Freedom Rider: Taser Nation
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
"At every level of government, anyone wearing a uniform
gains the right to assault and to kill."
Apparently there are ticking time bombs on every block, in
every town across the country. Bar fights, traffic stops and other ordinary
forms of disruptive behavior cannot be allowed to go unchecked. Time is wasting
and someone has to be tortured quickly if we are all to be kept safe.
The proto-fascist direction of the nation is now enveloping
people who never saw themselves as the targets of state terror, that is to say,
white people. Black people were always victims of police brutality. White
people either approved or may have even felt sorry for Negroes but just didn't
care enough. They didn't think the same treatment would ever be meted out to
them.
Now thanks to video cameras and You Tube, everyone is now a
witness to the trickle down movement of police brutality. If the president and
vice president and Congress determine that torture is acceptable for some,
inevitably it becomes acceptable for all.
"Everyone is now a witness to the trickle down movement of
police brutality."
The argument being made by presidential candidates and law
professors is that torture is fine as long as the circumstances are right. Like
script writers for bad movies they all envision a "ticking time bomb" scenario.
The bomb ticks, a terrorism suspect is nabbed, and voila, we have ways of
making him talk. While Arabs and Muslims are the targets of the movie fantasy
moment, the jack boot of the state does not isolate itself, but instead makes
victims of anyone unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong
time.
Police brutality and selective prosecutions are not new. The
old fashioned billy club was the low tech weapon of yesteryear. Now that
physical torture has been championed by the White House, instead of being
practiced in the basements of police precincts, everyone is at risk. It just
isn't possible for abuse to be legitimized against one group.
In recent months there has been a spate of news stories,
with horrific video to match, showing police officers using Tasers to subdue
harmless people. In Warren, Ohio a cop used one of the stun guns on a handcuffed woman. A Utah
highway cop grew so annoyed with a blonde, blue eyed, white man who wouldn't
sign a traffic citation, that he gave him the 50,000 voltage jolt just to teach
him who was boss.
"Now that physical torture has been championed by the
White House, everyone is at risk."
None of these cops seemed to care that the video cameras
mounted on their cars noted their every act and comment. In the Utah case, the
itchy trigger fingered cop openly bragged to a colleague, "He took a ride with
the Taser." His friend replied jokingly for posterity, "Painful isn't it."
The United Nations Committee
Against Torture has announced that Tasers constitute a form of torture. It
is little wonder their usage has proliferated in Bushland. According to a 2006 Amnesty International
report, more than 150 Americans died after Tasers were used against them. It is
also not surprising that shooting human beings with jolts of electricity has
now become militarized.
The Defense Department has developed a "pain ray" that will
be used for crowd control in Iraq. The scarily named Active
Denial System (ADS) was created by the Raytheon corporation. (It is an
article of faith among the Bushites that nothing happens unless it sends loads
of cash in the direction of defense contractors.) Torture has moved from low
tech, water boarding, to high tech, rays that burn the skin. Bombs and bullets
are now passe for Iraqis, Uncle Sam wants them to suffer in new and different
ways.
"More than 150 Americans died after Tasers were used
against them."
Meanwhile back at the ranch in the United States, a local NAACP branch in Maryland has
called for a suspension of Taser use. Two black men were recently attacked with
police stun guns and one died. The original victim group remains victimized,
even as the terror spreads around the country and across the globe.
The occupation of foreign lands, and the attacks on civil
liberties at home and abroad lead down the same old road. At every level of
government, anyone wearing a uniform gains the right to assault and to kill. A
weary and distracted public becomes less and less likely to fight back. At the
very least we have You Tube to reveal those occasions when the petty dictators
decide to teach a lesson. As the Utah highway cop tells his victim, "You
wouldn't follow my instructions." That is all the rest of us need to know.
Follow instructions and you'll be safe, if you're lucky.
Margaret Kimberley's
Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York
City, and can be reached via e-Mail at
Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley' maintains an
edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com.
More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
Poverty i
Black Agenda Report will return with our next issue on Wednesday, September 10. Please watch our new video, "Inequality in Kenya: View From Kibera," produced in collaboration with the North-South…
Black Agenda Report's late Executive Editor, Glen Ford, gave this interview a decade after Hurricane Katrina to explore how the narrative of "starting over" is being used to whitewash the forced…
Twenty years ago, the world witnessed more than the suffering of hurricane Katrina's victims. The United States was exposed as a failed state controlled by the cruelties of racialized capitalism.
“It’s not like New Orleans was caught off guard. This could have been prevented.”
