Who Really Killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner? Part 1

BrownGarner

Like most I found myself dumbfounded, upset, frustrated and angry but not surprised at the lack of indictments in both the Michael Brown case and Eric Garner case in Ferguson, MO and New York respectively.  While the mainstream media does what it does by trying to isolate each incident so as to compartmentalize the tragedies and avoid the larger discussion of institutional racism; it found it difficult to do with guest after guest connecting the dots and finding patterns to insist that these tragedies were micro examples of a macro problem.

The spontaneous marchers as well as the well planned and orchestrated demonstrations all across the country and in other parts of the world in solidarity in their outrage over these cases  is a testament to the power of social media to bypass the major media narratives and go where they can’t go; which brings us to the crux of this post.

The questions that some are asking particularly in the Eric Garner case where there was video footage of him being choked to death is “how could a Grand Jury not find probable cause to indict?” The answer is that evidence is immaterial when it comes to indicting a policeman for killing a black man as a result of a profound and concerted propaganda campaign that has been carried out in an orchestrated fashion by the “owners” of  news media  and the music industry to create an image of  black men as non-humans.

As Charles Blow of the New York Times said during  a heated exchange on Anderson Cooper with a former cop; that there exist mountains of scientific data that document the existence of implicit bias in society  that has the ability to manifest in any and all institutions under certain circumstances.  He was speaking in a sanitized for television language.

Translating what Mr. Blow was saying is that there is a deep seeded racism and bias against black men in America; black President notwithstanding.  The question we must ask ourselves is what feeds this bias, what feeds these anti black sentiments, what has dehumanized black men in the eyes of large swaths of our society?

Who promoted the genre of Gangster Rap and the armed Thug image?  It is a matter of record that many of the music industry executives who make the calls on what is green lighted,  determine the image and persona and how an artist is to be marketed are also  vested in the Private Prison industry.

Sometimes black college educated, suburban kids walk into a recording studio and are told they need to dress like “street thugs” rap about killing and selling drugs, carry guns in videos if they want to be an artist on the record label.  The overwhelming majority of gangster rap music is sold to white youth in suburban areas much to the dismay of their parents.

Many major music industry executives are invested in private prisons – are we connecting the dots now.  To watch the major news networks nightly is like watching the “minority crime report.”  The greatest theft in the history of mankind that was perpetuated by professionals in the financial industry have yet to yield one arrest, yet nightly there is a parade of black men who have committed crimes of far lesser magnitude plastered on the screen.

As the protest grow all across this nations,  and national organizations take form there must be multiple strategies that are pursued to make structural and institutional change to address issues in law enforcement and the criminal justice system. However there must be   an anti defamation track that has as its mission the  identification of all  the executives and major shareholders of the major record labels who support and promote “Gangster Rap” particularly if they have ties to the Private Prison Industrial Complex to potentially be charged with racial defamation contributing to genocide.

Submitted by Christopher A. Clarke on 12/14/14. 

Christopher A. Clarke is managing editor of Black2020.Com and can be reached through the sites contact page.

 

 

 

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