From NOEBIE.net
Historian and geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore claims that the rebellion in Baltimore is an uprising against austerity. She says that gentrified cities, the fall of manufacturing and the filling of jails with black men all fueled the reaction to the killing of Freddie Gray.
The US is more segregated by race and income now than in 1960.
It’s in the defense of that property – those CVS stores owned by faceless individuals and those police cars being bashed in – that we’ve seen the strongest response from the dominant element of society. Social media is a good indication, but certainly not the only one. There, on sites like Facebook and Twitter, folks have spoken up about Freddie Gray for the first time. They’ve not come to the defense of the oppressed. Rather, they’ve spoken up in condemnation of those “animals,” “thugs,” and “criminals” who are “destroying their own city.” It’s some combination of historical illiteracy and racial animus that drives the response.
Read More: The Dominant White Response to Baltimore Shows Why Black Residents are Justified in their Anger
Stacia L. Brown reports for The Nation that the emotional distance between Freddie Gray’s moving funeral and the chaos that followed isn’t as wide as it may seem.
Billy Murphy had, at one point, asked everyone present to raise their hands if they’d been a victim of police brutality in Baltimore.
Everyone raised a hand.
Read More: Dispatch from Baltimore: Praying for Peace, Living Another Reality | The Nation