We see videos daily of Europeans (whites) in Western capitalist countries e.g. the U.S., Britain, France, Australia, etc., calling the police on African and other Brown people for absurd reasons. They call police on us for working in European neighborhoods, sitting in Starbucks, swimming in apartment pools, selling lemonade, and committing screens during pick up basketball games. The common narrative about this in capitalist media is that these Europeans who are using 911 against us like Raid on roaches are suddenly emboldened by the racist rhetoric of right-wing political leaders. That narrative spins well for night time news cycles, but it doesn't stand up to historical record. Newsflash, Europeans have always seen police as their personal armed force to repress the African masses because essentially, that's exactly what police are as an institution.
On a personal level, I can recount several stories of Europeans calling the police on me throughout my life for nothing. In 1982, while a college student, I had what was supposed to pose as a job as a canvasser for an insulation company. Despite my objections to the company dropping me off in racist Roseville, California, to go door to door, I was forced to do so to retain my job. The first door I knocked on the European woman told me she was going to call the police. My young response to her was her kind criticize us for not wanting to work and then call the police on us when we do work. I'll never forget her curious response to me when she said "You are right." I'll also never forget that she still followed up and called the police on me. Then there was the time when I was in high school that I was waiting for a friend in front of their aunt's house in Marin County. One of their kind neighbors called the police on me for sitting there. More recently, there was the time in 2012 when some comrades and I were riding MAX line trains in Portland, Oregon, talking to people about police terrorism. Some tourist European family (I say that because I remember they had several boxes of "Voodoo" donuts and no self respecting person living in Portland would walk around like that), objected to our message to people on the train, so the great white father called 911 right there on the train to demand we be dealt with. I have many more examples, but my point is my entire life has been Europeans calling the people on me for no reason so I know from experience that this isn't a new phenomenon. In fact, it isn't even a phenomenon.
I could make this point based specifically on my personal experiences, but we are revolutionaries which means we don't develop our positions based on subjective and anecdotal evidence. We rely on science. And, the science that supports this practice being a historical phenomenon is rooted in understanding the history of police in the first place. Police were never created as an institution to "protect and serve" African people (or any other working class people for that matter). The history takes on a varied specificity in other countries, but here in the U.S., police were created as an institution specifically to terrorize African people, who bravely decided to seek out new lives away from the cotton sharecropping industry in the Southern U.S. (after slavery). To prevent the whole scale loss of this cheap African labor force, the plantation industries hired gangs of European thugs who were commissioned to terrorize us into staying on the plantation. These bands of posses (that's exactly where that word comes from) went out and physically and brutally terrorized Africans into turning back below the Mason Dixon line to continue working in the cotton industry. The posses were hired and paid by the sharecropping industry businesses and their work was so "productive" that during reconstruction, municipalities began hiring these posses as police departments in towns and cities across the South. Of course, there were plenty of Africans who made it to the East, North, and Western areas of the U.S. For those Africans, organizations called "City Watch" and other names were created across the U.S. to serve as armed forces to keep Africans in designated areas and out of European areas. Or, as an early African mentor in my life once said to me; "the police are for those of us who live in the cities because they have the klan and other outfits for those of us who live in rural areas." So, from day one, the training, vision, focus, and mission of police was always to hold us down under thumb. And, if you understand that, then it shouldn't be difficult at all to understand why they are so quick to use force against us. This is a part of their police culture and history. It is what they have been recruited and trained to do. This myth that they are here to protect us is just another long line of propaganda designed to confuse us and any African and/or oppressed person who still believes that myth in 2018 probably and unfortunately deserves whatever sad fate awaits you for believing in these state sanctioned terrorists to serve you when you call them.
