The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2016

by Rachel Kushner

  When speaking about the new black middle class one must therefore be aware that this term conflates distinct layers: (1) those who made it into stable blue-collar or public sector professions, and who thus achieved a little housing equity, but who generally live close to the ghetto, are a paycheck away from bankruptcy, and got screwed by the subprime crisis; and (2) a smaller petit-bourgeois and bourgeois layer that made it into middle-management positions or operated their own companies, who moved into their own elite suburbs, and who are now able to reproduce their class position.

  Many of the new activist leaders fall into one or another of these layers.* This in itself is nothing new. The old Civil Rights leaders also tended to come from the “black elite.” Yet that elite was relatively closer to the black proletariat in income and wealth, and was condemned by Jim Crow to live alongside them and share their fate. It consisted of religious and political leaders, as well as professionals, shopkeepers, and manufacturers who monopolized racially segmented markets—the “ghetto bourgeoisie.” Although many helped to build Jim Crow segregation, acting as “race managers,” they also had an interest in overcoming the barriers that denied them and their children access to the best schools and careers, and thus in the Civil Rights Movement they adopted the role of “race leaders,” taking it as their task to “raise up” the race as a whole.

  The new activists distinguish themselves from the previous generation along technological, intersectional and organizational lines. They are suspicious of top-down organizing models and charismatic male leaders. But this is less a rejection of leadership per se than a reflection of the fact that—in an age of social media niches—almost anyone can now stake a claim to race leadership, to broker some imaginary constituency. They strain against the hierarchical structures of traditional NGOs, although many are staff members thereof. They want to shake off these stultifying mediations in a way that aligns them with the younger, more dynamic Ferguson rioters, and social media seems to give them that chance.

  But despite their good intentions and radical self-image, and despite the real unity that Ferguson seemed to offer, differences between the new generation of race leaders and the previous one only reinforce the gap between the activists and those they hope to represent. Those differences can be described along three axes:

  Firstly, most of the activists are college-educated. And unlike the previous generation they have not been restricted to all-black colleges. This doesn’t mean they are guaranteed well-paid jobs, far from it. But it does mean that they have a cultural experience to which very few people from poor neighborhoods in Ferguson or Baltimore have access: they have interacted with many white people who are not paid to control them, and they will typically have had some experience of the trepid, cautious dance of campus-based identity politics, as well as the (often unwanted) advances of “white allies.” Thus although their activism isn’t always directed at white liberals, their social and technical abilities in this respect often exceed those of skilled mediamanipulators like Al Sharpton.

  Secondly, unlike the previous generation, many of them did not themselves grow up in the ghetto. This is perhaps the single biggest legacy of the Civil Rights Movement: the ability to move to the suburbs, for those who could afford it. In 1970, 58% of the black middle class lived in poor majority-black neighborhoods; today the same percentage live in wealthier majority-white neighborhoods, mostly in the suburbs.* This means that they have much less personal experience of crime. Of course, they still experience racist policing, are stopped by cops far more than whites and are subject to all manner of humiliations and indignities, but they are much less likely to be thrown in jail or killed.† Indeed the likelihood of ending up in jail has fallen steadily for the black middle class since the 1970s even as it has skyrocketed for the poor, both black and white.‡

  Finally, and perhaps most significantly, activism is for them, unlike the previous generation, in many cases a professional option. Today an expectation of “race leadership” is no longer part of the upbringing of the black elite. Identification with the victims of police violence is generally a matter of elective sympathy among those who choose to become activists, and of course many do not make that choice.* But for those who do, traditional civil service jobs and voluntary work have been replaced by career opportunities in a professionalized nonprofit sector. These jobs are often temporary, allowing college graduates to “give back” before moving on to better things. DeRay McKesson, before he became the face of the new activism, had been an ambassador for Teach for America (TFA), an organization that recruits elite college graduates to spend two years teaching in poor inner-city schools, often as part of a strategy to promote charter schools and bust local teachers’ unions. In general the “community organizing” NGOs, whether they are primarily religious or political, are often funded by large foundations such as Ford, Rockefeller and George Soros’ Open Society. An integral aspect of the privatization of the American welfare state, they can also function as “astroturf” for groups like TFA and the Democrats.

  Thus, in the aftermath of Ferguson, along with the influx of activists from around the country there came an influx of dollars. Whilst existing nonprofits competed to recruit local activists, foundations competed to fund new nonprofits, picking winners.† Netta was initially recruited by Amnesty International, and she and DeRay, along with another TFA organizer, Brittney Packet, would set up Campaign Zero with backing from Open Society. Subsequently DeRay gave up his six-figure salary to “focus on activism full time.” He is currently running for mayor of Baltimore and his campaign has received donations from prominent figures in Wall Street and Silicon Valley.* Most local activists were not so lucky. Many lost their jobs and became dependent on small, crowdfunded donations. Meanwhile at least 12 of those arrested during the rioting are still in jail, either serving time or awaiting trial.

  4.

