ONCE WHITE SUBURBS ARE NOW BLACK BUT WITH REMAINING WHITE POWER IMBALANCE = TINDER BOX FOR REBELLION UNDER MILITARIZED POLICE = IT IS ABOUT INSTITUTIONS AND SYSTEMS OF CAPITALIST OPPRESSION, WHITE SUPREMACY, AND IMPERIALISM

Click for Source Article by Chris Hedges on TruthDig

Public reaction to fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. = Exposes the shifting dynamic of rebellion and repression in USA

Spontaneous uprisings against militarized lethal police force is to be expected in suburban black communities where power remain in the hands of white minorities. + The rewriting of laws to make police forces omnipotent. = Conditions approximating the racial divides and urban riots of the 1960s. = New wave of racial unrest in economically depressed black suburbs + impoverished inner cities. + High incarceration + Extremely high unemployment for blacks.

— Chris Hedges

“We are headed into a period of increased social protest…The pendulum swung far to the right after 9/11. Now it is swinging back. Fear and paralysis gripped the country after 9/11 and the creation of our authoritarian police state. We are overcoming this fear. The rebellion in Ferguson was not planned. It was spontaneous. People said, ‘Enough.’ They struck out in the only way they knew how. All the other ways—and I have no doubt that the people in Ferguson and St. Louis, as we have, marched peacefully, sent letters and went to city council meetings to protest police violence—have proved ineffective. We will see other incidents like this one, but because of demographic changes these rebellions will occur in places that did not rebel previously.”

— Lawrence Hamm, one of nation’s most important community organizers and the longtime chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress (POP)

Declining populations in primarily black cities = Newark’s population drop from 400,000 to about 250,000 in the last few decades + Election of black officials and the integration of blacks into police forces mean that the old centers of rebellion are less polarized…helped to ameliorate the overt racism and blatant apartheid structure and will probably will prevent a recurrence of open rebellion in these urban areas.

— Lawrence Hamm – the movement for social justice dampens the outrage

Unwarranted deadly force by police officers is part of what it means to be black and poor in America. Black voices against police violence are ignored and “the killings keep coming.”

“After the rebellions in American cities in the 1960s the [Federal government under President] Nixon realized that the police were not enough. Nixon began to link the local police with the state police and the National Guard. During the rebellion in Detroit in 1967 the [federal] state had to deploy the 82nd Airborne. Nixon set up this seamless connection between local police units and the military.”

— Lawrence Hamm on Police Acquisition of military equipment and SWAT teams

1983 Hamm in Newark co-founded POP, grass-roots radical movement that can routinely pull thousands of people into the streets. Playwright and poet Amiri Baraka inspired Hamm to commit his life to political struggle on behalf of poor people. = “Groups like POP come out of the black liberation movement. They are led by people who were deeply involved in that movement and who are committed to a lifetime of struggle. Many of the organizations that existed in the ’60s don’t exist anymore. POP is one of the few survivors. But POP is also consciously anti-sectarian. One of the pitfalls of the movements of the ’60s was ideological sectarianism, that if you’re not of a particular ideology you’re wrong. Groups spent more time attacking each other than attacking the forces of oppression. We avoided that. That’s why we’ve lasted [more than 30] years.”

— Lawrence Hamm

1960s = A conscious effort to destroy the black liberation movement by the state = Great success, But it did not totally end as “people continued to fight, even though we had COINTELPRO and the assassination of black leaders, as well as the incarceration of other black leaders.”

Black consciousness is oppositional = Meaning that people have a clear enough perspective to see injustices and have the desire to change those injustices and change the entire system. Black people saw the election of Barack Obama as oppositional in terms of opposing white supremacy. But electing a president is not enough.

“Many of us knew when Obama was running for president that if elected he would be the CEO for U.S. imperialism. But if the very people we purport to serve and represent are going in a particular direction, then we have to look very hard at how we operate in that given environment. Our struggle is to build a politically potent movement. We’re not going to be able to build that movement only with the people who have the most radical consciousness. When Obama is wrong, we criticize. But when the choice is between Obama and something worse, we do not tell the people to go out there and choose something worse. We don’t want to alienate ourselves from our own base. We have to accurately assess and be truthful about what’s happening, but at the same time we have to do that in a way that doesn’t alienate us.”

— Lawrence Hamm — THE LEFT IS WEAK — We don’t have enough people and the labor movement is weak — “after 30 years we should be stronger than we are.”

Electoral Politics are NOT ENOUGH to bring social change not only African-Americans but for working and poor people.

“These (Ferguson cops) are armed police, with semi-automatic rifles, with batons, with shields, many of them dressed for combat. Now why they’re doing this I don’t know, because there is no threat going on here, none that merits this. There is none, OK? Absolutely there have been looters, absolutely over the last nine days there’s been violence, but there is nothing going on on this street right now that merits this scene out of Bagram. Nothing! So if people wonder why the people of Ferguson, Missouri are so upset, this is part of the reason. What is this? This doesn’t make any sense!”

— Jake Tapper, CNN

“This is about people not realizing that there is a double standard that people live in a different world. And, quite frankly, for white people to realize that black people, especially black men, are treated differently. It is a double standard. Until people realize that, nothing is going to change. Nothing is going to happen…The only way that we are going to bridge that divide is if we stop judging each other when we talk about it, and for people to stop saying, ‘If you speak about this issue, you are race-baiting.’ You have to call people out on certain occasions, but you also have to allow them to speak to understand where they’re coming from…There’s a difference between someone who gets it, like Captain Johnson… [and how] local police departments operate and treat people, not only African-Africans, but most people — as if they are immediately in a position of power to do whatever they want to do with you…It’s especially different with African-Americans and especially different with men. I can’t imagine being a person who grows up in this community and feeling like you are occupied or being intimidated by police officers.”

— CNN’s Don Lemon

GOP’s insane Ferguson crusade: Denounce voter registration by Local activists signing people up to vote. GOP injects race by SIMON MALOY Aug 19, 2014

salon.com/2014/08/19/gops_insane_ferguson_crusade_now_theyre_denouncing_voter_registration_drives/

Black community in Ferguson, MO = Feels poorly represented by elected officials.

Upside of a democracy = Local activists set up voter registration in Ferguson.

GOP howls = Outrage at Black Voters being Registered

Streets of Ferguson = Filled with 9+ Nights of tear gas and cops in military gear

Killing of unarmed black teenager = “Yes, the system has failed you”

ThinkProgress points out = Low black voter turnout has resulted in a local government that looks nothing like the population of Ferguson.

Community is majority black = But GOVERNMENT is WHITE

“Five thousand new voters will transform the city from top to bottom”

— REV Jessie Jackson discussed voter registration with local citizens