Continuing from the first part of this post.
And here lies the crux of the matter; as long as the struggle against police brutality and oppression of the people by local authorities using it as a income generating system, is characterised solely as a 'black American versus the police and criminal justice system' issue, black Americans will continue to be killed and financially and otherwise exploited. This is because it will be seen as something which is only restricted or applies to 'them'; black Americans. It will be seen as their problem and the inference will be for them to get on with dealing with it, although the cards will be stacked against them, as the police has the central and local governments systems on their side.
It is this distancing of 'us' from what is happening to 'them', which is an important part of the problem and the solution. Like mental disorder, which can involve dissociation, delusions, psychosis, some white Americans might choose to deny or dissociate themselves from the problem, as can successful black American. And why would some of them not want to do so, when they have been successfully socialised into accepting the standard and even axiomatic explanation for the problem?
Having been constantly told that it is all down to 'black criminality', 'drug use', uncompleted education, etc, etc, why would the 'average American, black or white, not come to accept and believe that explanation? Of course, while these are all factors, like the poverty and deprivation which poor white Americans are experiencing, there are other equally fundamental causal factors at work. In any case, the problem is not so much about what is the cause of the destitution and oppression of America's poor, but rather, what is the solution?
And so I would urge successful black and white Americans to take more responsibility for what is happening to the millions of their fellow citizens, and stand up and be counted, like Colin Kaepernick and others, and, more recently, Serena Williams.
This is a problem which is much bigger than racist and oppressive police forces and local authorities empowering mindless individual police officers with the intellect and compassion of a fly, to shoot black Americans on sight with impunity. It is about a fundamentally dysfunctional system of exercising and maintaining the power of the elite over the other classes of Americans. Using whatever means - race, ethnicity, class, gender, religion, electoral policies, etc - is necessary. And we are not taking about George Jackson, Bobby Seale, Angela Davies, et al of old here; this predates them, but still continues to be the engine on which American society turns.
So, the new manifesto needs to be that, of 'one for all and all for one.' Which is rather apt, coming from no other than Alexandre Dumas.
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