  Three weeks before Darren Wilson emptied his gun into an unarmed Mike Brown, Eric Garner, 43, had been killed in Staten Island, New York City, strangled by police officer Daniel Pantaleo.† Garner’s dying words “I can’t breathe” were caught on camera, and they quickly took their place alongside “hands up, don’t shoot” as a key slogan of the nascent movement. Indeed, over the following months, events would sometimes move in close parallel between America’s largest city and the small Midwestern town. On 18 August Missouri Governor Jay Nixon called in the National Guard to enforce the curfew. Two days later Attorney General Eric Holder traveled to Ferguson, where he met with residents and Brown’s family. In nearby Clayton, a grand jury began hearing evidence to determine whether Wilson should be charged. On 23 August at least 2,500 turned out for a Staten Island Garner demonstration, led by Sharpton, with chants of “I can’t breathe,” and “hands up, don’t shoot,” picking up the meme from Ferguson. A group called Justice League NYC, affiliated with Harry Belafonte, demanded the firing of Officer Pantaleo and the appointment of a special prosecutor. The next day, Brown’s funeral in St. Louis was attended by 4,500, including not only the ubiquitous Sharpton and Jackson, and Trayvon Martin’s family, but also White House representatives, Martin Luther King III, and a helping of celebrities: Spike Lee, Diddy, and Snoop Dogg. In the name of Brown’s parents, Sharpton’s eulogy disparaged rioting:

  Michael Brown does not want to be remembered for a riot. He wants to be remembered as the one who made America deal with how we are going to police in the United States.

  But these were, of course, not mutually exclusive, as the history of riot-driven reform testifies. While riots generally consolidate reaction against a movement—with the usual pundits baying for punitive measures, while others jostle to conjure from the events a more reasonable, law-abiding “community”’ with themselves at its head—they also tend to shake the state into remedial action. Only days later the Justice Department announced an inquiry into policing in Ferguson. Shortly after, large-scale reforms to Ferguson’s political and legal institutions were announced. By the end of September t
he Ferguson police chief had publicly apologized to the Brown family, who were also invited to the Congressional Black Caucus convention, where Obama spoke on race. From the single national community invoked against the immediate impact of rioting, he now ceded significant ground to the particularity of racial questions, speaking of the “unfinished work” of Civil Rights, while simultaneously presenting this as an issue for “most Americans.”

  Unrest was still ongoing through September, overstretching Ferguson’s police force, who would soon be replaced again, this time by St. Louis County police. With the thickets of organizations and professional activists on the ground, other, more theatrical and nonviolent forms of action were now tending to replace the community riot, such as the 6 October interruption of a St. Louis classical concert with the old Depression-era class struggle hymn “Which side are you on?” On the same day a federal judge ruled on the side of peaceful activists and against police, over whether demonstrations could be required to “keep moving.” Meanwhile, Eric Holder announced a general Department of Justice review of police tactics, and from 9 October Senate hearings began on the question of militarized policing. Ferguson actions stretched on through October, under the aegis of many different groups, including “Hands Up United,” which had been formed locally after Brown’s death, while more protesters rolled in from around the country.

  In mid-November, as the Grand Jury decision on Brown’s killer drew near, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon had once again declared a state of emergency, bringing in the National Guard in anticipation of the usual non-indictment and a new round of rioting.* On 24 November these expectations were fulfilled. As the non-indictment was announced, Michael Brown’s mother was caught on camera yelling “They’re wrong! Everybody wants me to be calm. Do you know how those bullets hit my son?” As she broke down in grief, her partner, wearing a shirt with “I am Mike Brown” written down the back, hugged and supported her for a while, before turning to the crowd, clearly boiling over with anger, to yell repeatedly “burn this bitch down!”; if Mike Brown’s life mattered little to the state, it might at least be made to. As looting and gunshots rattled around the Ferguson and St. Louis area, protests ignited in New York, Sanford, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington and on—reportedly 170 cities, many using the tactic of obstructing traffic. After a “die-in” and roving traffic-blocking in the perennial activist hotspot of Oakland, riots spread, with looting, fires set, windows smashed. In the midst of the national unrest, church groups made interventions criticizing the Grand Jury decision and supporting peaceful demonstrations. Ferguson churches brought a newly religious twist to activist “safe spaces” discourses, offering themselves as “sacred spaces” for the protection of demonstrators.

  In the following days, as the National Guard presence in Ferguson swelled, demonstrations were ongoing across the country—and beyond. Outside a thoroughly bulwarked US Embassy in London, around 5,000 assembled in the dank autumn evening of 27 November for a Black Lives Matter demonstration, before this precipitated in a roving “hands up, don’t shoot” action down Oxford Street and confrontations with cops in Parliament Square—an event that drew links between Brown and Tottenham’s Mark Duggan, whose own death had ignited England’s 2011 riot wave.* In cities across Canada, too, there were Ferguson solidarity actions. On 1 December Obama invited “civil rights activists” to the White House to talk, while the St. Louis Rams associated themselves with the Brown cause, walking onto the field hands-up.

