Tales from the American police state: Aurora, Anaheim, Chicago

If you are red, black or brown, America has from its foundation been more of a police state than the vaunted “land of the free, and the home of the brave.” These are the three historical and traditional groups of people who have never been quite fully accepted into the “American” family,” its body politic. To enforce their status as unacceptable step-children, the police, the courts, and prisons have been purposely designed and tasked to enforce their non-acceptance, their difference, and their eternal otherness.

Sure, select members of each of these groups have “made it,” as it were, but the overwhelming majority of them, remain on the outside looking in as America has struggled to paradoxically define itself as a “classless” yet “middle class” society. And, as always, it the exception that proves the rule.

“Social control” is more than an ethereal sociological or theoretical concept taught in grad school. Social control American style is the reality that this society is owned and organized by certain small “elite” groups whose main objective is to preserve their material advantage and power by controlling the behavior of everybody else. The police are paid to “serve and protect” the interests of the elite, and they therefore alternately isolate, cordon off, or occupy those areas and peoples who may threaten the status quo.

Recent “events” in Anaheim, Calif., are the latest case in point. There, home of the original Disneyland – “the happiest place on earth” – the local police department has taken the gloves off to reveal white American society's utter contempt for, in this instance, Hispanic and Latino people. Over a two-day period, the Anaheim Police Department (APD) has shot and killed two unarmed Hispanic men; attacked and wounded dozens of other “others” with rifled beanbags, rubber bullets, “service” revolvers, snarling, vicious dogs, and batons. Even babies in strollers were not exempt from the wrath of these rabid police officers. Ironically, these folks were initially peacefully assembled in protest of police brutality, racial profiling, and the city's continuing, historical misdirection of tax dollars to wealthy developers while city services and social needs go unmet. Because of its rigged “at large” voting system, it is especially telling that in a 53 percent Hispanic city only three Hispanic members to its city council have ever been elected.

Finally, there has been no national outrage or outcry over this incident, unlike the wall-to-wall coverage and saturation of the midnight murder of 12 in Aurora, Colo. Likewise, there has been no presidential visit or prayer vigil for the 250 murdered kids in Chicago. Anaheim and Chicago 's South and West Sides are expected to display dysfunctional behaviors. After all, that's what those people do. Therefore, there is no need to address their concerns or problems, for to do so would be simply pouring money down the proverbial rat hole.

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RESOURCES:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/07/federal-officials-to-investigate-anaheim-police-shootings.html

http://www.ocweekly.com/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/anaheim-police-fire-at-burglary-suspect-days-after-deadly-shootings-spark-violent-protests/2012/07/27/gJQAowpdDX_story.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaheim,_California