LOS ANGELES — As American citizens we have proudly worn a subliminal badge of honor elevating our “freedom” to that of a black American Express Card which we can swipe at our leisure to freely and proudly roam our streets of the US as though they were a homage to our “American Dream” path along the “yellow brick road”. Yet, more and more, we are spied upon by law enforcement, thus, deemed “domestic terrorists” in our own homeland. I wonder if Dorothy in the “Wizard of Oz,” on her spiritual quest and traveling the “land of the free and home of the brave” today, would feel enlightened or oppressed?
American citizens, especially Black citizens, are increasingly, systematically dehumanized when roaming this “land of the free and home of the brave” in their every day lives. Law enforcement deems them as criminals through use of brutal police tactics, thus, the new Jim Crow.
According to Hamid Khan of Stop LAPD Spying, currently racially discriminatory Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) or rather, secret files, are opened on people who law enforcement and the public deem as suspicious individuals. Rather than fostering better community-police relationships, law enforcement too often uses deadly force and even military style tactics to patrol communities of color. Tensions between communities of color and their local police departments escalated throughout the fall of 2014 and have not abated. Rather than spending monies to empower impoverished communities, monies are spent as reactionary means of oppression through capitalistic policing dollars.
According to Hamid Khan, in 2014, body-worn cameras for police became the subject of discussion across political and media landscapes following the non-indictments of the officers involved in the killings of Ezell Ford, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and countless other people. Law enforcement continually is acquitted of most charges in these shootings. However, a trickle of hope was recently given. After three hours of public testimony, the Los Angeles Police Commission Board rendered that both officers in the Los Angeles Ezell Ford case acted improperly when they drew their guns.
According to those with Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, law enforcement agencies are using any various combinations of body worn cameras along with intelligence and surveillance apparatuses. These body worn cameras add facial and voice information to the already large amounts of data already gathered by surveillance technology such as Trapwire, Stingray, Automatic License Plate Readers, Hi-Definition cameras, drones and more.
Imagine today an African-American Dorothy, such as in the acclaimed Broadway production of the “Wiz,” and how safe she would be traveling these same roads on her journey? Would she be deemed human or a “domestic terrorist” under siege? For far too many in Black and brown communities, the American Dream is increasingly an American nightmare. And, the menace of a police state is spreading like a dark cloud over all communities struggling with poverty and the jobless economy.
