The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race
By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Will
the recent rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, be a tipping point in the
struggle against racial injustice, or will it be a minor footnote in
some future grad student’s thesis on Civil Unrest in the Early
Twenty-First Century?
The answer can be found in May of 1970.
You probably have heard of the Kent State shootings: on May 4, 1970,
the Ohio National Guard opened fire on student protesters at Kent State
University. During those 13 seconds of gunfire, four students were
killed and nine were wounded, one of whom was permanently paralyzed. The
shock and outcry resulted in a nationwide strike of 4 million students
that closed more than 450 campuses. Five days after the shooting,
100,000 protestors gathered in Washington, D.C. And the nation’s youth
was energetically mobilized to end the Vietnam War, racism, sexism, and
mindless faith in the political establishment.
You probably haven’t heard of the Jackson State shootings.
On May 14
th, 10 days after Kent State ignited the nation,
at the predominantly black Jackson State University in Mississippi,
police killed two black students (one a high school senior, the other
the father of an 18-month-old baby) with shotguns and wounded twelve
others.
There was no national outcry. The nation was not mobilized to do
anything. That heartless leviathan we call History swallowed that event
whole, erasing it from the national memory.
And, unless we want the Ferguson atrocity to also be swallowed and
become nothing more than an intestinal irritant to history, we have to
address the situation not just as another act of systemic racism, but as
what else it is: class warfare.
By focusing on just the racial aspect, the discussion becomes about
whether Michael Brown’s death—or that of the other three unarmed black
men who were killed by police in the U.S. within that month—is about
discrimination or about police justification. Then we’ll argue about
whether there isn’t just as much black-against-white racism in the U.S.
as there is white-against-black. (Yes, there is. But, in general,
white-against-black economically impacts the future of the black
community. Black-against-white has almost no measurable social impact.)
Then we’ll start debating whether or not the police in America are
themselves an endangered minority who are also discriminated against
based on their color—blue. (Yes, they are. There are many factors to
consider before condemning police, including political pressures,
inadequate training, and arcane policies.) Then we’ll question whether
blacks are more often shot because they more often commit crimes. (In
fact, studies show that blacks are targeted more often in some cities,
like New York City. It’s difficult to get a bigger national picture
because studies are woefully inadequate. The Department of Justice study
shows that in the U.S. between 2003 and 2009, among arrest-related
deaths there’s very little difference among blacks, whites, or Latinos.
However, the study doesn’t tell us how many were unarmed.)
This fist-shaking of everyone’s racial agenda distracts America from
the larger issue that the targets of police overreaction are based less
on skin color and more on an even worse Ebola-level affliction: being
poor. Of course, to many in America, being a person of color is
synonymous with being poor, and being poor is synonymous with being a
criminal. Ironically, this misperception is true even among the poor.
And that’s how the status quo wants it.
The U.S. Census Report finds that 50 million Americans are poor.
Fifty million voters is a powerful block if they ever organized in an
effort to pursue their common economic goals. So, it’s crucial that
those in the wealthiest One Percent keep the poor fractured by
distracting them with emotional issues like immigration, abortion and
gun control so they never stop to wonder how they got so screwed over
for so long.
One way to keep these 50 million fractured is through disinformation.
PunditFact’s recent scorecard on network news concluded that at Fox and
Fox News Channel, 60 percent of claims are false. At NBC and MSNBC, 46
percent of claims were deemed false.
That’s the “news,” folks!
During the Ferguson riots, Fox News ran a black and white photo of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., with the bold caption: “Forgetting MLK’s
Message/Protestors in Missouri Turn to Violence.” Did they run such a
caption when either Presidents Bush invaded Iraq: “Forgetting Jesus
Christ’s Message/U.S. Forgets to Turn Cheek and Kills Thousands”?
How can viewers make reasonable choices in a democracy if their
sources of information are corrupted? They can’t, which is exactly how
the One Percent controls the fate of the Ninety-Nine Percent.
