Black Lives Matter

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I posted about donating to bail bonds and some readers objected. Let me address the objections.

The most common one is that there is too much looting and violence, and that we should support peaceful protestors. I can't take this objection seriously when the critics show no indignation over police violence, first from the systematic killing of black people by police and then by the overly violent police response to protests. Don't just read the headlines that talk about looting. Read the social media, look for the videos by protestors that document what is happening. The protests are largely peaceful and the police have been responding with tear gas, rubber bullets (which are far from harmless), batons, and other kinds of violence. In short, any horror about protestors' violence that doesn't at the same time bring up the much more serious problem of police violence reveals the investments of the critic in maintaining a system where the police are allowed to use violence whenever they want, typically against populations that are marginalized and usually invisible. If middle class, upper class, white, and white adjacent populations were subject to the routine deployment of police violence in the way black, brown, indigenous and poor communities are subject to such violence, we would dismantle the police tomorrow.

On "looting": anybody who uses that word and does not at the same time acknowledge that the United States (and many other imperial and colonial countries like France, Belgium, Australia, Spain) are built on the systematic looting of black, brown, indigenous, and yes, Asian peoples and countries is blind to history. The USA would not exist except for the white settler theft of land from indigenous and Mexican people; and the looting of black bodies from Africa, otherwise known as enslavement. Asian migrant labor in the USA also helped build this country, and they were looted by exploitative businesses, too. Is looting wrong? If so, you better understand that the looting of stores are individual crimes, while the looting that is genocide and slavery is systematic, with its history whitewashed and its benefits built into a system of white supremacy that benefits white people in ways that they don't even acknowledge (for example: whose mortgages are approved; whose wealth is transferred and inherited; whose bodies are subject to police violence; whose schools are better funded; and on and on).

On the plight of individual shop owners, especially people of color, whose stores have been damaged or destroyed: my own parents were small business owners in Vietnam and California, and were violently attacked in both countries by thieves. So I get the personal, human dimension of people who feel that they have not done anything to deserve the violence that they or their businesses have been subject to. But I'll point to the Los Angeles riots of 1992 as a previous example of this issue. About $800 billion of property damage was suffered, about half of it born by Korean immigrant store owners. That's a tragedy, and the Korean American community suffered tremendously from economic and psychic damage. But put that in contrast to other figures. 62 people died during the riots; 1 was Korean American, most were black and brown people. Thousands were arrested; most were black and brown people. What that tells me is that black and brown people paid with their lives and liberty, either for "looting" or for protesting the conditions of their racial and economic segregation that they had endured for decades in LA (Los Angeles, for decades, was built on "redlining" where certain neighborhoods were reserved for whites, and other neighborhoods were reserved for black and brown and--for quite a while--Asian people, enforced by racial covenants and by discriminatory real estate and lending practices). Korean Americans suffered, but economically. They had businesses and wealth to lose, but they didn't pay with their lives or liberty, at least immediately (how much PTSD and long term consequences they suffered, I don't know how to quantify, but they did). This is the racially and economically stratified nature of American society, which is how capitalism operates and which is where immigrants and Asians are inserted. Korean Americans knew this and were enraged that the LAPD basically cordoned off Koreatown and let it burn. Korean Americans realized that they had been sacrificed to appease the anger of black, brown, and poor people. That is why, in the days after the riots, Korean Americans marched en masse, not to denounce their black and brown neighbors and customers, but to denounce the LAPD and the racial/class system that allowed Korean Americans a margin of success, until the system decided to sacrifice them as the middle and model minority. So anybody who talks about the plight of individual shopkeepers without understanding how they fit into this larger system doesn't get it. They don't get that the system doesn't really care about this individual shopkeeper. The system will elevate the shopkeeper--often an immigrant--as proof of the American Dream, but when the American Dream collapses on its own contradictions, the immigrant or individual shopkeeper will be sacrificed. Why else did the overwhelming portion of the financial rescue funds for this country go to corporations instead of small businesses?

Lastly, on the use of bail funds: some have asked about whether the bail funds can be targeted only to nonviolent protestors. I addressed the problem of singling out violence above. But on the issue of whether to target funds at all, let's consider what the function of bail funds are for. Like a lot of other things in this country, bail is not neutral. Everyone can use the bail system, but who actually can afford to do it? There's a movement afoot to abolish the cash bail system, because cash bail is a way to keep poor people--disproportionately black, brown, and indigenous--in prison for crimes of which they have not yet been convicted. If they can't afford bail, they can't get out of jail, but the reasons for which they are in jail can be highly suspect. So there is a larger question of social justice around bail that bail funds address. As for this particular instance, the majority of arrests have been of protestors, not of "looters," so for both these reasons, I'm not terribly worried that my donations will bail out "looters."

Final note: Martin Luther King Jr. said that "riot is the language of the unheard." This is your test to see if you can hear.


