Practical Politics
The thing that most of us don’t understand about the American government--and basically any modern nation’s system– is that it is never one thing. It is today a massive jumble of sometimes interconnected parts that all together is supposed to bring to both citizens and noncitizens food, water, medicine, education, burial rites, protection , etc. In earlier days, we expected government--at virtually all levels--to be represented by competent or at least semi-competent white Americans, since Black Americans generally represented the servant class in the country.
Generally the police were White, or some version of it. They beat, arrested, threatened, shot and jailed Black folks with regularity, as the overall Black population was taught by American institutions that we represented some "bad influence" remaining in society, especially after the Civil War.
The generally White police, in every part of the country, were seen as an occupying force which could deliver instant and devastating punishment--rightly or wrongly--onto the heads and bodies of Black Americans and other nonwhites, with impunity. Rarely would the police be checked or charged with bad behavior.
After the 1990’s and years 2000, many young Americans of all races and cultures began to believe that a major corner in such widespread fear and expectation of police misconduct and carnage had been rendered obsolete in the USA, though there would frequently be reminders like the George Floyd , and Michael Brown incidents.
But apparently, in spite of the multi-levels of Black employment at all levels of American government (including the U.S. presidency), in the trenches, not enough yet has changed in the 21st century.
Exhibit one is the very recent case in Mississippi--a former cesspool of white terrorism and abuse--of the county sheriff’s "Goon Squad." This was a group of white officers who had pledged to each other the right to mete out extralegal justice to Black citizens in their back country territory.
Six of them were just sentenced to 15 and 45 years on Mississippi state and federal charges for the racist torture of two Black men.
According to the Justice Department case file presented in court, in January 2023, one of the Goon Squad officers received a complaint call from another White person that Jenkins and Parker, two Black men, were "living in sin" with a White woman at a house in Braxton, Miss. The White officer gathered his fellow "Goon Squad" members together and the six of them made a warrantless raid of that home, found and assaulted two Black men there, Jenkins and Parker, punched and kicked them mercilessly, called them "nig*ers" and other racial slurs, forced them to drink urine, and sexually assaulted them with a dildo. One of the Black men, Mr. Jenkins, was also shot once in the face. Neither man was killed, though both needed extensive medical treatment as a result of the Goon Squad attack.
During the following weeks, all six of the former officers received various levels of public acclaim in the Mississippi town for their illegal actions against the two Black men.
A lot has changed in America, much of it for the better. But clearly, a lot hasn’t, too.
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.
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