Prisons, Police, and Rodney King
Lauren and I had a conversation about Mom yesterday. I shared with her one of my earliest political memories. It was 1991 and the nation was reeling from the Rodney King beating by four Los Angeles police officers. I can't say I remember what my first thoughts were. I want to say that it was shocking and that I had some small conception that it was wrong. Perhaps the media shaped some of that for me, but it wasn't until the DARE officer (for those not from the US, DARE is an anti-drug propaganda course that youth go through for one year some time during their elementary education) in our class told us, with all the typical disclaimers of not being racist (How many times have the most vehement white racists said that?), that Rodney King was scum and that if he were one of those officers he would have shot King as soon as he got out of his vehicle.
It was surprising to hear that, but I had no gauge for whether he was right or wrong; that is, until I went home and explained to Mom what he said. She got very angry and told me point blank, "That's bullshit!" He did nothing to provoke them and to warrant a beating like that, Mom said also stating that it was racially motivated. Her response startled me; my Mom, not being there, not being black, being so angry, and having such a personal investment in what happened. It just wasn't that subjective for me, yet. But I heeded Mom's words, nonetheless.
One year later these same officers were acquitted of all charges. A revolt of LA's black population engulfed the city and was the most destructive and violent black uprising in an American city in history. By this time, not only did I reciprocate Mom's sentiments, but my views began to be informed by the rationale of the logic the uprising itself. The avenue for this was an album that Mom had bought me by rapper Ice Cube called The Predator. Unbeknownst to her, in my (supposedly) insular white suburban home, I was listening over and over to the anger of Ice Cube which typified the rebellion:
Verse One
Not guilty, the filthy, devils tried to kill me
When the news get to the hood the niggaz will be
hotter than cayenne pepper, cuss, bust
Kickin up dust is a must
I can't trust, a cracker in a blue uniform
Stick a nigga like a unicorn
Born, wicked, Laurence, Powell, foul
Cut his fuckin throat and I smile
Go to Simi Valley and surely
somebody knows the address of the jury
Pay a little visit, "Who is it?" (Ohh it's Ice Cube)
"Can I talk to the grand wizard," then boom!!
Make him eat the barrel, modern day feral
Now he's zipped up like leather tuscadero
Pretty soon we'll catch Sergeant Koon
Shoot him in the face, run up in him with a broom-
-stick, prick, devils ain't shit
Introduce his ass to the AK-40 dick
Two days niggas laid in the cut
To get some respect we had to tear this mothafucker up
Verse Two
I gotta Mac-10 for Officer Wind
Damn his devil ass need to be shipped back to Kansas
in a casket, crew cut faggot
Now he ain't nothin but food for the maggots
Lunch, punch, Hawaiin, lyin
Niggas ain't buyin, ya story, bore me
Tearin up shit with fire, shooters, looters
Now I got a laptop computer
I told you it would happened and you heard it, read it
But all you can call me was anti-Semitic
Regret it? Nope. Said it? Yep
Listen to my big black boots as I step
Niggaz had to break you off somethin, give Bush a push
But your National Guard ain't hard
You had to get Rodney to stop me, cause you know what?
We woulda tore this mothafucker up
Verse Three
It's on, "Gone With the Wind"
and I know white men can't dunk, now I'm stealin blunts
And a cake from Betty Crocker, Orville Reddenbacher
Don't fuck with the black-owned stores but hit the Foot Lockers
Steal, motherfuck Fire Marshall Bill
Oh what the hell, throw the cocktail, I smell smoke
Got the fuck out, Ice Cube lucked out
My nigga had his truck out, didn't get stuck out
in front of that store with the Nikes and Adidas
Oh Jesus, Western Surplus got the heaters
Meet us, so we can get the 9's and the what-nots
Got the Mossberg with the double eyed buckshot
Ready for Darryl, and like Beretta would say
keep your eye on the barrel, a sparrow
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time
But I'm rollin, so that's a fucked up slogan
The Hogan's, Heroes, spotted the guerilla
by the Sizzler, hittin up police killer
The super duper nigga that'll buck
We had to tear this mothafucker up, so what the fuck.
