When Americans forsake civil liberties in the name of the fictitious"Global War On Terror", it's not hard to guess whose liberties are thrown under the bus first.
We're sorry, but the audio for this Black Agenda Radio commentary is no longer available.
The Racially Uneven Theft of Civil Liberties
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"Just as ‘terror' is anything the Bush administration wants it to be, so is gang association anything the local police claim it to be."
Since 9/11, everyone on the Left has been alarmed at the systematic erosion of civil liberties. And with good cause. The Bush regime has taken a buzz-saw to the Constitution, and the supposedly opposition Democrats have retreated so far to the rear, it is doubtful they would restore pre-9/11 civil liberties even if they had two-thirds supermajorities in both houses of Congress. The Constitutional rot is now general, and well-advanced.
But what about those targeted groups that were never afforded full constitutional protections, during supposedly "liberal" good times and bad? For all intents and purposes, and with the obvious assent of majorities of American whites, whole communities of Black and brown people have been placed in a constitutional twilight zone - one that predates 9/11 and has only gotten worse, since.
Remember when racial profiling was finally on the way to being discredited as a legitimate police practice - when nearly every politician of both parties was quick to denounce racial profiling as an "un-American" abomination? Those days are long gone. Majorities of Americans now say racial profiling is a "price that must be paid" for national security in a time of anti-terror war. Of course, the white majority doesn't pay that price - Black and brown people do. It makes one wonder: When the so-called "war on terror" is over, will Blacks and browns get a rebate for having paid such a higher price in their civil liberties - a kind of civil liberties reparations, so to speak?
"Majorities of Americans now say racial profiling is a ‘price that must be paid' for national security in a time of anti-terror war."
Individual whites of a leftist persuasion, or those who are mistaken as leftists, are subject to deprivation of rights they once considered inalienable, during the open-ended war on...whoever...these days. But civil liberties deprivation has always been a group affair for Black and brown people in the United States. Under the current anti-terror regime, whole communities and demographic cohorts are subjected to extraordinary surveillance and police state methods. I'm talking about people who don't speak a word of Arabic or Farsi; people for whom the American police state has always existed as a fact of daily life - a price that Blacks and browns have to pay so that other Americans can feel safe.
The most oppressed, spied upon, hunted, dogged and besieged cohort in the United States, is young Black males.
Across the country, and especially in California, the racist criminal justice system is rapidly making it a crime for young African Americans to associate with one another. Whole neighborhoods of Black male youth - and an increasing number of females - are being dragooned - shanghaied - onto official lists of criminal conspirators, who can only speak to or be seen with one another on pain of conviction for engaging in some vague kind of racketeering. Good boys and bad, brothers, cousins and childhood friends, even neighbors who don't even like each other, all thrown together on lists of the damned. Just as "terror" is anything the Bush administration wants it to be, so is gang association anything the local police claim it to be.
Who is paying the price for the security of American society? The same people who have always paid the price.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
To hear this Black Agenda Radio commentary, click on the mic at left. Of to save the MP# file to your hard drive, right-click on the mic and choose "save as".
This week’s featured author is Maboula Soumahoro. Soumahoro is Associate Professor in the English department of the University of Tours. Her book is Black is the Journey, Africana the Name.
This week’s featured author is Jesse Olsavsky. Olsavsky is Assistant Professor of History at Duke Kunshan University in China.. His book is The Most Absolute Abolition: Runaways, Vigilance Committees…
Zionist efforts to influence U.S. elections are not surprising, nor is their concern solely about policy towards Israel. The broader goal is to kill solidarity between the oppressed in this country…
Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez are now President and Vice President of Colombia. Their Historic Pact coalition will face many challenges in fulfilling its commitment to make fundamental change in…
John Parker continues reporting from his trip to Russia and Ukraine earlier this year. His perspective is rarely seen in U.S. media.