  Then on 3 December 2014 came the second Grand Jury non-indictment in just over a week: the officer whose chokehold had killed Eric Garner, in full vision of the country at large, predictably cleared of wrongdoing. Cops, of course, are almost never charged for such things, and are even less likely to be convicted, in the US or elsewhere; the executors of state violence cannot literally be held to the same standards as the citizenry they police, even though their credibility depends upon the impression that they are. Due process will be performed, stretched out if possible until anger has subsided, until the inevitable exoneration; only in the most blatant or extreme cases will individual officers be sacrificed on the altar of the police force’s general legitimacy. Nonetheless, it seems in some ways remarkable that such petrol would be poured with such timing, on fires that were already raging.†

  The following day thousands protested in New York City, with roving demonstrations blocking roads, around the Staten Island site of the killing, along the length of Manhattan, chanting “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.” Die-ins happened in Grand Central Station, mirrored on the other side of the country in the Bay Area. Significant actions were happening almost every day now, typically called on Facebook or Twitter, with groups blocking traffic in one corner of a city receiving live updates of groups in many other areas, sometimes running into them with great delight. In the coastal cities the recent experience of Occupy lent a certain facility to spontaneous demonstration. Police appeared overwhelmed, but in many cases they had been instructed to hold back. More victims of police violence at this point would only fan the flames.

  V.

  On April 12, 2015, Freddie Gray’s spine was severed at the neck when Baltimore cops took him for a “rough ride” in a police van.* During his subsequent days of coma, before his 19 April death, demonstrations had already started in front of the Western District police station. On 25 April Black Lives Matter protests hit downtown Baltimore, bringing the first signs of unrest to come. The 27 April funeral, like Brown’s, was attended by thousands, including White House representatives, the Garner family, “civil rights leaders,” etc. A confrontation between cops and teenagers outside Baltimore’s Mondawmin Mall was the trigger event for the massive rioting that would engulf Baltimore for days, causing an estimated $9m of damage to property. Tweets declared “all out war between kids and police” and “straight communist savage.”† A familiar riot-script followed: calls for calm and condemnations of “thugs,” allocating blame to a selfish minority and upholding peaceful protest in contrast; the National Guard called in; a curfew announced; mass gatherings to clean up the riot area; a disciplinarian parent puffed up into a national heroine after being caught on camera giving her rioting child a clip around the ear; suggestions that gangs were behind it all . . .

  Yet in Baltimore, gangs seem to have performed the exact opposite function to that claimed early on. Police had issued warnings of an anti-cop alliance between Bloods, Crips and the Black Guerilla Family. But it was soon revealed that the truce, brokered by the Nation of Islam, was in fact to suppress the riots. Bloods and Crips leaders released a video statement asking for calm and peaceful protest in the area, and joined with police and clergy to enforce the curfew. On 28 April news cameras recorded gang members dispersing “would-be troublemakers” at the Security Square Mall.

  The similarities between Baltimore and St. Louis are striking. Both have been shrinking for decades as a result of deindustrialization, with roughly half the inner city below the poverty line. Both were epicenters of state-mandated segregation up to the 1970s, and subprime lending in the 2000s.* And while in most US cities crime rates have fallen sharply since their 1990s peak, in St. Louis and Baltimore they have stayed high, with both consistently in the top ten for violent crime and homicide. Yet while traditional black suburbs of St. Louis, such as Kinloch, have been gutted, those in Baltimore have thrived and proliferated. Situated at the nexus of the tri-state sprawl of Maryland, Virginia and DC, Baltimore’s suburbs contain the largest concentration of black wealth in the US. Prince George’s County is the richest majority black county in the country, the quintessential black middle class suburb, and its police force has a special reputation for brutality. In his most recent memoir Ta-Nehisi Coates cites his discovery of this fact as the source of his disillusionment with black nationalism. Coates’ fellow student at Howard University, Prince Jones, was killed by a black P.G. County officer who mistook him for a burglary suspect. At the time Coates devoted an article to the questions of race a
nd class raised by this killing:

  Usually, police brutality is framed as a racial issue: Rodney King suffering at the hands of a racist white Los Angeles Police Department or more recently, an unarmed Timothy Thomas, gunned down by a white Cincinnati cop. But in more and more communities, the police doing the brutalizing are African Americans, supervised by African-American police chiefs, and answerable to African-American mayors and city councils. *

  In trying to explain why so few showed up for a Sharpton-led march in the wake of the Jones shooting, Coates pointed out that “affluent black residents are just as likely as white ones to think the victims of police brutality have it coming.”

  For decades these suburbs have incubated a black political establishment: federal representatives, state senators, lieutenant governors, aldermen, police commissioners. This is another legacy of Civil Rights.† It meant that Baltimore was the first American riot to be waged against a largely black power structure. This was in marked contrast to Ferguson, and it raised a significant problem for simplistic attempts to attribute black deaths to police racism: after all, three of the six cops accused of killing Gray were black.‡ It seemed, that is, that events were starting to force issues of class onto the agenda.