I've written on this site about Kelly Ingram park before. The statues there inspired me both before, and after, my own battle against injustice and for personal freedom. I paid another visit to this park again just this past January. [It's the only pic I have in photbucket, b/c I posted it on dkos a couple years ago]
This statue in downtown Birmingham is based off one of Bill Hudson's photos( and as I've said many times, it's one of the more shocking statues that I've stood in front of).
Bill Hudson, an Associated Press photographer whose searing images of the civil rights era documented police brutality and galvanized the public, died Thursday of congestive heart failure in Florida, according to his wife, the former Patricia Gantert. He was 77.
Hudson's most enduring image is of police turning their dogs loose on civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963.
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The reason that statue is there as a commemoration isn't just for those who lived in the 60s and put it up.
It's for future generations to be reminded of what racism and police brutality look like. We live in a post-police state- era....and if you believe that, you are one of those who think electing Obama means there is no such thing as racism in America anymore.
Police brutality..There are folks who tsk-tsk over this issue, lamenting how there is negative perceptions of police brutality/misconduct, as if we should not hold law enforcement(or the military) accountable due to our status as 'patriotic amerrikans'. As if "American exceptionalism" is the rule, and only OTHER countries' law enforcement don't uphold a racist status quo. You remember the early days of the Iraq war when anyone criticizing the war was accused of "not supporting the troops"? Unfortunately, we see apologists for police misconduct/brutality and various other pro-police groups make the same exact accusations against American citizens that are holding law enforcement accountable. The police are NOT above the law, and they are paid with OUR tax dollars. So cops work for us, and it is mandatory as a society to constantly remind law enforcement of that fact. Statistically speaking, it's more dangerous to be a pizza delivery driver than a police officer, so there is no excuse for scores of citizens to be beaten/killed by public servants paid with my tax dollars, in my name.
The issue hasn't gone away, either. Not even two days after witnessing a "tribute" to a fallen police officer, on this site, claim that some citizen police watchdogs are equivalent to "60s era culture" warriors who hate the police because...uh...police aren't cool, or some other such nonsense, the national media blew up with a video of a Seattle cop punching a teenage African-American woman. Obviously, this is not some kind of 'obsolete' issue for the American citizenry, and what we see on video is merely a fraction of what happens. And any lowbrow attempt at revisionist history that says American citizens 'dislike' police because they aren't "cool" or because they want to "fight the power".....that's obviously the voice of white privilege. Of inexperience. Of ignorance.
Bill Hudson's photographs were a wake-up call to folks in the 1960s who said the SAME EXACT THING about civil rights protesters that I hear from apologists (and marijuana prohibitionists) to this very day. What was happening in Birmingham in the 60s wasn't the result of hatred of police, or disrespect for the rule of law. It was an example of how law enforcement serves as the fascist boot for a fucked up cultural status-quo. Our current War on (Some) Drugs is no longer popular, but you see the same apologists for the status-quo hide behind police officers instead of openly debating the injustices in our laws, our broken judicial systems (just look at California), and police racism/racial profiling. No doubt these apologists are the same folks cheering on the wars abroad in Iraq/Afghanistan, who cheer on Israel's occupation, and who clamor for more $$ and soldiers to fight the Drug War in Mexico/South America.
Justice. Peace. Sane laws. Perhaps in an increasingly insane/manic world it is too optimistic to hope for any of those three, but here's to having a few less apologists in the world, and a few more Bill Hudsons.
-CTB