Racist Mistreatment of African Americans Remains in Full Force Today

The brutal killing of the 44-year-old African-American man Eric Garner by a white New York Police Department cop has stirred widespread protests across the United States and drawn international condemnation.
Eric Garner was a horticulturist in the New York City, described by his friends as a “neighborhood peacemaker,” affable and generous person. He was put on a chokehold on July 17 in the Tompkinsville neighborhood of Staten Island after he was seen selling cigarettes from packs without tax stamps on the corner of the street. Two white police officers named Justin Damico and Daniel Pantaleo approached him, and after a brief verbal clash, Pantaelo put him in a chokehold, trying to push his head into the sidewalk. After 19 seconds of asphyxiation and stating the sentence “I can’t breathe” 11 times, Eric Garner died and became the latest victim of police brutality against the African-Americans in the United States.

In the recent months, the different US cities have witnessed massive protests of American citizens against the no-indictment verdict for the police officers who have killed African-American citizens in such cases, including Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin.

An American labor activist says that the discriminatory measures against the black Americans have been in place for several years, and remain in full force today.

“[R]acist mistreatment remains in full force today for the overwhelming majority of African Americans. Only a small minority escapes the economic ghetto imposed on blacks, and even then, middle-class blacks still face racist prejudice on all levels as we have seen from the data on police brutality,” said Carl Finamore in an interview with Fars News Agency.

According to Carl Finamore, the death of Eric Garner, which has attracted attentions to the US police’s racist behavior, is simply one of the several previous cases like this in the past decades: “the Eric Garner case in New York was just like hundreds and thousands of previous cases over the decades. Its only difference was that it was video-taped for all to see.”

“The lies of the police were exposed and lent credibility to the cries and claims of the black community that they have been killed and murdered by police continuously, for centuries in fact,” he added.

Carl Finamore is the former president of Air Transport Employees, and is currently the Local’s delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO. The following is the text of FNA’s interview with Mr. Finamore.

Q: An Alternet report showed that 313 black Americans were extrajudicially murdered in 2012 by the police forces, self-appointed vigilantes or security guards, which means that one black man was murdered every 28 hours in 2012. Mass incarceration of the African-Americans is also another form of repression they have been long subject to. What do you think are the reasons why the black Americans are being vanquished and unrestrainedly killed in such large numbers? Why don’t the federal government and the security institutions affiliated with the White House take action to stop these sorts of discriminatory behavior against the blacks?

A: The government, most recently in 2008 under President Obama, bailed out the banks’ debts but not the students’, homeowners’ or pensioners’ debts. The government clearly represents the interests of the rich and wealthy in this country and explains why the government never takes the initiative to resolve discriminatory mistreatment of lower-class minorities.

It only acts from the pressure of millions mobilizing to demand reform which we are seeing today in the protests against police brutality. By the way, the demonstrations often express slogans very much connected to other issues affecting the poor such as raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

In fact, suppressing Blacks serves the crucial economic purpose of establishing a massive pool of unemployed and cheap labor which depresses the bargaining leverage of the whole working class seeking a higher standard of living.

To defend Black rights, therefore, the federal government would have to turn on itself and challenge the whole economic power structure it rests upon.

Q: The Washington Post published a report in August 2013 in which the existence of socio-economic gap between the whites and blacks was elaborately discussed. The report noted that, according to Economic Policy Institute, the black unemployment has usually been twice as high as the white unemployment rate for 50 years, since 1963 until 2012. It also said that between 1967 and 2010, the black families had the lowest income among the different ethnic communities of the United States, including the Hispanics, Whites and Asians. The wealth disparity between whites and blacks also grew wider during the Great Recession. Is there any systematic effort at work to keep the blacks impoverished, unemployed and destitute?

A: The most important element of racism that is seldom recognized is that big business makes loads of money from the prejudiced idea that socially speaking, blacks are worth less, need less and contribute less. Economically speaking, this stereotyping justifies paying blacks less and hiring blacks less.

For example, millions of blacks remain chronically unemployed, a status that is made more socially acceptable by promoting these racist images.

The same prejudice applies to all people of color and even to women, by the way, who receive 25% less pay than men for the same comparable job. Paying people of color and women less means millions of dollars in more profits.

It is this powerful fact of dollars that keeps alive, even unconsciously, deep-seated prejudices in this country against Hispanics, Asians and women. But, none are so harmed by discrimination than the overwhelmingly working class black community which has historically borne the largest burden of racist mistreatment.

It is important to understand, therefore, that racism or police brutality will not primarily be cured by more training or education to eradicate personal bias.

No, our problems are entrenched in the institutions of power and economics in this country and we must, therefore, begin by fundamentally changing the money-based, capitalist institutions to more people-based [ones] in the interests of the majority before we can begin to change racist personal opinions or racist conduct.

One example is the proposal to have black and Latin communities control the police in their communities. Elected boards from the community would control the police rather than the downtown interests of the 1%.

This is a still relevant Black Panther Party proposal from the 1960s.

Q: In your recent article, you quoted the family attorney of Alex Nieto, the 28-year-old Latino American man who was shot over 14 times by a San Francisco Police Department officer and killed on March 21 this year as saying that the police department has been constantly refusing to reveal the name of the cop who murdered Alex, and this is a violation of the principle of accountability. That said, neither has any effort been made to make sure that the concern of police brutality in the United States would be addressed. What do you think about this unaccountability and lack of seriousness for tackling the concern of police brutality in the United States?

