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The Assassination of Sandra Bland and the Struggle Against State Repression


During the struggle in South Africa black activists who were captured by the state had a strange habit of jumping to their deaths from the windows of jails and court houses whenever the authorities would turn their backs. In the U.S. the method of suicide black prisoners appear to choose is death by hanging, that is when they are unable to pull a gun from an officer and shoot themselves in the chest while handcuffed behind their backs.

In Waller County, Texas, Sandra Bland, a young black woman from Illinois, an activist with black lives matter, who was, according to friends and family, excited about her new job in Texas is stopped for a minor traffic, beaten, jailed and found dead two days later in her cell. Her death labeled a suicide by the Waller County Sheriff Glen Smith.

Because Sandra Bland was an activist who advised others about their rights and the proper way to handle a police encounter, no one is accepting the official explanation that she took her own life. And even if any evidence emerges that after being isolated for three days and subjected to the kind of treatment that Texas racists have been known to melt out to uppity black folks and she may have taken her own life in a moment of acute depression, those state officials are still guilty of murder because she should have never been in that cell.

What does seem clear is that Sandra was a woman who understood her rights and was more than prepared to defend her dignity. However, for a black person in the U.S. defending one’s dignity in an encounter with the police is a crime that that can lead to a death sentence, or in the parlance of human rights, an extra-judicial execution by state agents.

While many are calling for something called justice for Sandra Bland, we would be doing Sandra and all those who have had their lives taken by the agents of repression a disservice if we didn’t place this case in its proper political and historical context.

A psycho-analytic analysis of the dynamics involved with Blands’ gender and blackness could easily conclude that Bland was perceived as an existential threat to the racist male cops who pulled her out of car. Being a conscious, “defiant” black woman she probably disrupted their psychological order and meaning of themselves by her presence and willingness to defend her dignity.

However, as interesting as the individualized analysis and expressions of the psychopathology of white supremacy might be, the murder of Sandra Bland has to be contextualized politically as part of the intensifying war being waged on black communities and peoples’ across the country.

And because the state is waging war against us and will be targeting our organizations, as an activist, organizer and popular educator, Sandra’s murder must be seen a political murder and receive sustain focus as such.

Coming right before the Black Lives Matter Movement gathering in Cleveland, Sandra’s murder dramatically drives home the ever present dangers of not just being black in a culture of normalize anti-blackness, but the vulnerabilities associated with being a black activist and especially a black woman activist.

Historically the tyranny of white power has always had its most dehumanized expressions in relationship to black women. The unrestrained and unlimited power of white supremacist domination converged on the captive bodies of black women during slavery and has symbolically and literally continued during the post-enslavement period of capitalist/colonialist subordination of black people in the U.S.

However, from Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Claudia Jones, Fannie Lou Hammer through to Assata Shukur, Elaine Brown, Jaribu Hill and countless others, revolutionary black women held-up the sky and provided the vision of liberation over the ages.

When the South African government began to target black women activists, the popular response was that now the racist government had “struck a rock.”

This week, under the leadership of black woman activists, much of the resistance movement to the escalating violence of the state will gather in Cleveland to engage in reflection and planning. Sandra Bland will be on the minds of those activists as well as Malissa Williams who found herself at the receiving end of 137 bullets fired by members of the Cleveland police department that ripped apart the bodies of her and her companion Timothy Russell. And the activists will certainly highlight the case of 12 year old Tamir Rice who was shot point blank two seconds after police arrived on the scene where he had been playing with his toy gun in a park near his home.

Yet, the assassination of Sandra must be seen as a blow against the movement. That is why the BLM must struggle to develop absolute clarity related to the political, economic, social and military context that it/we face.

The struggle in the U.S. must be placed in an anti-colonial context or we will find ourselves begging for the colonial state to violate the logic of its existence by pretending that it will end something called police brutality and state killings. The settler-state is serious about protecting white capitalist/colonialist power while we are still trapped in the language of liberal reformism demanding "justice" and accountability. Those demands are fine as transitional demands if we understand that those demands are just that - transitional. Authentic justice and liberation will only come when there is authentic de-colonization and revolutionary power in the hands of self-determinate peoples' and oppressed classes and social groups.

The martyrdom of Sandra Bland and all that came before her and who will follow – and there will be more – demands this level of clarity. We did not ask for this war. But we understand history and our responsibilities to our history of resistance and our radical vision that we can be more than we are today. Our enemies want us to think that they are invincible but we know their secrets and know that they can be defeated. All we have to do is to be willing to fight.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2...nd-and-struggle-against-state-repression

Nice spin.

Facing the prospect that she was not physically murdered, she simply fell victim to the oppression of whitey and took her own life.

Isn't anyone in control of their own actions anymore?

If not, I would like to learn this Vulcan mind power.

I'll need Halle Berry's phone number as well.

Being stopped by the state trooper for failing to signal a lane change?
Really?
REALLY?
In Texas? State troopers have nothing better to do than make traffic stops for not using a turn signal changing lanes?
Just...WOW!
WHAT BUIICHIT!
Forget that she was giving way to his vehicle coming up behind her...
So when he gets to her car she's smoking and he tells her to put it out...inside her own vehicle.
When she protest he pulls out a taser.
Amazing.

