Monday, March 23, 2015

Dear Jonathan Capehart: 'Hands Up, Don't Shoot' is Built on the Truth

Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown on August 9, 2014.

In response, the black citizens of Ferguson marched and protested against what they knew to be one of many instances where the lives of African-Americans were devalued by the police in that community. Their exhalation of frustration and righteous anger was echoed by protests across the United States with slogans like “black lives matter” and “hands up, don’t shoot”.

The Ferguson police responded to the people’s protests in Ferguson by rioting against the black community.

Subsequent to those events, The Department of Justice issued two reports.

One demonstrated how the police in Ferguson routinely violated the civil rights of black people, the courts were biased against non-whites, and together they acted like a de facto KKK chapter of street pirates who personally enriched themselves through a debt peonage racket scheme that looted the wallets and purses of African-Americans.

The Department of Justice’s other report detailed how federal civil rights violations would not be brought against Darren Wilson because it would be difficult if not impossible to disprove that he was not in “reasonable fear” for his life during the encounter with Michael Brown.

American conservatives have—with few exceptions—fixated on the Department of Justice report “exonerating” Darren Wilson for his killing of Michael Brown.

Liberals and progressives have tended to emphasize the Department of Justice report on the Ferguson police department and courts’ white supremacist practices.

In response to the latter, last week The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart wrote a much discussed editorial entitled “’Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ was Built on a Lie”.

Capehart is also incorrect.

“Hands up, don’t shoot” is built on the truth.

As a people, Black Americans are not child-like, naïve, foolish, or hyper-emotional. 

Black people are not crazy. Nor, have black folks in America been easily hoodwinked, bamboozled, or tricked as they worked with remarkable sophistication to force the United States to live up to its (still unfulfilled) democratic potential.

The colorline is beset by many paradoxes.

Race is a biological fiction and a social construct; race continues to over-determine life chances in the United States and elsewhere.

The United States was founded as an ostensibly “democratic” nation; Yet, its understanding of freedom was based on denying full rights and liberties to black people.

The Framers offered a radically democratic experiment in the United States Constitution; The Framers also owned black people as human property and penned a Constitution that was pro-Southern and pro-slavery.

In the Age of Obama all black Americans are Michael Brown; in the Age of Obama all Black Americas are most certainly not Michael Brown.

Of course, black Americans are not a hive mind of undifferentiated blackness as the White Gaze so often imagines them. Nor, are black folks magically interconnected, constituting some type of impulse driven automaton known as “the Black Experience” or “Black America”.

Black Americans are individuals—just like any other group. But, the life chances of African-Americans remain profoundly racialized in the present.

As such, Michael Brown is a symbol of police brutality and racism: the particular details of his fatal interaction with Darren Wilson are relatively unimportant.

“Hands up, Don’t Shoot” and “Black Lives Matter” are effective slogans because they channel the lived experiences of black Americans. If they did not speak to some fundamental truth, those words would not have captured (and continue to) the political imaginations of millions of people around the world.

When young black men and boys are given “the talk” about how not to get killed by the police for the “crime” of being black and male, they are Michael Brown.

The repeated findings by social scientists and other researchers that police are more likely to shoot and kill unarmed black people as compared to whites is empirical evidence for how black folks in America are all Michael Brown.

The recorded on video murder of Eric Garner by the New York Police Department as he pleaded for his life was a moment when all black Americans are Michael Brown.

The necropolis of black people shot and killed by the police under dubious circumstances is a reminder that almost any Black American can at any time be transformed into Michael Brown.

The fear that many black Americans have that a routine interaction with the police can result in the former being shot and murdered, usually with impunity, is an example of how the shadow of Michael Brown hangs over Black America’s collective memory and collective consciousness.

Names such as Trayvon Martin, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, and Michael Brown all commingle in an American horror story that goes back to the lynching tree and how the black American body politic has for centuries been made to suffer under white violence.

Niggerization, to borrow from Dr. Cornel West, is a state of feeling unwanted, unsafe, and unprotected. This is one of the existential dilemmas of blackness in the West. If black folks are indeed a “blues people”, then “niggerization” is one of the drums. “Hands up, Don’t Shoot” and “Black Lives Matter” channel that sentiment and give it cadence through voice and slogan.

