always refrain from saying "not all cops" in response to uprisings against police brutality. My father is a compassionate and caring man who chose a career in law enforcement because he wanted to help people. But I know this issue is bigger than him, that he is not representative of the whole entire Chicago Police Department, and that there are not enough officers like him on the force right now, unfortunately. It's a system of policing that is constantly producing "bad apples" that are rotten to the core and not doing anything about it because it doesn't have to. And I will never say "Blue Lives Matter" because I don't believe there are such things as "blue lives." Becoming a police officer is a choice. It's a job. They can quit. Co-opting the phrase "Black Lives Matter" to center law enforcement instead is extremely insulting. And every time I see that Blue Lives Matter flag, I want to burn it.

The Chicago Police Department put food on my table and clothes on my back. The Chicago Police Department put me through college. The Chicago Police department put 16 shots into Laquan McDonald and countless detainees into Homan Square to be tortured. These facts are hard to reconcile.

What can I possibly say about the murder of George Floyd that hasn't already been more eloquently stated by Ida B. Wells, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, James Baldwin, bell hooks, Dr. King, Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, Amiri Baraka, Public Enemy, Paul Laurence Dunbar, KRS-One, Angela Davis, Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robert Hayden, Melissa Harris-Perry, W.E.B. DuBois, Eve Ewing, Clint Smith, Kwame Toure, Audre Lorde, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mikki Kendall, Cornel West, Audre Lorde, Saeed Jones, Gil Scott-Heron, Ann Petry, Huey P. Newton or Fred Hampton? It's been hard to condense my thoughts on what's happening now into a Facebook post or a Twitter thread or an Instagram story, which is why I have been sharing other people's articles and posts on social media as I try to process what's been happening. That's why it took me about a month to write this post.




The same week that the COVID-19 death toll in America surpassed 100,000 people, you would think that would mean that people were too sick or busy grieving or collecting masks to act a fool... if you don't know history. Too sick? Too busy? Too bereaved? Of course not. There is always time for police brutality in America. Ironically, tragically, in the case of George Floyd, he survived the virus only to be murdered by police.





I didn't go to the protests because I didn't want to get sick. I had a bad feeling about the use of force and mass arrests after the first big night of protests in Minneapolis and was afraid of getting sent to COVID Jail. I have been in a lot of protests and can say from experience that nothing outrages the police doing crowd control more than Black Lives Matter demonstrations. (Though the NATO march came pretty close.) Maybe they feel guilty and defensive. Add a mayor who is always trying to show everybody how tough she is on crime and that's a recipe for mass arrests. And what I was reading about the new best practices for protesting in a time of such far-reaching police surveillance—the necessity of getting a burner phone and wearing a disguise—made the prospect seem even more daunting.

Instead of marching, I continued my quarantine at home and did my best to elevate the voices of the activists I follow on social media. I wanted to bear witness to what's happening on the ground. I learned from watching livestreams from Ferguson after the murder of Michael Brown that you can't rely on the version of events that you get from the news. There were so many factors in the amalgamation of violence that arose. It's not a single story. It's not a simple story. There is justified anger at the system. But there were also white kids having temper tantrums in public, seeing the protests as an opportunity to break as many windows as they can with their skateboards. And there were also white supremacists who wanted to start a race war. And the usual agent provocateur undercover police. And even worse, riot police escalating the tensions.

Photo by Richard Grant


Compare and contrast how they responded to the heavily armed anti-quarantine protestors.





