Bombs and MLK
Monday’s annual march through downtown Spokane to honor the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was disrupted by a “suspicious device” found along the route. The FBI determined the bomb was “likely capable of inflicting multiple casualties.”
At the last minute, organizers re-routed the march through Riverfront Park in order to avoid the device. However, most of the estimated 1,500 people on hand seemed unaware of the change.
There is no word if organizers received any threats Monday. Spokane Mayor Mary Verner, several city council members, County Commissioner Mark Richard, local university presidents and prominent African-American leaders were in the march.
The FBI is offering a $20,000 reward for information. Call the Seattle office, 206-622-0460.
Swastikas and MLK
It’s not quite the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” but on the weekend set aside to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Coeur d’Alene newspaper devoted its Sunday front page to a large photograph featuring swastikas and a letter from an avowed racist serving time in federal prison.
The big headline above it all: “I’m sorry.”
The letter, which the Coeur d’Alene Press received in December, was written by Zach Beck, who had been a lieutenant in the notorious Aryan Nation during the final years of founder Richard Butler’s life.
“It came out of the blue,” Press editor Mike Patrick says of the letter. “We thought really hard about what to do with it. … I wrote back to him and we began to correspond a little bit. I wanted, as well as I could, to believe it was sincere.”
After writing with Beck and an African-American friend of Beck’s who Patrick would not identify, Patrick says he made the decision to devote the Sunday front page to Beck’s own words with no qualifiers or explanation.
The Press had previously placed the Aryan Nation on its front page in a negative light, and Patrick says he thinks it appropriate to give Beck the same platform for his apparent turnaround.
“I wasn’t keen on serving up swastikas for Sunday breakfast for our readers, but I put it out there where everyone can see it,” Patrick says.
Beck writes, “I want to formally apologize for the image of hate that I helped bring upon this decent community. I could tell you I was ordered to do what I did and that I was young and dumb, manipulated and lied to, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was still me. … Hate is pointless … selfish, childish, and cowardly.
“I’m sorry.”
Patrick says he did not verify many specifics in the letter but after corresponding with Beck and the friend, he concludes the letter is sincere.
Beck, 31, is serving time in the federal prison at SeaTac. He was arrested a year ago after leading an attack on the lone black patron in a Longview, Wash., bar.
Spokane is a racist town. Evidence abounds. De facto segregation is its legacy. The two percent quotient abounds: two percent Black, two percent Asian, two percent Latino, two percent Native American (in fact, fewer the two percent Native American).
Two of 17 domestic terrorist in the US from 1990 to 1996 occurred in Spokane carried out by white supremacist organizations http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terror_96.pdf
If you are not aware of the work of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center in challenging and bankrupting the white supremacist Church of Jesus Christ of Aryan Nations which was located just across the state line from Spokane in Northern Idaho, please read up on it. It was an epic struggle and points to the legacy of racism in Spokane which, of course, goes back to the US Army riding the length of the Spokane river killing Indian people´s, including those of the Indian nation (the Spokanes) whose lands and name we stole), while destroying their food store and killing their horses.
The same day that bomb was found on the MLK day march, a cross was burned in Kellogg, Idaho. Other incidents have been reported.
To those who want to minimize this incident or decontextualize it, I believe the history of racism and white supremacist bombings in the Spokane area clearly suggest that this was a racist incident in keeping with Spokane´s history.
As to those like national commentator Rachel Maddox who have questioned o "where is the outrage", be assured it is here. But it is an undeniable reality that anger and rage are today in the US clearly and effectively socially sanctioned emotions. If you are angry or express rage, you are identified as "out of control", "dangerous", "mentally ill", "need to be dealt with", etc. We have been, effectively, emotionally decapitated as a result of this socially stigmatizing of anger. Look at the videos of old women in Latin America angrily excoriating riot squads in Oaxaca and other places. Look at rage on the streets all over the world. This rage -- product of righteous indignation -- is visceral, true human reaction to injustice and crimes against the people. In the US, we are expected to confront and deal with the inequalities and injustices of a racist society as well as atrocities of our government and our political-economic system, both here and abroad, without rage and anger.
Without access to one´s rage and anger, one can not experience, feel or understand one´s humanity to the extent necessary to understand one´s condition fully. And therefore one can not act and be in community nor find solidarity with this common human condition of subjugation to a global regime of racism, exploitation, terror and empire.
Long live rage, anger and righteous indignation! Stop the racism!
David Brookbank
http://spokaneracism.wordpress.com/
¿Hasta dónde debemos practicar las verdades? Jan 21, 2011 | Reply to this comment
The country has evolved, and laws have been changed... yet it has been a 40 plus year process in my memory... and it continues.... but the pace in Spokane is slower, much slower. There are several active groups that work on supporting what I´ve called the "Community of Other" which has come together as splintered factions with a solidarity to push the edges of change peacefully and legally, without vituperative assaults on those who vilify our vitality with venom. PJALS, Veterans for Peace, Shalom, Progressive Democrats, Odyssey Youth Center and others will continue the slow slog to equality for all. Join us in fostering peace and justice for all.... our constitutional legacy. John A Olsen/ ChefGus Spokane Wa Jan 22, 2011 | Reply to this comment