This is the speech I gave at Left Forum's 2015 event named "No Justice, No Peace: Confronting the crisis of Capitalism and Democracy". From the panel "Ferguson: The Fu#$%&ing Conversation, Its Aftermath, and Moving Forward". Written and delivered by Brien Redmon at Jon Jay College of Criminal Justice on May 31st, 2015.
Allow me to state that I am not a leader in Ferguson. I am not a community organizer, a paid activist for a non-profit organization, or someone seeking to capitalize off black pain and suffering for my own personal benefit. I speak in no official capacity for anyone other than myself. What I am is an enraged citizen who is disgusted by the plight of my generation and should we fail the generations that will come after mine. I am embarrassed by how far we have come as a human race, not because we haven’t made any progress but because we have not progressed far enough. I was expecting the 21st century to be filled with mass-produced flying cars, hover boards, cures for deadly diseases plaguing the 20th century, and the end of the crony capitalism we have experienced for centuries. I thought we would have the Starship Enterprise warming up its warp drive in outer space fulfilling Gene Rodenberry’s dreams of boldly going where no man has gone before. Now imagine my disappointment that we have achieved none of these things I have mentioned, but instead are still combating the old demons from the 17th century. I’m talking about racism and all its various manifestations in American society. Considering the reason why we are all here today, I believe we can come to the reasonable agreement that America is anything but a post-racial society.
We were asked to come here to speak about Ferguson from a voice that is from Ferguson. But Ferguson is everywhere, and everywhere is Ferguson! You can travel to Cleveland, Charleston, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, and even here in New York City to find Ferguson. We are connected by the pain of loss and the burden of overcoming oppression institutionalized by systemic racism. We are connected in the collective outrage of the continued brutalization of black bodies both by police murdering our people and the judicial system that circumvents justice to instead protect police officers.
Things have gotten so bad that I was torn between making this trip to speak on this nationwide crisis and buying a gun. Not because I’ve developed a gun fetish like a sizable amount of the American population, but because I genuinely fear for my life. I am in fear for every black person’s life in America, from the oldest of elders to the smallest of infants. I am in fear for my life, my families’ lives, the lives of my unborn children, and for the lives of everyone that looks like me. Self-preservation is a powerful motivator, and since we as nation are not invested in the well-being of black people, it is up to us to protect ourselves. A gun is a tool to end lives, a weapon used to execute others when no other options are available to resolve a situation. Guns in America are being used as the first line of defense to punish petty crimes committed by black people. They are being used against black people by police officers, security officers, or neighborhood vigilantes even when no criminal infractions are committed at all. I cannot, nor will I attempt to, subject myself to the brand of protection offered by American police officers. These are officers who have murdered a total of at least 450 people within the span of 6 months, and that’s only the amount of people we can confirm have been killed by police. Any other organized group killing Americans this fast and at this high of a rate would be considered a terrorist organization. We would have troops on foreign soil at this time, ready to defend freedom and justice, oil and no-bid contracts, or whatever other excuses they use to invade another person’s homeland. Yet, America still loves the police officer, and still sees them as the personification of justice and righteousness.
Let me paint a picture for you. It is the portrait of the American police officer from its beginnings in American society. In colonial years, the Night’s Watch was established in multiple cities and spread throughout the south in the 1700’s. They were concerned with safety of citizens and maintaining control over slaves. They broke up slave gatherings, searched slave dwellings, and patrolled the roads for escaped slaves. They also supervised the free black people and “suspicious” white people who associated with slaves. When slavery was abolished in the south, police upheld and enforced the Black Codes, Jim Crow, and other segregation laws. They were members of the Ku Klux Klan, protected the Ku Klux Klan, allegedly assisted in the destruction of Black Wall Street during the Tulsa race riots, and protected racists at other anti-black protests, counter-protests, rallies, or actions. After the Civil Rights era, they continue to discriminate against minorities through systematic profiling, excessive force, and derogatory treatment that continues today. I make these points so you all can understand this statement: the objective of police, despite the evolving role they have had in American society, was never the protection or security of black people. I will not sit here and pretend that their purpose is to serve and protect the citizens of America, and neither should you.
