Up From the Comments: When Are We Going To Have A War On Terror?

Oh yeah, we've already got one. It's just that our home grown terror doesn't count.

I've been continuing a conversation in the comments with Kevin Hayden about the Tuskegee police and Mark Potok from the Southern Poverty Law Center. I'm putting the exchange out here because Kevin's comments gave me a chance to say in short form something I had in mind to say in a longer link- and source-filled post. Nothing against Kevin: he's done a lot to help and he keeps showing that he cares.

I have an ongoing worry that good progressives and liberals have stopped treating racism front and center as an ongoing major political concern. In other posts, I've been saying that voting problems won't get fixed until the racism is routed out of the electoral process. My point right now is that we can't talk about what's right and what's wrong with anyone's conduct around the death of Winston Carter without talking about racism and its history in the South.

After trying to find the good in Mark Potok's email, Kevin tried to be even handed about the Tuskegee Police:

Any speculation about why it has taken takes Tuskegee's police department 30 days so far to investigate this without providing answers to the family may be only that. I covered a suicide in a Massachusetts jail where the local police were not forthcoming for several weeks, so I don't know if there's an established timeline that police departments try to meet.

I do think they were wrong to publicly label it a suicide before such investigation is completed. Does the investigation continue because therey've seen physical reasons that might contradict that first ruling? Do they investigate to be certain they satisfy the disbelieving family that they uncovered every stone? Who knows?

Failing to secure the scene - no matter what they conclude - is a monumental gaffe that may always leave a taint on their results. North, South, East or West, there's no excuse for trained professionals to demonstrate such incompetence and I certainly hope those who made the mistake are properly disciplined for their failure to maintain standards the public must expect.

For now, I suspect we can only wait. But perhaps it'd be prudent to ask local police chiefs what a reasonable range of time one should expect of such an investigation.

I don't mean to defend the errors nor grant defense where one's due, but if we were to assume they DID find something to suggest it's a homicide/lynching, then wouldn't it also be a reasonable assumption that they'd be pursuing one or more suspects? If so, revealing details publicly could injure their case and diminish their odds for a successful prosecution.

Potok could use a refresher in public relations, and even the dismay he feels about all the past erroneous publicity does not excuse the defensive and condescending tone of his email to me. But I agree that jumping to conclusions achieves nothing.

Possibly the best response is for everyone watching this to phone the dept at (334)727-0200 and ask that you be emailed a notification when the investigation's complete. Without being hostile in any way, that would send the clear message that the interest in the case is sufficient to deter any motivation for anything less than than a professional conclusion.

I should think that would increase their motivation to avoid any further errors.

I think Kevin's idea about everyone calling the Tuskegee Police Department is a very good one, but I don't agree with his whole take:

First point of disagreement is in the post you're commenting on: when does this start to look suspicious enough to warrant action from the SPLC? If part of what looks suspicious is the poor quality of the police investigation, then what good does it do to wait and see what the police turn up first?

But I have a more serious thing to disagree about, too. It's fine to say that the police may have their reasons for not going public with all their information. BUT, we are talking about an incident where a black man was found hanging from a tree in a public place. That is ENORMOUSLY symbolic and can only be experienced as an act of TERRORISM by the African American communities in the area.

We are talking about something that reads as racial terrorism in an area that has a pitiful legacy of incident upon incident of racist violence going uninvestigated— bombings, shootings, cars getting run off the road, beatings, you name it. It is well documented that in the past such things went on with full knowledge of the police and that, in fact, the police were often the perpetrators themselves. Very few of the countless incidents were ever investigated. The police on the force now are the children and grandchildren of the Police/KKK coalition that used terror tactics to keep the "peace" by subduing and intimidating black folks. The past is still very near.

Right now, the Tuskegee Police has a professional and a historical responsibility to quell the legitimate fears of the community that they are supposed to serve. This means conducting the investigation seriously and carefully and as publicly as circumstances allow—even if this only means regular announcements that they are working hard at the investigation and will reveal the developments as soon as possible. If the police has good reason to think that this is a suicide then they must give some indication as to why.

If the police cannot vigorously maintain the sort of conduct I just outlined, they collude either in effect or by intent with terrorist murderers and send the message to all African Americans in the area that in Alabama lynchings are still a-okay.

Af far as the SPLC goes, if they are worth anything as an organization, they should be keenly aware of the symbolic force of Winston Carter's death and be doing EVERYTHING possible to bring pressure on the police to start acting appropriately.

Update (9/15/04): I was a little exercised when I was writing the above. I think I should have been more careful in what I said in one place, in the main clause of this sentence:

The police on the force now are the children and grandchildren of the Police/KKK coalition that used terror tactics to keep the "peace" by subduing and intimidating black folks. (emphasis added)

I don't know anything about the backgrounds of the police officers in Tuskegee. I'm sure that the Sheriff and any other African Americans on the force would be deeply offended to be called "children and grandchildren of the Police/KKK coalition." I also suspect there are whites on the Tuskegee police force who are not "Police/KKK" legacies and who might be offended to labeled as such. I apologize for these implications.

The point I was trying to make with my hyperbole is how in Tuskegee and its environs there are sure to be living victims and perpetrators of racist terrorism and that the children and grandchildren of the victims and perpetrators are part of social fabric of the area. The past is still very much part of the present, and there is no way for a death such as Winston Carter's to be experienced without loud historical resonances.