Challenging the Baltimore Boss [expressing anger is more real than wearing a mask]. From [HERE] and [HERE] Black rioters in northwest Baltimore looted stores and pelted riot-gear-clad police with rocks on Monday, hours after Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old black man who has become the nation’s latest symbol of police brutality, was laid to rest amid emotional calls for justice and peace. [expressing anger is more real than wearing a mask].

At least seven officers were injured and one was “unresponsive,” Capt. J. Eric Kowalczyk of the Baltimore police told reporters. On Saturday evening Police made 34 arrests after protests turned violent as some protesters damaged several police cars and broke windows at a number of downtown businesses, officials said. 

In response to the violence, Gov. Larry Hogan [white] declared a state of emergency in Baltimore and activated the National Guard. Additional state police were sent to the scene, and officers from surrounding counties were also brought in to respond. 

Angry youths could be seen surrounding a police cruiser and smashing its windows in what police described as an organized attack [on property] by criminals — not demonstrators. Cars were set on fire, and stores’ windows were smashed in. Heavy smoke poured out of a CVS drugstore, which had earlier been overrun by looters. Several other businesses, including a liquor store and a check-cashing shop, were also looted.[MORE]

On Saturday authorities briefly held [mostly white] baseball fans at nearby Camden Yards, where the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox were playing. [MORE] Today, the Orioles postponed Monday night’s home game against the Chicago White Sox as violence spread through the city. The white media does not keep track of how many [Black] civilians have been injured, b/c that's not their thing. Their focus is on victim-cops and making white dominance and control over everything seem natural. [MORE]

 

Troopers Advance! 'I had toothbrush and toothpaste. Then I got my ass whipped for my benefit and yours. I learned about non-violence from comic books about Gandhi. It makes me feel morally superior. We need to teach our racist police to love us. Whites in government must lead the way.' - John Lewis on TV last month. [MORE] 

Anon asks, 'If marching, picketing, and protesting was an effective strategy to achieve justice — why are we still marching, picketing, and protesting FOUR DECADES later? Why is there MORE police brutality, MORE violence, MORE drugs, MORE guns in our communities, MORE black men and women in prison, MORE black children at risk, MORE family instability, MORE out-of-wedlock births, MORE single mothers, and MORE black children dropping out of high school now than before the civil rights era?'  MORE]

No Effect on White Supremacy. Raul Hilberberg notes that prior to the Nazi extermination of the Jews, the Jews made various "alleviation attempts" in their failed resistance to white supremacy. Under the heading of alleviation are included petitions, protection payments, ransom arrangements, anticipatory compliance, relief, rescue, salvage, reconstruction-- in short, all those activities which are designed to avert danger, or, in the event that force has already been used, to diminish its effects.

The Jewish posture in the face of destruction [during the Holocaust] was not shaped on the spur of the moment. The Jews of Europe had been confronted by force many times in their history, and during these encounters they had evolved a set of reactions that were to remain remarkably constant over the centuries. "Preventive attack, armed resistance, and revenge were almost completely absent in Jewish exilic history." [MORE]

Sound familar - reminding you about Blacks and Latinos in the U.S.? Of course, there will be no armed revolution with racists. Armed conflict with the billion dollar white supremacy/racism war machine is the stuff of imagined fantasy [suicide] - or yet another way to avoid really dealing with white supremacy [your problems]. A violent reaction is still just a reaction and that is the problem. 

"You are powerless so anything can overpower you." [Non-violence has made Black people just like butter]

Instead of responding to racism Black people simply react to it. 'To react means you are acting unconsciously. Somebody is manipulating you. Somebody says something, does something, and you react. The real master of the situation is somebody else. Somebody comes and insults you and you react, you become angry. Somebody comes and praises you and you smile and you become happy. Both are the same. You are a slave and the other knows how to push your buttons. You are behaving like a machine. You are an automaton, not a human being yet. A plaything in the hands of others.' [MORE] and [MORE].

Whatsoever happens around you, catches you. You are not powerful. Everything else is more powerful than you. Anything changes you. Your mood, your being, your mind, depend on other things. Objects influence you. [MORE]. Non-white people cannot possibly neutralize white supremacy in this constant state of reaction. [MORE].

A new consciousness is needed to create a new culture. Your consciousness can become an instrument of power. Really, you are politically powerless to do anything about this situation - this White over Black system of domination and control.  Your consciousness is the only real power non-whites can presently obtain. But right now your consciousness is a utility of white supremacy/racism and it works in service of white domination. With this collective 'reality-avoidance' consciousness, self preservation tactics such as boycotts against white supremacy or the collective power of withdrawal are not viable at all.    

It is true that "racism is a power group dynamic." And this is a two way street. Amos Wilson explained, "power ultimately has to do with a relationship between people, and the white man’s so-called power, is to a great extent based upon the nature of the relationship he has with the Black man. We empower him by the nature of our own behavior and attitudes as a people. He cannot be what he is unless we are, what we are. To a good extent, the European is our creation. If we look at our behavior, we will see that to a good extent, it is our behavior, our values, our consciousness, the kind of personalities we’ve established in ourselves, our taste, our desires and needs; that maintains the European in its position."