When I first went into Ferguson for Michael Brown’s vigil in Canfield, I felt like I was in the middle of an occupation. There were officers standing in the middle of the road, surrounding their squad cars, decked out in riot gear with police dogs, riot shields, weapons, and plastic zip ties. An officer told the crowd “Bring it, all you fucking animals bring it!” This person supposedly charged with serving and protecting us is instigating a fight. Do you know what it’s like to see a sea of officers methodically stalking down the street with MRAPS behind them? It looked like something out of a Call of Duty video game. Except the insurgents they were after were residents and citizens using their first Amendment rights to peaceably assemble. You can disagree with the reasons why people assemble, you can even counter protest those people during their protests, but the very moment you deny their right to assemble then you are actively denying your own right to assemble. You make it okay to terrorize the people with military hardware and assault weapons for taking to the streets to protest. You excuse National Guard troops posting up on every street corner in full body armor actively intimidating American citizens for daring to speak up. The resident I talked to that lives less than a block away from the Ferguson Police Department spoke with me about how terrifying it was to have armed SWAT and National Guard troops rolling out military-grade weaponry for unarmed protestors in her backyard. Her reaction was like not that of those in outlying areas telling people to go home, but that the police are terrorizing the local population. Police officers were tear gassing journalists and people in their own backyards during city-wide imposed curfews. They shot rubber bullets and threw flash bangs into the crowds of people on multiple occasions.
On the night of the no incitement verdict, myself and 3 other men carried an injured woman down to the police for medical assistance, because she was allegedly having a heart attack and ambulances could not navigate through the back roads due to traffic. The only way to save her life was to put her in the hands of these officers who were just shooting at us with rubber bullets and other munitions. As we approached, the officers pointed weapons at us as we all screamed for assistance. We were told to put her down and we complied. Not even a second later, shots were fired above us and tear gas was thrown at me and these other courageous men by these cowardly officers. The entire scene is being blamed on people who are dying across the country instead of the officials, officers, and media who completely mishandled the situation that created protests in the first place. People who simply wanted the justice system to treat officers of the law in the same matter it treated the citizens, despite the fact that they knew they would not receive justice from this system in this city within this nation.
In Saint Louis, we love our segregation and our individual municipalities. There are 90 municipalities and 10 unincorporated census-designated places encompassing Saint Louis city and county for approximately 2 million people. As soon as Ferguson happened, work set out straight away to distance Saint Louis from Ferguson. What was once commonplace referred to as part of North Saint Louis County, which is a prime example of Saint Louis’ city-wide geo-politics and gerrymandering, is now its own entity in the national lexicon. Ferguson, Missouri is still dissected and examined under a microscope outside of the entire Saint Louis area, and it is exactly that response that is desirable by local news and politicians that mention or discuss Ferguson. They want the “this is an isolated incident” type of response that perpetuates itself throughout the mainstream media when police brutality against black people is discussed. They want to spread the “he or she must have done something wrong” mentality that minimizes black innocence when dealing with the police coupled with the digging into victim’s backgrounds to find their criminal history as a means to turn the victim into a criminal. They want people to shame those who break and vandalize property in response to broken black bodies and a judicial system that deliberately fails to give us justice. So quick to point and finger wag at people in Ferguson, Cleveland, or Baltimore for not expressing their outrage in well-tempered non-violent peaceful protest that they will forget the hypocrisy that white privilege affords.
So about here is where I’m going to lose a few of you, because you are not mentally prepared to have a black person call you out on your own bullshit. This is where you begin looking at the situation from a personal viewpoint, atomize the situation, and determine because you do not see a problem, it does not exist. I need you to stop making this personal and get real about the problem, because it is there, it does exist, and it affects everyone negatively. White privilege exists and thrives due to the institutionalized racism that, in this current trend of police killing black people, has been exposed through the way police have handled press releases, protests, and the cases themselves. It is a societal wide problem that involves and affects everyone across the globe, including you, your one black friend, your close and extended families, and anyone else you can think of. It is the reason that people from Palestine, Buddhist monks in China, and others from countries across the world have vocalized their support of Black Lives Matter. This conversation that we are supposed to be having at this point is over 400 years in the making, and it is about time you all open your eyes and ears, close your mouths and listen to the black people in America.