The arresting cop will be lucky to keep his job. If people getting irritated by being pulled over for failure to signal gets you riled up and pissed off, you're not worthy to wear a badge. She was irritated, and he asked her why and she mouthed off. He then commanded her to put out her cigarette. When she didn't, he escalated over a warning citation for failure to signal, hauling her out of her vehicle, cuffing her and placing her under arrest. She was a mouthy biotch, but being a mouthy biotch isn't illegal.

The cop was a total douchebag.

As for her death? There needs to be a full investigation by the State bureau of investigation.

Texas DPS Troopers work traffic. That what they do. Traffic cops. Period.

And, police use a traffic violations to stop a vehicle and observe a suspect that they think may be DWI or DUID, or smoking something they shouldn't be.

The DPS in this case was issuing her a warning. No fine, no record. SHE is the one that escalated the situation.

I've been a traffic unit.
I have never, EVER, pulled someone over for giving way to my vehicle.
I'm sure that's what it was...he was stopping her because he thought she was drinking.
He escalated it, he chose to find her actions outside the norm.
It's his disposition that started the chain of events.
I guess she should have cried and begged and offered a BJ.
Pumped his ego up.

Being a mouthy bioch may not be illegal, but it can damn sure get you into trouble. When a cop stops you in this part of the world, black or white, you show some respect and comply.

Sounds like.

But the cop-haters here and elsewhere are gonna see high crimes and misdemeanors all over the place no matter what you or I think, and certainly regardless of the findings of the medical examiner or any other duly constituted authority.

Que Al Sharpton, folks.

Then you were a scheitty one. And do you really think for one second that a "black Lives matter" activist was peaceful or not beligerant during the encounter?

Can a black person do anything in yalls eyes other than act subservient?
I would have been pissed and I'd have made it known.
The stop was BS.
If I was an attorney I'd pulled his last 50 stops to see how many were for failure to signal and how many of those were on black women.
Easy peasy.

All folks have to remember is that if they think they are driving by the letter of the law,i bet that no matter where they live the police can find a reason(lawfully)to pull them over,inside of a block.

What happens next is up to the driver.

I find it hard to believe that with the cameras in the jail that someone could go in her cell and string her up.

Outrage over what someone does to themselves is wasted outrage.

Bastige pulled me over for not signaling a rt turn after a red turned green. Got a warning.

I disagree - she didn't escalate. He escalated when she refused to put out her cigarette. He completely lost it. He was unprofessional and then when he got mad crossed into unethical/unlawful arrest.

Should she have gotten out of the car? Yes. Because at that point, you are screwed, so just comply and file a complaint.

I get the BS reasons to pull someone over - broken taillight, failure to signal and then check for a DUI. But as soon as the officer knows this isn't a drunk or fugitive, then he should be professional, if not polite. This guy was a d!ckwad.

Not surprising to see you take this stance.

Have you even seen the video?



You probably weren't much of a cop, if you ever were one. I know you are consistently wrong on police procedure with your comments.

Likely no cameras in cells, invasion of an inmate's privacy

The full 52 minute video shows the guy just finishing up a traffic stop with a warning.

Uncut, he went to this one, and was prepared to issue a warning for the lane change (even though she's black (gasp)) when the situation went awry.

In actuality, if you watch the uncut, the lady fails to stop at the stop sign when making her right turn - he had this on tape, and it was after she blew the stop sign right in front of him that he made his u-turn. This was probably his reason for really stopping her, but given the prior warning, and this one, I don't think he was in a ticket writing mood - just an all warning day.

The cop appeared to actually show some concern by asking her if she was OK, when she indicated she saw him "speeding up and tailing me" so she pulled over.

I wonder if she pulled (as in to the curb, not just changing lanes) over before the lights went on? That's always suspicious.

Edit to add: I don't know why he went from warning to "get out of the car" mode.

Guess folks can figure that out, but as far as the stop goes, I don't have a problem with it.

I have watched the video. The cop was unprofessional. He escalated. She resisted what was an unlawful/unethical arrest. She did resist, which was stupid, especially with this Napoleon going ballistic on her.

Your right...I must not have been much of a cop sin e I didn't abuse people and have to have my ego stroked on a minute by minute basis.
As à civilian I'm not dropping my britches and bendding over for some fkin blue lights and a badge either.
Guess that's a different view of the world..that regardless of it I made a little bulb go blink blink of not that I'm still a human being with rights.
I don't lose the right to be pissed, the right to ask questions or even insult your choice to pull me over.
Telling a cop you think he is full of chit for a p1ss azz traffic stop isn't a reason to be arrested.
The fact that you can't see that shows that you think your perfect or that your willing to prostate yourself to a uniform for anything to get out of afine.

I'm a cop lover. This cop was a douchebag and had no reason to haul her out of her car. He dishonors the badge.

I have not watched the video, and I have read next to nothing about this event (by choice.)

But I will opine this: There seems to be a trend in this country for rebellious young people - especially Black ones - to deliberately provoke police into an aggressive response for the specific purpose of claiming police brutality.

In this instance, the word "martyr" used in the article may be telling indeed. Do we have here a young activist who provoked an arrest and then took her own life for the sole purpose of being a martyr to her anti-police cause?