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To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com cc: (bcc: DANIEL DAVIES) bcc: DANIEL DAVIES Subject: Re: Fwd: [BRC-ANN] Statement on New York Festival Attacks
Daniel Davies wrote:
>This looks like a call to action, but it's actually a call to *inaction*.
>We're being called on to "struggle with contradictions", a damnably
>pointless activity if ever there was one. The problem here is that the
>group wants severe penalties for offences, but doesn't want them to be
>inflicted on people. Or more likely, that this sentence represents a
>consensus between people who want to chop the knackers off the Central
Park
>mob and people who don't want anyone to be arrested for anything ever.
>No, the problem is that while feminists of color want those who
>committed sexual assaults to be arrested for their crimes, we don't
>want this incident to be used as an excuse for looking at all young
>men of color as if they were criminals or potential criminals and for
>continuing the policy of zero tolerance & war on crime and drugs.
Yeh, but this isn't a "contradiction", and nobody should struggle with it. It's a message that's capable of perfectly clear expression (you just showed that), and I don't think that the actual announcement is saying anything so sensible. The context from which I drew the phrase which roused my ire was:
">Finally, as a Center committed to justice and liberation for
>all of our peoples, we call on our communities to struggle
>with the contradictions inherent in some of the recent
>calls for increased policing, police presence, and enhanced
>criminal penalties as a solution. While these incidents are
>indeed examples of hate crimes, incarcerating more people
>for longer periods of time in a racist, homophobic, trans-
>phobic and classist criminal (in)justice system can not
>be our final solution to hate violence. In addition, the
>reality of sexism within the NYPD, the behavior of some
>officers this weekend in belittling and remaining inactive
>in spite of direct reports of the violence, and the
>continued harassment and violence by the police against
>LGBTST communities (particularly gay men of color, people
>of Transgender experience and youth of color) and other
>communities makes the call for increased policing
>problematic."
Which to me looks like an uneasy compromise between: "More policing, but not by the people currently employed in the police force" and "Less policing, but more of it directed toward this kind of behaviour". With elements of "We want the police force to be weaker, and regard that as a higher priority than arresting this kind of person". In so far as I can understand it (which is almost certainly not very far), "Struggle with the contradictions" means "Bite your tongue in criticising police inaction, because increased police activism is quite likely to be used against our lot". These are all potentially sensible views, but not appealing to those with a taste for plain speech. One finds oneself asking: "What Would Chuck D Say?", for example. "Fuck the police", and "911 is a Joke" are both coherent messages, but consensus drafting of press releases like this one are likely to lead to an attempt to say both at once.
Meanwhile, the not-yet-bust Salon has a somewhat more robust take on the matter (tho' tis interesting that this comes from, I believe, a middle-class white woman who perhaps has less personal involvement in the consequences of increased police power): http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2000/06/23/maulings/index.html
------------------ If I were the judge in this case, I'd cut the gropers' dicks off and sell them to the Chinese, to boil as an aphrodisiac in lieu of the tiger penises for which the great cats are being hunted to extinction; perhaps there can be a lucrative market for the genitalia of young sex offenders that will end up saving the tigers of the world. I can say this, because I know it will never happen.
What probably will happen is that a few of those convicted for the Central Park maulings will do some time in the pokey, and they will be raped in prison, as is the case in these situations.[actually, this is much less likely than one might think -- dd] Is this poetic justice or is it bad following bad down the hole of bad? Well, they should have thought of that at the parade when they were ripping the pants off that French girl.
Fiddle dee dee, f*ckers. [asterisk mine to get it out the firewall --dd]
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Although, I must say that the temptation to change my .sig from the usual Flemings disclaimer to "Fiddle dee dee, f*ckers" is almost irresistible.
d^2
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