(Viet-American author Viet Thanh Nguyen)

[V.I.Lãng]

Xin mời các ông bà cô chú bác anh chị tham gia biểu tình như vầy nhé #BlackLivesMatter.
Please gimme a break. Đạo đức giả

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Vy ơi, có video giải tán đồng bọn ...biểu tình ở chỗ mà lúc ông Trump mình đi bộ đến nhà thờ để hold bible chụp hình ko? nhờ Vy post lên cho bà con coi với. thank you, Vy nha.

[V.I.Lãng]

Visa dear,

Vụ đốt nhà thờ ở Washington D.C. là Anh Ốc rõ nhứt, Visa vòi ảnh đi, ảnh kể nghe chi tiết phù phiếm hơn.

Nói chứ, hai mình biết nhau đã 15 năm rồi phải hông, mình biết tính nhau quá đi chứ . Nếu Visa có gặp Anh Buck, Chị Tơ nơi mô cho V gửi lời thăm sức khỏe. Ngày xưa, Anh Buck trông phong độ đẹp trai ghia, hông biết dạo này ảnh có còn ở Virginia không, có còn đi chợ Eden nữa không? Anh cứ bảo Visa lí lắc sao hông có chồng đi, rứa mà ... Hy vọng ảnh bị hắt xì khi đi ngang qua đây

Trước khi chào tạm biệt Visa, V gửi poster này Visa treo chơi cho đỡ buồn nha

[ốc]

Vụ đốt nhà thờ ở D.C. hình như đâu có phải là em đốt làm sao em biết rõ?

Chị V.I. chê ai đạo đức giả vậy chắc tin Trâm là đạo đức thiệt.

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nice sign & table. thanks Vy! thấy Vy có nhiều video protests thế nên tưởng Vy có video ông Trump giải tán đồng bọn...biểu tình cho ổng bước từng bước từng bước đến nhà ...thờ chỉ để chụp...hình. vả lại, ốc trong có vẽ ...mến ông Trump nên hong có chịu nói gì phụ phàng về Trump đâu nên đừng hỏi.

Buck anh & sis Tơ...where art thou? my favs!
sorry Visa hong liên lạc với ai offline nên hong biết.

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Vụ đốt nhà thờ ở D.C. hình như đâu có phải là em đốt làm sao em biết rõ?

Chị V.I. chê ai đạo đức giả vậy chắc tin Trâm là đạo đức thiệt.

hahaahaaa...ốc mến Trump đến thế chắc có tại hiện trường?!? yes? no? may be so?
chời ơi...Trump là người cầm bibble chụp hình thì phải đạo đức...thiệt chứ.

[ốc]

All lives matter thì Black lives cũng matter. Nói "Black lives matter" thôi chứ có ai đòi "Black lives matter more" hồi nào mà đã sợ mất phần.

'I can't breathe': death of black man in custody ruled a homicide in Washington
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...shington-state

The death of an African American father of two who called out “I can’t breathe” while handcuffed in police custody in March in Washington state has been ruled a homicide, according to a medical examiner’s report released Wednesday.

Manuel Ellis, 33, died of respiratory arrest on 3 March in Tacoma, about 35 miles south of Seattle, due to hypoxia and physical restraint, said Rich O’Brien, an investigator for the Pierce county medical examiner’s office. Other factors that may have contributed to his death included methamphetamine intoxication and heart disease.

On Wednesday morning, the four officers involved in the arrest were placed on administrative leave while the Pierce county Sheriff’s Department conducts an independent investigation of Ellis’s death.

Công an trong nước mà giết ai thì chắc cũng ok với các Trâm binh.

[ốc]

"Words on the street" (literally).

City of DC Painting ‘Black Lives Matter’ on Street Near White House
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/l...quare/2323647/

The city of Washington, D.C., is echoing a call for justice by painting a message on a street that leads to the White House: Black lives matter.

Before dawn Friday, a D.C. Department of Public Works crew closed the street so the painting could begin. The yellow letters stretched from curb to curb of 16th Street NW between H and K streets.

The two blocks are just north of Lafayette Square, where anti-police-brutality and anti-racism protesters have chanted "Black lives matter" for a week, moved by the death of George Floyd.

NBC4

[ốc]

DC mayor renames street near White House 'Black Lives Matter Plaza'
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...0883ec2fc1b560

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has just announced that the section of 16th Street NW in front of the White House has been renamed “Black Lives Matter Plaza.”

The DC chapter of Black Lives Matter is unimpressed with Muriel Bowser after the mayor painted a “Black Lives Matter” message on 16th Street near the White House.

The BLM chapter described the painted message as a “performative distraction from real policy changes,” calling on Bowser to defund the police.

This is a performative distraction from real policy changes. Bowser has consistently been on the wrong side of BLMDC history. This is to appease white liberals while ignoring our demands. Black Lives Matter means defund the police.

Nên đổi tên đường trước Trâm Hồteo nữa: "Fraud Street."

NY, LA, SF, CHI you're next.