White privilege is not a guarantee that you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams. It is not champagne wishes and caviar dreams. You’re confusing that with the American Dream and that died many years ago. White privilege doesn’t guarantee you a 2 story home in a suburban neighborhood, three hot meals a day, and a brand new car. It’s not a 50,000 dollar a year job with a 401k, sick days, and vacation time. White privilege is invading an inhabited country and manipulating the indigenous people out of that land, but whitewashing the history books to paint the invaders as explorers. It is committing genocide against those people to secure more of the land not out of necessity, but a “manifest destiny” otherwise known as greed and entitlement. It is traveling to Africa to kidnap the indigenous people there to labor in cotton fields for generations with no financial benefits to the African slaves. White Privilege is treating those same Africans as livestock then denying that the mentalities attached to slavery and lynching are still present modern day society. It is placing an entire race of people in internment camps based on the color of their skin on the suspicion that they might be a terrorist. The privilege to never have your neighborhoods bombed, occupied by militarized police, or victimized by Eminent Domain. Your unfair advantage isn’t a college scholarship because mom and dad are more likely to be able to put you through college without foreclosing their homes. It is that after I obtained my degree, your last name and skin color makes you more likely to get employed than I am, even if you just got out of jail. White privilege means you do not have to worry about getting pulled over for driving while white. It’s when your one black friend tries to give you the illegal drugs or alcohol because he knows the cops will go easy on you. Essentially, my ancestors laid the framework for this country to be run by white people, for white people, to benefit white people.
I cannot understand how much clearer this could possibly be made for you. Perhaps if it was the central plot of a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lawrence and Ryan Gosling, then maybe you would pay attention and understand how white privilege works. Let’s get Imagine Dragons to do a collaboration double album with Fall Out Boy and Ariana Grande about how white supremacy dominates American society due to decades of inheritance, subconscious preferential treatment, and Social Darwinism. Maybe we could get the Kardashians to do a spin off show with the Duggars and call it “Keeping up with White Privilege”. Someone call Matt Greoning to so a Simpsons special or Seth McFarlane to mock it on Family Guy or American Dad. I’m at a loss on how to reach white society to realize how big of a problem this is, especially when white people seem to stick their fingers in their ears whenever I talk about their privilege or the system of supremacy that keeps them at the top of society. I mean yeah, you take your little jabs on social media, you openly slur black people on YouTube or other places on the internet, but in all reality it’s something you mull over for 5 minutes before totally forgetting about it. It’s not happening in your bubble, within the safety of your encapsulated cul-de-sac, so it’s not real to you. In Ferguson and the surrounding Saint Louis areas, people protested peacefully for a little over 3 months before the Michael Brown verdict occurred in November and it went mostly ignored by the media until the verdict not to indict Darren Wilson came back. So the message that is subconsciously being sent is as long as black people march peacefully, then you can comfortably ignore their cries for justice. If black people have to go to your neighborhoods and protest in your streets to finally light a fire under your asses to move, if they have to vandalize and loot your neighborhoods to get you to change, guess where they will head next? I will tell you this as plainly as humanly possible: This is not going away anytime soon.
During the two outbreaks of vandalism that occurred in Ferguson in relation to the Michael Brown killing and the vandalism that occurred in Baltimore due to the murder of Freddie Gray, there were pseudo-sympathies expressed by white people in regards to those young black people “destroying their own communities”. I will skip the comparisons between white and black riots, the reasoning and rationales that cause both, and the severity of rioting. I will forego the comparisons of how white people feel black people should protest with the invocations of non-violent movements in the 1960’s, despite the fact that not all of the protests in the 1960’s were non-violent or peaceful, or the quotation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. calling riots “the language of the unheard” being lost amidst the quotations of peace and brotherhood to quell black outrage. Instead, I will challenge you to find the data that supports that black people own their communities. Even in predominantly black neighborhoods, black people do not own the stores, businesses, land, or resources in that community. In Ferguson, businesses on the blocks are a hodge-podge of local and corporate chain businesses, few of which are owned by black people residing in Ferguson. The majority of Baltimore was devastated by foreclosure before Freddie Gray was murdered by police. Across the nation, black neighborhoods are under-developed by white men squatting on massive amounts of land waiting for minorities to get pushed out of the neighborhoods so they can gentrify the location. This is happening across much of the North Side of Saint Louis County by Paul McKee, and likely happens across the country by banks or land barons unwilling to develop the land. Even if black people were to own their own streets and cities, who is to say it would not end like the Tulsa race riots in 1921, or West Philadelphia during the MOVE bombing in 1985, or gentrified like Jackson Ward in Richmond, Virgina or Durham, North Carolina?
