So almost a year after Michael Brown received karma for his actions, Counterpunch is still
posting articles that are an insult to the intelligence of black folks...well of
intelligent black folks.
But riot is partly a misnomer to describe what happened in recent weeks on the streets of Baltimore following Freddie Gray’s death in police custody. In fact, the rage on Baltimore’s streets was essentially an uprising against the deep poverty that afflicts the city.
Really? An uprising that destroys a senior citizen center. Brilliant uprising!
This is not hyperbole. Spoken in the language of rocks and flames and with all the fury to be expected from communities permanently consigned to society’s margins, such violent street protests stand as a blunt rebuke of a socioeconomic system that has failed America’s urban minority communities.
Notice the passive language "permanently consigned"! Clearly then black folks are agent-less non-human entities who have stuff
done to and need stuff
done for them. The ONLIEST thing black folks can do is "street protest". You know it's almost like the articles I read elsewhere that claim that black folks are just inherently violent. I mean if black folks only agency is to do violent things to get attention, it almost makes it seem that those durn racists are right. They can't be right can they?
Many minority communities in the United States exist in a state of permanent economic depression. With its majority Black population, unemployment in Baltimore in 2013 among Black males in their early 20s was a staggering 37 percent.
And believe me that "uprising" will not be helping much. Trust. And again notice the passive language and the use of minority. I'll have Mark know that there are plenty of "minority communities" that are not in a state of permanent economic depression. Of course by "minority" Mark means "black" (cause they're synonymous you know.) and of course BLACK anything is passive (except street protests) and so "economic depression" simply
happens to black folks. It's a state black folks
find themselves in rather than a product of (partially or fully) of their own behavior.
Nearly a quarter of the city’s residents live below the poverty line, with median household income half that of white residents.
Actually countrywide black median household income is half that of whites. How many blacks riot...sorry "uprise" in order to do something about it? How many blacks, oh, get skills and education....oh wait, not supposed to ask that question.
For starters, there’s the irrational hatred of many white, right wing Americans for the decidedly moderate Obama’s politics, a disdain fueled by a kind of visceral antipathy for the very notion of a Black person in the White House.
Even if entirely true, what does that have to do with the levels of unemployment in Baltimore? Baltimore has been black and Democrat run for a long time.
But more than this the wave of recent anti-police brutality protests has provoked a backlash in certain quarters, revealing the oozing sludge of bigotry that in more quiescent times simmers just beneath the surface of some segments of “civilized” white society.
He must mean the people pointing out the extremely high levels of crime, specifically murder, in black communities which takes FAR more lives of black men than ANYTHING the police have done in recent years. And not to mention that such high levels of crime do wonders to keep businesses from opening up in those neighborhoods (that find themselves "economically depressed").
Social media is one barometer of this entrenched prejudice. Consider the YouTube video circulating in recent months claiming to show Ferguson, Missouri teenager Michael Brown engaged in an assault on another man. One link to this video (since removed) showed millions of viewers, titled “Michael Brown Criminally Assaults and Robs an Older Man,” and begins by describing what follows as “What Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson Don’t Want You to See.”
The video shows a stocky young Black man physically assaulting an older man outside an apartment complex. It’s ugly to watch, as the older man can’t do much to defend himself. Too bad the video is from 2012, was filmed in Woodland, Texas, and the real Michael Brown is nowhere to be seen, as the Christian Science Monitor reports. This is only one of many slanders against Michael Brown that has gone viral in social media.
I saw that video. Immediately knew it wasn't Mike Brown. However; it should be noted, and should have been noted by Mark that it STILL was a shameful act of beating on an elder by young black men and is STILL indefensible. Furthermore, it went to demonstrate the serious social ills in certain quarters of the Black community that none of these writers want to really address. That's the REAL slander.
Indeed, why would people who did not personally know Michael Brown or his family, whose entire knowledge of his shooting by a Ferguson police officer comes from news and social media, be so quick to believe this young man was a law-breaker who basically got what he deserved?
