JARED BALL: Welcome back to the Real News Network. Again, I'm Jared Ball here in Baltimore.
We're continuing our conversation with Dr. Ray Winbush of the Institute for Urban Research
here at Morgan State University in Baltimore, as well. And we're transitioning from the
conversation we had in part one, so if you missed that please go check it out, about
Cherry Hill, the Cherry Hill section of Baltimore and all that it has struggled against historically,
to a conversation now about what's happening in Ferguson in the aftermath of the 50th anniversary
of the Watts rebellion in 1965. We have Ferguson uprising again.
And my question to start this is, we just did a conversation about Cherry Hill facing
all the same problems that you would find in basically, basically any black community.
But finding other ways to respond. Finding other things that you talked about, maybe
in the history of that community, that have allowed that community to respond a bit differently.
Or maybe there are different options that they have in terms of response. But we're
seeing folks in Ferguson again saying we don't feel we have any other option but to get back
into the streets, to make some more noise. What are you feeling about all of that right
now? What is your sense of what's happening?
RAY WINBUSH: There's an agonizing similarity between African communities throughout this
country. I think Paul [Muy] said that it's funny how we say what about Chicago, what
about Ferguson, what about Watts. This is America. It's like these communities don't
really, these communities come out of the whole fabric of what America is all about
and what it has done specifically to black Americans.
I was in Ferguson in March of this year and I was surprised that in '14 when Mike Brown
was killed, that up until then they only had one murder in that city up until Mike Brown
was killed, and it was Mike Brown. Ferguson was a town where black folk who wanted to
escape some of the violence--I mean, it's a suburb of St. Louis. They moved there. Very
middle class, very warm community. So these are not black folk who are like, inner city,
which is another term for the dangerous black folk. These are very middle class people.
I think when people get to the end of their rope that they're going to--I'm always amazed
how people say they're not demonstrating correctly. I hate the term legitimate protesters. Like,
what is an illegitimate protester? Does that mean the ones who specifically say, well,
we'll just be peaceful all the time? It's no justice, no peace, and we say that like
a chant. And I think the people who don't want that will say, well, you've got to give
us peace before we give you justice. And in fact, we will give them peace and there still
will be no justice. Darren Wilson's still walking around free someplace.
BALL: It occurred to me, actually, in looking at your report on Cherry Hill. One of the
things that I did not see in that report that is very present both in the historical incident
in Watts and in this incident with Mike Brown obviously in Ferguson is police brutality.
And we know that historically that there isn't, that all these uprisings are in response to
police violence, every single one of them. So is it that something in Cherry Hill is
happening that's preventing police brutality? Or is it just better masked there? Or it just
occurred to me that that was the piece that's missing here.
WINBUSH: Well you know, it's interesting. We heard reports when we did our focus group
that there was police brutality, but nothing compared to what we here in places like Sandtown-Winchester
where Freddie Gray was killed. Or in Ferguson, or Eric Garner on Staten Island.
Cherry Hill, I think because of the sense of the community and police who knew that
community well, some police who actually lived there. And I'm not talking about recently.
I'm talking about over the years they were part of that community. I think we always
hear this term, every time we have one of these uprisings people will say well, we need
to go back to community policing. I say, well, what does that mean? In Baltimore, we know
for a fact that half of the new rookies here in Baltimore Police Academy come outside of
the city. Police are no longer inside--the guy that killed Tamir Rice in my hometown
of Cleveland came from outside of the city. The idea of Officer Friendly who lives next
door and walks the beat is nothing but an American myth.
BALL: The other part is that you've also, we had talked about last segment about Cherry
Hill, is that the media depiction of black people generally, but obviously those in some
form of protest or resistance. Tyrone Harris who is the young man shot by police in Ferguson
this past week, the video of him now--.
WINBUSH: It's in rotation. Every rotation.
