In light of the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the people rightfully rose up to confront the racist violence they face at the hands of the state. The state, not used to being denounced and confronted by the people they daily oppress, responded with militarized repression. The murder of Eric Garner a couple months prior is another example of the daily violence communities of color, especially working class Latino and Black communities, witness in their neighborhoods and towns. The murder of Filipina trans-woman Jennifer Laude at the hands of a U.S. Marine proves that U.S. state violence goes beyond its national borders and into all its neo-colonies. Mothers and fathers don’t feel safe to let their children go out any more for they fear a trigger-happy cop will “confuse” their cellphones, candy wraps, or even their empty hands with a gun, and shoot to death. Communities don’t feel safe with the presence of intrusive policing which will use the tiniest act as an excuse to arrest them. Immigrants live in fear knowing that any brush with the authorities can lead to the separation of their families. The police play a key role in society as part of the repressive state apparatus. In class society, the imbalance of power between the bourgeoisie and the large mass of workers is an antagonistic contradiction which creates the potential for revolution. The function of the state is to deal with this contradiction by either passing concessions that ease some of the pain off the worker’s backs or by outright repression. The police, as the armed wing of the state, is not there to provide order and security to the masses, but rather to provide order and security to the ruling class by repressing the anger of the proletariat. The police is a tool of class oppression, and in a white supremacist state such as the U.S. it is a tool of racial oppression as well. Activists all over the country rise up and declare that Black lives matter, Brown lives matter, trans lives matter, women lives matter, and all of our lives matter. But the reality points otherwise. Our lives don’t matter. If they mattered, we would not have 400,000 immigrants being separated from their families every year and countless of people dying at the border. If our lives mattered, we would not have a Black person dying at the hands police every 48 hours, more than the rate of lynching in the Jim Crow era South. If our lives mattered, we would not have women and LGBTQ people being murdered everyday due to gender violence. If our lives mattered, we would not see students in Iguala being dragged out of their towns and burned alive so as to silent their voices in face of neo-liberal reform. No, our lives don’t matter. They matter to our families, to our people, and to our comrades, but they definitely don’t matter to the imperialist, capitalist, and white supremacist U.S. state.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 15:34:20 +0000
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