LENIN'S TOMB: Getting away with murder

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Getting away with murder posted by Richard Seymour

Officer Wilson's story is impossible to take seriously.

It is not plausible that, unprovoked, a young man who allegedly robbed a store and had something to hide, would start trouble with a police officer whom he would know to be armed (and of course, Brown was not armed).

It is not plausible that, unprovoked, he would not just solicit an altercation but aggressively go after the officer, punching him through his window - and even pause mid-way through the beating to hand his stolen merchandise to a friend.

It is not plausible that when the police officer pointed a gun at Brown, Brown - unarmed - would have said "you're too much of a fucking pussy to shoot me".

It is not plausible that, after a shot has already gone off, Brown would maintain the assault despite knowing his life was at risk. It is not plausible that, even having been shot and decided to flee, he would suddenly decide to stop running away, but actually turn around and run threateningly back toward the officer with the gun who had just shot him.

It is not plausible that, after several more shots are fired at him, he would still continue to run toward the officer, requiring several more shots to be fired into him, thus killing him.

To believe all of these things, you would have to believe that Michael Brown was not a normal 18 year old, which he was, but some sort of demonic being.

And indeed, the language used by Wilson invokes that image, of a man crazed with aggression and demonic energy, even after having been shot. It is a childish racial fantasy.

Only someone who is utterly in the possession of racist ideology could conceive of, much less believe, all of these things. And if you're going to believe that cock and bull story, you may as well believe in the bogey man.

Once you realise that Wilson's story is absurd, and that the argument for self-defence has not been made, it is no longer possible to believe that the jury let the officer off because he defended himself against someone who was attacking him.

It is at this point that any reasonably observant person should be considering the pattern of racist killing and violence on the part of the US police.

It is at this point that you should be factoring in the ongoing racial inequities of the criminal justice system, from the beat cops to the prisons.

It is at this point that the entire architecture of racist exclusions and disadvantage should be brought into the analysis.

This is systemic, and the systemic name for it is white supremacy. And it matters less precisely what people think they're doing when they reinforce white supremacy than that they do so.

This cop, Darren Wilson, was let off because suppressing terrifying blackness is part of the police's job. It's not about the piffling 'injuries' on officer Wilson's face (a couple of barely visible scuff marks). It's about the potential social and symbolic injury to white supremacy.

Every interaction with the cops is part of the reproduction of white supremacy, and freighted with the whole moral and political weight of that system, because invested in the authority of the cops - like that of colonial gendarmes - is the authority of white society as such.

Wilson had to kill because of the affront to his state sanctified authority. He had seen these young men walking confidently, relaxed, down the middle of the road, smoking cigarillos. He told them to get the fuck on the sidewalk. They didn't immediately jump to it. They back-talked. They sassed him. Quite what sassing would entail doesn't matter - just being anything less than quietly quiescent would be enough.

So he decided to get out of his vehicle and fuck them up. Michael Brown, the one singled out by the cop, defended himself, and then tried to run away.

Imagine a man like that, out there. A big, powerful man. 'No angel', as the New York Times reminded us, citing a list of less-than-angelic propensities such as Brown's fondness for rapping, and his having grown up in a rough patch.

Imagine him getting away, getting treatment, going to the press, maybe pressing charges, telling all his 'homies' about how he had faced down a cop and lived to tell. No way. He had to be stopped, as a lesson to the rest of them.

The white jurors understood. Even if they thought he had acted overzealously, they felt Wilson's pain. Jesus, they were probably terrified themselves just to think what they would do if they had to confront this guy. Did you see the footage of some guy who might be him in a cigar store? Terrifying.

Most of those jurors would pull the gun out in a second. And cops, who have to deal with this everyday, who have to show professionalism and restraint - tough job.

Of course they let him off.