Baltimore: Don’t Mourn, Organize!
I’ve been watching local and national press coverage, trying to keep up with on-the-ground updates on Twitter, listening to police scanners, and checking Facebook to see how my friends and family are doing, as my home town, my city, is being torn apart following the brutal death of Freddie Gray at the hands of the Baltimore City Police.
The planned demonstration Saturday was a relatively uneventful affair, some property was damaged, cops kicked the shit out of peaceful protestors and journalists alike — par for the course, in my experience.
Monday, the shit hit the fan. Just before school let out for the day, police shut down public transit at Mondawmin Mall, a major hub in a city with shoddy transit to begin with, and a city without school buses. They were ready in full riot gear to “kettle” students who were trying to get home. That’s how things started.
The “kettle” term for this “crowd control” tactic is surprisingly apt; when you turn up the heat and increase the pressure, the whistle is going to blow loud and hard. And that’s just what happened.
I’m not going to do a full recap of the day’s events or how things unraveled into the night; you can get conflicting versions of those stories from all over the interwebs at this point. I want to talk about a gesture.
In at least two appearances, Freddie Gray’s twin sister, Fredricka, has stated on behalf of the family that “violence does not get justice” and that the family wished for the “rioting” to cease.
In the video above, she’s brought out at the end of a long string of sound bites by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
This video is the one that got me… Once again, Fredricka is the last one to speak, but there’s something about that smile. Maybe what needs to be said in a press conference, isn’t the whole story.
I’m reading into facial expressions, demeanor, making inferences that probably say as much if not more about my hopes and aspirations as about a subtext that may or may not exist. But, like I said, it got me thinking.
The family’s lawyer, Billy Murphy, said something in the same press conference:
This won’t solve the police problem. This is dangerous to the movement.
Trust the lawyer to think strategically. Of course, a lawyer is good at thinking strategically within the legal system; when that system itself is part of the problem… perhaps new strategies are needed.
Dies Irae
I have no criticism of the actions taken by those who were in the street today. I wasn’t there. Don’t think it doesn’t kill me that I wasn’t, either — my nom de internet, canweriotnow, comes from a banner we painted for the second Bush inauguration:
I love a good riot, when it’s for a good cause. But even putting aside considerations like getting older, having a kid, and the like, I didn’t feel this was my time to rage in the streets. Today I was an observer.
I observed a lot.
The inspiring willingness of Baltimore’s youth, when trapped like rats by superior strength, to fight back with all they had and then keep fighting.
I observed the craven cowardice of politicians, the complicity of the mainstream media, the heroism of citizen-journalists who were on the street, risking life and limb to tell the real story.
I witnessed the Baltimore Police claiming that after the Black Guerrilla Family, Nation of Islam, Crips, and Bloods came together to mourn Freddie last week, they had entered into a partnership to “take out” Baltimore Police officers.
If true, this is pretty astonishing; the two have been at war more or less constantly since the 1960's. If the Baltimore Police are bad enough for these two gangs to join forces against a common enemy… anything is possible.
Anything is possible.
That’s where we are now. As my city burns, I don’t feel bad. The burning cop cars, the broken glass… it feels like catharsis, or at least the beginning of one.
This image was popping around social media between Baltimore students… by most accounts, it wasn’t taken very seriously by anyone except the police, who made it a reality.
I’m pretty sure “Purge” here is a reference to the horror/thriller film franchise, in which one night a year the law is suspended and everything is permissible.
What we’re seeing, I think, is a purge. Beginning with the emotional catharsis that sometimes only destruction can bring, we have a sweeping away of the status quo — if not the structures than at least the mindset — and this is the first step in making something more.
Meanwhile, on Twitter:
What I’d like to draw your attention to is Melinda’s tweet. Because of the “State of Emergency,” schools will be closed tomorrow in Baltimore and yes, tens of thousands of students who rely on school lunch programs will go hungry.
Well, hopefully they had the foresight to liberate provisions from a CVS or 7–11 today like many people were doing. I refuse to call it “looting” because looting is wanton and opportunistic; if you’re poor and have the chance to stock up on necessities, by all means necessary, especially when faced with a siege, more power to you.
Don’t Mourn, Organize
This is the message I take from Fredricka’s smile in that press conference, from her annoyed demeanor when the mayor dragged her on stage to chastise protestors. Again, I’m not trying to attribute anything to her that wasn’t meant, just offering a hopeful interpretation.
If Baltimore’s gangs have called a truce, I hope it’s not just to “take out” a few cops. That’s not strategic. I doubt they have the numbers or the firepower to win a war or even sue for peace.
But they could take a page out of the history books. The Black Panthers organized free breakfast programs for local youth, after school programs, engaged in self-defense. They didn’t conceal their weapons (that would be illegal, after all); they carried shotguns on shoulder straps. The Crips and Bloods shouldn’t disarm until the police do.
But they can organize their communities and protect them from the biggest, baddest, ugliest thugs in town — the cops. Organize, learn from history, emulate the Black Panthers and the Irish Republican Army.
Mourning is accepting a loss. Organizing is saying, “Never Again.”
As for the “riots” and “looting” and whatever else you want to call it… I’ll leave the commentary to Assata Shakur:
Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.
The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives.
It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
As for me… like I said, I love a good riot, but a riot is a flash in the pan, not a solution and nothing that deserves this kind of overreaction from the city and state governments. What should scare them is that the rioting will stop, and the people will rebuild this city for themselves.
I also said this isn’t my riot. Actually, my neighborhood has been quiet. It probably helps that I live in a lower-middle-income, racially integrated, pretty boring neighborhood. So I’m on the bench. When it comes time to organize, if my help is desired, welcome, warranted, I’ll be there. Until then, moral support from the sidelines, I suppose.
This city has so much to offer, to all of its residents, if only the sadistic thugs who make up a good chunk of the BPD could be locked up with the corrupt politicians who do nothing for the least privileged members of our community. It’s up to all of us to effect the change we can, whether that’s through armed insurrection or door-to-door neighborhood organizing.
I’ll leave you with a thought from the Friends of Durruti Group:
What we need is a program, and rifles.
