July 17: "Completely newsworthy"
Hi. I’m very angry this week. Hope you don’t mind me coming in hot. No brain power for anything delicate or refined. Let’s just go.
We’re really in the shit now. We knew it wouldn’t get any better but I mean, Jesus Pole Vaulting Christ. In case you’ve been taking somewhat of a mental health break from news about police violence − easy to do these days with virtually all major media outlets deciding it’s not worth covering anymore (props to the Times for finally compiling all the NYPD Twitter videos in one place! It’s been almost two months since protests started, but who’s counting) − it’s unfortunately time for you to be caught up. But first, Robert Fuller.
Investigators looking into his death had been completely silent until this week. But on July 9, the day after I sent out my last letter, the LA County Sheriff’s Department concluded that he indeed died by suicide – confirming the theory they made immediately after his body was found. They said they found no signs of foul play, and that Fuller had previously exhibited suicidal behavior. Jonathan Moseley of the National Action Network, a non-profit civil rights organization founded by Rev Al Sharpton, responded with the following:
“I don’t believe it. African-Americans do not commit death by hanging. Under no circumstances. It’s just not our culture.”
And here’s Arthur Calloway, an organizer and speaker at a Palmdale protest over the ruling this week, on what the city would have done if instead of Fuller, it had been an officer that was found hanging from a tree:
“They’d had been 600 cops scouring the neighborhood. Kicking down doors and getting every ounce of video they can scrape. Doing everything that they can to find out who did it. But when Robert Fuller died, it was considered a suicide immediately. It’s indicative of a system that does not value all life the same.”
If you need a reminder on the area’s deeply racist history, especially its police departments, read my letter from a few weeks ago.
In other news, federal paramilitary squads in Portland have begun approaching “suspected protestors” in the night, kidnapping them without identifying themselves or what they’re doing, dragging them into unmarked vans, covering their faces, and holding them in city buildings. These guys are wearing head-to-toe camouflage and body armor, and to the normal pedestrian might look identical to the deranged, gun-toting white nationalist assholes who have been showing up to counter-protest Black Lives Matter events and play dress-up soldier. Please, please read this story and watch this video to learn more. This is happening today, right now. The ol’ conservative argument about “I need to own these 65 assault rifles so I can defend myself in case the government tries to come take my rights” seems pretty relevant all of a sudden. Does this count, fellas? Where the absolute fuck are our leaders?
Meanwhile, on the lighter side of things, police this week knocked a man out of his wheelchair and then broke it into pieces for sport, chased and beat street medics trying to get aid for someone injured, told a photojournalist “we have your address” and then arrested him for repeating their words back to them, proposed changes to the law making it easier for them to revoke press credentials, tased a protestor for yelling, held a woman down by her hair in a 4 v. 1 encounter in NY, openly mingled with white nationalists at a police union-hosted event, brutally knocked a cyclist onto the curb before arresting him, cuffed protestors inside cages while denying them food and water for 9 hours and refusing to give them hand sanitizer, mercilessly beat a homeless man sitting on the train before attempting to sue him for assault (May 25), collected four-hour overtime compensation for walking some documents 150 yards from their station to the courthouse, arrested a woman who was standing still holding a sign, attached a gas grenade to the end of a stick like a flamethrower to push back protestors, and much more.
Breonna Taylor’s killers are also still free and on payroll, while 87 protestors have been charged with felonies for protesting her murder.
Thank you as always for reading. Subscribe via the button at the bottom to receive this letter in your inbox every week, and share it with the friends and family that need to see it. All videos and news can be found on my Twitter.
I started writing these letters on my Facebook page back in May for a lot of reasons. The main one was this: I was seeing horrific things on social media and alternative news sources that most of my family were not. It wasn’t their fault, and I’m not some savant Sherlock Holmes. Really, I just keep up with conversations happening on Twitter, Reddit and a few other sites that most other people my age, and especially those in my profession, are familiar with by default. The stories that pop up on Facebook and − finally, way later, sometimes − on the biggest networks and papers tend to be only the ones that have gone viral for days and days.