And the videotaped shootings of black people, who were unarmed, surrendering, and with their hands up by police is the ultimate proof --the habeas corpus in extremis--that “Hands up, Don’t Shoot” is not a lie.

A person’s truth-telling should not be held hostage to political convenience. However, as an African-American journalist at one of the nation’s leading publications, Jonathan Capehart has an added obligation to reflect on how his speech and words may be used by those who stand against the long Black Freedom Struggle.

Capehart has chosen to play the martyr figure by offering up what he sees as an uncomfortable truth about Michael Brown and the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” movement.

In his “’Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ was Built on a Lie”, Jonathan Capehart tried to offer some qualifiers about the broader context of Ferguson and its police, and his understanding of why that slogan resonated with black and brown people in the United States.

There, Capehart is left with a basic problem: those who are most excited by his act of black martyrdom are white conservatives.

However, in the post civil rights era American conservatives have been on the wrong side of history relative to almost every issue of racial justice.

With “’Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ was Built on a Lie”, Jonathan Capehart chose to turn himself into chum, and then to throw himself into the water with sharks.

“Hands up Don’t Shoot” is the truth. Those black Americans who know this fact will be reluctant to save Jonathan Capehart as he screams for help when his new white conservative fans of convenience inevitably betray him.

Capehart is receiving praise from the White Right for being a “black journalist” with the “courage” to “tell the truth” about Michael Brown and Ferguson.

This is a false honor and fool’s gold. 

30 comments:

James Scaminaci III, PhD said...

I was forced to listen to The Kelley File tonight on Flummoxed News. Kelley was absolutely gloating about Capehart and the Washington Post admitting they were wrong; she was bragging about how she had been saying this since the DOJ report was issued. I thought she was going to have a mental orgasm on the air. As you stated, one must understand how "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" and "Black Lives Matter" resonate at the level of values and personal narrative among Black Americans because at any moment they can be transformed from decent, responsible, God-fearing, tax-paying, Constitution-loving citizen with the "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and "due process" into a "giant Negro" who is a threat of Hulk-like incalculable dimensions that can be legally shot down like an animal. The website Cop Block has other instances of white Americans shot down by cops; the mentally ill shot down. The police in this country can kill anybody at any time. But, all Black Americans are especially at risk given the long history of characterizing Blacks as dangerous and unworthy of human status. All the gloating on Flummoxed News ignored Michael Brown's humanity and the humanity of all the other victims killed while unarmed and posing no threat whatsoever. Just the sound of her voice was sickening. Too bad Capehart lost the bubble on this one; but then again, I've heard him talk on MSNBC and he's not much of a heavyweight.

Gable1111 said...

It would have been one thing, and more appropriate for opinion's sake, which is what Capehart was supposed to be offering, had he characterized the report as "casting doubt." But he went for the worst possible characterization for his masters, all the way to "lie."

I agree; no matter what the report said, "hands up" as a metaphor for police brutality and murder against black people isn't any less a reality because the feds didn't have the evidence to prove that Wilson acted with malice and intent to "deprive Brown of his civil rights."


I'm having a hard time giving any benefit of the doubt by assigning naivete or ignorance as the reason Capehart put it that way. He's also smart enough to know that "hands up, don't shoot" was less a statement about what happened that day and more a symbol for the police brutality and murder blacks have been putting up for decades.



Capehart has said some smart insights on race from time to time. Not only was this incredibly stupid, this was classic, Clarence Thomas level tomming.

chauncey devega said...

"The fact that the other report validated a corrupt police department, court system and town administration rife with systemic racism and contempt for black residents, presents a situation where you cannot take each report separately in evaluating Wilson's actions. Why wouldn't such an institution produce police officers with the mindset, contempt and deep hatred for black residents?"


As I said on Ring of Fire, where is the discussion of the context that empowered Wilson to kill at will knowing that he would get away with it? What of his stopping Brown for bumptious walking? What of Wilson's racist comments and weeks to prepare a b.s. story with rigged court?


Capehart knew exactly what he was doing when he offered up red meat for right-wing bigots.

chauncey devega said...

