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Millions More
A Tale of Two Cities: From DC to Toledo
by KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR
http://www.counterpunch.org/taylor10182005.html
This past weekend thousands of black Americans made
their way to Washington for the Millions More Movement
(MMM) march. The event billed as a "movement not a
march" against racism and the prison industrial complex,
to only name a few of its demands, was primarily organized
by Minister Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam (NOI).
The MMM was supposed to be the anti-Million Man
March of 1995. The Million Man March was largely
condemned for its sexist, exclusionary and generally
backward politics. Millions More was supposed to be
just that, millions more including women, gays, Latinos,
whites, socialists, and anyone else with a bone to pick
about the destructive direction of this country.
Millions did not show up, but thousands did in search of a political alternative to
the politics of racism, scapegoating, war and recession that are on offer from the
two dominant political parties in this country. There were handmade signs decrying
the injustice of our criminal "justice" system. There were photos of loved ones
killed by police or wrongfully convicted. There were signs denouncing Bush. People
showed up in search of a new movement, and instead were treated to a who's who of the
Black political and academic elite bent on congragulating themselves for their
unprecidented "unity".
It is not as if what anyone said was wrong. We heard the requisite speeches denoucing
the government's ill prepared rescue and relief effort in the Gulf. We heard the
speeches denouncing police brutality. We heard the litany of statistics outlining the
ongoing and deepening crisis in Black America. We heard the denunciations of Bush.
But it all sadly sounded like we'd heard it all before. To be sure, there were some
moments that stood out sharply. Elaine Johnson, mother of a son killed in Iraq,
eloquently and impassionately implored Black family members to get involved in the
fight against the war.
However, in many ways the twelve hour MMM program underscored the paralysis in Black
politics and revealed some of the underlying reasons a new movement has such
difficulty being organized. Most of the speakers in the program were middle aged or
older. Most of the speakers were men. Most of the speakers were middle class if not
flat out rich. Outrageously, march organizers canceled gay speaker Keith Boykin
without explanation, giving into the homophobic delusions of the Rev. Willie Wilson.
In other words, the program for MMM was old, sociallly and economically out of touch
with most African Americans, an unable to articulate the basis upon which a new
movement for civil rights and social justice can be organized.
Any new movement to be organized must take up the dysfunctional way in which the
Democratic Party is able to openly and forth rightly take Black votes while at the
same time referring to Black issues as "special interests". Black Democrats are
allowed to come to events like this and give cover to the rest of the Party. There
was not a single white Democrat at this fairly tame protest against racism-even
though Bill Clinton said he supported it.
At some point the Black Dems must be held accountable for the role that they too have
played in the fraying of the social saftey net that has come home to roost in the
aftermath of Katrina. In the 1990s when Bill Clinton was destroying "welfare as we
knew it", Black Democrats and the Black academic elite were cooing about Clinton as
our first Black president. While Clinton was putting more Black men into prison than
at any other time in our nation's history, Maxine Waters was comparing the Lewinsky
hearings to slavery. While Clinton was pushing to spend hundreds of million on "crime
prevention", former Black Panther and Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush, went to bat for
Clinton on his crime bill and then Rush voted for it to boot.
The inability for the Black Left to organize independently from the Democratic Party
means that when the Democrats move to the right-as they have on every social question
from welfare to affirmative action to abortion rights-the Left, Black or otherwise,
move on to the right with them. Every election cycle we are told is more important
than the last as they fill our heads with apocalyptic visions of GOP controlled
congresses and White Houses. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party that is more than
willing to take 90 percent of Black votes while eschewing issues that are important
to Black people. The focus on getting Democrats elected has moved the focus away from
building a movement that can fight for the things both Democrats and Republicans
oppose-an immediate end to the end of the war in Iraq, universal healthcare, an end
to the racist death penalty, and a blank check for Katrina survivors. This should be
our short list. Instead, last Saturday Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson once again vowed
revenge against Bush in the 2006 mid term elections and the 2008 presidential
election.
Meanwhile, several hundred miles away from the nation's capitol on the same day this
past weekend, the Black residents of Toledo, Ohio, had their own protest against
racism. There were no preachy covenants, no Princeton scholars, and no minister spoke
for 75 minutes. Instead, when the Black mayor of Toledo decided to let neo-Nazis come
to town and march through a Black neighborhood, people in the neighborhood-along with
other activists in the city-decided to take matters into their own hands. As an
anti-Nazis march went through the neighborhood ordinary Blacks who lived there joined
their neighbors on the streets, routed the Nazis and drove them out of Toledo. In a
mixture of jubilation and rage the crowd vented their disgust at the police and the
city administrators who had the audacity to allow the Nazis to march in their
neighborhood in the first place. Rocks were hurled at the police, a patrol cruiser
was flipped over and a few buildings were burned. Predictably the mayor blamed young
Black "gang members" for violence and looting conviently ignoring the fact he allowed
Nazis to march through a Black neighborhood!
Toledo is like many American cities. In 2003 it was ranked as the 20th poorest city
in the country. 33 percent of African Americans in the city live below the official
poverty line. In the last few years, Toledo has lost 13 percent of its manufacturing
jobs, which has disproportionately impacted Blacks that live in the area. Police
violence and corruption has compunded the resentment that local Blacks already feel.
In February of this year 41 year old Jeffrey Turner was arrested for loitering.
During the arrest he was hog tied with handcuffs and shocked with a taser gun five
times until he died of cardiac arrest. The local chapter of the NAACP found that the
cops were 68 times more likely to use tasers on Black suspects than anyone else. This
is the backdrop to the rage that flashed in Toledo this past weekend. It is the
tinderbox that exists in every city in the U.S.
The Black poor and working class are mad as hell at America. We are hungry, homeless,
imprisoned, preyed upon by police, left to the ravages of AIDS, humiliated, despised,
presumed to be unworthy of education-so much so that we are called refugees in our
country. You can not do this for and to a generation and expect no reprisals. The
well heeled politicians and elite who spoke at us for twelve hours on Saturday in
Washington D.C., would do well to heed the anger, resentment, and rage that boiled
over in Toledo-or they quickly run the risk of irrelevance to those whose lives are
being destroyed by the forces the Million More Movement was said to have been
organized against.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor lives in Chicago. She is author of Civil Rights and Civil
Wrongs: Racism in America Today and Racism and the Criminal In-Justice System, for
the International Socialist Review. She can be reached at
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I intend to last long enough to put out of business all *****-suckers
and other beneficiaries of the institutionalized slavery and genocide.
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"The army that will defeat terrorism doesn't wear uniforms, or drive
Humvees, or calls in air-strikes. It doesn't have a high command, or
high security, or a high budget. The army that can defeat terrorism
does battle quietly, clearing minefields and vaccinating children. It
undermines military dictatorships and military lobbyists. It subverts
sweatshops and special interests.Where people feel powerless, it
helps them organize for change, and where people are powerful, it
reminds them of their responsibility." ~~~~ Author Unknown ~~~~
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