The old man getting pushed to the cement by police, for example, or the Black couple getting tased inside their car. Those were videos that were circulating on Twitter for quite a while before getting real attention in the media. And of course, I’m relieved that they did finally make it to the mainstream, because like all of the other stuff I write about here, they must be seen to fully understand what’s going on. But if you aren’t constantly, proactively checking these sites and social platforms for breaking stories, those viral videos might be the only ones you see. So I decided to compile the most serious clips from the week and make sure, at the very least, my parents and close friends were exposed to more than they might be otherwise.
Like I’ve said at the start of many of my letters, the mainstream news really picked up on the looters in the early days of the protests. Footage of younger kids busting into Adidas and running out with armfuls of sweatpants made for captivating television, and scratched the “well, slow down now. There are two sides to this whole thing” itch – an acceptable limit to be placed on the actions of the people coming forward to protest the murder of another Black man. “Sure, you’re right for standing up to this. But breaking windows and defacing property? No Black life is worth that kind of behavior.” It obscured the message the protests were meant to have, and most importantly, buried George Floyd and the officers who killed him underneath a new narrative.
But even though it skewed the story, the cameras were rolling. Reporters were on the ground, in harm’s way, talking to the people, filming the police violence, telling the story. When the looting stopped, and peaceful protest resumed in cities across all 50 states, however, suddenly the “newsworthiness” of the movement evaporated. Police continued their coordinated assault on citizens, that’s for damn sure. The beatings, arrests, humiliation, terrorism, threats, extortion and illegality ramped up exponentially. Absolutely crazy shit. If you’ve clicked any links in my letters, you’ll know. These videos and pieces of news are things that make any lucid person go HOLY SHIT, WHAT? In other words, extremely newsworthy.
So where are these reporters now? I know, there’s a pandemic, the world is upside down and there’s more than enough to report on. But if all we’re talking about is the “newsworthiness” of a story, how the hell are these clips not meeting the standard? They tell you in journalism school the old adage, half sarcastically but not really, “if it bleeds it leads.” Does it get any bloodier than this?
Someone on Twitter asked, why is there a media blackout [on police violence]?
Someone else responded with the following:
“Because showing peaceful protests isn’t sensational. Because the protestors weren’t the ones rioting and they’re uncomfortable with the exposure of violence perpetrated by police and white nationalists. Their viewers don’t want to see the mirror that holds up.”
Yes, the Times this week published a massive collection of NYPD violence videos. Yes, they and other mainstream outlets have covered many instances of violence since May. And yes, there are strict, slow journalistic practices that a lot of outlets deploy when using/trusting video content from social media. But it all feels like too little, too late. Not something to congratulate. Almost all of the videos in that article had been on Twitter for weeks, in this newsletter too. And sure, arranging them tastefully in a multimedia spread is nice and a good introductory lesson for readers who know nothing about what’s going on. But the urgency is what’s missing. If you get your news solely from these papers, you’ve only seen a sliver of the truth. There’s so much more. Happening every single day. All around us.
I want to end with this video, which I think is the most important thing to watch this week. Please listen to the whole thing. I’m skipping the Videos & News section this time. All of the clips I would normally post are linked in the above section, and are on my Twitter. Finally, I’d like to recommend checking out this channel, which streams live footage from protestors in the middle of the shit every single night, in cities around the country.
“There’s no WUSAJ, there’s no CNN, there’s no WashPo, there’s no Associated Press, there’s no DCist. Nobody is out here except for street journalists who come out and spend their time trying to chase the truth. We need people out here to show that this is still going on or the media is going to believe that there’s nothing going on. The more that they don’t spread what’s going on, the more people are going to believe that people aren’t out here. But we’re out here. Every day.”
Thank you as always for reading Dust & Chips. Subscribe via the button below to receive this newsletter in your inbox every week, and share this installment if you’re inspired to. Don’t look away. Tomorrow is another day.
Thank you Peter for your consistently insightful articles. Tomorrow is, indeed, another day. If we work together it will be a better day.