Ice Cube. "We Had to Tear this Mothafucker Up". The Predator, 1992.
I had never been harassed by the police (yet) and had been protected from all the conditions that underpinned the LA riots. But I took on some of the resentment that manifested in The Predator. Cops began to equal pigs. They began to be synonymous with an institutional racism (which I could not clearly articulate yet). The Predator was chocked full of speeches from Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, and Khalid Muhammad about America being a racist society.
When Mom heard me repeat all the above she admonished me. Not all cops are bad, she said, not all are racist. I didn't buy it then and I still don't. Of course, now it isn't about seeing racism through the lens of "bad cops", but understanding it as white supremacy, as an institution that is maintained as a means to divide people: to convince white working people that their interests are the same as those who employ them, and to convince blacks that white people are universally complicit in its maintenance. It is quite a bit more complex than that, however.
It wasn't until Mom began volunteering for a prisoners' rehabilitation program six months after the riots that she began to link the racism of four random LAPD officers to a much larger systemic problem. Within three years, Mom knew the system was broken and she affirmed my sentiments by letting it show. She no longer attempted to moderate my beliefs. At 12, she bought me a Malcolm X shirt. Later, I wanted another one, but this particular one contained a quote that read, "...by any means necessary!" She refused to buy it on account that it "advocated violence." By 1995, Mom, while never a violent person, began to accept the legitimacy of violent struggles for freedom. She accepted the necessary violence of the LA riots, the Palestinian Intifadas, the Attica uprising, the Black Power movement of the 1960s, and the abolition of slavery in the US South.
Sometime in 1996, Mom and I attended an assembly of politically minded young people in Kansas City who were sympathetic to the cause of prisoners. They were a bit more Left than the average prison reform advocate, but my Mom managed to steer the conversation even further to the Left and she argued that traditional methods would not work and that something more radical needed to be done. She didn't know exactly what this was, but I can tell you honestly that she would not have been opposed to violent means.
While all her children were aware of her changing political views, no one knew Mom's intimate thoughts the way I did. Her influence in me is strong to this day, but as I got older, I began to influence her in equal ways. As I said in her eulogy, it is important to know this aspect of Mom because it influenced the kind of friends she chose and the activities she participated in.
All of this merely added to Mom's own complexity, on the one hand, as a non-violent person, and on the other hand, as a believer in the freedom of oppressed people...by any means necessary.
To be continued...
It was surprising to hear that, but I had no gauge for whether he was right or wrong; that is, until I went home and explained to Mom what he said. She got very angry and told me point blank, "That's bullshit!" He did nothing to provoke them and to warrant a beating like that, Mom said also stating that it was racially motivated. Her response startled me; my Mom, not being there, not being black, being so angry, and having such a personal investment in what happened. It just wasn't that subjective for me, yet. But I heeded Mom's words, nonetheless.
One year later these same officers were acquitted of all charges. A revolt of LA's black population engulfed the city and was the most destructive and violent black uprising in an American city in history. By this time, not only did I reciprocate Mom's sentiments, but my views began to be informed by the rationale of the logic the uprising itself. The avenue for this was an album that Mom had bought me by rapper Ice Cube called The Predator. Unbeknownst to her, in my (supposedly) insular white suburban home, I was listening over and over to the anger of Ice Cube which typified the rebellion:
Verse One
Not guilty, the filthy, devils tried to kill me
When the news get to the hood the niggaz will be
hotter than cayenne pepper, cuss, bust
Kickin up dust is a must
I can't trust, a cracker in a blue uniform
Stick a nigga like a unicorn
Born, wicked, Laurence, Powell, foul
Cut his fuckin throat and I smile
Go to Simi Valley and surely
somebody knows the address of the jury
Pay a little visit, "Who is it?" (Ohh it's Ice Cube)
"Can I talk to the grand wizard," then boom!!