"All the gloating on Flummoxed News ignored Michael Brown's humanity and the humanity of all the other victims killed while unarmed and posing no threat whatsoever. Just the sound of her voice was sickening. Too bad Capehart lost the bubble on this one; but then again, I've heard him talk on MSNBC and he's not much of a heavyweight."



How did you make it through such mess? Capehart had to know how he was enabling the killing of non-whites and poor people and others by the cops. But he couldn't resist the siren call for the money.

James Scaminaci III, PhD said...

I just grit my teeth and kept typing.

James Scaminaci III, PhD said...

I am pretty sure this is not an original idea and I do not know who to credit it to, but here goes. The conventional wisdom, expressed by Obama and Holder, is that Blacks and whites need to have a courageous conversation about race in America. I no longer believe that. I think the conversation on race in America and institutional racism is a conversation white people have to have amongst themselves. The problem of race in America is a white problem. The only way there is going to be an honest conversation and an effort to address these issues from a policy standpoint is when whites confront other whites on these issues. That is not to say that Black Americans have no role. I think I'm trying to say that your white allies need to step up and do the heavy lifting among white people. Again, probably not an original thought.

joe manning said...

Assuming for the sake of argument that Michael Brown didn't surrender (albeit a spurious assumption), Capehart still had no cause to cast aspersions on the great "hands up, don't shoot" movement. What of the thousands who have been shot or brutalized after surrendering, speaking up, or passively resisting arrest. "Hands up, don't shoot" is a popular grass roots movement which includes all walks of life from professional athletes to minimum wagers. To say it was "built on a lie" insults the intelligence of the many concerned citizens who have mobilized against the "in your face problem" of police brutality. Capehart should make amends by frequently raising his hands and saying "don't shoot, black lives matter" from the lofty perch of his bully pulpit.

Gable1111 said...

In this Twilight Zone of a society, all of those are obvious questions even a cub reporter, would be asking, and yet they are studiously ignored. In the face of that to declare Wilson "innocent" can only be done in the larger context of the insisted innocence of whiteness demanded by white supremacy. And this is what makes Capehart's supposedly "reasonable" opinion absolutely monstrous.

Wild Cat said...

Somehow, "Capehart" and "kapo" seem to be derived from the same etymology:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapo_%28concentration_camp%29



Darren Wilson is a cold-blooded murderer. He murdered an unarmed young man in cold blood. He is one of many current-day US police officers who should be serving life in prison for the murder of African-Americans. Period.

KissedByTheSun said...

That's right Mr Capehart you tell them! The justice system has always been the absolute last word on what is truth. Just ask Emmett Till. "Don't kill me, I just whistled at a white woman" must of been a lie as well huh Mr Capehart?

Gable1111 said...

I could be wrong but I suspect that is why DOJ issued two reports, to give "both sides" some equivalence of responsibility, false though it may be. This is in keeping with the Obama approach to everything, that no matter what there is always equal responsibility for both sides to a problem. That all is needed is a "conversation" to solve a problem. Never mind the fact that all these years we've been having these so-called "national conversations," on race and just about anything else, nothing is ever solved. They serve the purpose of giving the appearance of an attempt at addressing issues. We've had "conversations" on social security for example, and they all start and end with what's already been decided, in this case it needs to be cut to save it from the shortfall. The same twisted logic applies to conversations on race, that somehow there is something blacks can do, that if done will get us half way to a resolution on race.

mbfromnm said...

And just what credentials does Capehart have that qualify him to opine about matters racial? What does he know about the history of racial discrimination practiced on the state, federal and local level? How extensive is his network among various communities of color? How many times has he tagged along with a black or brown person as they went driving, shopping or dining? How does he explain the fact that across the country brown and black students get disciplined and expelled at rates far beyond their percentage of the school population. How does he explain the fact that, even among students with disabilities, that black students get suspended almost five times as much as the white students with disabilities. I want to hear him explain his credentials before I bother to spend my time listening to another hack on the corporate media payroll.

chauncey devega said...

You are in good company with that observation. The "race problem" is a problem that white people have not--not people of color.

SeaMikeJ said...

