@philip_cardella SO the problem with your example is that the law in various countries treats this symbol differently. Because of the Holocaust experience, Europe bans that symbol. But in the US, it is just a symbol, like hanging a noose or burning a cross. Our courts consider that speech. Speech loses its protection when it becomes an act, but our laws are slippery on that. There is no internationally accepted definition of terrorism, and for good reason. 1/2
@philip_cardella We all think we know what terrorism it is but how to define it? The US uses 4 different definitions for terrorism, none comport with the definition that is emerging on the intl scene. Some of the difficulties are that the colonial nations want to exclude what they did around the world as terrorism, while the former colonized nations are not accepting that. A terrorist is who we fear. Here that will always be a non white person rather than your neo-Nazi neighbor. 2/2
@fulanigirl I was unaware the definition was in debate. The most common definition is some variation of " The use of violence or the threat of violence, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political goals." Is it not?
I'm not even a wannabe lawyer but this simple definition seems consistent with 18 U.S. Code § 2331, does it not?
@fulanigirl ok. To be honest I've thought about being a lawyer. Maybe next life, lol. I'm just saying as a historian of American violence I'd like to understand more about your legal analysis here, which I respect.
@philip_cardella It goes back to the reaction to Reconstruction. When White folks started terrorizing Black folks trying to deny them the advantages of freedom, the oppressed tried to use the courts to protect them against the Klan and other anti-black folks. The Supreme Ct however pushed back on any state effort to hold anti-black folks liable because the court was racist and continued to unravel what ever protections for freedmen that the new laws created. Our laws are deeply anti-black.
@philip_cardella So any chance the court got to interpret speech as hate crime, or whether burning a cross in front of a Black person's house was an act rather than speech, the court would strike down the statute, declaring it speech. Like many other court decisions, the fears & reactions of Black people were trivialized by the court. This is true across all areas of law. It is embedded in the very fabric of our law. We can't just pretend it doesn't drive the law and how it is interpreted today.
@fulanigirl certainly no argument here. So what is the solution?
Swastikas and nooses aren't just bullying, they are designed to reduce or eliminate the political rights and power of a group of people. We can agree on this, right?
I don't trust the executive branch enforcement (police) or the judicial branch enforcement (judges) to do right by people of color (or other non WASP male folks).
But scaring people from exercising their rights to vote is effective. So what do we do?
Again, I'm trying to understand. To me, right now, the very broken system we have is what we have. We need to work to change it. But in order to do that people need to have their voice. Nooses, swastikas and arresting people for voting are all efforts to keep people from their voice.
So how do we allow people's voice to matter without opening another means to silence them (which I think is what you're saying is your concern)
@philip_cardella Yes...these are all efforts to silence as they have been for almost 200 years. Go back and watch the Ted talk I posted "Why I am a Localist." Some people have to continue to work with the system while it is on life support, but others have to find new ways for voices to get heard. Are people being intimated at the polls? Then give them security. Video folks hanging nooses and out them at their jobs as citizens did to the Charlottesville. Video the police arresting. one more..
@philip_cardella And I would like to remind everyone that there are civil right demonstrators from the 1960's that still have criminal convictions from protesting back then. The law cannot protect us and it will always be used as a weapon against us. Find other ways to get the voices out. OK I think that's it 😆
@fulanigirl very interesting. I hadn't heard of this before at all though it reminds me a little of what I THINK Benjamin Barber was getting at in "If Mayors Ruled the World" though I haven't found time to read that yet.
I think Barber's ideas may be parallel to this, though not the same. Again, I know too little about either.
But I'm interested in learning more, which is refreshing compared to other theories of change I see tossed around.
@philip_cardella Check out some of Dean Spade's work as well. He has a book but I mostly access him through talks that are posted on the internet, They are all part of abolitionist communities. I am an Illuminator 😉
@fulanigirl I thought that you might identify as such when I watched this. Certainly you have been to me.
Probably the role I'd be best suited for, honestly. I'd love to be a protector but that seems to require resources I do not personally have. But perhaps as a collaborative effort.
Some of the thinking here is what drives a non profit I'm a part of here in MDC called People Acting in Community Together.
Though the org might be a "hospice" type group if it maps here at all.
@philip_cardella The point I love about what she says and what other abolitionists have grown to realize is that we all have a role. Pick one or two, do it and go in with eyes open. Plus, and I say this in my most gentle teaching voice (my students would laugh at that because they know I don't have a gentle teaching voice..but) there is much we all do not know and have never heard of. Learning is a life long obligation as you yourself exemplify. Stay open to learning outside of main stream.
@philip_cardella That is just ONE of the definitions the US uses. There is another one that the State Dept uses which is different. And there are others. The contention revolves around the issue of how to oppressed people get free when the oppressing group won't give up control. When do you have the legitimate right to use force? The world community now includes nations that were formal colonial subjects. They know what they had to do to get free. 1/2
@philip_cardella They didn't get free by having a fire side chat with the oppressor! See So. Africa. And if there is going to be an armed conflict what are legitimate targets? Military ones are the correct answer but that leaves a lot of gray. The US has consistently tried to protect its military targets from being included in what can be attacked, but the intl law is relatively clear on that. And their stance reduces the ability to get world agreement. It's rather complicated actually.
@fulanigirl absolutely. And I think the recent scholarship interrogating colonialism is helpful here. There's convincing evidence that the modern American "professional" police force is directly and intentionally derived from counter insurgency tactics learned by the US military in The Philippines from the Spanish communities colonials.
Which also completely redesigned the military structure too (why the police and army both have Sgts and Lts).
@fulanigirl in other words, the entire post 19th century focus of the United States could be seen as an imperial or post imperial effort.
The vicious tactics used to protect colonial structures (the military, counter insurgency bases and equipment etc) in the "Territories" are nearly synonymous with the tactics used domestically to control the population and protect the "state" and I'd argue colonial control tactics coming home to roost is literally fascism.
@fulanigirl imma just gonna drop this as a good book rec for @philip_cardella this has been a good thread. However I am deeply skeptical of what I've seen of recent "scholarship" on colonialism and I know this title to be much more reliable, (foreward is def important on this one)
Add comment