Understanding the Backlash to the Dialogue Around Lovelle Mixon
Is it really impossible for us to have a conversation about the effect of racist, classist and cruel systems on the behaviour of Americans? Are we so thick-headed that we can’t even consider that the state of the prison system or the racist nature of American policing somehow affected how Mixon saw the world and how he made choices?
The system didn’t make choices for Mixon – in the end he decided to commit violent crimes and he decided to kill four police officers. But the question we need to ask is how much, over the course of his life, did his political context contribute to his personality?
In another New American Media article by Kevin Weston, Weston compares Mixon to Nat Turner, which at first surprised and upset me. Turner led a revolt against a system which tortured, enslaved, dehumanised and bred his people with a precision that makes me physically nauseous whenever I really think about it. Mixon shot some cops because he allegedly didn’t want to go back to prison for multiple rapes. Originally I was slightly horrified by the comparison. But when I thought about it more, I felt confused.
In an article by Earl Ofari Hutchinson that Mukhopadyay also quotes, Hutchinson outlines the almost unwinnable odds that ex-convicts face:
In 2007, the National Institute of Justice found that 60 percent of ex-felon offenders remain unemployed a year after their release. Other studies have shown that upwards of 30 percent of felon releases live in homeless shelters because of their inability to find housing. And those are the lucky ones. Many camp out on the streets.
A significant number of them suffer from drug, alcohol and mental health challenges, and lack education or any marketable skills. More than 70 percent of all U.S. prisoners are literate at only the two lowest grade levels. Nearly 60 percent of violent felons are repeat offenders. They are a menace to themselves and, as the nation saw with Mixon, to others. In some cases, they can be set off by any real or perceived slight, insult, or simply lash out from bitter rage. Mixon was one and he made four Oakland police officers victims and left a terrible trail of grieving and distraught families and a shell-shocked city and police department.
And here is a quote from Mixon from before he went to prison in 2002 for his role in a carjacking (which btw reminded me of the beautiful and heartbreaking book A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca, which renders the devastating real life effects of systemic racism and our abhorrent prison systems)
Mixon told authorities that in the attempted carjacking, “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and did not act responsible and allowed someone else to act just as bad,” according to the report. “Now I have to take responsibility for it all.”
Mixon also is quoted in the report as saying he planned to move away to “a better area, get a job, and hopefully in about two or three years get my own business, raise my kids in a responsible way.”
“I wish I could fix or make up for what happened,” Mixon was quoted as saying. “But I can’t, so I am going to attempt to make the best out of it and learn as much as possible to help me when I get out.”
At the time, Mixon had a 1-year-old son but was not paying child support because he was unemployed, the probation report said.
Weston ends his article with the following line, as well as an Obama-ized shot of Mixon (see the bottom of Weston’s article) that outraged many Feministing readers:
In the meantime, I’m telling all the young brothers I know that stay in Oakland to pump their brakes – there are mad cops out there and your life is worth even less than it was 48 hours ago, when it was worth almost nothing to anyone.
Turner mobilised an organised rebellion; Mixon made a split second decision. Turner was a revolutionary who had very specific intentions when he acted (See the amazing graphic novel Nat Turner by Kyle Baker); we have no idea what Mixon was thinking when he shot the Oakland cops. I want to be clear when I say that as people I do not think they are similar. I also do not think that the murders they committed were similar.
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