Wherein Kareem Abdul-Jabbar nails it on #Ferguson. (was: Wow.)

(Kareem Abdul Jabbar is better known for his basketball skills than his social thought, but he nails it below. --maxomai)

Originally posted by fengi at Wow.

Time has posted an essay by Kareem Abdul Jabbar titled "The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race". It's fascinating whether you agree with all of his points. Unlike many others who discuss race, gender and class, he doesn't dismiss the other struggles in order to concentrate on class war. He handles intersectionality as deftly as a skyhook:

...on May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on student protesters at Kent State University...On May 14th, 10 days after Kent State ignited the nation, at the predominantly black Jackson State University in Mississippi, police killed two black students...with shotguns and wounded twelve others...That heartless leviathan we call History swallowed that event whole, erasing it from the national memory.

...unless we want the Ferguson atrocity to also be swallowed and become nothing more than an intestinal irritant to history, we have to address the situation not just as another act of systemic racism, but as what else it is: class warfare.

...the targets of police overreaction are based less on skin color and more on an even worse Ebola-level affliction: being poor. Of course, to many in America, being a person of color is synonymous with being poor, and being poor is synonymous with being a criminal. Ironically, this misperception is true even among the poor.

And that’s how the status quo wants it.

The U.S. Census Report finds that 50 million Americans are poor. Fifty million voters is a powerful block if they ever organized...So, it’s crucial that those in the wealthiest One Percent keep the poor fractured by distracting them with emotional issues like immigration, abortion and gun control...we fall into the trap of turning against each other, expending our energy battling our allies instead of our enemies. This isn’t just inclusive of race and political parties, it’s also about gender. In her book Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution, Laurie Penny suggests that the decreased career opportunities for young men in society makes them feel less valuable to females; as a result they deflect their rage from those who caused the problem to those who also suffer the consequences: females.

...The middle class has to join the poor and whites have to join African-Americans in mass demonstrations, in ousting corrupt politicians, in boycotting exploitative businesses, in passing legislation that promotes economic equality and opportunity, and in punishing those who gamble with our financial future.

...I hope John Steinbeck is proven right when he wrote in Grapes of Wrath, “Repression works only to strengthen and knit the oppressed.” But I’m more inclined to echo Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues,” written the year after the Kent State/Jackson State shootings:

Inflation no chance
To increase finance
Bills pile up sky high
Send that boy off to die
Make me wanna holler
The way they do my life

Monday Miscellany!

• Nigeria claims that they've had one new case of Ebola since yesterday. What they haven't mentioned --- which is absolutely critical --- is where they found that new case. If in the quarantined population, that's very good. If in the wild, that's very bad news for their containment strategy, and for the spread of the disease.


• Justin Raimondo on how we've returned to the sixties, and not in the fun, Summer Of Love Nostalgia way.


• Julian Assange is talking about leaving the Ecuadorian Embassy soon, presumably for health reasons. Once he steps foot on British soil, he'll likely be immediately arrested and eventually wind up in a US prison for espionage.


• The most potent weapon in the campus rapist's arsenal is alcohol and a predatory eye; on the other hand, the most potent weapon in preventing campus rape is peer pressure among college-aged men. More here.


• Boys' science-themed bedrooms versus girls' science-themed bedrooms, explored here.