The frustrating thing about the NATO march was that all people remember is the violence, not the impassioned speeches of the brave Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who renounced those wars, their medals, and the military. The frustrating thing about the George Floyd protests for me, at first, was that the story of the looting was getting more attention than the purpose of the protests. And over and over again, I kept seeing 2 perspectives from Black pundits about looters: that they were expressing a justified rage and that the stores could always be rebuilt and restocked, and that the looters were destroying their own communities, detracting from the cause, and making Black people look bad. There is no denying that the social contract is broken, as author Kimberly Jones so passionately told the world:



But at the same time, the reality is that many inner city neighborhoods struggled for decades to rebuild after the 1968 riots and the ones that weren't food deserts already are at risk of becoming food deserts once again. Some would dismiss the outrage expressed by statements like "why are we tearing up our own communities?" as respectability politics, but the sad reality is that this is literally what's happening. I will let my cousin and my friend tell you about it in their own words:








We should never forget how hard it was for so many neighborhoods to get good grocery stores, or encourage franchises of businesses (besides the usual suspects) to set up shop there and should empathize with the pain of communities who are witnessing signs of long-overdue progress succumb to destruction.

I had a lot of conflicting thoughts about this video of little Wynta-Amor:


She shouldn't have to protest, but it's so moving to see her participating. She reminds me of Ruby Bridges.

Norman Rockwell, "The Problem We all Live With"


While I admire her bravery, I also can't help but think about the "adultification" of Black children, and how little Black girls are seen as less innocent and historically have not been allowed to truly have a childhood. I think about the imagery of resistance movements, how Black artists use dark-skinned girls versus light-skinned girls and who is at the front lines in their pictures and who is not. I think about the Strong Black Woman archetype and how we are trained for this role from such young ages. I think about the stoicism that is expected of us. If the Strong Black Woman becomes the Angry Black Woman, then she's a threat. And America sees Black women's anger as unprofessional, déclassé, and stereotypical. But if Black children like Wynta-Amor are shielded from the reality of racism, they will only be blindsided by it later on because they will trust the wrong people. So my feelings about that are very complicated.





I think of Darnella Frazier, the 17-year-old girl who filmed the footage of George Floyd's murder, which documentarian Michael Moore calls the most important documentary of the year. The trauma she has endured and the death threats she has gotten are horrific. I hope she'll be okay.

And then there's the fact that as Black women organize behind the scenes and come out in droves to support marches demanding justice for slain Black men, when Black women are killed by the police, they don't get the same amount of support. While the whole world found out about George Floyd immediately, it took months for Breonna Taylor's death to get the attention it deserves. (And as I compose this post, her killers still haven't been arrested.)


Art by Ariel Sinha


And how many have ended up like Toyin Salau, who spoke passionately in support of justice George Floyd, only to be murdered shortly after the rally. In stark contrast to the cheers of the crowd around her, she had been left vulnerable and without support when the protest ended, with nowhere to sleep other than the home of the man who confessed to killing her.


image from Wear Your Voice


By the end of the month, the tragic stories of Elijah McClain and Tony McDade got belated publicity, and Rayshard Brooks was killed.


Art by Jum








And Louisville police killed David McAtee while he was protesting police violence!

Considering the onslaught of all these infuriating cases of police violence, in retrospect, I think that the protestors and even the looters exercised restraint. There was property damage, but not murder. To repeat what Kimberly Jones said, what's being sought is equality, not revenge.




Again and again, the police are showing everyone what they're capable of. They spent the early days of the protests making grand gestures of apparent solidarity, only to attack protestors later. At first I almost wanted to be moved by the videos, but part of me felt skeptical and now I feel nothing but contempt. Police taking a knee like Colin Kaepernick is a ridiculously belated gesture, and frankly creeps me out considering it's the same position the officer assumed while crushing the life out of George Floyd. It's an abuser tactic, and it adds insult to injury.




Citizens took to the streets to express their outrage and were met with police officers ready to hit them with sticks. They treated every protestor like an enemy combatant. They kettled protestors and arrested them en masse at curfew. They destroyed first aid stations and stashes of water and snacks. They attacked protest medics. They attacked journalists. They slashed tires of cars parked near protests. They used their horses to trample protestors. They drove into crowds with their police SUVs. And it seemed like they arrested everyone but looters. Maybe because they were taking a nap in Congressman Rush's office?



We are paying them through our tax dollars to attack us. This is why so many people curse the police. This is why some activists want them defunded. This is why some activists want them abolished.