CDV, you had a very insightful sentence in your latest post "As always, when you follow the money, you found out what drives statecraft." I would argue that statecraft is just one of many areas where money drives the debate. It is equally true in punditry.

When I see talking heads like Capehart, Harold Ford, Jr., and (my new favorite) Stacey Dash take positions like these, I can't help but chuckle. They have found their hustle. They are "The black people white people go to when they want their opinions justified in black face." There are dozens of them. To me, it's no different than professional wrestling. When there is a "type" there will be someone hired to go against "type". In this case it is the standard canard that all black people are Liberal, therefore media must find Conservative voices to play against type. Capehart's not a good enough writer to carve a niche without going all Uncle Jonathan (think of Charles Blow and Bob Herbert), so you go with what has worked for others like you.

I don't know these people personally, they may be voicing what they feel is Truth in their own minds (they have to look at themselves in the mirror and answer that question), but I caution you and your readers not to overlook their value. Understanding how they think is an important step in formulating logical counterpoints to combat their rhetoric and thru them the racist rhetoric they embolden.

KissedByTheSun said...

"The black people white people go to when they want their opinions justified in black face."

Using this.

RiPPa said...

I'd like to see where it's stated in the DOJ report that Mike Brown never attempted to surrender with his hands raised above his head. Having read the report, what the DOJ said, was that there's no way to disprove Wilson's recollection of the event, as it took place at the car.
What we do know, however, is that the main witness who clIaimed that Brown was charging towards Wilson, is a liar who was not present at the time of the event. We also know that the prosecutor had full knowledge of this person's lie. Yet, the prosecutor placed this "star witness" in front of the grand jury - which, happens to be an ethics violation. But, I suppose none of this matters given that many people are misrepresenting the actual report, so as to fit the narrative of their racial loyalties.

beulahmo said...

Thanks for this. I knew you were going to have more to say about this so I was waiting for this blog post.


Mr. Capehart's decision to make a thing out of this -- his oddly narrow (and "white gaze") interpretation of "Hands Up Don't Shoot", along with his feeling about Mike Brown's "worthiness" in the larger movement -- has been an absolutely bewildering experience for me. And my bewilderment continues to grow in the midst of the fall-out his column triggered, because the stories about black males being oppressed and attacked by law enforcement continue to make news, with such stories literally juxtaposed with Capehart's bizarre lament.

D. Wright said...

That's the plan, sit on our fannies until White people decide they want to treat us like humans? Benevolent despots are a rarity, but a benevolent mob is an astronomical impossibility.

skilletblonde said...

Cue the Buck Dancers.





Who's surprised here? It always the same. When an overt racist act or crime occurs, the reaction is the same. Report the incident; then, bring on the apologists. And to make sure that these offenses are never rectified, make sure the apologists are black. That what Jonathan Capehart did here. It's what Melissa Harris Perry, Michael Eric Dyson, and the NAACP did for the S.A.E. Fraternity. Sonny will be back leading those racist chants in no time.

We can go back to the future with to the O.J. Simpson Trial. Though tapes were played of police officer Mark Furhman using the N'Word like he had Tourette Syndrome, the apologists insisted he was not a racist. Why...he had ask Vanity for a date. Fox News hired him. He was given book deals. He is now a millionaire. Technology also produced irrefutable evidence when the Rodney King beating was caught on tape. However, when the apologists got through, it was the police officers who were the victims. Millions were raised for the police officers. Whether it was Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima, Sean Bell, Trayon Martin, Eric Grander, John Crawford III, Michael Brown, or Tamir Rice, the default position of the Mainstream Media is to redeem and support the Police State.

The same is true for the Paula Deens, Donald Sterling's, and as I said above the S.A.E Fraternity. The victims of racism must be the ones to eat shyte, and become the apologists. Recently, Mo'ne Davis, the 13 year-old Little League wonder kid who was called a slut by a grown man. Joey Casselberry, a basketball player for Bloomberg University is the offender. He was kicked off the team. Unfortunately, Mo'ne Davis is being shuffled all over the Mainstream Media asking for Casselberry to be reinstated. Imagine if you will, the consequences, if this were a 13 year-old white girl that was called a slut by a black adult male?

