29 March 2024

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AUTONOMOUS STATES OF AMERICA?

The US protests against racial discrimination might be a well-orchestrated double-fold action

Author:

01.07.2020

It seemed that the US had become powerful enough to eradicate racial problems after the election of the first black president - Barack Obama (2009-2017). That is why when America, fighting a pandemic, suddenly forgot about the coronavirus and dozens of dying citizens in large cities, becoming concerned again about the discrimination against the African American population of the country by the end of spring 2020, this surprised many. Even those who are aware of the not so ancient history of anti-racist actions in the US, which would often develop into real wars.

 

Saving traditional America or discrimination?

It is enough to recall what happened after the American human rights activist and preacher, the key fighter for the rights of black Americans in those days, Martin Luther King, was shot dead on April 4, 1968. Or the large civil unrest in Los Angeles back in March 1991, when the police beat up a drunk man and former prisoner Rodney King, who refused to obey. The incident claimed the lives of 63 people, and about 5,500 buildings were destroyed, causing an overall damage of $1 billion. In 2001, authorities in Cincinnati announced a curfew in connection with the unrest because a 19-year-old black offender Timothy Jones was shot dead by white cops. This list can be continued further.

However, the protests that started after police officer Derek Chauvin strangled George Floyd on May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis are different from previous ones. Firstly, because they went beyond the US, sweeping through other Western countries. Second, this time they look in many ways grotesque and rather absurd. Finally, the slogans get increasingly compliant with the pre-election discourse, becoming one of the key political tools in the race for the presidency.

It would be fundamentally wrong to say that America is divided into white and black or those who support racism and those who are against it. Firstly because the percentage of those who support the atrocities of slavery regimes is not so high; at least, it is certainly not big to make a nationwide problem. Obviously, the US is more divided between the supporters of Trump and those who are against him, and African Americans are not the largest target audience in this case. Rather, the key word throughout the whole campaign is ‘discrimination’. African Americans can be easily replaced by women victims of domestic violence, LGBT people, Indians (or Native Americans, who suffered no less than African Americans), Mexicans, refugees, etc. The main point behind the actions is that the discriminated group is considered a relative minority and be really abused. But, again, the real problem here is not the fact of violation of rights per se - even the black President Obama did nothing special to improve the situation of African Americans in the US. The problem is that there are constantly smoldering protest moods that can be ignited at any time and then used for someones’ purposes.

 

White or black?

Remarkably, according to many American media outlets, there are many white and well-educated young people from wealthy families among the protesters. American political commentator Yin Ma of Washington Examiner speaks of a new generation of Americans, who are told at schools and then at universities that the worst thing in life is to be called racist and intolerant, that is the qualities that Trump has been accused of openly since he declared his ambition to the presidency. So, it turns out that the incumbent president automatically ceases to be the leader of the United States, being forced to position himself as the saviour of the "white, conservative and stable" America with traditional values.

This viewpoint is supported, albeit indirectly, by the fact that the ongoing protests in the US seem to be a rather strange form of self-expression, which look more like a carefully devised marketing campaign than a spontaneous civil unrest. What about the photos of white Americans kneeling down and washing the feet of black Americans as a sign of repentance for slavery, the removal of Gone with the Wind from HBO Max due to controversial racial issues pictured in the film, more than 300 representatives of the entertainment industry accusing Hollywood of praising the police and preserving the cultural heritage of the superiority of the white race, a decision of Quaker Oats owned by PepsiCo to change the name and appearance of the maple syrup brand Aunt Jemima because it was “based on a racial stereotype”, demolition or damaging of the monuments to historical figures such as Christopher Columbus, generals of the Confederate army, first US President George Washington, former presidents Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt?!

It is often difficult to understand the logic of protesting crowds. Although it is clear why they vandalise the monuments to Confederate army generals, it is still questionable why they do the same with the ones to Columbus and Roosevelt, who is considered one of the most outstanding and respected presidents in the US history. It even got to the point that former pastor and now activist of the Black Lives Matter movement, Sean King, saw signs of racism in the statues of Christ, as they were made in a “white-skinned” version. One can find numerous stories in the media and social networks about people complaining of losing their friends and relatives because they do not support the Black Lives Matter movement. Thus, The Daily Mail published an article about a fan of the English football club Burnley, Jake Hepple, who lost his job after displaying a White Lives Matter banner during a football match.

And finally, the largest social networks began to join the campaign. Facebook announced that the company would spend $200 million to support businesses and organisations owned by blacks, as well as add a new section to its application called Lift Black Voices. Microsoft intends to double the number of black employees in the leadership within five years. But when such a reputable company says that it is going to hire people not on the basis of their education and experience but the colour of skin, a logical question would be “isn’t a discrimination either?” The same is true for the Black Lives Matter slogan, which perhaps would be more appropriate and humane to replace with a truly reconciling slogan All Lives Matter? Or isn’t it racist when a black billionaire Robert Johnson calls for creating a political party where the skin colour will be the determining principle? In particular, Johnson called on the Black Lives Matter movement to create an independent African-American party, "and not be an appendage of one party or ignored by the other party." Johnson also said that the US government should pay reparations to the black population for 200 years of slavery, not in the form of policies and programs, but in cash, which should be transferred to citizens.

