The BROTHERWISE DISPATCH, VOL.2, ISSUE#13, SEPT-NOV/2014
The Brotherwise Dispatch - The wanton murder of Black people by police is nothing new, as such, how would you explain the significance of the rebellion in Ferguson, Missouri which was ignited by the murder of Michael Brown?
A. Shahid Stover - True, the wanton murder of Black people is nothing new, but let me add, neither is our propensity as human beings to engage in rebellion against structural-inert oppression. Although it didn’t make as much noise as Ferguson in the mainstream press, last year’s Flatbush Rebellion in response to the murder of Kimani Gray is quite significant as well. Pay attention to the world around you, what we are seeing are glimpses of an era brimming over with global unrest and inundated with potentialities for geonational insurrection. Especially in the sense that in both cases we can clearly see a rising tide of human ‘being’, an ascendant humanity engaged in protest-as-resistance focused on confronting the neo-colonial police agents of Empire, rather than a sedentary reliance on protest-as-ritual event which involves a social catharsis of activism that merely consolidates the hegemony of established unjust global power.
And so, just to clarify, let’s state at the outset that when neo-colonial police murder Black people, they are actually murdering human beings. Now that may sound redundant to us as Black people, and to those of us who genuinely recognize the inherent oneness of all humanity, and by genuine recognition, here let me distinguish between a type of recognition of the oneness of humanity which derives its authority from the Divine, as beyond the scope of established unjust global power; from a type of recognition of universality which explicitly reproduces western bourgeois subjectivity as the default standard of what it means be human. This latter claim of universality permeates modernity as organized and imposed by western imperialist power. To be clear, such imperial hyperbourgeois universality actually works in concert with the racist dehumanization of the vast majority of the world’s population, by constantly proselytizing the virtues of a universal human subjectivity which ontologically overlooks the socio-historical murder of countless human beings on every corner of the globe as a phenomenon of no real consequence.
As such, the human ‘being’ of Black people is rarely taken for granted. In fact, the opposite is true, our subhumanity, our ‘objecthood’, our ‘being-in-itself’ is an unstated premise of modernity, which then allows for the unrelenting murder, as well as the mass incarceration of Black people to continue at such a regular pace that it becomes ‘natural’ within the socio-historical context of modernity, particularly in its contemporary guise of advanced neo-liberal capitalist globalization. This ongoing killing and vast imprisonment of human ‘being’ generates about as much scandal amongst the global mainstream as the opening of a new fast food chain. In fact, there exists more spiritual concern over the advent of the latest smartphone than any genuinely human regard over the ongoing structural-inert oppression faced by humanity, so long as that humanity can be easily and rationally signified as subhuman through ‘race’ or the Raw of coloniality, and hence immune to actual human recognition by the normative gaze of Empire-as-western imperialist power.
Yet the onset of modernity as imposed by a western imperialist power remains densely cloaked in a false narrative of universal human freedom. And though one may well discursively challenge this ideology in stuffy academic settings or in reformist activist circles, whoever genuinely attempts to actually follow through and attempt to existentially translate this insurgent discourse of geonational human solidarity into emancipatory praxis against Empire, invites fascist guns of neo-colonial police to be aimed in ones direction as is the case in Ferguson, Missouri where genuine protest-as-resistance is being waged as we speak.
It’s at a point where the racist dehumanization inherent in advanced neo-liberal capitalist globalization is rarely understood as anything other than the biopolitical evolution of humanity and culmination of natural history, which implies that the same institutions and structures which currently preserve the status quo are the best thing possible on this planet and according to the dictates of Empire: it aint gonna get any better, so just shut the f*ck up and assimilate as best you can or else.
Seriously though, what the f*ck do you think is going down in Ferguson, it’s not a game for those brothers and sisters. They have not only initiated a rebellion, but are currently in the process of sustaining that rebellion which is infinitely more difficult. You saw all those weapons pointed deliberately at Black people, those were weapons pointed at our humanity, and by taking aim at our humanity as Black people, those neo-colonial police agents are actually taking aim at all of humanity. And you have some ignorant people concerned that those activists are putting themselves in harm’s way, sh*t . . . (laughter) muthaf*ck@ how many more neo-colonial police murders do you need to see go down before you realize that the very assertion of our humanity as Black people already puts us in harm’s way because we exist in a world ordered according to the precepts of a western imperialist continuum. And yet without taking this mortal risk, a stifling anonymity of our human ‘being’ is preserved. As such, without that spiritual willingness to confront Empire on our own terms as an ascendant humanity through protest-as-resistance, rather than rely on the terms of established power through protest-as-ritual event, nothing is gonna change.
This is not an exaggeration either, as was made clear to those of us who gathered together a couple nights ago at the Audobon Ballroom in Harlem by brother Tef Poe right from there, who has been puttin’ in emancipatory work from day one: “don’t come to Ferguson unless you are ready to die!” Hearing such conviction, regardless of whatever remnants of protest-as-ritual event remain, there is definitively genuine protest-as-resistance going down in Ferguson. All this in spite of hearing and being admonished, day in and day out, from a multitude of Uncle Toms, bootlickers and neo-conservative eunuchs, including some prominent clergy, media pundits, police captains, politicians or other collaborators with established power: don’t start no sh*t that’s gonna get everybody riled up, because eventually, as they are constantly reassured by those who want to keep things just the way they are, things will get somehow get better over time, in the ole bye and bye.
