Re: <nettime> what exactly is breaking?

["Kurtz, Steven" <sjkurtz@buffalo.edu>]

Hi Felix,

First, the big picture: Covid 19 has really messed things up. The US has 40 million unemployed people. Most folks are one degree away from someone who has died, and there is no coherent strategy to slow and eventually stop the pandemic. People are angry just as a base line. The US is past the precariat and onto sheer desperation for millions. On top of that the Senate is refusing to send the states aid. The eviction ban will be lifted in some states in June with more joining in each month. Supplemented unemployment relief runs out in July. And let’s not forget the expected record heat (bad in and of itself, but also leads to more and worse fires and hurricanes). I can’t imagine what this place will look like by August. 

The US has a long tradition race-based uprisings. There comes a point where “keep on keeping on” is no longer tenable, and as Langston Hughes says, urban areas explode. Riots, protest, and confrontation are the only possibilities open, since poor minorities are disenfranchised from any other options. Abstractly, in the current episode, the immediate concern that has set this uprising in motion is the multi-tiered justice system. Poor minorities tend to be incarcerated longer and disproportionately. (A lot of this skewing is because they can’t afford bail.) They tend to get harsher prison sentences, and laws are written that disproportionately impact these communities. And, the immediate concrete cause of this uprising is that innocent people in these communities can be murdered by police without consequences for the murderer. (An officer need only say that they felt threatened, and all is forgiven). The police are set against the communities they are supposed to protect. Contrast this with the presidential orders for federal investigative agencies to stop looking into white-collar crimes. Government criminals (like Paul Manafort) being released from prison early. And then there is Trump’s realm of justice where he and his allies are above the law. The murder of George Floyd lit the fuse on the cocktail, but the problems are deeply structural.

Is anything breaking? No, nothing is breaking. The structure is safe in spite of this uprising being more multi-racial and class diverse than any I have ever seen. The two systems of law will stay in place. The law will be biased in favor of the rich and biased against the poor and minorities. At best, what these uprisings produce is reforms and campaign rhetoric. There is a chance that sentencing guidelines could get rewritten to not be so harsh. A lot of local movements are already working on this and making limited progress. There is a chance we could see some police department restructuring in a way that make the police less of a hostile force. (The LA riots in the 90s achieved this reform). There is a chance that the “I felt threatened” defense (law based on a subjective state and peculiar to law enforcement) will be weakened in some way. And finally there is a chance bail could be done away with.  That’s as good as it’s going to get.

Rioting becomes a necessary tactic, because it’s the only way the media will cover the problem. They have no interest what so ever in peaceful protests. If those who are most oppressed and exploited want a voice with a national platform to distribute it, violence and destruction is required. And in the US, plenty of desperate people are willing to carry this out.

Just as a sidenote: The idea of a second civil war (the Boogaloo) is utter nonsense. This is an idea concocted by a tiny population of people that in no way could even come close to mustering the forces we are seeing in this uprising. Trump in the White House, Charlotesville, and the Bundy Uprising is about as good as it’s going to get for them.

Steve






#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: