Anti-Police Violence Organizing after Ismaaiyl Brinsley's Death
2014
People :
Author : Michelle Renée Matisons
Text :
Remember how the 9/11 attack led people to cancel or pull back from
anti-globalization protests? It appears a similar dynamic could be at
work as a shocking event challenges and divides a growing and effective
movement making serious headway. Like anti-globalization protests
before it, the anti-police brutality/ policing movement is going through
its own birth pangs as the tactics debate (when is property violence
appropriate?) and issues such as how to foreground anti-black racism (
#BlackLivesMatter vs.
#AllLivesMatter) have taken center stage in the multifaceted and large scale resistance efforts underway.
Saturday, December 20th, was a big day for movement news. While
Minnesota's Mall of America protest had people occupying space in the
US's largest mall to demand an end to police violence, half way across
the country in Brooklyn, two police officers were shot and killed by a
young black man who had ostensibly posted on social media before the
shootings about his intention to "put wings on pigs", citing revenge for
the deaths of Brown and Garner as motive. The accused shooter,
Ismaaiyl Brinsley, shot himself dead on a nearby subway platform after
shooting the officers. As of Sunday afternoon, there is little
information and much speculation about the accused murderer's life
(including that the murders were part of a counter-intelligence plot to
discredit the movement and justify extreme force). Much is uncertain,
but it's certain that the NYPD is already using this to suppress
protest, repress entire communities, and further foment divisive public
relations--especially with NYC Mayor deBlasio. How can recent police
union behavior and statements be considered anything but a naked
admission of a police force's own extra-legal/ paramilitary ambitions?
At this writing we do know a few things for certain: the corporate
state's policing apparatus will do everything in its power to use this
event as a further call to arms against protesting U.S. residents and
communities of color. They will attempt not only to discredit a growing
direct action-based movement, but also to aggressively attack protest
groups and individuals they have been trying to get their hands on
anyway. If Ismaaiyl Brinsley had been arrested and charged with the
killing of two police officers in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, clearly
the anti-policing movement would be having very different debates and
discussions. Now, in his death, many people righteously struggle to
contextualize his motives or opportunistically use his actions for their
own political reasons.
Not that probing Brinsley's motives is
entirely irrelevant--he shot a woman, possibly an ex-girlfriend, before
the officers, for example-- but the movement can hurt itself by
participating in the posthumous quasi-legalistic media charade of
"nailing down" his motives or state of mind. (This activity already
inculcates participants in the state's judgmental logic of condemnation/
exoneration--echoing media character assassinations of murder by police
victims like Brown and Martin.) What if he was acting in concert with
counter-intelligence forces? What if Mao's little red book was in
Brinsley's pocket? What if he was an active member of a local Cop Watch
group? What if he was a well-known local homeless man struggling with
mental illness and addiction?
Initial activist reactions offer a
range of responses: some grapple with the delicate issue of expressing
compassion about the shooter's life, death, and family; some timidly, or
not so timidly, tiptoe around self-defense concepts and a deep
understanding of the extreme nature of "revolutionary suicide"; some
routinely denounce Brinsley's actions--acting as guardians of the "real
nonviolent movement" against "unstable violent outsiders"; some have
decided that was a police action he got entangled in. Then there's
those (new to the issue white activists, I am talking to you) who may
have been active and supportive of the anti-police brutality movement,
but will use this as an excuse to pull back. (Controversial events
function as a movement's filtering process, losing people who are too
challenged to keep fighting and were just waiting for a chance to fold
anyway.)
If there's anything I am reminded of by this event, it's
the power of social movements, and anti-racist struggles in particular.
For me, there is a connection between the cop murders and the
movement. Before you jump down my throat insisting that I am "feeding
the cops' ideology" by saying this--hear me out, please, and don't take
my statements out of context. Since the drug war and mass
incarceration/ deportation practices, many black and brown lives have
been destroyed. You don't have to be a front lines long term activist
to have strong opinions about policing and institutional racism in
America, and feel hopeless in the face of it, too. Frustration and
anger is woven into the everyday fabric of people's lives, and this
includes individual consciousness, rhetoric, and self-understanding.
