Since we’re going to be passing from Baltimore to Saint Louis to Charleston in the next month or so, I figured I’d drop this here too. It’s an entry I wrote in response to an article a friend posted a while back that I think I never shoved online.
http://bsun.md/1KlCra0 <- the original article
Anyone growing up through our generation (Star Wars) grew up thinking of the “rebels” as the good guys – I remember my Dad trying to explain all of that to me with a “rebellion” in Central America when I was a kid, not watching the news.
“On that note, headlines continue to inflate the deleterious effect rioters have had on their community — referencing the supposed “200 minority-owned businesses” that have been “destroyed” in Baltimore. What they fail to mention is that a far larger number of businesses were not damaged physically but by lost revenue resulting from the mayor’s week-long 10 p.m. curfew. To place that blame solely on the riots is to ignore the oppressive apparatus that sparked them… But if black rioters were imaginary, they would be heroes. As long as they present a real-world threat to the comfort of white supremacy”.
…And that really ignores one of the primary LESSONS in Baltimore – though it’s easy to point this out as a black vs white issue (so much easier to look at the skin colour vs having to look past it…) Baltimore – with its black mayor, black chief of police, primarily black police force and the 50 / 50 composition of the 6 police officers charged in the murder of Freddie Gray, BLATANTLY points out that this is more to do with the culture of the haves vs have-nots and the police forces that enforce the rules than it has to do with something so simple and obvious as melanin.
In those dystopian stories, EVERYONE’S disenfranchised and everyone’s under the boot heel except the one-percenters. In America, there’s the “one percent”, there’s the fifteen percent in poverty – and then there’s the rest of us (though to be fair I actually fall under the technical poverty line) who gripe, but for whom Life is pretty bearable. Black “middle class” families have a lot less than white “middle class” families, but they’ve also got a good deal more than they had 20, 30 or 50 years ago, and that trend will only continue – just as other racial “minorities” grow in relation to the slowing-in-growth white population. One day the “middle class” will no longer be white majority, and that will NOT magically fix the problem.
When Katniss shoots an arrow and Luke Skywalker attacks the Death Star they’re striking out, very precisely, at the 1%. When protesters throw water bottles at the police or rioters burn cars, they may be attacking SYMBOLS of the controlling classes, but they’re actually attacking middle class America, and whether FB likes to admit it or not, the 80% in the “middle” are relatively comfortable, or at least not SO uncomfortable that they choose to look past their individual struggles.
I get what the author is saying, but there’s also a big difference betwixt an organized resistance movement fighting over the course of many years and a flare up of protest. Part of that is WHO we’re rebelling against and who’s unhappy – TRULY unhappy. I’m also sort of disappointed that the author eventually simplifies all of this to “white patriarchy” did it –
The idea that “looters attempt to ‘shock the white community’ by abusing the property rights whites hold so dear” – the idea that anything so focused and organized is happening is absolute bullshit – it’s romaticizing the problem (and the solution). I WISH someone was coming to the fore as a LEADER today. An organized Rebellion is maybe exactly what we need (though not necessarily an armed REVOLUTION). The parallel to fictional, idealized Rebellions is actually through the long standing and ever-evolving struggle that’s still happening to which Baltimore’s just a footnote, in which Martin Luther King Jr was (and is) a hero, in which Obama and Mosby will be players and in which “200 businesses in Baltimore” is merely a casualty along the way.
August has been busy and gone by FAST. A lot of chaos, a lot of questions. Heather’s been struggling trying to pin down a job – a REAL job. Sharif has gotten a new job (also a real job). Kristen and I are struggling with finding a balance with how little we want to be at our “real” jobs (at House of Musical Traditions up to three times a week when we’re in town) while still trying to maintain enough continuity to be effective at that job… Rowan never comes HOME from his job (though he’ll be home this weekend and will be at PLOJ tonight).
What a rough job. I think this is my last month of regular hours at HMT and after we get back from the September tour I believe I’m moving to being a web-beest… I’ll have to iron out my “home office” setting, all part of a repositioning of rob to be more able to take advantage of freelance work. I’m looking forward to it, but still trying to imagine how it’s all going to work out.
Kristen and I have spent much of the past week house-sitting for Dave Eisner who’s been in New Jersey taking care of his step-mother’s estate. She passed away suddenly last week and we’ve been trying to be helpful. We’ve fed and scroffled his cats and generally occupied space. Despite the fact that he’s got a really beautiful home (and decidedly charming cats) it was really good to come back in OUR home – touring is one thing – being close to home and not being there is another.
This morning, despite our coming GOING from House of Musical Traditions we’ve got a meeting – getting to Takoma Park by 10am on a Saturday means leaving the house by 9am which means getting up by 8am which means to avoid conflict in the kitchen I have to get up BEFORE 8am. It’s an awfully sunshiney day to be up so early… but the idea that PLOJ 2.3 is tonight should be enough to keep me going.
