Thursday, December 4, 2014

White Racial Paranoia Killed Eric Garner...and It Then Exonerated the Cop Who Stole His Life

Again, I would like to thank all of you who have donated so far to the annual fundraising drive here on We Are Respectable Negroes and

We are about half-way to our goal. I have several more thank you notes to write--and that is a nice task which I enjoy completing.

If you have not, and are able, please do throw some gold, silver, or copper into the virtual begging bowl and collection pile.

One of the reasons I started WARN was to host a virtual salon where I could engage in interesting conversations with smart folks. As fans and supporters of WARN know, I am particularly invested in the many questions surrounding the colorline, power, popular culture, and the Black Freedom Struggle in America.

While there were/are a few sites that offered rich conversations and analysis on those topics, I also realized that there was a huge opening for a site that could offer smart commentary while leveraging empirical and "expert" knowledge with a playful wink and nudge when appropriate.

In creating WARN, my goal was also to give the readers a set of practical deliverables while striving to be ahead of the mainstream media regarding the analytic and narrative frames we use to understand the colorline in post civil rights era America. As I am fond of saying, "racism is not an opinion".

Racism and white supremacy are also not "unknown unknowns". Rather, they are concepts and social practices that can be understood, interrogated, and on occasion either navigated around and/or subverted. Ultimately, when one understands the interlocking systems of oppression that operate in the United States (and the world) he or she is more likely to maintain their sanity and emotional well-being.

For example, Michael Brown's killer Darren Wilson will not face charges in Ferguson, Missouri. Yesterday, a grand jury in New York decided that the cop who choked Eric Garner to death, a wicked deed that was recorded on video, and judged by a coroner to be a "homicide", will also not face any criminal charges.

These are body blows to the psyche of Black America (and all good people across the colorline). But, these gut shots should not be surprises. If one understands American history and white supremacy in the present, they ought to be able to tighten up their stomach muscles before the blow is landed.

As I have repeatedly argued here on WARN and elsewhere, Michael Brown and Eric Garner were killed by white racial paranoiac thinking.

White racial paranoiac thinking turns the black and brown body into a weapon and monstrous Other as viewed by the White Gaze. Because the White Gaze is the lens of White Supremacy, the black or brown victim is made into the aggressor because white racial paranoiac thinking distorts reality. The White Gaze is ethically, morally, and philosophically corrupt as it warps empirical facts to support the material and psychological wages of Whiteness.

As seen by White Gaze and white racial paranoiacs, Eric Garner killed himself. "Stop I can't breathe" is translated into "I am big, black, and dangerous." He and Michael Brown were "giant negroes" that had to be killed and subdued so that White America can feel safe.

White racial paranoiacs are everywhere. Here is one of their comments from Alternet's story about Eric Garner's murder and the exoneration of the white police officer who stole his life:
We're back on that mythical "choke hold" as cause of death. Garner died because he was obese and forced into a prone position, not because of a choke hold. 
This problem evidently is common enough to have it's own name. 
The term "choke hold" is a misnomer. In MMA where submissions are forced with so-called "choke holds", the loser doesn't actually have his breathing cut off. Rather, he has the blood vessels to his brain blocked off, leading to a quick submission. Otherwise, the fighter might work his way out of the position. According to the video of the takedown, the officer applying the "choke" didn't have his hands in position to apply enough pressure to cut off the windpipe. 
I happen to think that there was excessive force used in this case, but not because of a "choke". Given this guy's size, I'd like to know how the cops were going to get this guy back on his feet when they cuffed him.
I wrote "The Black Body is Always a Threat: White Racial Paranoiac Thinking Killed Eric Garner" several months ago. All work can be improved upon; but, I stand by my (then) analysis. If you have not read The Black Body is Always a Threat, please do so. It will help you to understand the repeated pattern where despite overwhelming visual evidence, how the White Gaze and white racial paranoiac thinking can distort the thought processes and values of too many White Americans when non-whites are subjected to violence by white people.

Judith Butler, whose work on white racial paranoiac thinking and the Rodney King case is essential, also informs how we can understand the video recorded killing of Eric Garner:
It is not, then, a question of negotiating between what is "seen," on the one hand, and a "reading" which is imposed upon the visual evidence, on the other. 
In a sense, the problem is even worse: to the extent that there is a racist organization and disposition of the visible, it will work to circumscribe what qualifies as visual evidence, such that it is in some cases impossible to establish the "truth" of racist brutality through recourse to visual evidence. For when the visual is fully schematized by racism, the "visual evidence" to which one refers will always and only refute the conclusions based upon it; for it is possible within this racist episteme that no black person can seek recourse to the visible as the sure ground of evidence. 
Consider that it was possible to draw a line of inference from the black male body motionless and beaten on the street to the conclusion that this very body was in "total control," rife with "dangerous intention.'' The visual field is not neutral to the question of race; it is itself a racial formation, an episteme, hegemonic, and forceful.
The Black Body is Always a Threat is an example of the type of analysis and commentary that I strive to bring you here on WARN. Again, if you can, and are able, please throw some change into the donation bucket, so that I can keep the energy going forward as I expand our endeavors.

