One of those Christmas books you finally get around to reading turns out to be very worthwhile: Chris Hayes, "A Colony in a Nation."
Before he gets to the riots and revolt in Ferguson, Missouri, Chris Hayes tells a few tales about the American revolution, beginning with the Boston Tea Party which, he says, occurred because the King and Parliament lowered the tax on Tea arriving at the port of Boston making legal tea as inexpensive as black market tea imported by bootleggers from the Netherlands.
(One has to imagine if we made heroin, cocaine et al available at cost at local dispensaries in downtown Baltimore whether the local drug lords would set fire to these dispensaries.)
So the Boston Tea Party was not about Americans indignant because they could not afford their beloved tea, but it was a black marketeers' action to protect their markets, more Tony Soprano than freedom riders.
The king's agents, who enforced taxes, were much reviled in the colonies and often attacked for doing their jobs. Some were pretty benign, but others, particularly soldiers who were forced into the homes of locals, were seen as agents of oppression.
Fast forward to Ferguson in the 21st century and tales of how police executed the policies of local (white) government officials to collect taxes and you see the analogy. Rather than raise property taxes on the white property owners who had a voice in Parliament, the government officials decided to extort money from the poor Black community in a travesty of police work where sitting in a car while black, walking while black and certainly driving while black were all crimes, and black citizens issued summons, fines and fines upon fines. As Hayes notes, the federal Department of Justice was a little taken aback when they investigated, to see how very open the white town officials were about how they intended to ramp up revenues by assessing fines and penalties in a spiraling vortex of never ending penalties where black "offenders" were not even allowed to pay their fines and thus accrued more and more penalties. Arriving at the court room door, a long line awaited and the court closed before half of the citizens had a chance to pay their fines and more penalties were added.
Blacks were routinely stopped, humiliated by gun toting police who would demand identification from a black man, and when he asked why, charged him with failing to carry a driver's license, making a false statement (calling himself "Mike" rather than "Michael" which was on his birth certificate) and so brazenly and cynically building a mountain on top of not just a mole hill but a cavity.
Simply reading of the indignations visited upon the black population of Ferguson the wonder is why they hadn't burned down City Hall years before.
I was once on a jury in very white Montgomery County Maryland, where a Latino man, Cesar, was on trial for selling a 1 oz pack of marijuana and he was arrested by nine Montgomery County police, who charged a cross a parking, lot, a field, a playground and arrested, mistakenly, the man's brother who was working under the hood of his car, only arresting Cesar, when he emerged from the apartment building carrying what might have been the change for his customer. I sat in the jury box thinking, "The real threat to the community that morning was all those police, waving Glocks as children in the playground and their mothers, scrambled to get out of their way."
The blacks of Ferguson daily had their 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure violated not to mention their 1st, 13th amendment rights, and likely a long list of other Constitutional rights violated daily.
Which is to say, they were treated as a hostile enemy and the police thought of themselves as an occupying army. It was the "Fort Apache, the Bronx" scenario, the police being the victims hold up in a fort, surrounded by hostile and barbaric natives.
Of course, some of this is imagery and hyperbole to make the point, but the basic point--that the police were seen as angry, dangerous oppressors working for a corrupt, criminal white government--is strongly supported.
The details Hayes lays out make his case.
Criticisms about his use of the analogy of a "colony" miss the point. The basic truth is persuasive: the police are illegitimate in this setting, not representative of the people, not there to serve and protect the population against actual criminals who rob and murder. The police are part of the robbery scheme, and in some cases, the police murder.
Whenever I see that confrontation between "black lives matter" and "blue lives matter" I'll see it differently now.
Before he gets to the riots and revolt in Ferguson, Missouri, Chris Hayes tells a few tales about the American revolution, beginning with the Boston Tea Party which, he says, occurred because the King and Parliament lowered the tax on Tea arriving at the port of Boston making legal tea as inexpensive as black market tea imported by bootleggers from the Netherlands.
 |
| Destroying the village to save it |
(One has to imagine if we made heroin, cocaine et al available at cost at local dispensaries in downtown Baltimore whether the local drug lords would set fire to these dispensaries.)
So the Boston Tea Party was not about Americans indignant because they could not afford their beloved tea, but it was a black marketeers' action to protect their markets, more Tony Soprano than freedom riders.
The king's agents, who enforced taxes, were much reviled in the colonies and often attacked for doing their jobs. Some were pretty benign, but others, particularly soldiers who were forced into the homes of locals, were seen as agents of oppression.
 |
| Land of the Free |
Fast forward to Ferguson in the 21st century and tales of how police executed the policies of local (white) government officials to collect taxes and you see the analogy. Rather than raise property taxes on the white property owners who had a voice in Parliament, the government officials decided to extort money from the poor Black community in a travesty of police work where sitting in a car while black, walking while black and certainly driving while black were all crimes, and black citizens issued summons, fines and fines upon fines. As Hayes notes, the federal Department of Justice was a little taken aback when they investigated, to see how very open the white town officials were about how they intended to ramp up revenues by assessing fines and penalties in a spiraling vortex of never ending penalties where black "offenders" were not even allowed to pay their fines and thus accrued more and more penalties. Arriving at the court room door, a long line awaited and the court closed before half of the citizens had a chance to pay their fines and more penalties were added.
 |
| Response to "tyranny" |
Blacks were routinely stopped, humiliated by gun toting police who would demand identification from a black man, and when he asked why, charged him with failing to carry a driver's license, making a false statement (calling himself "Mike" rather than "Michael" which was on his birth certificate) and so brazenly and cynically building a mountain on top of not just a mole hill but a cavity.
 |
| No real freedom without Economic Justice |
Simply reading of the indignations visited upon the black population of Ferguson the wonder is why they hadn't burned down City Hall years before.
I was once on a jury in very white Montgomery County Maryland, where a Latino man, Cesar, was on trial for selling a 1 oz pack of marijuana and he was arrested by nine Montgomery County police, who charged a cross a parking, lot, a field, a playground and arrested, mistakenly, the man's brother who was working under the hood of his car, only arresting Cesar, when he emerged from the apartment building carrying what might have been the change for his customer. I sat in the jury box thinking, "The real threat to the community that morning was all those police, waving Glocks as children in the playground and their mothers, scrambled to get out of their way."
The blacks of Ferguson daily had their 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure violated not to mention their 1st, 13th amendment rights, and likely a long list of other Constitutional rights violated daily.
Which is to say, they were treated as a hostile enemy and the police thought of themselves as an occupying army. It was the "Fort Apache, the Bronx" scenario, the police being the victims hold up in a fort, surrounded by hostile and barbaric natives.
Of course, some of this is imagery and hyperbole to make the point, but the basic point--that the police were seen as angry, dangerous oppressors working for a corrupt, criminal white government--is strongly supported.
 |
| Maintaining Order |
The details Hayes lays out make his case.
Criticisms about his use of the analogy of a "colony" miss the point. The basic truth is persuasive: the police are illegitimate in this setting, not representative of the people, not there to serve and protect the population against actual criminals who rob and murder. The police are part of the robbery scheme, and in some cases, the police murder.
Whenever I see that confrontation between "black lives matter" and "blue lives matter" I'll see it differently now.
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