Police violence has so many negative effects on everything, including city budgets. All the money that goes to settle court cases for murderous police could have gone to constructive services that would decrease the need for policing in the first place. It's the same problem we have at a federal level with all our military spending, but at a local level. Not to mention the military equipment they have.



But what can you expect from a society that exalts its police and soldiers above the rest of its citizens? What can you expect from a country so infatuated with violence?




And this isn't a partisan issue. Democrats can be authoritarians, too. Chicago has been Lori Lightfoot's police state. She responds to every problem with policing. She told us when she was running for mayor that she would do this, so it shouldn't be surprising. That's why I didn't vote for her. (We had a better candidate for first Black woman mayor of Chicago, by the way. Her name is Amara Enyia.)


Chris Rock on "bad apples" in the police force


Maybe part of the problem is that we have all consumed too much "copaganda." Study fiction writing and you will learn that it's an exercise in emotional manipulation. Cop shows send viewers on a hero's journey with law enforcement. The storytelling compels you to identify with the protagonists, the police. The plot makes things like habeas corpus an obstacle to the heroes. The only way the story can advance is if they break all the rules. We are supposed to cheer them on as they search people's homes without a warrant. Any brutality is justified by the suspect's villainy. They are highly competent. Lieutenant Columbo always catches the killer and Law and Order SVU gives viewers a false sense of security about how many rape kits are actually tested.  Even though my favorite police drama, Naked City, delves into the psyches of characters who are often pushed to extremes that lead them to be in conflict with the law, and is an interesting artifact of its time in that regard, you will never see what the NYPD was really like in the 1960s. Dragnet, the predecessor and trope codifier of all our modern copaganda, was actually a collaboration between the LAPD and Hollywood.

Police comedies get us to laugh at lovably incompetent Keystone Kops and Police Academy cadets, or my favorite, the amusing and affable officers of Brooklyn Nine Nine. I feel so much cognitive dissonance when I think of them now. Would Holt order riot police to tear gas peaceful protestors? Would Santiago shoot an unarmed man? Would Peralta kneel on a suspect's neck until he died? Would Boyle knock over an elderly man and leave him bleeding on the sidewalk? Would Diaz run protestors over with a squad car? Would Jeffords fire rubber bullets at journalists? Would Scully and Hitchcock pepper spray mourners at a vigil for a victim of police violence? After recoiling in horror at asking these questions, I am reassured that this would never happen because that's not how things work on television. Television police are like the Hamilton version of the founding fathers.

And then there's unscripted copaganda, which I am less familiar with. I don't watch reality TV to begin with and I've never seen the appeal of watching people get arrested. The First 48 got 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones killed.

Aiyna Stanley-Jones art by Robert Byrd
art by Robert Byrd


Cops is canceled now. I think television will be better off without it.


artist Haider Ali in Pakistan


solidarity from Syria


All around the world, people are waking up. And the solidarity is so beautiful that it makes me cry. Maybe this awakening has happened because of the horrific video evidence of George Floyd being killed. Maybe it's happening because now we all can see the constant barrage of police violence against protestors who aren't bothering anyone. Maybe it's a result of the solitude and introspection of months of lockdowns. They even seem to be finally realizing that racism is real, making it all the more frustrating to deal with people who still don't get it. If you still don't believe that racism exists after all this, maybe Elmo can explain it to you like you're 4 years old because frankly, I no longer have the patience. I am not in the mood to have "conversations about race" with non-Black people whose understanding of Black history, leadership, struggle, and resistance comes from an elementary school bulletin board or a bumper sticker or a meme or a public service announcement from 30 years ago. They show up with their 3rd grade level understanding of the Civil Rights Movement, Fox News talking points, and long-winded Reddit screed like replies and it makes me weary to the core of my soul. I refuse. It's not my ministry or my calling in life. (But I am happy to refer anyone who wants to learn more about racism to some Black educators I know who charge for this valuable service.)