Make him eat the barrel, modern day feral
Now he's zipped up like leather tuscadero
Pretty soon we'll catch Sergeant Koon
Shoot him in the face, run up in him with a broom-
-stick, prick, devils ain't shit
Introduce his ass to the AK-40 dick
Two days niggas laid in the cut
To get some respect we had to tear this mothafucker up
Verse Two
I gotta Mac-10 for Officer Wind
Damn his devil ass need to be shipped back to Kansas
in a casket, crew cut faggot
Now he ain't nothin but food for the maggots
Lunch, punch, Hawaiin, lyin
Niggas ain't buyin, ya story, bore me
Tearin up shit with fire, shooters, looters
Now I got a laptop computer
I told you it would happened and you heard it, read it
But all you can call me was anti-Semitic
Regret it? Nope. Said it? Yep
Listen to my big black boots as I step
Niggaz had to break you off somethin, give Bush a push
But your National Guard ain't hard
You had to get Rodney to stop me, cause you know what?
We woulda tore this mothafucker up
Verse Three
It's on, "Gone With the Wind"
and I know white men can't dunk, now I'm stealin blunts
And a cake from Betty Crocker, Orville Reddenbacher
Don't fuck with the black-owned stores but hit the Foot Lockers
Steal, motherfuck Fire Marshall Bill
Oh what the hell, throw the cocktail, I smell smoke
Got the fuck out, Ice Cube lucked out
My nigga had his truck out, didn't get stuck out
in front of that store with the Nikes and Adidas
Oh Jesus, Western Surplus got the heaters
Meet us, so we can get the 9's and the what-nots
Got the Mossberg with the double eyed buckshot
Ready for Darryl, and like Beretta would say
keep your eye on the barrel, a sparrow
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time
But I'm rollin, so that's a fucked up slogan
The Hogan's, Heroes, spotted the guerilla
by the Sizzler, hittin up police killer
The super duper nigga that'll buck
We had to tear this mothafucker up, so what the fuck.
Ice Cube. "We Had to Tear this Mothafucker Up". The Predator, 1992.
I had never been harassed by the police (yet) and had been protected from all the conditions that underpinned the LA riots. But I took on some of the resentment that manifested in The Predator. Cops began to equal pigs. They began to be synonymous with an institutional racism (which I could not clearly articulate yet). The Predator was chocked full of speeches from Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, and Khalid Muhammad about America being a racist society.
When Mom heard me repeat all the above she admonished me. Not all cops are bad, she said, not all are racist. I didn't buy it then and I still don't. Of course, now it isn't about seeing racism through the lens of "bad cops", but understanding it as white supremacy, as an institution that is maintained as a means to divide people: to convince white working people that their interests are the same as those who employ them, and to convince blacks that white people are universally complicit in its maintenance. It is quite a bit more complex than that, however.
It wasn't until Mom began volunteering for a prisoners' rehabilitation program six months after the riots that she began to link the racism of four random LAPD officers to a much larger systemic problem. Within three years, Mom knew the system was broken and she affirmed my sentiments by letting it show. She no longer attempted to moderate my beliefs. At 12, she bought me a Malcolm X shirt. Later, I wanted another one, but this particular one contained a quote that read, "...by any means necessary!" She refused to buy it on account that it "advocated violence." By 1995, Mom, while never a violent person, began to accept the legitimacy of violent struggles for freedom. She accepted the necessary violence of the LA riots, the Palestinian Intifadas, the Attica uprising, the Black Power movement of the 1960s, and the abolition of slavery in the US South.
Sometime in 1996, Mom and I attended an assembly of politically minded young people in Kansas City who were sympathetic to the cause of prisoners. They were a bit more Left than the average prison reform advocate, but my Mom managed to steer the conversation even further to the Left and she argued that traditional methods would not work and that something more radical needed to be done. She didn't know exactly what this was, but I can tell you honestly that she would not have been opposed to violent means.
While all her children were aware of her changing political views, no one knew Mom's intimate thoughts the way I did. Her influence in me is strong to this day, but as I got older, I began to influence her in equal ways. As I said in her eulogy, it is important to know this aspect of Mom because it influenced the kind of friends she chose and the activities she participated in.
All of this merely added to Mom's own complexity, on the one hand, as a non-violent person, and on the other hand, as a believer in the freedom of oppressed people...by any means necessary.
To be continued...
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