Lastly, as far as Capehart is concern, he is doing the bidding of his corporate masters. I also think, and I could be wrong, that Capehart has not been anywhere near the Inner City in years. As long as we have the buck dancing apologists, don't expect change. They are enablers of these acts just like those who perpetrate them. After all, as Malcolm X said... "And you sit there when they're putting the rope around your neck saying, "Forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do." As long as they've been doing it, they're experts at it, they know what they're doing!"

chauncey devega said...

No one ever talks about the white supremacist purger who testified before the grand jury either.


Glad to see you are back in the game. How is your health?

RiPPa said...

Doing better now, but still have some more challenges. I hope to be back to full speed in about 90 days.


The minute my vision started improving, WARN was one of the first sites I had to read. Yep, going 7 months without being able to see was tough.

Yourami said...

It's the truth. Instead of killing the messenger, let's figure out how to deal with it.

OldPolarBear said...

It's kind of like that Chris Rock bit from a couple months ago. He said
that the thing that had changed is that some white people were acting
slightly better than we had before.

D. Wright said...

We don't deal with it. That's the message. We just wait for our White Saviors to repent for their privilege and deliver us to the post-racial promised land. Smells more like prophecy and proselytizing than politics.

Yourami said...

I take them to mean that white people are the problem, which rings true. I see someone framing a problem, not looking for a savior. Another hard truth: not all white people are bad. Some are willing to use their privilege to promote social change. The challenge, as I see it, is to figure out how to turn good white people into collaborators and to marginalize the bad ones.

D. Wright said...

That not all white people are bad is not a hard truth. This is a hard truth: we're not going to marginalize the bad ones in any meaningful way without disenfranchising them politically and economically. And who is to determine the parameters of "good" and "bad"?

It's not just that they're bad, but they wield an immense amount of power over Black and Brown bodies through Real Estate, Finance, Police, Prisons, Court Justice, Education, Media, etc. If they had no such power, it wouldn't matter whether they love, hate, or respect us.

Another hard truth: very few white people have any interest in ending white power over black and brown bodies. It seems to me that most of the good ones, and their Liberals of Color associates, simply want more benelovent whites wielding that power.

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T. Jones said...

Yeah he knows better but he's conflicted. He has to carve out a workable journalistic niche for himself to stay relevant and distinguish himself from other Black mainstream journalists, writers and pundits. Unfortunately, several of his contemporaries accepted the DOJ report as a confirmation of Darren Wilson's "innocence" instead of an admission that America has no legal apparatus in place to consider the life of a Black man against the comfort of a white man or by extension- white people. After all, how do you prove that a white man shouldn't be afraid for his life when in the company of a Black man he's just shot?

Capeheart made a strategic decision to alienate the audience that holds the least amount of control over his ascension. He also chose to "misunderstand" Hands Up Don't Shoot to be linked solely to Brown and his execution when in reality the phrase was intended to describe the general state of relations between unarmed Black, brown and poor people when confronted by law enforcement with deadly intentions. Similarly "I Can't Breathe" may have been used to describe Garner's murder in NY but the expansion and growth of the phrase around the world was obviously intended to draw attention to the plight of Black people dying when they came into contact with institutionalized violence perpetuated by law enforcement.

Capeheart is comfortable feigning ignorance because his day to day activity is not directly constrained by killer cops and his success and livelihood is not determined by the people doing all the dying. He wants to be able to thumb his nose politely at "the Man" by detailing the ongoing pillage in Ferguson and then rebuke Black people for rallying behind someone "unworthy" of life as determined by that same "Man". It's a tightrope but he and many others have successfully crossed and claimed that they are only "being open minded and fair" in their assessments. Odd that they can read about the race based plundering that characterizes every day life in St. Louis county (and obviously most of America) and imagine that none of that energy came into play on the day that Darren Wilson murdered Michael Brown.

Moxie Girl said...

lmfao, black folks are so delusional, so damn ignorant, drowning in denial. Some idiots bring up hate crimes of the past like Emmett Till, what about the horrible race crimes of today? Even white children tortured and murdered! We have to go into the past to find hate crimes against blacks. Lets live in the past and totally ignore the truth and what is happening today.

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