October 07, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "teleSur" -Over the Labor Day holiday weekend, 50 people were shot and eight killed in the city of Chicago. Since then, dozens more have been maimed and murdered. Of course, the vast majority of the shooting victims were Black males. Yet, none of the victims were shot or killed by the Chicago Police.
In other words, scores of young Black males are being murdered in America's third largest city by their peers, not the American Police State. Indeed, the same is true across the entire U.S. "In Milwaukee, most of the victims and the suspects in their killings are Black men under 30, police data shows, who come from neighborhoods where foreclosures, joblessness and poverty are also high," writes Monica Davey and Mitch Smith of the New York Times.
So far, Chicago has racked up over 2,164 shooting victims in 2015. Last year, 2,587 people were shot and 428 killed in the Windy City. While these numbers are far lower than previous decades (in the early 90s, an average of 900 homicides were committed each year), they are wholly unacceptable and utterly frightening, especially for those living in the city's most violent neighborhoods.
As a result, we must approach the taboo topic of personal responsibility and violence. Let me be very clear: just because someone lives in poverty, doesn't mean that person will, or should, act in violent ways, let alone murder innocent people.
Progressive activists and writers do themselves no favors by pinning all of the blame on the police, the government, capitalism, or so on. Without doubt, non-state actors must be challenged as well, particularly street gangs and individuals who are murdering innocent people.
According to Davey and Smith of the New York Times:
“Rivalries among organized street gangs, often over drug turf, and the availability of guns are cited as major factors in some cities, including Chicago. But more commonly, many top police officials say they are seeing a growing willingness among disenchanted young men in poor neighborhoods to use violence to settle ordinary disputes.”
Often, individual responsibility takes a back seat to institutional critique among leftists, and rightly so, as powerful institutions and systemic forms of oppression and repression are often glossed over or completely ignored. That being said, the lack of discussion and debate about personal responsibility is troublesome: people are left thinking that some forms of violence are justifiable, even reasonable, considering the circumstances produced by oppressive institutions and the dominant culture.
To be clear, many people in the U.S. grow up poor. In fact, as most people know, the U.S. has the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. Further, the U.S. ranks dead last in almost any meaningful socio-economic category when compared to its industrialized counterparts (Norway, France, Germany, Australia, etc.).
Yet, most people living in the U.S. do not lash out in violent ways. Are they angry? Sure. Are they frustrated and alienated? Undoubtedly. But they're not violent, nor do they accept violence as an answer to oppression and repression.
To put it differently, and plainly, there is simply no excuse for driving through a residential neighborhood and shooting out of a car window. Remember, the vast majority of the murder victims in Chicago and the broader U.S. are not gang members, they are innocent civilians, many times children.
What's interesting, of course, is the utter silence on the Left about this critical urban issue: gang and drug violence. Yes, the Left has a critique of the Drug War, the prison system, policing and so forth, but virtually nothing to say about gangs, drug cartels or the street criminals who are murdering people by the tens of thousands.
Indeed, there's a certain degree of hypocrisy when the Left banters on about police violence, but says very little, if anything, about gang violence.
This year, according to the Washington Post, the police have killed a combined 718 people in the U.S. Contrast those numbers with the fact that over 2,219 shooting victims have been recorded in the city of Chicago in 2015, and you get a better picture of the problem: street gangs in Chicago alone will kill four times as many people in 2015 than all the police departments in the U.S. combined. As a result, the city of Chicago developed and implemented "safe passage routes," where children traveling to school are overseen and escorted through Chicago's most violent neighborhoods. As a result, many people in Chicago, including a good portion of Black people, support the CPD's efforts.
I've long understood, both anecdotally and empirically, that Black people are split on the issue of policing. According to the latest Gallup poll:
“Most Blacks who believe racial minorities are treated fairly by police prefer the police presence be kept the same (59 percent), while 33 percent want a larger police presence where they live. However, African-Americans who say police treat minorities unfairly are divided, with 44 percent saying they want more police officers and 42 percent saying they want the same amount of cops in their local area. And U.S. Hispanics feel similarly to Blacks — 39 percent who say minorities are treated unfairly want greater police presence, and 40 percent want the same.”
In short, there is no consensus among Black people, or the so-called "Black community." (The same, of course, could be said of any community — Black, brown, white or otherwise.) In fact, as the Gallup poll shows, "More Blacks (38 percent) say they want a greater police presence in their local communities than do whites (18 percent) or Americans more broadly (23 percent)."
Without question, Black people are overwhelmingly critical of policing in modern America, but plenty of Black people also want a greater police presence on the streets. Obviously, that's not because they trust or like the police, but because they are sick and tired of gangs, drugs and wanton violence.
As the statistics show, gang violence is the primary culprit in the deaths of young Black children and men. Thus, people are desperate — their last hope is more police on the streets.
Of course, activists would have a better understanding of these issues, at least anecdotally speaking, if they spent time in regular communities, not leftist circles. Talk to people on the streets of Chicago, Gary or Detroit and they'll say the same thing: "The police are corrupt. The gangs are corrupt. Regular folks are stuck in the middle."
Interestingly, the story was similar during my time in Iraq. The Iraqis we encountered were split on the issue of whether or not U.S. troops should leave the country. In fact, a 2010 poll conducted by the Asharq Research Center showed that, "51 percent [of Iraqis] said the withdrawal would have a negative effect, compared to 25.8 percent who said it would be positive."
Undoubtedly, most Iraqis viewed the occupation as the primary source of violence and instability. However, after Iraqi society was smashed and fragmented, chaos ruled the day. In this context, there were no civil or governmental entities capable of providing security: militant religious groups and bandits utterly terrorized the broader Iraqi population, even more so than Western occupying forces. Over the years, the antiwar community has had a very difficult time trying to understand this dynamic: namely, the fact that security is a modern necessity, particularly in failed states and collapsed societies.
In the past, Noam Chomsky and many others have argued that the U.S. shares features of a failed state. Hence, security is undoubtedly required, particularly in America's most impoverished regions and cities. The idea that the U.S. could disband entire police forces is utterly insane, foolish and naive. Hopefully, in the future, the opportunity to live in a society without police will arise, but that opportunity will be in the context of vast, fundamental social, economic and political changes.
So far, unfortunately, such a society doesn't exist anywhere in the world. Until alternative examples can be shown, people will continue to rely upon the existing policing and security structures and institutions, regardless of how corrupt or inept they may be.
On the other hand, democratic control of the police and alternatives to standard policing methods should be examined and pursued. When movements and communities successfully implement alternatives, those measures should be replicated and implemented.
Vincent Emanuele can be reached at vincent.emanuele333@gmail.com