The other critical piece to this sad scenario is the sick and primitive psychology of most Europeans today. This society has no values and principles because it is impossible to have values and principles when your primary principle is that money is more important than human lives. And, the crime of most Europeans isn't that you are white. We don't believe in those types of fairy tales. The crime is that the vast majority of you see the injustices this system inflicts on people and you are more concerned about preserving your comfort than doing anything about it. To extend beyond that, in a society where Europeans, like the rest of us, are devalued and treated as commodities daily, far too many Europeans decide to compensate for that by reinforcing white supremacy's biggest appeal to them - that no matter what is going wrong in their lives, at least they are not us. A significant element in this facade is Europeans feeling they have power over us. This is a systemic manifestation of oppression. Men do it to women and Europeans do it to us. You have no power within the system except whatever power you exert over those less powerful than you. The masses of Europeans, angry at being pimped relentlessly by capitalism, and lacking the backbone and courage to do anything about it, choose the cowardly way out which is bullying those they know have less resources than they do. Thus, the age old tradition of calling the police, the army for white supremacy, against the African masses for breathing and existing.
Now, I know from experience that whenever I write something like this, there are inevitably people who don't really read it in a comprehensive way, or some of them probably just didn't take their medication today, but they will respond with all types of way out, off focus responses to what is written here. Save it. I'm not interested or concerned about your hurt feelings because if you are defending these Europeans in any way, covertly or overtly, you are making it clear that your concern is for European comfort, not African survival.
For African people, its high time we stop believing in fairy tales that have been dis-proven long ago. This system wasn't built for you. It isn't maintained for you. And, no matter how much education and money you acquire, none of that changes this reality. So, stop acting shocked because capitalism does what it has always done to us. Start keying in on ways we can come together as communities to protect ourselves. There are solutions all around us, but you have to start paying attention and that means waking up. Our ancestors were not walking around with their heads in the sand as many of you are today. They knew the posses (police) were not their friends and with nothing close to the level of resources you have at your finger tips today, they were able to organize effective strategies to keep our people safe. The only way they were able to do that was by preparing themselves. They didn't just start filming and gawking at our being mistreated by Europeans. They had plans to act. We need to return to that and if you are not going to help us prepare to do that, the maybe its you someone should video being brutalized next.
This phenomenon is no phenomenon. Its America being what it always has been. Its capitalist countries being what they always have been. Its these capitalist countries experiencing severe states of decline. Its Europeans feeling that pinch and taking it out on us because they are to selfish and cowardly to do something about it. Recognize this and understand it. Process it. And then get serious about doing something about it beyond just videoing and sharing us losing when its time for us to be winning.
On a personal level, I can recount several stories of Europeans calling the police on me throughout my life for nothing. In 1982, while a college student, I had what was supposed to pose as a job as a canvasser for an insulation company. Despite my objections to the company dropping me off in racist Roseville, California, to go door to door, I was forced to do so to retain my job. The first door I knocked on the European woman told me she was going to call the police. My young response to her was her kind criticize us for not wanting to work and then call the police on us when we do work. I'll never forget her curious response to me when she said "You are right." I'll also never forget that she still followed up and called the police on me. Then there was the time when I was in high school that I was waiting for a friend in front of their aunt's house in Marin County. One of their kind neighbors called the police on me for sitting there. More recently, there was the time in 2012 when some comrades and I were riding MAX line trains in Portland, Oregon, talking to people about police terrorism. Some tourist European family (I say that because I remember they had several boxes of "Voodoo" donuts and no self respecting person living in Portland would walk around like that), objected to our message to people on the train, so the great white father called 911 right there on the train to demand we be dealt with. I have many more examples, but my point is my entire life has been Europeans calling the people on me for no reason so I know from experience that this isn't a new phenomenon. In fact, it isn't even a phenomenon.
