White Minority Rule And Police Violence Explained…

The injus­tice plagu­ing America is a byprod­uct of hatred taught in mil­lions of homes nation­wide. From those homes come young peo­ple who are going to col­leges of all kinds from those col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties, includ­ing mil­i­tary col­leges. They are grad­u­at­ing and enter­ing pol­i­tics with the hatred taught them in their homes.
And so we get mil­i­tary offi­cers and politi­cians, lawyers and judges, and peo­ple who pop­u­late the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors. They rise to posi­tions of tremen­dous pow­er, includ­ing the pres­ti­gious posi­tions of pres­i­dent, Supreme Court jus­tices, and US senators.
Then there are those at the bot­tom, cops, those who essen­tial­ly did not do so well in school but want in on the pow­er of white­ness, so they clam­or to be a part of law enforce­ment. Through law enforce­ment, they get to wield immense pow­er, includ­ing the pow­er to take life. And so they opt for the crash course taught in the police acad­e­mies, light in laws and human rights, heavy on sub­ju­gat­ing, shoot­ing to kill, and indoc­tri­na­tion on mak­ing peo­ple bow to their demands.
After a few weeks of that crash course, they are ful­ly empow­ered to do as they please to whomev­er they please.
That is the mil­i­tary arm of white suprema­cy (the police) sup­port­ed by those who nev­er both­ered attend­ing col­lege or could not cut it academically.
Audio ver­sion of Article.

LET US BACKTRACK A LITTLE
During the ear­ly enslave­ment of African peo­ple in the United States, the planters were con­cerned about the num­ber of enslaved peo­ple being brought in. Not that they did not like the free labor and the abil­i­ty to own oth­er peo­ple, but their con­cerns were cen­tered around main­tain­ing control.
As it is today, where real wealth is cen­tered in the hands of a tiny few at the top, the planters also had con­cerns with the white pop­u­la­tion that did not have access to the life of lux­u­ry and opu­lence they enjoyed.
So the prob­lem was two-fold, the increas­ing num­ber of black enslaved peo­ple and the impov­er­ished white pop­u­la­tion that looked at their wealth suspiciously.
A way had to be found to ensure a com­mon cause was not estab­lished between the two groups. American racism was born.
The strat­e­gy employed includ­ed hir­ing white over­seers on the plan­ta­tions and giv­ing them carte blanch to do as they pleased with the enslaved blacks with­out con­se­quence. They were allowed to beat, tor­ture, rape, and abuse the slaves.
Additionally, poor white trash was hired as slave patrols, indi­vid­u­al­ly and as col­lec­tives, to hunt down and cap­ture run­aways and return them to their masters.
Although the white under­class resent­ed the wealth and opu­lence of the super-rich plan­ta­tion own­ers, they were hap­py to be giv­en the pow­er to super­vise and hunt down run­aways and to inflict pun­ish­ment on them.
They were hap­py to have some­one to feel supe­ri­or to. Their hatred for the cap­tive black peo­ple far exceed­ed their envy of the wealth and opu­lence of their white counterparts.