 

From democracy to lawlessness and anarchy

The most outstanding feature of American protests against racial discrimination that make them look like a double fold action is calls against the police, which in some cases even encourage inertness of the police. As a result, the BLM movement created a situation when, on the one hand, we have protests against the excessive use of force by law enforcement agencies, and on the other hand, a situation that can become a threat to state security. For example, it is reported that protesters in Seattle, WA captured several quarters of the city and self-declared them to be the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ). According to David Lewis, the so called leader of the zone, there are no plans to disintegrate Seattle’s CHAZ from the US, but nonetheless, police officers were ordered to leave the area to reduce tensions. Moreover, it is still unclear who will ensure law and order in the zone and what laws will be applicable there in general.

Trump called police’s inaction during the demolition of the monument to Confederate Army General Albert Pike a shame and stated that the damage to the monuments in the US would be punishable by up to ten years in prison. He also tweeted that “domestic terrorists have taken over Seattle,” and criticized Washington Governor Jay Inslee and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, who, in his opinion, are not fighting the riots. Later the president also said that there would never be an ‘autonomous zone’ in Washington such as the one in Seattle, and all attempts to establish one would face ‘serious force’. In response, Durkan advised Trump to ‘return to the bunker’, while Twitter posted a warning next to Trump’s tweet about the ‘autonomous zones’ that its content contained threats to people. All these events can be interpreted in two ways: either as the ultimate manifestation of democracy or as an ignorance of the opinion of the American president by the mayor of the American city. And Twitter made it clear that it can also set the rules of the game.

On June 20, Donald Trump held his first mass meeting with supporters in Tulsa, OK following the lift-off of the quarantine. It was in Oklahoma back in 2016, when Trump achieved a landslide victory over Hillary Clinton. This time however the BOK Center stadium with a capacity of 19,000 seats had only 6,200 supporters of Trump. The media claims that the reason for empty seats was... the action organised by teenagers through the TikTok social network and fans of the K-pop music genre. As a joke, they reserved hundreds of thousands of seats for the event, knowing in advance that they would not attend it.

The ongoing events can be interpreted in many different ways, but the fact that the situation is unprecedented is undeniable. One version says that the encouragement of police to ignore obvious violations of public disorder, no matter how good the slogans of protesters are, is a devised action targeting the November elections. According to a poll held by Reuters/Ipsos, Democratic candidate Joe Biden is now 13 percent ahead of Trump because Trump can no longer use his economic achievements ruined after the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with a powerful campaign of the Democrats against Trump. Thus, the former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, has recently published a book revealing the details of relations with his former boss as a man who is completely ignorant of international politics. Trump, who started a trade war with China, is accused of having ties to Beijing. In particular, Bolton claims that people affiliated with the Chinese government used political leverage on President Trump and the Republicans. Also, on July 28, Trump's niece Mary Lea Trump is going to release her book How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man. Compared to accusations against Bill Clinton, which could almost cost him the post of the president, all these claims sound much more serious than ever. It may seem that Trump has no chance. He has though, largely due to the confusing system of the American presidential elections.

 

Law and order

According to CNN, Biden can get 400 of 538 electoral votes, which will be a national record. However, this does not mean that Trump will lose. The US history has a number of precedents when candidates won the elections with the same deficit of votes. And this begs the question: what is Trump going to do should his victory provokes protests? Project Syndicate claims that that the Trump administration is trying to create a full-fledged anti-liberal regime in the US and is politicising the army, explaining this by the need to maintain law and order, and that the president "attempted to deploy 10,000 active-duty troops in the streets of Washington, DC to ‘dominate’ the demonstrators, whom he calls ‘thugs’." Obviously, in the event of protests, Trump will have to choose between the two options only: to surrender and agree with the demands of the protesters, or to restore order forcibly, which is a completely irrelevant step if the president does not want to go down in history as an authoritarian leader, hence giving a firm nudge to his opponents.

By supporting protests and defaming the police in this political struggle, one should also bear in mind that the majority of American population has a right to carry weapons freely. A pretty dangerous situation-to-be, same as exacerbating the issues of tolerance and discrimination. Peter Van Buren, a Department of State veteran with 24 years of experience, recalls the words of the racism scholar Ibram Kendi, who said that “one is now either racist or anti-racist, that there is no room for such thing as a ‘non-racist’.” Indeed, it turns out that many Americans are simply unaware that for someone else the word negro may not carry any negative connotation, rather an ordinary, neutral one. For example, those who were born back in Soviet times and who remember how the facts of slavery and segregation in the US were used as tools to criticise capitalism and ‘thoroughly rotten United States’. There are still those who enjoy reading the famous Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. For them, "kind and gentle characters" of black Americans Jim and Tom are sort of twin brothers of Turgenev's Gerasim from Mumu, regardless of their skin colour.

Why do the ongoing events in the US resound in all of us, making us look for causes and consequences of them? It is the decisions of the American president that determine the lives of billions of people that cannot go to polls to vote for or against them. The US is too large a state to turn a blind eye to the existing domestic problems. That’s why it’s of paramount importance for American politicians to be aware that social processes tend to get out of control.



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