Well, as the recent murder of Michael Brown reminds us. And again let me emphasize that Brown’s murder is not an isolated event, let’s not forget Amadiou Diallo, Ramarley Graham, Reynaldo Cuevas, Sean Bell and Kimani Gray and the countless others before and after them, as well as Eric Garner and John Crawford III. One thing that all these murders of human ‘being’ speak to, and one thing that actually does seem to improve and get better over time is the capacity of neo-colonial police to murder people who, as indicative of a globalized coloniality in the Raw, constitute a ‘biopolitical danger’ to a world ordered according to the imperatives of a western imperialist continuum.
Now for a moment, I want to move away from the objective conditions of structural-inert oppression which inform the rebellion in Ferguson. Because whenever and wherever human beings rebel against social injustice, the important and necessary emphasis on objective conditions at times drowns out the very question of human agency, in other words, what type of human subjectivity is involved in such rebellion? And yet, it is precisely this question of human subjectivity, particularly with respect to one’s disposition towards tyranny and one’s temperament towards the Real of structural-inert global oppression that I feel is invaluable at this specific socio-historical juncture. And I would like to suggest that examining this question might potentially illuminate that which indeed makes the rebellion in Ferguson significant.
This question of human agency, this question of irreducible decision and undifferentiated choice common to all, or at very least accessible to every human ‘being’, this is significant because oppression itself, no matter how horrendous, never creates anything other than the condition of possibility from which to rebel. Oppression does not mechanistically generate rebellion, human uprisings are not factory made, nor are they the exclusive domain of a mythic revolutionary ‘working class’. One must choose to rebel, one must exercise human agency and actually decide to take up the weight of emancipatory praxis against tremendous odds, and then take responsibility for this assertion of human ‘being’ which, and this point cannot be emphasized enough, then constitutes and brings to light potentialities for a new human subjectivity-as-lived universal or as Fanon put it, attempts “to set afoot a new man.”
The other night in Harlem, at a Town Hall Meeting held at the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Center, this “new man”, this new human subjectivity-as-lived universal spoke to us through the voices of Tory Russell, Tef Poe and Ashley Yates. Bearing witness to the depth of human potentialities inherent in Black liberation praxis through their lived experience of revolt against structural-inert oppression, Tory, Tef and Ashley are a walking testament, of how the significance of the Ferguson Rebellion is actually located in the subjective disposition of Black people as an ascendant humanity who chose to confront the neo-colonial police. As such, the significance of Ferguson, Missouri, just like in Flatbush, Brooklyn, is manifest by the lived temperament of insurrection against entrenched global injustice by those wonderful examples of human ‘being’, those courageous brothers and sisters who in spite of incredible odds, chose to rebel against the dictates of Empire-as-western imperialist power.
BD - Do you have any qualms about the media coverage of the Ferguson rebellion?
AS - (laughter) . . . qualms, oh I have some muthaf*ckin’ qualms alright . . . sh*t (more laughter) . . . Seriously though, the thing about the media coverage that is really disturbing, the mainstream narrative that really irks me, aside from all the liberal-democratic hyperbourgeois posturing which isolates the neo-colonial murder of Michael Brown from the greater context of structural-inert oppression intrinsic to established global unjust power, is the media trend which places the origins of violence on ‘outsiders’ or ‘outside agitation’. According to the normative gaze of Empire, the good noble citizens of Ferguson just want a peaceful resolution and if it wasn’t for all these f*ckin’ troublemakers coming to town things would be just fine. Tory actually broke down the Real of how it’s the neo-colonial police agents who actually constitute ‘outside agitation’ in relation to the Black community in Ferguson.
Look, believe this, Ferguson, Missouri wasn’t Disneyland until suddenly out of the blue, Officer Darren Wilson decidedly gunned down Michael Brown in cold blood. And don’t think that brothers and sisters like Tory, Tef and Ashley became conscious of structural-inert oppression only after the murder of Michael Brown, get the f*ck outta here with that bullsh*t son, and anybody who suggests otherwise might get their weak latte smacked outta their hand and get this strong, potent and bitter @ss karigane green tea poured all on their grill . . . (raucous laughter) . . . sh*t. (more laughter) Yo, think about it, just bringing up the whole question of ‘outside agitation’ constitutes a flagrant attempt by the normative gaze of Empire-as-western imperialist power to squash anything resembling the emergence of geonationalist consciousness and genuine human solidarity, both of which must constitute the very heart of any attempts at both initiating and sustaining global emancipatory praxis.
What’s actually interesting is how reactionary media coverage hasn’t changed much at all since slavery, yes, since slavery!! Do your homework and you will find the established media from back then in almost complete and utter harmony, except for maybe the Abolitionist press, about the ‘docile happy fiddle playing Negro’ who would never dare rebel against western imperialist power as it was then constituted through direct imposition of slavery upon human ‘being’, if it wasn’t for some kind of ‘outside agitation’ ruining everything.
This interview is part of a series of ongoing informal dialogues taking place between The Brotherwise Dispatch Editorial Cipher and our Editor-in-Chief - A. Shahid Stover.
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