A: The police act as a secret force, not accountable to anyone but the power structure they serve. They protect property over human rights and when there are complaints against police, they investigate themselves and declare themselves innocent absent any trial or independent investigation. This policy has led to a host of civil suits in court.

In New York City last year alone, the city paid over $200 million in citizen court claims for police brutality yet not one cop was criminally charged.

The police slogan is “Protect & Serve.” The question is: who do they “Serve” and who do they “Protect?”

Clearly, independent civilian review boards controlled by the affected communities are required that have the power to investigate and prosecute incidents of police misconduct.

Q: Is the practice of racial profiling still prevalent and common in the United States? The first instances of racial profiling in America took place in early 1690s when the Philadelphia court gave police the permission and authority to stop and arrest any African-American citizen who was seen wandering on the streets. It seems that the same is happening in the 21st century, and that the police stop, arrest and in such cases as that of Eric Garner, suffocate to death the black citizens they find suspicious simply on the basis of their race. Is that so?

A: Racial profiling is in full force and effect. Even where it is not legal, it is still a critical part of protecting the status quo and socially containing and restraining oppressed minorities in this country. It is assumed that the poorer classes engage in more criminal behavior. Police assumptions are made based on color rather than on conduct.

African slaves were first brought to this country in 1619, as you refer, and since then, there have only been a few decades in American history when blacks had a chance to move up the economic ladder. Once was immediately after the Civil War in 1865 when freed slaves were granted some freedoms to run for political office and to own land. This all ended in 1877 when Federal troops were withdrawn from the South and the regional plutocracy returned with a vengeance in the form of Klu Klux Klan lynchings and “Jim Crow” segregation laws.

This brutally repressive period lasted until the massive civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s challenged the impoverishment and discriminatory mistreatment of blacks, not only in the South where segregation and the Klan ruled, but in the North as well where blacks were the “last hired and first fired.”

The collapse of the Civil Rights movement with the assassination of Martin Luther King combined with the economic recession in the 1970s erased many of these gains.

Thus, racist mistreatment remains in full force today for the overwhelming majority of African Americans. Only a small minority escapes the economic ghetto imposed on blacks, and even then, middle-class blacks still face racist prejudice on all levels as we have seen from the data on police brutality. We now see, hopefully, the beginnings of a new Civil Rights Movement.

Q: Is discrimination against the ethnic minorities exclusive to the blacks? As a Muslim, I have been in touch with many American Muslims who have been complaining about their living conditions and religious rights in the United States and the fact that they are rebuffed and ridiculed because of their beliefs. What about the Latinos, Asians, Arabs, Hispanics and other minorities?

A: Aside from the genocide against Native Americans in this country, the black working class community has been the most oppressed. It stretches back to the slave era. However, the same discriminatory dynamics are at play against Hispanics, Asians and all people of color. Racism is discrimination by color and it affects all people of color.

As I have tried to explain, racism is all about social control, all about containing protest against more and more dollars going into the pockets of the wealthy. Therefore, aspects of this social control are aimed at all those who are different and who can be, therefore, more easily targeted and blamed for their own problems.

Discrimination is not and cannot be limited to one group, it spreads its virus. As a result, Muslims and other religious minorities have definitely been targeted and profiled in this country. If you are different, you might be a threat to the status quo which most benefits the rich who run the power structure and who control the police.

Q: What do you make of the recent unrest and uprising in different US cities, including Ferguson, New York, Los Angeles and other parts of the country ignited by the grand jury’s verdict of no-indictment for Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who choked the black Eric Garner to death on unsubstantiated charges that he had not paid the taxes for the cigarettes he was selling on the corner of the street? Was the punishment – killing – really commensurate with the wrongdoing that had taken place?

A: The Eric Garner case in New York was just like hundreds and thousands of previous cases over the decades. Its only difference was that it was video-taped for all to see. The lies of the police were exposed and lent credibility to the cries and claims of the Black community that they have been killed and murdered by police continuously, for centuries in fact.

As you mentioned, every 28 hours, a black person is murdered by a cop, security guard or vigilante like the killer of Trayvon Martin in Florida.

Fortunately, outrage has triggered a national conversation that goes beyond President Obama who is shielding the responsibility of the power structure when he counsels “change takes time.” This problem is literally centuries old. It is not time to be patient.

Q: How much does the police brutality against the blacks and minorities in the United States emanate from the culture of violence in the American society, or what the Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung refers to as structural violence? Violence and aggression are regularly promoted on the movies, TV shows and advertised in the public sphere. Moreover, when the US government behaves lawlessly in the international scene and takes major foreign policy decisions overnight, the state executives, public servants, security agents and police officers follow the same path, that is disobedience to the rule of law. What’s your take on that?

A: Martin Luther King condemned the Vietnam War stating that the real violence is US government policy of death and destruction abroad and poverty at home.

The US resorts to war by proxy, bombing or sending in troops directly to solve its foreign policy problems. This extremely violent foreign policy is most graphically reflected in the aid it unflaggingly provides to the barbarian, racist state of Israel.

This violent policy permeates our whole society. Its domestic reflection is violent police enforcement of unequal social relations due to the unfair rule of the 1% power structure. Cops repress the poor communities more because it is there that the most unequal economic and political relations exist in much the same way the military uses its power to impose unfair US dollar advantages on the underdeveloped parts of world.