If you're not Black and you want to support the movement, learn from the people in the pictures above. Be an accomplice. Be a friend.

So many of the statements of solidarity from big corporations seem hollow, hypocritical, and late. I feel like some brands want to treat this movement like it's a mood board. I'm not surprised because even a cursory review of ads from the 1960s and 70s reveals how eager advertisers were to adopt the words and aesthetic of the same counter-culture they once despised so that they could seem cool. I'm glad so many people are calling them out for their hypocrisy.


art by Chris Franklin






It's been amazing to witness the escalation to a more constructive sort of property damage, as monuments to racism are taken down. If you're familiar with my blog, you know how I feel about these kinds of monuments. The Robert E. Lee monument in Richmond, Virginia is too monumental for protestors to easily dismantle, so instead it has been repurposed as a site of protest.








I think that the projections and even the graffiti are a major improvement on a statue of no significant artistic merit. The symbolism of it, I think, is far more impactful than many of the statements from brands that might just equate Black lives with Black spending power. But to topple monuments that celebrate hateful human beings—colonizers, slave traders, Confederate leaders—statues that had been given pride of place as centerpieces of parks, to remove these focal points from public view, is to make a powerful statement to the powers that be. It is a physical dismantling for the world to see. It's what made the state of Mississippi finally remove that wretched Confederate flag from its state flag.

And it brings me great pleasure to see how much this rebellion angers the orange demon in the White House. To see him cower in a bunker with the lights turned off. To see the fence he put up transformed into a wall of protest art. To hear him and his minions rail about losing their country. It satisfies me. It's what they deserve. They can die mad about it for all I care.



After ordering protestors to be violently driven away from the White House so that he could walk down the street to stand in front of a church holding somebody else's Bible upside down and backwards for a photo op, it's amazing he hasn't been transformed into a pillar of salt.


*the scripture behind him was Photoshopped in


And to see the courage of the protestors to persist in their demands for justice despite his cruelty, despite his invocation of antiquated insurrection acts, despite the prison guards without badges patrolling the Washington streets... it all gives me hope that there will be resistance to whatever he tries to do to us in November or January. And it was amazing the see the speed with which so many local governments have moved towards rectifying the misdeeds of their police departments, when so little progress had been made before. And I was glad that the cause of the protests did not get overshadowed by the reporting on the looting. And I am relieved that so far the protests haven't led to mass outbreaks of COVID-19. And it was inspiring to see Black Lives Matter protests in towns where there aren't many (or any) Black people. And it was so beautiful to see young Black protestors showing up at the protests in their caps and gowns or on horseback looking so magnificent and powerful.


Deveonte Joseph


Brianna Noble


Maybe things will be different this time. Maybe now that more people have witnessed and experienced the disproportionate violence of American police departments, they'll stop making excuses for violence against unarmed civilians. Maybe more people finally understand that "Black Lives Matter" doesn't mean that nobody else's life matters. Maybe more people who are not Black will start to examine their own anti-Blackness.  Maybe this country will finally begin to reckon with the horrible things it's done to us. Maybe more Black people will finally be able to breathe.



art by Kadir Nelson




But I won't believe it until I see real, permanent changes. It's a long, hard fight. It's always been one. And why did it have to take so many deaths?

It took me a long time to write this because I had so much on my mind. It took me a long time to write this because I am so angry. It took me a long time to write this because I am so sad. I feel like I am mourning for people I have never met but really wish I could have known. And for the people who were maimed while protesting, including a writer I've been following for the past few years on Twitter who lost her eye to a rubber bullet.  It took me a long time to write this because I felt bad for not being out there protesting. It took me a long time to write this because the pandemic has destroyed the meaning of time. It took me a long time to write this because I am still trying to figure out how I feel about the police and the criminal justice system. But now I think this post is complete, so I will end it with a chant I would have said if I'd been out there:

No justice!
No peace!
No racist police!





Fight The Power




 


I shared most of these links on social media and want to share them again here:




































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