THE DANGEROUS CLASS

Dr. Philip L. Reichel, Professor Emeritus of Sociology University of Northern Colorado in 2022, wrote, ‘the con­tin­u­al and obvi­ous force devel­oped by the South to con­trol its ver­sion of the “dan­ger­ous class­es” was the slave patrol. The demo­niza­tion of enslaved black peo­ple as dan­ger­ous has roots dat­ing back to the gen­e­sis of American slavery.
The disin­gen­u­ous thing about those who owned slaves was a dis­con­nect in their reac­tion when their cap­tives fled bondage.
Reichel wrote. The por­tray­al of slaves as docile, hap­py, and gen­er­al­ly con­tent with their bondage has been successfully
chal­lenged in recent decades. We can today express amaze­ment that slave­own­ers could have been unaware of their slaves’ unhap­pi­ness, yet some whites were con­tin­u­al­ly sur­prised that slaves resist­ed their sta­tus. Such an atti­tude was not found only among Southern slave­own­ers. In a 1731 adver­tise­ment for a fugi­tive slave, a New England mas­ter was dis­mayed that this slave had run away “with­out the least provo­ca­tion” (quot­ed in Foner, 1975: 264). Whether pro­voked in the eyes of slave­hold­ers or not, slaves did resist their bondage. That resis­tance gen­er­al­ly took three forms: run­ning away, crim­i­nal acts, and con­spir­a­cies or revolts. Any of those actions con­sti­tut­ed a dan­ger to whites.
The black enslaved pop­u­la­tion was not all docile; enslaved peo­ple found inge­nious ways to fight back. Slave revolts and oth­er means of resis­tance ensued though most of America’s his­to­ry as a slave-hold­ing nation has been scrubbed of these events. Poisoning became a trea­sured tool of the enslaved.
According to Dr. Reichel, con­sis­tent with the ear­li­est enforce­ment tech­niques iden­ti­fied in English and American his­to­ry, the first means of con­trol­ling enslaved peo­ples was infor­mal in nature. In 1686 a South Carolina statute said any­one could appre­hend, chas­tise and send home any enslaved per­son found off their plan­ta­tion with­out autho­riza­tion. In 1690 such action was made everyone’s duty or be fined forty shillings (Henry, 1968: 31). Enforcement of slav­ery by the aver­age cit­i­zen was not to be tak­en light­ly. A 1705 act in Virginia made it legal “for any per­son or per­sons what­so­ev­er, to kill or destroy such slaves (i.e., runaways)…without accu­sa­tion or impeach­ment of any crime for the same.” 

UNDERSTANDING THE FOUNDATION OF THE INHERENT VIOLENCE IN MODERN POLICING

The move­ment of enslaved peo­ple was strict­ly reg­u­lat­ed and enforced. Enslaved peo­ple found off the plan­ta­tions on which they were cap­tives with­out per­mis­sion papers faced a grue­some death at the hands of any­one who desired to end their lives.
After slav­ery, jim crow laws were cre­at­ed to keep the new­ly released black pop­u­la­tion in check. Sundown Towns became a thing all across the coun­try. Sundown Towns still exist in the United States today, where black peo­ple know that if they are caught after sun­down, death poten­tial­ly awaits. Yes, in 2023.
What makes it so shock­ing today, as it has been since slav­ery and direct­ly after eman­ci­pa­tion, is that assault on African-Americans in the United States is gen­er­al­ly led by the police or what­ev­er exists as law enforcement.
Police are still autho­rized to use uncon­sti­tu­tion­al means to stop black peo­ple and demand their iden­ti­fi­ca­tion for no legit­i­mate rea­son, and it’s all legal, accord­ing to the supreme court.

WHY IS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ROOT OUT THIS VICIOUSLY WICKED SYSTEM
At present, the Republican par­ty is the par­ty most­ly in defense of white suprema­cy and is opposed to expand­ing vot­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to all Americans who qual­i­fy. It is the par­ty that stands in the way of police reform. The Republican Governor in Florida has tak­en extreme steps to lim­it the teach­ing of African-American his­to­ry in high schools and col­leges, label­ing it ‘woke.’
The Republican major­i­ty on the supreme court in 2013 dis­man­tled the 1965 vot­ing rights act under the guise that there is no fur­ther need for the law because the con­di­tions that exist­ed that neces­si­tat­ed its pas­sage are no longer here. It goes with­out say­ing that the rea­son­ing was an out­right lie by the John Roberts court. But dis­man­tling the land­mark vot­ing rights law was a long­stand­ing goal of Roberts, a for­mer Reagan admin­is­tra­tion aide.
Immediately after the deci­sion of the court in Shelby County, Alabama V Holder, Republican-run States set about pass­ing laws mak­ing it extreme­ly more dif­fi­cult to vote. They removed drop box­es, reduced ear­ly vot­ing days, closed the major­i­ty of the polling sta­tions in pre­dom­i­nant­ly black neigh­bor­hoods, and Georgia even made it a crime to offer a per­son stand­ing on a vot­ing line a bot­tle of water.
But that was not all; black vot­ers were forced to stand in lines snaking around city blocks to vote. The process result­ed in those vot­ers hav­ing to spend up to ten hours in order to vote.
To that vot­er, it means los­ing a day’s pay to cast their bal­lot. Losing a day’s pay is a humungous poll tax that African-Americans have been forced to pay since they were allowed to vote, some­thing white vot­ers in sub­ur­ban and rur­al areas nev­er have to wor­ry about.

