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tattypotamus · 4 years ago

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Depravity of Indifference

Racism is not a case of white vs black. Seeing it as such guarantees it’s perpetuity. Racism is an offence against nature.

The charge of Third Degree Murder requires proof that Chauvin committed a felony and, in so doing, was indifferent to the foreseeable risk of death of George Floyd. If I was his attorney I would have told him to plead guilty to that in the hope of some leniency at sentencing. The evidence, short of some bizarre left of field accident damns the officer completely & I am pretty sure it is conclusive against his co-accused who stood by throughout.

There is a different theory in which Chauvin heard him say “I can’t breathe”and should have known from that that death was imminent unless he got off his neck. As a police officer trained in the use of restraint it can hardly be doubted that he knew what he was doing and the outcome. And therefore that he intended that outcome unless he can argue some compelling reason why he was forced to stay kneeling with his hands in his pockets on a handcuffed man who may or may not have committed a non-violent offence. This is how 2nd Degree murder will play out. I don’t really want to hear it. George Zimmerman escaped a conviction for murdering Trayvon Martin by arguing some outrageous compulsion. The officers who lynched Rodney King escaped justice too. Jean Charles De Menezes killers were released from incredible culpable incompetence. It is possible that the officers in the Floyd case are being overcharged in order to extract a plea to a lower charge. I take a little comfort in the hefty bail demanded. If that tactic doesn’t work, the prosecutors will find themselves the targets of rage.

Tragic that this sits in parallel with the debate it has ignited, mostly online. Question: Is Racism simply an attitude of indifference to endemic structural disadvantage for blacks (on every metric, worldwide, poorer opportunities and poorer outcomes) or does it require specific knowledge, specific intent to do harm, malice and an evil mind? Do we put racism into degrees, for arguments sake, or construct intersectional models to classify and identify and differentiate.

What made Chauvin, or any officer for that matter culpable is that they sit in a role in which indifference is in itself unlawful. They have to care. They have to serve, they have to protect. The same goes for doctors, teachers, lawyers, judges. Elected politicians. We sign up for it. This isn’t really about that. This is about every person looking at the news, social media, their friends, their family.

One arm says that anyone in a position of privilege should be aware of it and act in an anti-racist manner consistent with it. It is controversial, when so many ‘white’ people are also systematically and institutionally disenfranchised. Another arm says you gain understanding through shared circumstances. A wonder therefore that so much hatred of blacks is found amongst the poorest whites in America and elsewhere. This is about identity and some very extreme circumstances that are evidently not shared. Institutional racism has pervaded the life of every black person. I don’t know any that are not aware of it.

And all of society too. No-one is enriched by the multiple disadvantages faced by blacks. Sure, the odd person gets the promotion on a wink and a nudge but that is not a benefit to any society. The dishonesty of racism cannot ever deliver a net positive, even to white supremacists, who, if they succeeded in their goal, would be left faced with their own telling oxymoron. Racism is not a case of white vs black. Seeing it as such guarantees it’s perpetuity. Racism is an offence against nature. It has been constructed, weaponised and fostered for the sake of maintaining power and wealth. It is as big a problem as climate change and requires the same solution. Everybody must know about it. Education needs to shift from systematically ignoring or hiding it in history to actively teaching it. And politicians must be held to account when they do not deliver against it. If you consider how we now treat leaders who are indifferent to the state of the planet, you may understand what I expect.

In our homes, work places and social spaces there should be enlightened and informed conversation. Not a debate about whether racism is wrong but rather what it is and how events and contexts are affecting people. I see numerous memes quoting Dr. King condemning silence as complicity and just as many insisting that the movement and it’s artefacts are reserved exclusively for ‘black people’. One cannot demand that people speak up and then prescribe exactly what, when, how and where they should say it. If anyone of any ethnicity wishes to support, engage and enable the end of racism let them speak in their own voice.

What of me then? I cannot say nothing when the voice of my brothers’ blood cries out to me from the ground. That George Floyd is twinned in death with Eric Garner multiplies the tragedy. That there have been so many before and in-between makes me despair. Breonna Taylor brings to life the worst of nightmares. Those who die without justice do not rest in peace. Memorial day in the USA, when George was murdered coincided with Africa Day. I cannot divorce the endless cortege from the centuries old pillaging and looting of the Motherland. From Amadou Diallo to Tamir Rice to Breonna Taylor the trail of bodies continues relentlessly. I live in Glasgow, a city built through slavery with some of the worst poverty in Europe. In a nation of warrior poets, some of whose sons & daughters worked people to death in Jamaica & founded the KKK in the American south. Where Sheku Bayoh died inexplicably at the hands of the police. Britain, the country of empire, executing my ancestors, Boer concentration camps, xenophobic Brexit (Don’t tell me racism is simple). We visit my brother, my sister, my niece in Maryland. I fear for them. I have friends across the states snd across the world of all complexions. I will answer to my children if I do nothing.

What of you? I don’t care much for hashtags. Do what you would do if it was your children’s lives at stake. When you vote, vote against the person who called immigrants swarms. When it is a privacy law, ask your MP if and how this affects anyone disproportionately. Ask them why families are not guaranteed legal aid for inquests. Ask them how Jerk Chicken can be the favourite dish in the Commons while the government of the day deports British Jamaicans to certain death, Don’t buy from racists including the Daily Mail. Don’t allow your government to create a hostile environment or deliver a racist message on vans without real consequence. Don’t let this issue become suffocated by other current issues. Tell them that you expect better from Police Officers and that the law should reflect that. Demand real accountability. Demand it. Demand real participation. And when they fail you like they have failed black people, demand it again as if your lives depended upon it. Ours do.

#blacklivesmatter #shekubayoh

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