This post is about police violence. But first, if you care to... Listen to this song.
"Miami". It's a song by the old punk band the Pink Lincolns (remember them?). I always loved the song, but never stopped to think about it much. I just thought it was a kinda sneering, acerbic punk rock song about "the dangerous big city, maaannnn, you wouldn't last a minute!", that kinda stuff. You know, like "Dirty Alleys, Dirty Minds" by the Zero Boys, or even "Toughest Street In Town" by Thin Lizzy.
Well, here I am, visiting in Miami - Biscayne Park, to be precise. So I went back and listened again and read the lyrics. And... whoa.
The first verse - not the primary focus of this essay, but an interesting verse nonetheless - concerns the events surrounding the trial of Ronnie Zamora, who at the age of 15, shot and killed an elderly neighbor in their Miami neighborhood, then relieved her of her money and took a trip to Disney World with it, or some theme park. You may not remember all the details, but a collective cultural memory persists of the unique defense his lawyer offered: Zamora could not be found guilty, because he was made unable to distinguish fact from reality by watching TV too much (specifically: Kojak). This was the first time anyone ever took the "brain is hypnotized by television" general humorous angle which has been around since pretty much Howdy Doody to its logical extreme. The trial was a press/media circus, and the murder and trial are also referenced in the great Australian punk song "Television Addict" by the Victims. Anyway, I never connected those dots, and I bet a lot of others who came into punk in the late 90s (as opposed to the 80s when "Miami" was written) didn't either, but stay tuned, folks, because of verse two. It's about something horrible and too-relevant, something I never knew about.
In (correction, original post said 1980) December 1979, Miami police stopped the Black man, Marine veteran, and insurance salesman Art McDuffie on his way home from work (ok, depressingly enough you probably already know where this is going, but keep reading) for either a minor traffic infraction or driving with a suspended license. There were many inconsistencies in the initial police report about what happened during the stop, but I'm going to cut to the chase: in the trial, it came out that the several police involved actually may have grabbed him after a short chase ended in McDuffie putting up his hands and shouting "I give up!", removed his helmet, and proceeded to beat him to death with nightsticks and heavy flashlights. Gruesome and horrible. In those days, there was no police camera digital footage, not even the kind of video which existed during the beating of Rodney King in the early 1990s. The Miami police planted and created false evidence to make it looks like McDuffie had done things he hadn't. Then came the trial in May 1980, the six-man all-White jury verdict, and the aftermath.
All officers involved were acquitted, and the Black neighborhoods of the city of Miami exploded in some of the most violent riots ever seen in a modern American city. Nearly 20 people died as a direct result, and hundreds more were injured. Literally exploded, in the case of a giant tire warehouse in the heart of a middle-class mostly-Black community. I don't need to tell you that the National Guard was called in and the city of Miami became an occupied zone for days. Sniper fire on the freeways. A pillar of smoke from the aforementioned tire warehouse loomed over the city for weeks, even after the violence subsided and city was quiet enough once more.
Remember, you comfortable-living friends and family of mine, perhaps in small towns with good community-police relations, that this is how it is if you're Black in a city police jurisdiction. All of the above (except the Ronnie Zamora story) is how it is. You get pulled over because you're profiled because of your skin tone. You get the citation that a White driver doesn't get; instead, if that driver even gets pulled over, that White driver gets a verbal warning. Then down the line, you get pulled over because of that citation. And then you fucking pray. Or you might panic, in the moment. Fight or flight. Might you panic? You just might.
In 2007 or 2008, I went to see the Reigning Sound play in Brooklyn, with whatever fresh horrors of the second US-led coalition invasion of Iraq in the news at the time. Greg Cartwright, the singer and main man in the band, gave the signal and the band kicked into a song called "Viet Nam War Blues" which he had done back in his days with the Oblivians. The song was by J. B. Lenoir, an old Chicago bluesman. "How can you be happy when your brother's in Vietnam", goes the first of many searing lyrics. They played the song with surprising Oblivian-style fury, and then Greg went to the mic and growled "that song was called Viet Nam War Blues. It's as true today as the day it was written."
As true today as the day it was written. How often do we just... not change? To fail and fail again to make things right which are so deadly, viciously wrong? I don't know but today I know which way I'm leaning on that question, I'm sad to say.
Justice for Daunte Wright. Justice for Adam Toledo. Justice for George Floyd. Justice for whoever's next, because some young man, perhaps as so often happens a Black man, but maybe not, will be next - and thus, justice for Peyton Ham. I don't know if police culture can be saved at this point, because what is wrong in it today has always been and, if that culture continues to exist, may permanently be.