I could make this point based specifically on my personal experiences, but we are revolutionaries which means we don't develop our positions based on subjective and anecdotal evidence. We rely on science. And, the science that supports this practice being a historical phenomenon is rooted in understanding the history of police in the first place. Police were never created as an institution to "protect and serve" African people (or any other working class people for that matter). The history takes on a varied specificity in other countries, but here in the U.S., police were created as an institution specifically to terrorize African people, who bravely decided to seek out new lives away from the cotton sharecropping industry in the Southern U.S. (after slavery). To prevent the whole scale loss of this cheap African labor force, the plantation industries hired gangs of European thugs who were commissioned to terrorize us into staying on the plantation. These bands of posses (that's exactly where that word comes from) went out and physically and brutally terrorized Africans into turning back below the Mason Dixon line to continue working in the cotton industry. The posses were hired and paid by the sharecropping industry businesses and their work was so "productive" that during reconstruction, municipalities began hiring these posses as police departments in towns and cities across the South. Of course, there were plenty of Africans who made it to the East, North, and Western areas of the U.S. For those Africans, organizations called "City Watch" and other names were created across the U.S. to serve as armed forces to keep Africans in designated areas and out of European areas. Or, as an early African mentor in my life once said to me; "the police are for those of us who live in the cities because they have the klan and other outfits for those of us who live in rural areas." So, from day one, the training, vision, focus, and mission of police was always to hold us down under thumb. And, if you understand that, then it shouldn't be difficult at all to understand why they are so quick to use force against us. This is a part of their police culture and history. It is what they have been recruited and trained to do. This myth that they are here to protect us is just another long line of propaganda designed to confuse us and any African and/or oppressed person who still believes that myth in 2018 probably and unfortunately deserves whatever sad fate awaits you for believing in these state sanctioned terrorists to serve you when you call them.
The other critical piece to this sad scenario is the sick and primitive psychology of most Europeans today. This society has no values and principles because it is impossible to have values and principles when your primary principle is that money is more important than human lives. And, the crime of most Europeans isn't that you are white. We don't believe in those types of fairy tales. The crime is that the vast majority of you see the injustices this system inflicts on people and you are more concerned about preserving your comfort than doing anything about it. To extend beyond that, in a society where Europeans, like the rest of us, are devalued and treated as commodities daily, far too many Europeans decide to compensate for that by reinforcing white supremacy's biggest appeal to them - that no matter what is going wrong in their lives, at least they are not us. A significant element in this facade is Europeans feeling they have power over us. This is a systemic manifestation of oppression. Men do it to women and Europeans do it to us. You have no power within the system except whatever power you exert over those less powerful than you. The masses of Europeans, angry at being pimped relentlessly by capitalism, and lacking the backbone and courage to do anything about it, choose the cowardly way out which is bullying those they know have less resources than they do. Thus, the age old tradition of calling the police, the army for white supremacy, against the African masses for breathing and existing.
Now, I know from experience that whenever I write something like this, there are inevitably people who don't really read it in a comprehensive way, or some of them probably just didn't take their medication today, but they will respond with all types of way out, off focus responses to what is written here. Save it. I'm not interested or concerned about your hurt feelings because if you are defending these Europeans in any way, covertly or overtly, you are making it clear that your concern is for European comfort, not African survival.
For African people, its high time we stop believing in fairy tales that have been dis-proven long ago. This system wasn't built for you. It isn't maintained for you. And, no matter how much education and money you acquire, none of that changes this reality. So, stop acting shocked because capitalism does what it has always done to us. Start keying in on ways we can come together as communities to protect ourselves. There are solutions all around us, but you have to start paying attention and that means waking up. Our ancestors were not walking around with their heads in the sand as many of you are today. They knew the posses (police) were not their friends and with nothing close to the level of resources you have at your finger tips today, they were able to organize effective strategies to keep our people safe. The only way they were able to do that was by preparing themselves. They didn't just start filming and gawking at our being mistreated by Europeans. They had plans to act. We need to return to that and if you are not going to help us prepare to do that, the maybe its you someone should video being brutalized next.
This phenomenon is no phenomenon. Its America being what it always has been. Its capitalist countries being what they always have been. Its these capitalist countries experiencing severe states of decline. Its Europeans feeling that pinch and taking it out on us because they are to selfish and cowardly to do something about it. Recognize this and understand it. Process it. And then get serious about doing something about it beyond just videoing and sharing us losing when its time for us to be winning.
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