The Deadly Dead End of “The Proper Channels” and Why Rise Up October Is EXACTLY What’s Needed

by Annie Day

October 9, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

 

I want to share with Revolution readers an important struggle I’ve been having about Rise Up October and why THIS—in opposition to turning the resistance that rose up in the last year and a half into the slow, and completely illusory road of patient reform and “proper channels”—is what’s needed. I was working with a couple people who were initially very excited about taking up Rise Up October and were particularly moved by coming to an event with Carl Dix and others where they heard families of victims of police murder speak. Right after the event, they had a lot to say about what difference it made to hear people who experienced this loss in person... how different this was from the virtual reality so many people live in. They were also part of a group reading of the Call for Rise Up October aloud at the event and said that while the whole thing was very sobering, it was also uplifting because we were actually doing something about it... and doing so together.

They made plans right away to start reaching out to their circles and had a whole range of other ideas for fundraising and more. But once they started reaching out about this, they got demoralized by some of the responses from their friends and concerned about how they would seem and sound... what the “reasonable demands” are, that they had concerns that “which side are you on?” is too aggressive an approach. To be clear, they didn’t themselves disagree that it’s wrong to be inactive in the face of what’s happening, but were worried that this would “turn people off.”

We’re still struggling this all through, but in the midst of this, one of them sent me a link to an article by Peniel Joseph in Huffington Post from last January: “Time for #BlackLivesMatter to Turn Protest Into Policy.” The subtitle of the article gives you an immediate sense of where he is coming from: “Demanding that President Obama make it clear where he stands on the question of racial justice in the criminal-justice system is the best place to start.”

What follows is my response.

***

Are you sending this article because you think this is the way to go? I’d be interested as to why you think that.

I think this requires a substantive response...

If you read again the Call for Rise Up October, you’ll see the argument very clearly that going through “proper channels” to insist that police murder, brutality, and mass incarceration must stop will completely derail the resistance that broke out a year and a half ago. What is required: “This demonstration will be resistance-based, uncompromising in spirit and, at the same time, pluralistic and diverse, involving hundreds of thousands of people, reaching into every corner of this society and powerfully impacting the whole world.”

Two examples taking off from the Peniel Joseph article you sent.

1. He cites positively the experience of The Dreamers [on immigration reform]. I encourage you to look them up if you’re not familiar. They were heroic young activists who put themselves on the line to fight for education and a future. What happened? While the Dreamers were protesting through “proper channels,” Obama deported more immigrants than any other sitting president in history. He incarcerated thousands upon thousands of families fleeing to the U.S. because of the deadly conditions that exist in their home counties (conditions that were created by the U.S. in the first place). Some laws were put into place which enabled The Dreamers to postpone deportation for themselves; meanwhile their families and those not able to go to school were deported in huge numbers... and the U.S. put into place very dangerous registration procedures aimed at bringing large numbers of immigrants out of the shadows to better surveil and control them. And all while fascist forces continued—and continue—to whip up a deadly xenophobic atmosphere.

Meanwhile, the powerful immigrant rights movement which sprung up several years ago was channeled into support for the Democrats, casting all its opposition into pro-U.S. terms and was completely demobilized, disoriented, and demoralized. This was a deadly dead end and an important lesson in exactly what is wrong with what Peniel Joseph is counseling. (I don’t have time now to pull up all the numbers, but I encourage you to research this further and don’t take my word for it.)

2. Then just look at the record of the president that Joseph is encouraging you to appeal to. What has he actually done to stop police murder, brutality, and mass incarceration? What is the actual substance of his record? I can cite some things here (a DOJ that has NEVER under Obama prosecuted a killer cop; Obama pardoned a few dozen prisoners but has overseen the war on drugs while president; and he then turned around and condemned the protesters as thugs, all the while defending the police killing our youth) but I really encourage you to look this up yourself and make the argument that appealing to the commander-in-chief of the American empire will do anything for the lives of Black and Brown people in this country. When has it ever and why will it now?

I’m going to enclose below the text of the call that we all read together the night we met and really encourage you to read it and think deeply about it. It makes this point: “History has shown that no significant change has been won without mass determined resistance.”

Can you make the case otherwise?

Finally, Carl Dix spoke well to the question of “reasonable demands” in his speech. Here’s our demand: 1. stop killing our people, and 2. indict, convict, and send cops who do murder people to jail. How is that not reasonable?

We really are at a turning point in history. Either the movement that began in Ferguson gets suffocated and derailed through repression and dead end channels of reform or it grows bigger, broader, more diverse and determined. This is right now, right here and on all of us—including you guys.

Finally on all this: you REALLY can’t base yourself on what makes you or people you know comfortable. You have to base yourself on what’s true and fight for that, no matter how it might challenge or unseat people. You were moved by hearing the stories of families of victims of police murder. You were right to be moved. Now remember those stories... multiply them by thousands and thousands and thousands. What is your responsibility to them? What is your responsibility to prevent this from ever happening to anyone else ever again?

Watch this video from Oscar Grant’s uncle, Uncle Bobby. (If you’re not familiar with Oscar Grant, watch the film Fruitvale Station on Netflix... watch it right now). Oscar was 22 years old, was shot in the back on New Year’s Eve 2009, he was handcuffed, lying face down in a BART station in Oakland.

And think of these words from Lorien Carter, whose 19-year-old nephew Tony Robinson was killed by Madison police this year:

“The ‘Truths’ they are providing to you are not truths at all. The reason #RiseUpOctober is so important is because I neglected the facts and my nephew paid... If this makes you uncomfortable, I’m glad. It should. The blood of all these people stain your hands, the same way it does mine.”

BE PART OF THE SOLUTION.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Warmly—and with a serious challenge,

---

A final thought: even if what you’re aiming for is reform, it is still the case that absolutely nothing will ever change for the better without broad, deep and determined resistance... and that without such resistance people will be ground down and demoralized while the genocide grinds on and even picks up steam, no matter how brilliantly “reasonable” the policy suggestions might be.

 

 

Volunteers Needed... for revcom.us and Revolution

Send us your comments.

If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.