EDITORIAL FERGUSON, NEW YORK AND THE GRAND JURY DECISIONS: DEEPLY PERSONAL By Phil Seahorn December 15, 2014 THE ASPECT OF HAVING COPS IN YOUR
FAMILY AND HAVING GANGSTERS IN THE EXACT SAME FAMILY CAN BE A VERY, VERY DAUNTING THING. BUT THROW IN RECENT EVENTS, AND I'M HEARING THE FUCKING THEME TO "THE TWILIGHT ZONE". AND, AS I HAVE POSTED BEFORE, THAT FUCKING THEME IS
GETTING LOUDER AND LOUDER. The decisions on the Ferguson shooting and the New York choking death (on fucking video, broadcast worldwide, no less) that came down from the Grand Jury in the U.S has impacted the world. And this event is just now beginning. The most compelling aspect of this event, especially for me having just left St. Louis to go 1200 miles away to Spokane Washington is this: it all started in my fucking home town. From my recollection, verdicts like these have not garnered this much attention since the O.J. Simpson trials and decision. The irony of this is, from the pictures generated by the Ferguson events, most of the people involved where too young to remember how weird it was that EVERYTHING in life in America back in the mid 90's was hinged, before and after, on the O.J. verdict, especially in regards to race relations in America. But the O.J. trial pales to the world reaction that Ferguson Missouri has generated. And make no mistake: appearing before the United Nations on a domestic situation IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is unprecedented. A decision of this magnitude, one has to wonder how all this crazy shit happened in the first place. For me, it's DEEPLY personal. St. Louis is still my home. And my relatives STILL live in St. Louis, and especially my people in Ferguson.
Because I have family and friends back home in the ‘Lou who are cops, lawyers, government folk as well as gangsters from the hood, even from 1200 miles away, the shit fucks with me. It was no surprise that all the institutionalized racism, from the halls of Washington University on down to the dish rooms of restaurants in St, Louis that all that shit would eventually erupt. Racism is one of the MAIN reasons I left St. Louis. This is after all, 2014, not 1970. And all the stupid motherfuckers who posted online their feelings about people IN THEIR OWN HOME TOWN was presented TO THE ENTIRE WORLD and painted a real rosy and friendly environment for people who WOULD have come to St. Louis. Emphasis on” WOULD have”. The real fucked up part about this is now my family and friends are afraid to email anything. I know for a fact that a lot of folks in St. Louis (white and black) are being bugged and under surveillance. I know that people back home are now officially terrorists under The Patriot Act, and that they will be monitored and under surveillance for the rest of their lives. (The next two part editorial will explore this in full). And who's to say what the foreign intelligence community are doing with the Ferguson situation. I kidded with a relative that somebody in Saudi Arabia is watching their back yard right now. They did not find that amusing. Not one fucking bit.
But the eyes of the world will be on St. Louis. How the fuck did all this happen? Why St. Louis? Of all the fucking places in the U.S. for shit of this magnitude to happen, it had to be my home town. The implications of the Grand Jury decisions will resonate right up to the 2016 elections. Not only that, but the social, political, and historical ramifications of these decisions, and the aftermath, will resonate in history books and classes well into the future of this country. And for those of you who think I'm being overly dramatic, think about THIS: St. Louis will be forever known as being the ONLY PLACE in the U.S. with images so, well, UNAMERICAN, that people were thinking they were watching shit in Africa or the Middle East. And as the shit continued, as the videos rolled, as AL JAZEERA news trucks strolled down VERY familiar streets, I'm just not getting it. But there it was: tanks and guns straight out of a scene from Iraq pointing at my relatives and friends. But I'm AFRAID that it will. It’s all scripted. By 2016, either America will be 1950 again, or we will see shit that we as Americans would think we would NEVER EVER see on American soil. We already saw tanks on Ferguson streets. Wait until we get a load of armed drones over Clayton or Ladue. And if you STILL think this is overreaction, at this point in our time in this country, then I gotta get raw: you deserve the treatment of constant surveillance, of cameras in your bedrooms and bathrooms, of your civil rights and rights of privacy
COMPLETELY stripped from you, of being treated like a caged animal because of a law, that allows very sick Americans pulling shit evil shit like this now. You know, like in third world countries where those “other� folks live. Not in America. NEVER in America. for my people back home
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