The rage expressed in Ferguson was not only about the killing of Mike Brown. The people of St Louis, like those of many cities around the country, have had enough of being treated unfairly by law enforcement. Besides police murders, daily harassment is a reality for many communities where people are treated as problems instead of citizens whose rights should be protected.
The dehumanization of people of color is reflected in the attitudes of the police, especially when dealing with the youth. Young working class kids growing up are seen as inherently criminal instead of having their issues seen as the result of a corrupted system that refuses to provide them or their parents with much needed opportunities.
Each time a Black or Brown person is gunned down by the police without any real punishment, it reinforces the principle that a cop is better than an ordinary citizen; that a badge and state approval makes murder acceptable. But the police do not kill just anybody. Only those who pose a threat to the system become the victims of the increasingly militarized firepower of the police.
The group most targeted is the working class. Recognizing the revolutionary potential of the working class, the police, the enforcers, are tasked with inflicting terror in order to prevent any type of systematic change from taking place. Keeping people scared of the consequences of organization and self-determination within their communities is a means of maintaining order which means keeping profits flowing upwards.
The Black community in particular has been the target of police attacks for as long as the police have existed. Slave patrols made up of overseers from the plantations gave way to modern slave patrols responsible for restricting urban movement, using similar methods that have been given new legal names. Kidnapping is now called an arrest, extortion is now called a fine, and murder is now called self-defense. However, the goal remains the same: prevent the black community from exerting influence over its own affairs and becoming independent.
Being Black, being Brown, or having a mental illness or intellectual disability is now a potential death sentence for anyone caught in the sights of the police. These things alone have proved to be enough reason for a police officer to open fire and take someone’s life. This is demonstrated not just by the killing of Mike Brown, but also the recent killings of John Crawford whose life was taken while he sat on a toy gun inside Wal-Mart, and Eric Garner who was the victim of an illegal NYPD chokehold. None of these, nor other police crimes, has yet been punished.
Nevertheless, people around the nation continue to speak out and call into question a system that sanctions the murder of innocent people. Demonstrations throughout major cities have seen people take to the streets to demand justice for all victims of police brutality and an end to the oppressive practices of the state.