Really sir? You got your information from where?
Some will say video footage taken shortly before Brown was killed that showed him stealing a box of cigarillos from a convenience store, pushing away a store employee who approached him, is evidence he was just another street thug who really did get what he deserved? In fact, no criminal incident at the convenience store was ever clearly established or proven, nor was Brown’s friend with him in the store that day ever charged with or as an accomplice to a crime.
Let me guess. This guy is PRO police cameras so that we can see the evidence right? But when video that is clear as day shows Mike Brown assaulting the manager. We're not to believe what it shows because the police never pursued charges against the
dead Mike Brown.
*Head explodes*
Not only is this guy in DEEEEEEEP denial but he shows his utter contempt for the assaulted shop keeper. I guess to the IDIOT writing this piece for Counterpunch wants us to think the shop keeper just decided to run after Mike because he was compelled to. No particular reason at all. In fact the little shop owner/manager PUSHED HIS OWN SELF. Mike Brown didn't even TOUCH him!
*Head explodes*
It is this kind of deep denials that keeps black folks down. We cannot even admit when a low life is being a low life. We don't even have the decency to say that whatever we may feel about Mike Brown, He was dead wrong to be assaulting that store manager.
And never mind that Dorian, in his sworn testimony ADMITTED that Mike tried to steal. Never mind that at all. And why wasn't Dorian charged? Because in the video we see that he
put the tobacco products back. Which means HE committed no crime. If he committed no crime, then there was no point in charging him. I suppose that is toooooooo much for Mark Harris to figure out.
As widespread as petty shoplifting is, certainly the middle class white man or woman who pilfers items from Macy’s or Nordstrom’s or The Dollar Store is generally not labeled a “thug,” called an “animal” or otherwise considered fit to die.
I dunno. Does this mythical shoplifter in Macy's assault the cashier? The manager? Hit's the responding police officer in the face? Grab the responding police officer's gun?
Not too long ago a man in Ridgewood NJ robbed a jewelry story and assaulted the owner. He was called all kinds of names in the press. Of course, you'd have to pay attention to notice these things.
“Black Lives Matter,” as if even acknowledging the special persecution of the Black community constitutes some sort of special privilege unfair to whites.
Special what? I want to know where Mark lives. Because Mark CLEARLY doesn't know anything about what is going on in Baltimore. There were
34 murders in Baltimore in the last 30 days
Ponder that for a minute.
Rioting...sorry...uprising over one dead Freddy Gray at the hands of police yet virtual silence, including this Mark mofo, over the 34 dead in just the past month. "special persecution"? by whom? Certainly not
BY the police.
This is the pathology of white racism, clueless to the end and teaching universal suspicion of minorities.
There is a clueless person in that piece and it certainly isn't who Mark thinks it is.
Thus, if you’re Black and don’t want to get murdered by police, don’t look them in the eye, don’t tell them you’re not doing anything wrong and have no right to detain you, don’t object to being harassed on the street, and don’t even open your front door to police. All are circumstances that in recent times have caused unarmed, law-abiding Black citizens to be killed by police.
This guy is really clueless.
First of all, looking a police officer in the eye is a good thing. Looking down and around makes you look suspicious. Secondly you can ALWAYS ask why you were detained. Of course if you just committed a crime or were in the process of committing a crime, yelling about how you didn't do anything or why are you being cuffed is just being a dick. Own your crime if you got caught. And if you call the police on some "my boy is in a fit of rage and carrying a weapon and I don't know what he'll do next" and when they come, your boy gets shot because he's in a fit of rage and carrying a weapon. Well guess who's at fault.
It's just sad to see how many faulty arguments the left is not using to infantilize black people and to excuse the criminal class within the black community. They THINK they are helping but they are not. And it's sad that they get a prominent platform for their nonsense.