Add to this an endless flow of social media, news commentary, and live
feeds of protests and demonstrations all over the U.S. Some people may
not be able to attend protests for various reasons (work, childcare,
transportation, not living close to one, or a shy demeanor) but social
media offers a strong way to feel emotionally connected to events since
Ferguson began.
This access and ability to connect is both reason
for the movement's effectiveness and a reason to prepare for more
controversial actions taken up by individuals in the name of Michael
Brown, Eric Garner, or against violent police generally. (And then
there's always police counterinsurgency activities...) In a large,
multifaceted, international movement such that the Hands Up, Don't
Shoot!/ anti-policing movement has become, no one can ultimately judge
who's a protester or a non-protester, who cares or doesn't care, about
"the issues". (Who has an authentic political consciousness gauge and
where can I get one?) We can only state if we support certain actions as
part of strategies our organizations or ideologies endorse.
I
believe, from what I understand about Brinsley's biographical facts and
his presumed state of mind before the murders, he understood himself as a
target of racist policing. Go figure: young, black, and male in the
U.S. A. But, As Dr. Johanna Fernandez states here in the NJ Decarcerator
blog, (
http://decarceratenj.blogspot.com/…/despite-deaths-of-two-o…),
he could have also been acting in concert with authorities to execute a
state plot to discredit the movement. We will never know the facts
here, and it shouldn't deflect from our understanding of
institutionalized racism, anyway.
Whether Brinsley acted
alone or in concert with the state, his life had a truly tragic end. If
we admit understanding or empathy with people espousing extreme tactics
-- even cop murder -- to express oppositional feelings, are we only
throwing the police state, and its rabid NYPD, another reason for street
level preemptive attack? (As if it ever needed a reason. We've clearly
seen over the decades, if the state doesn't have a reason to justify
aggression it'll make one up.) What about attempts to understand how
social pressures like racist policing and mass incarceration damage
people--like Ismaaiyl Brinsley? If we deny a careful consideration of
the incalculable impacts movements can have, which include tapping into
very real frustrations/ psychological dynamics leading individuals to
act alone or as police agents, we sacrifice any potential unity than can
be derived in a process of self-reflection and greater political
awareness. Collective analysis may not lead to the unity of a shared
position, but it could lead to an "agree to disagree" unity or a
commitment to explore unpopular perspectives. Something beyond simple
condemnation or exultation is called for here.
It's a daunting
situation and the corporate state wins again if we play into the terms
of engagement it always sets by the very nature of its power. If
Ismaaiyl Brinsley had survived and faced his accusers in court, we would
see the movement split around "just" court procedures and outcomes.
Some would want him evaluated to qualify for mental health
rehabilitation services, some would want him routinely punished, and
some would call for his freedom, with an understanding his actions were
committed under extreme duress due to the pernicious police state
apparatus (a kind of "black rage" defense-- if you will.) From the
looks of his social media posts, he knew he was probably going to die
Saturday.
I shudder to think about what the state would do to
Brinsley, and how the movement would split around his "just" punishment
and desirable "rehabilitation." (How are we going to rehabilitate
psychotic racist police? Any ideas?) We would have to painfully endure
a real trial of the Left's anti-policing/ abolitionist positions.
Instead, we are left to grapple with three dead bodies, many unanswered
questions, and a big question mark about our ability to buoy the
turbulence of building and sustaining a mass movement, focused
specifically on the deep and festering wound of racist police violence,
in the age of social media activism.
If we are going to
posthumously speculate on Ismaaiyl Brinsley's life, dare I suggest we
use the very commitment to institutional analysis and human compassion
that has served as a foundation of the Hands Up, Don't Shoot!/
anti-policing movement--and previous anti-racist movements-- since its
inception? As the saying goes, let's "keep our eyes on the prize."
From : decarceratenj.blogspot.com.
Chronology :
December 21, 2014 : Anti-Police Violence Organizing after Ismaaiyl Brinsley's Death -- Publication.
January 25, 2021 : Anti-Police Violence Organizing after Ismaaiyl Brinsley's Death -- Added.
January 06, 2022 : Anti-Police Violence Organizing after Ismaaiyl Brinsley's Death -- Updated.
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