THE EXISTING BUILDING BLOCKS AGAINST ENDING WHITE SUPREMACY AND POLICE VIOLENCE

Several struc­tur­al built-ins have worked effi­cient­ly to ensure the con­tin­u­a­tion of white suprema­cy, despite the coun­try’s racial make­up changes.
(1) The sen­ate fil­i­buster: In the Senate, a fil­i­buster is an attempt to delay or block a vote on a piece of leg­is­la­tion or a con­fir­ma­tion. To under­stand the fil­i­buster, it’s nec­es­sary first to con­sid­er how the Senate pass­es a bill. When a sen­a­tor or a group of sen­a­tors intro­duces a new bill, it goes to the appro­pri­ate com­mit­tee for dis­cus­sion, hear­ings, and amend­ments. If a major­i­ty of that com­mit­tee votes in favor, the bill moves to the Senate floor for debate. Once a bill gets to a vote on the Senate floor, it requires a sim­ple major­i­ty of 51 votes to pass after debate has end­ed. But there’s a catch: before it can get to a vote, it actu­al­ly takes 60 votes to cut off debate, which is why a 60-vote super­ma­jor­i­ty is now con­sid­ered the de fac­to min­i­mum for pass­ing leg­is­la­tion in the Senate. (Brennancenter​.org)
(1) Two US sen­a­tors per state. Each state gets two US sen­a­tors regard­less of size or pop­u­la­tion. So Wyoming, with just over half a mil­lion res­i­dents statewide (578,803), has the same clout in the sen­ate as California, with forty mil­lion (40, 000,000 )res­i­dents, or New York, with twen­ty mil­lion (20,000,000) residents.
The math is sim­ple, Wyoming, with a pop­u­la­tion of just over half a mil­lion res­i­dents, 92.4% of them white Caucasians, gets to can­cel out the voic­es of California’s peo­ple of col­or, who make up a whop­ping 65.3% of that state’s population.
(3) White minor­i­ty rule: Intelligencer reports Republican sen­a­tors haven’t rep­re­sent­ed a major­i­ty of the U.S. pop­u­la­tion since 1996 and haven’t togeth­er won a major­i­ty of Senate votes since 1998. Yet the GOP con­trolled the Senate from 1995 through 2007 (with a brief inter­reg­num in 2001-02 after a par­ty switch by Jim Jeffords) and again from 2015 until 2021Five Supreme Court jus­tices (and many low­er court judges) were con­firmed by sen­ates where the GOP major­i­ty was elect­ed with less pop­u­lar sup­port than Democrats. Those right-wing hard­lin­ers are now poised to use their con­trol over the court to attack vot­ing rights and pre­serve Republican ger­ry­man­ders while strik­ing down pro­gres­sive poli­cies. This same minor­i­ty rule has also paved the way for mas­sive tax cuts for the rich under George W. Bush and Donald Trump, facil­i­tat­ing eco­nom­ic inequality.
Even though the US sen­ate is almost even­ly split between Republicans, who rep­re­sent white suprema­cy, and the Democratic par­ty, which rep­re­sents every­one else, Democratic sen­a­tors rep­re­sent tens of mil­lions more peo­ple than their Republican counterparts.
Vox​.com report­ed The impli­ca­tions of this malap­por­tion­ment are breath­tak­ing. Among oth­er things, Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett were all nom­i­nat­ed by a pres­i­dent who lost the pop­u­lar vote and con­firmed by a bloc of sen­a­tors rep­re­sent­ing less than half the coun­try. If the United States chose its lead­ers in free and fair elec­tions, none of these indi­vid­u­als would serve on the Supreme Court — and Democratic appointees would like­ly have a major­i­ty on the Court.
It goes fur­ther than Vox imag­ined; John Roberts the chief jus­tice, and Samuel Alito were elect­ed by pres­i­dent George W Bush who also lost the pop­u­lar vote.
Five of the six Republicans on the court tak­ing away rights that Americans enjoyed for decades have been appoint­ed by two pres­i­dents put in place against the wish­es of the major­i­ty of the American peo­ple through the mon­stros­i­ty called the Electoral col­lege. No oth­er so-called demo­c­ra­t­ic nation has a sys­tem that ignores the major­i­ty of its vot­ers and replaces their will with a con­vo­lut­ed sys­tem in which the los­er becomes the winner.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.