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Black and Brown Youth: Both the 'Expendable' Youth of Pomona?

by an anonymous voice of reason Monday, Oct. 05, 2009 at 5:17 PM

Thursday of this past week, Pomona police officers arrested 11 Pomona youth with murder charges, including two current high school students. The murder charges are from April of this year where an 18-year old black male, Marquis LeBlanc from Diamond Bar, was beaten unconscious and then shot and killed.

Whoever killed this young man deserves to pay, and as a girl who identifies herself as "first to call 911" who witnessed the whole event says--"you had better live you life up now, because you WILL get caught". Nobody deserves to die like that, especially that he was shot while already unconscious is a sign of total subhuman cowardice.

In June of this year, Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes about this murder in L.A. Watts Times an article titled "Devaluing a Black Life: The Murder of Marquis LeBlanc" with the following sentiment:

"LeBlanc’s family minces no words. To them it is a case of a police department that cares little about the murder of a young black. The family’s charge that the Pomona police are insensitive to the murder is hardly new. Countless groups have marched, picketed and screamed loudly that police do little to catch killers in serial murder cases, the murders of homeless persons, and of young black males.

"The common thread is that the victims are poor, poorly educated, young, black, often male with criminal records, and with few known family members. In times past, crimes committed by blacks against other blacks were often ignored or lightly punished. "The implicit message was that black lives were expendable. Many studies still confirm that the punishment blacks receive when the victim is white is far more severe than if the victim is black. The clearance rate for murders in some poor, black neighborhoods is far less than for murders in middle-class neighborhoods."


I don't doubt for a minute that the life of a young man man is undervalued by Pomona police department, as with most police--the value of any young person of color doesn't count for much, especially if they come from a lower income area and even more so if they've ever committed anything close to a crime in the past. Be it Black or Brown, all of the above are expendible in this corrupt system, and perhaps in effort to face up to the accusations that they don't care about the murder of Marquis, they round up 11 youth who fit an easy profile of "Latino", come from Pomona, and perhaps even have a history. This right here makes for easy candidates for scapegoating of at least two current high school students among the 11 arrested, at least one of which who is recognized as being a good student, working hard to make up for some mistakes in the past, and trying to live a decent life as he prepares to become a father.

But not only is it scapegoating that is easy to do, but on a bigger level--everyone, even the deceased Marquis and the youth arrested this last week, have all become tools in a larger picture that perhaps serves the police well which is to fuel this idea that Black and Brown people can't do anything but fight and kill each other.

As you look further into what happened on the now dreadful night in April 2009, you can see almost a totally different twist to this story that has not been made evident to the public, which is that Marquis, may he rest in peace, for some reason which is said to be unknown (by the same girl who identifies herself as first to call 911) and by other eyewitnesses, was first pulling out a handgun (or what was thought to be a gun), and waving it around the party. The story by several eyewitnesses is that he started waving the gun and some guys started to fight with him for it, a girl got in the middle and tried to break up the fight, then Marquis ran outside which is when the group of "Latino" youth, including at least one student from local high school, admits to chasing him down outside. But this same youth arrested this week admits to chasing him down after the gun was shown, says he was NOT a part of the ongoing beating, or what in a later episode ended up being his beating to unconsciousness and death.

If someone pulled a gun out at a party, would it not be uncommon for some to initially retaliate against this person? This doesn't in any way imply what later ended up happening to Marquis should have ever happened, but the initial onset of the story does change the context and the framing of what the media and police want us to think--that a young black man showed up at a party in Pomona, an a group of savage "Latino" youth jumped him and beat him to death for being black.

This is complex, and perhaps a little hard to swallow given that--no matter what, Marquis still ended up brutally murdered by the end of the night, but it is important to distinguish the framing of the story, which leads to the framing of those dozen youth arrested this week who may or may not be guilty.

Perhaps the police still do not know who the real killer(s) are, so in response to the pressure such as the articles copied above, they are just grabbing any easy target who attended that party and--as witnesses say--all in attendance were "Latino" so, that makes any of them targets.

The only thing that is for certain, is that the police nor this corrupt system doesn't care about our black or brown youth, nor do they actually want youth of color to ever wake up and realize the inherent solidarity that lies between them all and start getting smart to who some of the real oppressors are. For this reason, it serves them that our economically poor, of-color youth remain fighting each other in "tha hood", and continue to believe that this rivalry actually exists. Who would fill our prison systems if not for the Black and Mexican / Central American populations who currently fill it. Who would perform all of the slave labor that inmates are constitutionally entitled to perform? Read about the abolition of slavery, the 13th amendment after the civil war, which "officially abolishes and prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, EXCEPT IN PUNISHMENT OF A CRIME," which legalizes the slavery of our prison inmates.

Shouldn't it not come as a surprise that ever since the end of slavery, prison industrial complex has continued to grow at times at exponential rates, filled ALWAYS with a majority of Blacks, and now Blacks and Mexican/ Central Americans equally sharing the burden of colonization of this continent and slave labor.

The police in Pomona didn't think twice about shooting and killing an unarmed teenager last year just before Christmas as a high speed pursuit ended by the driver receiving multiple fatal gunshots, nor did the city think twice about bringing SWAT team to a Pomona high school and beating students and teacher(s) alike a couple years back following another murder, nor do they care about the thousands of families they leave stranded carrying their baby car seats and work supplies every weekend at their drivers license checkpoints which clearly targets undocumented families, or the many others who suffer or have suffered from police brutality through the years.

Black and Brown people have EVERYTHING in common, and are NOT enemies. The real fear of the powers that be lies in the possibility that people will one day realize that, and decide to fight the real power--the corporations that really run our government, and the police who serve them.
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topix ain't helpig mous Monday, Oct. 05, 2009 at 10:34 PM
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