Three-Headed Monster

I was thinking of writing about the American presidential election, the choice facing voters this November between two servants of the status quo, Mitt Romney and Barrack Obama. I have a vision of their heads on the sides of a tarnished coin: flip the coin and the ruling class wins and ordinary citizens lose; flip it again and the result is the same. There are differences between the two men, shades and subtleties, but strip away the campaign rhetoric and posturing and pandering, and what remains is the fact that Obama and Romney represent the same basic point of view.

Obama is insulated by the DC culture of power and influence, Romney by his money and privilege. For the electorate the choice is between bad and worse, between one set of dull prescriptions and another, between more of the same and way more of the same.

But if I delve too deeply into politics my head might explode like a watermelon dropped from a ten-story building. My reservoir of hope is running dry, and the idea that we are finally and fatally fucked as a nation is taking hold, and being reinforced every day.

More on my mind than the election is the passing of Rodney King, the black man savagely beaten by white LA police officers, the beating caught on videotape, shocking all but people of color who saw this brand of policing so often it was expected; the dim street, the cops encircling the victim, the flash of batons, the blows raining down. At their trial twenty years ago, the white officers were acquitted, touching off some of the worst riots LA has ever seen. Anger and rage and hopelessness bottled up for years exploded in the streets, the city burned, and once again it was time for Americans to confront uncomfortable truths about race and power.

What would happen today if a black cop shot and killed an unarmed white teenager in Beverly Hills or Pacific Palisades? Even if his service record were exemplary, would the black cop be given the benefit of the doubt by the media, by jurors, by the public? Would his superiors rush to his defense? Would the character of the victim be called into question, as it invariably is when the victim is black or brown?

The brutal truth is that armed white cops kill unarmed black men with near total impunity, and it happens so frequently we are inured to the injustice. Amadou Diallo had a wallet in his hand and was shot 41 times in New York City; Oscar Grant lay face down on a BART platform in Oakland and was shot in the back. These are only two examples of many.

Racism runs deep here, courses through our history, all the way back to the founding of our nation. Our most revered white forefathers preached freedom and equality but built their fortunes on the bent backs of slaves.

It’s hard to argue with the proposition that justice depends on the pigmentation of one’s skin. White citizens are not targeted for stop and frisk operations nor are they subject to racial profiling. White citizens get the benefit of the doubt; black and brown citizens get the harshest punishment the law allows. Presumed guilty until proven innocent.

The gnarled finger of racism even touches a sitting president of mixed race. Millions of Americans still believe Barrack Obama was born beyond our borders, that he’s not like us, not the upstanding Christian he claims to be. Two and three years after taking his oath of office, Obama was still being asked to prove his authenticity.  

Martin Luther King warned against three American evils: racism, militarism, and the brand of predatory capitalism now woven into our social fabric; these evils feed off and reinforce one another, making them difficult to ameliorate. I can’t help but believe King would be as disappointed in how little progress we’ve made against racism, militarism and predatory capitalism, as he would be at the vacuity of our presidential election season.