Worse, certain politicians and entrepreneurs conspire to keep the poor just as they are. On his HBO comedic news show
Last Week Tonight,
John Oliver ran an expose of the payday loan business and those who so
callously exploit the desperation of the poor. How does an industry that
extorts up to 1,900 percent interest on loans get away with it? In
Texas, State Rep. Gary Elkins blocked a regulatory bill, despite the
fact that he owns a chain of payday loan stores. And the politician who
kept badgering Elkins about his conflict of interest, Rep. Vicki Truitt,
became a lobbyist for ACE Cash Express just 17 days after leaving
office. In essence, Oliver showed how the poor are lured into such a
loan, only to be unable to pay it back and having to secure yet another
loan. The cycle shall be unbroken.
Dystopian books and movies like
Snowpiercer,
The Giver,
Divergent,
Hunger Games, and
Elysium
have been the rage for the past few years. Not just because they
express teen frustration at authority figures. That would explain some
of the popularity among younger audiences, but not among
twentysomethings and even older adults. The real reason we flock to see
Donald Sutherland’s porcelain portrayal in
Hunger Games of a
cold, ruthless president of the U.S. dedicated to preserving the rich
while grinding his heel into the necks of the poor is that it rings true
in a society in which the One Percent gets richer while our middle
class is collapsing.
That’s not hyperbole; statistics prove this to be true. According to a
2012 Pew Research Center report, just half of U.S. households are
middle-income, a drop of 11 percent since the 1970s; median middle-class
income has dropped by 5 percent in the last ten years, total wealth is
down 28 percent. Fewer people (just 23 percent) think they will have
enough money to retire. Most damning of all: fewer Americans than ever
believe in the American Dream mantra that hard work will get them ahead.
Rather than uniting to face the real foe—do-nothing politicians,
legislators, and others in power—we fall into the trap of turning
against each other, expending our energy battling our allies instead of
our enemies. This isn’t just inclusive of race and political parties,
it’s also about gender. In her book
Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution,
Laurie Penny suggests that the decreased career opportunities for young
men in society makes them feel less valuable to females; as a result
they deflect their rage from those who caused the problem to those who
also suffer the consequences: females.
Yes, I’m aware that it is unfair to paint the wealthiest with such
broad strokes. There are a number of super-rich people who are also
super-supportive of their community. Humbled by their own success, they
reach out to help others. But that’s not the case with the multitude of
millionaires and billionaires who lobby to reduce Food Stamps, give no
relief to the burden of student debt on our young, and kill extensions
of unemployment benefits.
With each of these shootings/chokehold deaths/stand-your-ground
atrocities, police and the judicial system are seen as enforcers of an
unjust status quo. Our anger rises, and riots demanding justice ensue.
The news channels interview everyone and pundits assign blame.
Then what?
I’m not saying the protests in Ferguson aren’t justified—they are. In
fact, we need more protests across the country. Where’s our Kent State?
What will it take to mobilize 4 million students in peaceful protest?
Because that’s what it will take to evoke actual change. The middle
class has to join the poor and whites have to join African-Americans in
mass demonstrations, in ousting corrupt politicians, in boycotting
exploitative businesses, in passing legislation that promotes economic
equality and opportunity, and in punishing those who gamble with our
financial future.
Otherwise, all we’re going to get is what we got out of Ferguson: a
bunch of politicians and celebrities expressing sympathy and outrage. If
we don’t have a specific agenda—a list of
exactly what we want to change and how—we will be gathering over and over again beside the dead bodies of our murdered children, parents, and neighbors.
I hope John Steinbeck is proven right when he wrote in
Grapes of Wrath,
“Repression works only to strengthen and knit the oppressed.” But I’m
more inclined to echo Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues,” written the year
after the Kent State/Jackson State shootings:
Inflation no chance
To increase finance
Bills pile up sky high
Send that boy off to die
Make me wanna holler
The way they do my life
Make me wanna holler
The way they do my life
