by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo
Until this decade, Washington, DC was the quintessential “Chocolate City,” where Blackness was normal and white folks acclimated themselves to the environment. No more. Jason Goolsby became the latest victim of reckless “eyeballing of a white woman” in the former Chocolate City, because his young Black maleness made a white person nervous. Gentrification plus white privilege equals a lethal threat to Black lives.
Reckless Eyeballing in the Former Chocolate City and Rise Up October in New York
by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo
“Black control of the Black community is the only solution that will stop these intolerable and grotesque acts against African youth.”
The drumbeat of Black deaths, Black terror and humiliation continues unabated. This week, 18 year-old Washington, DC resident and University of the District of Columbia (UDC) student/musician Jason Goolsby found himself in the same position as Eric Gardner with policemen twisting his neck, forcing his hands behind his back and a white policeman’s knee on his back. Jason’s friend, @DaRealBigHomiee, says that they were approached by officers because “a white couple felt uncomfortable around me and my friend in the bank.” Fortunately, Goolsby survived his encounter with DC police who are never held accountable for murder or terror of Black citizens. Goolsby became the latest victim of reckless “eyeballing of a white woman” in the former Chocolate City.
Ethnic cleansing, commonly referred to as gentrification, is neither benign nor unintentional. Ethnic cleansing has placed Black lives in harms way as a result of white millennials’ migration to American cities in quest of shorter commutes and an urban infrastructure. This colonization has taken place with the blessing of banks and local governments. The implication is simple: the increase in millennial flight to the cities and the privileges attached to white people poses a direct threat to the lives of Black folks.
Emmitt Till, Tamir Rice, John Crawford, III, and Freddy Gray found themselves in the crosshairs of the police state by simply engaging in what slave patrols and their descendants – police officers – called “eyeballing.” As Jim Crow etiquette continues to enjoy resurgence, Black people find themselves surrounded by white millennials who hold white privilege as sacred as their forbearers did in Selma and Birmingham. Black people in Washington, DC had found a haven in which majority status protected the community from some of the most heinous traditions of Jim Crow. But, with demographics quickly changing and the Black majority dwindling, white privilege – protected by the police – is rearing is ugly head. A simple phone call from a miscellaneous white person landed Jason Goolsby face down in a near fatal position. His friend, was arrested for having the audacity to use his cell phone to record police terror.
“The increase in millennial flight to the cities and the privileges attached to white people poses a direct threat to the lives of Black folks.”
DC Metro police alleged that Goolsby took flight, but no mention of that was noted in the report. The police report reads: “The individual resisted, and was handcuffed while resisting after he refused to stop,” and “The person making the video was interfering with police, and was also detained while the incident was investigated.” The report never mentions why Goolsby was initially stopped by police, only that he resisted being thrown to the ground and nearly killed. The report concludes, “Neither individual was arrested.” Police reported to local media that they offered medical attention, but that Goolsby refused after being detained.
In the video, two cops assaulted 18-year-old Jason Goolsby as he lies on the ground writhing in pain, screaming “I’m not resisting!” His friend Mike is heard screaming in the background, “He didn’t do nothing!”
Lieutenant Sean Conboy of the metropolitan police department said in an emailed statement that the call to police claimed that “three subjects may be trying to rob people at the ATM” in the area of 6th St and Pennsylvania Ave SE. Conboy later confirmed that “no criminal act was found to have taken place after the individuals were stopped and interviewed” and said the department was “reviewing the circumstances surrounding the stop to ensure that policies and procedures were followed.”
According to The Guardian, Goolsby graduated from the Richard Wright Public Charter School for Journalism and Media Arts in 2015. He was able to attend University with the help of a $1,000 scholarship he earned from the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, of which Martin Luther King was a member.
Erika Totten, one of Goolsby’s former teachers at Richard Wright, said Goolsby was “one of the sweetest boys I’ve ever had the honor of teaching.”
As a result of police terror against Goolsby, community demonstrations were mobilized and supporters shut down Pennsylvania Avenue — one of Washington, DC’s main thoroughfares — for over an hour, and continued marching through the streets.
Our demand is non-negotiable: Black control of the Black community is the only solution that will stop these intolerable and grotesque acts against African youth. Black self-determination must guide all future discussions and negotiations.
“Community demonstrations were mobilized and supporters shut down Pennsylvania for over an hour.”
It is because of the inhuman treatment by police and government against the African community in the US that thousands will gather in New York on October 22-24 for “Rise Up October.” Carl Dix, Cornel West and James Land initiated this call to action. The Rise of October action will bring together family members who've lost loved ones to police violence, prominent voices of conscience, students, clergy, and artists. RiseUpOctober will launch a more defiant, more determined resistance aimed at nothing less than stopping the epidemic of illegitimate police terror and murderous targeting of Black and Brown people. A resistance that refuses to turn a blind eye to the thousands of lives stolen and families shattered, that will not be cowed by media and government vilification or pacified by empty promises of change, but insists on the end to police terror.
The 3 Days:
▪ October 22, 10:00 am, Times Square: No More Stolen Lives, Say Their Names, A Public Reading and Remembrance: A Demand for Justice. Over 40 families of people killed by police will gather to tell their stories, accompanied by prominent voices of conscience who will be reading the names of just some of the thousands of lives stolen.
▪ 2:00 pm, Borough Hall, Brooklyn: National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Murder, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.
▪ October 23 9:00 am "Shut Down Rikers!" A mass, nonviolent direct action. People of conscience are putting their bodies on the line to call for this torture chamber to be shut down. Details TBA.
▪ October 24: National March to STOP Police Terror: Which Side are You On? Washington Square Park, NYC 11 am. March at 1:00 PM; Closing Rally at Bryant Park at 4:00 PM. Students, religious congregations, contingents from housing projects, and people from all across the country -- we will gather in the thousands and tens of thousands with the demand: Terror and Murder By Police Must STOP.
5 minute video introduction to #RiseUpOctober, hearing some of the families who are organizing and initiators Cornel West and Carl Dix.
For more information:or RiseUpOctober.org
646.709.1961
[email protected]
Twitter - #RiseUpOctober
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Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is the author of No FEAR: A Whistleblowers Triumph over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA. She worked at the EPA for 18 years and blew the whistle on a US multinational corporation that endangered South African vanadium mine workers. Marsha's successful lawsuit led to the introduction and passage of the first civil rights and whistleblower law of the 21st century: the Notification of Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (No FEAR Act). She is Director of Transparency and Accountability for the Green Shadow Cabinet, serves on the Advisory Board of ExposeFacts.com and coordinates the Hands Up Coalition, DC.
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