The dilapidation of the black neighborhood is a machination of white supremacy and institutionalized racism, and it is one of the primary reasons for the state of black people in America today. In Black Wall Street, a dollar circulated in the city between 36 to 100 times before leaving the community and today money remains in the black community for about 15 minutes. This is all by grand design, to control the black population and keep it under thumb. It is done to subconsciously brainwash you into believing that black people are uninspired to achieve, much like the school system and standardized testing are skewed towards suburban white children. Why? Why is so much effort being put forth to subconsciously suggest that black people are somehow lazy and inferior to white people, and why is so much effort placed in society to subjugate the black population? Simply put its control; controlling the movements and mentality of the population in efforts to keep us combating each other allows those who control society to do so unchallenged. This is the reason why the militarized police have been showing in force at Black Lives Matter protests, because there is a real fear of a black uprising happening.
Despite their desires of the opposite and the cries for peace, an uprising is happening. Words like “Uprising” and “Rebellion” are frightening to those wishing for change to occur through reason, or appealing to our common humanity, or attempting to change the system from within. At this crossroads we have reached, we cannot deny that changing the archaic systems of America through appealing to common humanity did not work for Occupy Wall Street, and it will not work for Black Lives Matter. This is the course we have set in America as an inevitable destination because of ignored cries for systemic change, freedom, and justice for all. We will not be silent anymore, we will raise our voices to ring loud enough to vibrate the heavens, and we will have our equality whether you are with us to obtain it or not!
We will have what we are owed for building America from the ground up. We will have what we are owed from being cast aside after we were no longer needed and strung up like animals on the violent whims of white people. We will have what we are owed from being shoved from one neighborhood to the next like the Native Americans were shoved from one end of the continent to another. We will have what we are owed, even if we have to bleed it out of every tyrant and every racist within the borders of America!
So what can white people do for the uprising? Be present in this struggle, combat racism in circles where I cannot tread, and dismantle the machinations of white supremacy. Please do not attempt to minimize or compartmentalize black pain, attempt to hijack the messages of the movement, or personalize the current struggle to be more inclusive towards you. While this is a systemic problem that is occurring, running around exclaiming “All Lives Matter” and speaking on your personal anecdotal accounts of dealing with police officers is never the same as a black person’s experiences on the matter. You are 10 times more likely to go home after an encounter with police and live in a world where the justice system works to serve you based on your skin color. While it may not serve you as well as a rich white person, it still serves you better than it will ever serve someone who looks like me.
The conversation we’ve been trying to have has been going on for over a century. At some point, we’ve failed at communicating the message that our lives matter as much as every other human life in this world and it has become lost in the translation of broken bodies. This presentation is not a continuation of the conversation of race relations and equality, but the end of this dialogue which has done nothing to advance both the value and prosperity of our lives here in America. Let this serve as a warning to those interested in maintaining the status quo, to those who are too afraid of standing up to the institutionalized racism that is choking the life out of America, and even to those who are fighting with us for the wrong reasons. We are not seeking your alliance, we are not going to coddle you and make you an exception for you because of your tolerance, and we are not here to be inclusive to your efforts alongside ours to fight for justice. This is not your show, you do not get to lead this waltz, and you will follow or you will be removed. White leadership in the Black community has done virtually nothing for us, and in this uprising you will learn to check your privilege. This is not an advertisement to join Black Lives Matter because black people need white support; this is a reality check about being on the right or wrong side of history. We will win whether you are on our side or against it, and it is your decision to pick oppression, apathy, or liberation in the struggle against racism and police brutality. For me this conversation is over, and the time for action is right now!