BALL: Showing apparently him pulling a gun from his waistband. And then on social media
there's been a lot of pictures people have been putting up, including a lot of white
supremacist groups of him and his friends posing with guns, and brandishing weapons
and photos and things like that. Giving the media both the radical right-wing racist,
overtly racist media, and their conservative or the mainstream liberal, equally racist
in many cases, media this open door to now say well, where you--literally have been saying
on social media, where are your pictures of him in his graduation gown, in his football
uniform? In other words, he deserved what he got.
WINBUSH: Well, what if he did bring a, pull out a gun? And let's say he did. And he ran
towards the cops with it. So what? I mean, you've got this white supremacist separatism
group called the, what do you call them?
BALL: Oathkeepers.
WINBUSH: Marching around with, under the sanction of the police. And you know, Jared, I've got
to ask the question always, what if black men and women walked into Ferguson right now
with automatic weapons, in flak gear, and camouflage, whatever they call that stuff.
Camouflage clothing, or whatever.
BALL: World War 10. Skipped all the other ones.
WINBUSH: Exactly. So there's a tolerance for white supremacy. Look, a response to violence.
If your children are getting killed, a proper response to violence is at least self defense.
We don't know what--we still don't know how when this brother was running with the gun
what he was doing. We still don't know. That--I have seen, I was looking at some show last
night, I was on the show, and I put it on mute while I was on the phone. They must have
played that tape, and I'm not exaggerating, at least ten times while the voiceover from
the newscast--.
So the idea that media says one brother with a gun, somehow this will quell the uprising,
because we can prove that he was going after police is ludicrous, and it's the idea that
they want to rush to the so-called peace and not rush to the so-called justice.
BALL: I saw, looking it up last night, the Oathkeepers claim that they are none of these
things, in fact, that you use to describe. In fact they say, we are not white supremacists
and separatists. We are former military and police officers who want to protect, even
said in part, protesters. That we're here to protect protesters, because they learned
their lesson from last year in Ferguson, that the community was not prepared to deal with
protecting property and protesters from the outside agitating violent element that wants
to take advantage of these things. So that's their claim. But I think to your point, were
black women and men dressed similarly with similarly outfitted weaponry to do the same
thing, making that same exact claim, that there would be as I said a moment ago World
War 10, 15, 20.
The other thing, though, that I'm noticing with the release of this video is that it
seems to be the same thing happening after Freddie Gray was killed here, where the apparent
abuses of the community by a handful of people changes the narrative. So now the question
goes from, why are people in Ferguson upset? Why was Mike Brown killed? Why were the conditions
of the community, as people are reporting there, still not changed? To can we get peaceful
protesters, and aren't the police justified in their violence because of young men like
this with guns?
WINBUSH: Well, I looked at Jon Stewart--I love Stewart. His last show, I can't say the
word on tele--we'll call it bovine feces, for lack of a more appropriate term. A lot
of what the media portrayed is just bovine feces. It's in service of white supremacy.
My friend Harry Allen of Public Enemy always said, he always asked the question--. We always
asked the question, Harry always says, he said, is there racism in the media? Is there
racism in education? Is there racism in law enforcement? He said, well, we ought to say
is there media in the racism? Or is there education in the racism? And when I apply
what Harry says to the portrayal of all these uprisings, the strangling of Eric Garner,
I actually had a police officer say to me here in Baltimore, I asked him, was Eric Garner
killed by police? He said, well, you got to look at it in a lot of different ways. It's
a rationalization. And the media is in service to the system of white supremacy. And so I'm
looking for media, which is supposed to be objective, fair, like Fox News said.
And it ain't there. It's not there. You've got to discern it, you've got to critique
it, you've got to deconstruct it. But if you accept it at face value, not at all.
BALL: Ray Winbush, thanks again for joining us here at the Real News Network. And thank
you again for joining us at the Real News. And for all involved, again, I'm Jared Ball
here in Baltimore. And again as always, as Fred Hampton used to say, to you we say peace,
if you're willing to fight for it. So peace, everybody, and we'll catch you in the whirlwind.