How would you expand on, amend, or add to The Black Body is Always a Threat in light of the grand jury's decision to not indict the New York cop who killed Eric Garner?


SW said...

I would add the element of imagination, in that The Black Body is Always an Imagined Threat. I say "imagined" in this auxillary to the original, because many white folks have opted to separate themselves from black people through white flight and other means. Their choices have likely significantly curtailed their exposure to an actual black person that could even be present to serve as a threat. Leaving their "brains" as the only place where they actually "engage" with black people.

I often think about those that spew hate-filled venom online probably have no, or very limited interaction with black people, and if they stopped imaging, and actually thought about the actual interactions that they may have in fact had with black people, they would be able to reason that these interactions have been positive, or at worst, benign. I'm talking about the one person in their class, or the one co-worker, or customer service rep they interacted with at a retail shop who happened to be black.

These infinitely more probable interactions are undoubtedly not scary. Yet they convince themselves via imagination that the black bodies of Eric Gardner or Michael Brown are a threat, or even worse, possessed by a demon that needs to be put down.

The Sanity Inspector said...

“Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.” --G. K. Chesterton

Buddy H said...

From The Missourian:

"Activists marching from Ferguson to Jefferson City, Missouri in support of the value of black men's lives were met with a grotesque display of white supremacy in one town.

The marchers numbered around 50, and are part of the NAACP's 120 mile, 7-day march called, “Journey for Justice: Ferguson to Jefferson City”.

Reports The Missourian:

About 200 people met the marchers as they reached Rosebud around noon, activists said. A display of fried chicken, a melon and a 40-ounce beer bottle had been placed in the street. A Confederate flag flew. Counter-protestors shouted racial epithets."


What I found disgusting about the Eric Garner video is not just the attack and strangulation (he was surrounded by what... something like ten cops?) but the EMS lady with the rubber gloves who, instead of administering oxygen or trying to help, merely stood over him with her fingers on his neck.

The cops were familiar with Eric, they knew he was unarmed. Did they really think he would turn into the incredible hulk?

Last words of Eric Garner:

"Everytime you see me, you want to mess with me. I'm tired of it. It stops today. I'm minding my business, officer. I'm minding my business. Please just leave me alone. I told you the last time, please just leave me alone. Please please don't touch me. Do not touch me. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe."

The Sanity Inspector said...

Yes, if the only thing we know about a group of people is what we see on TV, or over the counter, or through our windshields, we don't really know them.

Courtney H. said...

Tariq Nasheed has a good discussion about this:

Justin M. White said...

Cops are now targeting Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed Garner's killing. A Grand Jury indicted him on third-degree illegal weapon possession and illegal firearm possession charges, all based on witness testimony from one cop. No gun produced, no proof produced. Orta argued that this is simply retaliation, since they have no actual proof he handed a pistol off to a "teenage accomplice" in front of a hotel days after the Garner killing.

Black Sci-Fi said...

These crimes against POC only serve to underscore the WOPOC (War on People of Color) that was underreported before the internet era and has become desensitized in our current era. IF law abiding citizens are subjected to treatment that can best be thought of as "guilty, no matter what" then the white community of this country have become, again, terrorists and the tactics of police brutality are just the "tip of the spear" of a larger institutional mandate to cull our community to a point of no possible resistance to institutional terrorism. If you can't surrender, then you must resist. If you resist you will face summary exicution. If, based on these outcomes we are forced to look at ourselves in the mirror and apply logic, we would have no choice but to realize that we are at war. A war that has been, again, thrust upon us. A war we cannot hope to win through pursuit of institutional justice. That's because institutional justice is not available to anyone who isn't rich to the point of being elite. You may recall, if not, ask your elders, that the solution is still that which is most respected by any group that seeks injustice. It is the one solution that is respected world wide but requires great sacrifice on the part of the oppressed. Civil rights were won because the obvious stratgey of, pardon the pun, good cop/bad cop. Dr King et al were the good cops and the NOI, Black Panthers and rioters were the bad cop. Perhaps the world only recognizes violence and becomes willing to talk about peace when it's impossible to get a Big Mac or trade stock or opress POC overseas without fear of rebellion at home. If being the good negro means being abused and berated and even killed at whim then why should you be respected? Nonviolence is a tactic, not a strategy.

joe manning said...

Witness the White seeking further legal protection of its privileges, prerogatives, prescriptions, and permissions to vicariously and literally engage in public executions of Blacks.

Justin M. White said...

I just saw this video for the first time today. It's of Eric Garner being searched and denied medical care after being choked. I would almost say I couldn’t believe the detachment towards a man lying completely non-responsive, who had just been choked to death (or close enough to it that he was dead by the time he was at the hospital), but then I remembered the crowd cheering for Rick Perry's Texas execution numbers. If we can criminalize someone (which is a fait accompli with Black men in the US),there's no such thing as an excess of cruelty.

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