[Peace] Letter to the Editor by David Green

[Karen Aram]

Exploitation is real problem

The origins of policing are often connected to slavery.

However, they are more generally connected to the needs of industrial and urban capitalism to control the work force, the working poor and the “reserve army of labor” (un-engaged in the work force).

The legacy of slavery and Jim Crow determines that Blacks will be disproportionately represented among the latter two groups and that police (of any background) are more likely to adopt racist attitudes as part of their socialization process.

Nevertheless, the foundational problem is that of social inequality generated by capitalist exploitation of the working class and the violence “or implicit threat of violence and imprisonment” that is required to maintain economic production and social order, as increased inequality and decreased social welfare heighten the desperation of the most marginalized in globalized, neo-liberal capitalism.

The educational system “fails” a significant percentage of students because it must, given the structure and “demands” of the labor market and the stressed conditions of working-class families.

Thus, anger directed at public schools by the NAACP, ACLU and those who claim to represent Black Lives Matter is misdirected at best and lurid at worst.

Silence is not violence, and local superintendents present themselves as cowardly managerial tools of capitalism when they give credence to such charges.

Exhortations to “defund” or “abolish” the police are similarly pathetic and can only result in more privatization of public services.

Rich liberals will pay for protection while reading about “White fragility” to ease their racialized guilt, as capitalist accumulation continues apace.

DAVID GREEN

Champaign
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