[Xmca-l] Re: NYT Op-Ed: Class Prejudice Resurgent

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Hi Bill,

Well if it were only just the isolated incident, then maybe you would be right. 

Unless you haven't noticed (and I really don't mean to be snide here), there have been many things going on that have rippled outward since the death of Michael Brown. Including the unfolding of events with the death of Eric Garner. I consider the militarization of police presence to be a frightening co-incident with NSA data trawling and how all these narratives overlap with Fear of the Other, as might be considered with our War on Terror. Police militarization and the NSA are not tied to racial control, but class control, specifically the political class and everyone else. I see interconnections in all this that are not class on the one side and race on the other. They intermingle.

If it *were* just a single "fluke" death, gee, that would be easy. "It's a racial issue; It's profiling." OK...But then all these other things have happened. Including the protests. But also how we are talking about the event, including how you are talking about the event on this list by reducing the Death of Michael Brown to the graphic details of his victimization, as doing that will prove this is a racial issue and only a racial issue? No one is saying that race is absent. 

So...what happened when Holder went out to check things out? How come nothing happened there? Why does the kimosabe of all attornies general and all prosecutors visit the city that is essentially falling apart in protest not make an impact??? Is it because Michael Brown wasn't of the elite, political class? Or is it because he's black? Why isn't anything being reported on that civil rights investigation? If it is because the investigation is still pending, OK, but it's December and they started the investigation mid-August. So what's going on?

By the way, do you happen to remember the profiling of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 2009? What happens there? The police officer and Gates go have a beer with Obama in the White House and sing kumbayah.

Now if that isn't class, then tell me, please, what it is?

Kind regards,

Annalisa