You cannot change this situation but you can change yourself. If we change our consciousness then our relationship with white people will never be the same. One by one, this situation must change if we change - if we become non participants in the system of white supremacy. It will be another Rosa Parks moment. Her mental participation with racism/white supremacy stopped, she dropped out - in order for this racist power relationship to work it required her voluntary compliance or belief in it or programmed mind to accept, to do this and that. This confrontation is mental. The revolution is in your mind, against your own mind. How can you change your consciousness? 

A way to transform your consciousness is with meditation. If enough non-white individuals became meditative the system of white supremacy/racism as we know it would no longer exist. It requires no studying, college degrees, priests, experts, politicians, buildings or equipment. "The only way out of this mess is to silently start growing your own consciousness, which they cannot prevent by any force. In fact they cannot even know what is going on inside you." 

Meditation is a state of being, arrived at through understanding. It is a state of no-mind. The real revolution is an inner transformation of your consciousness. This change will give you eyes to see reality as it is, a consciousness to reflect, a mirrorlike being to be able to respond to any situation that arises.' [MORE] It is not pro-violence or pro non-violence. It is not a strategy - just real, authentic response based on a reverence for life. According to Bhagwan Rajineesh, "each individual has to become a meditator, a silent watcher, so that he can discover himself. And this discovery is going to change everything around him. And if we can change many people through meditation, we can create a new world." [MORE]

Now, more words about it from Bhagwan,

"The appreciation of objects and subjects is the same for an enlightened as for an unenlighted person. The former has one greatness: he remains in the subjective mood, not lost in things.

There is a very beautiful method. You can start it as you are; no other prerequisite is needed. The method is simple: you are surrounded by persons, things, phenomena – every moment something is around you. Things are there, events are there, persons are there – but because you are not alert, you are not there. Everything is there but you are fast asleep. Things move around you, persons move around you, events move around you, but you are not there. Or, you are asleep.

So whatsoever happens in your surroundings becomes a master, becomes a force over you; you are dragged by it. You are not only impressed, conditioned by it, you are dragged by it.

Anything can catch you, and you will follow it. Somebody passes – you look, the face is beautiful – and you are carried away. The dress is beautiful, the color, the material is beautiful – you are carried away. The car passes – you are carried away. Whatsoever happens around you, catches you. You are not powerful. Everything else is more powerful than you. Anything changes you. Your mood, your being, your mind, depend on other things. Objects influence you.

This sutra says that enlightened persons and unenlightened persons live in the same world. A Buddha and you both live and move in the same world – the world remains the same. The difference is not in the world, the difference happens in the Buddha: he moves in a different way. He moves among the same objects but he moves in a different way. He is his own master. His subjectivity remains aloof and untouched. That is the secret. Nothing can impress him; nothing from the outside can condition him; nothing can overpower him. He remains detached; he remains himself. If he wants to go somewhere, he will go, but he will remain the master. If he wants to pursue a shadow, he will pursue it, but it is his own decision.

This distinction must be understood. By ‘detachment’ I don’t mean a person who has renounced the world – then there is no sense and no meaning in detachment. A detached person is a person who is living in the same world as you – the difference is not in the world. A person who renounces the world is changing the situation, not himself. And you will insist on changing the situation if you cannot change yourself. That is the indication of a weak personality. A strong person, alert and aware, will start to change himself… not the situation in which he is. Because really the situation cannot be changed – even if you can change the situation, there will be other situations. Every moment situations go on changing so every moment the problem will be there.

This is the difference between the religious and the non-religious attitude. The non-religious attitude is to change the situation, the surrounding. It doesn’t believe in you, it believes in situations: when the situation is okay, you will be okay. You are dependent on the situation: if the situation is not okay, you will not be okay. So you are not an independent entity. For communists, Marxists, socialists, and all those who believe in changing the situation, you are not important; really, you don’t exist. Only the situation exists and you are just a mirror which reflects the situation. The religious attitude says that as you are you may be a mirror, but this is not your destiny – you can become something more, someone who is not dependent."

There are three steps of growth. Firstly, the situation is the master, you are just dragged by it. You believe that ‘you are’, but you are not. Secondly, ‘you are’, and the situation cannot drag you, the situation cannot influence you because you have become a will, you are integrated and crystalized. Thirdly, you start influencing the situation: just by your being there, the situation changes.

The first state is that of the unenlightened; the second state is of the person who is constantly aware but as yet unenlightened – he has to be alert, he has to do something to be alert. The alertness has not become natural yet so he has to fight. If he loses consciousness or alertness for a single moment, he will be in the influence of the thing. So he has to stand on his toes continuously. He is the seeker, the sadhak, the one who is practising something. The third state is that of the siddha, the enlightened one. He is not trying to be alert, he simply is alert – there is no effort to it. Alertness is just like breathing: it goes on, he does not have to maintain it. When alertness becomes a phenomenon like breathing, natural, sahaj, spontaneous, then this type of person, this type of centered being, automatically influences situations. Situations change around him – not that he wishes them to change, but he is powerful.

Power is the thing to be remembered. You are powerless so anything can overpower you. And power comes through alertness, awareness: the more alert, the more powerful; the less alert, the less powerful. Look… while you are asleep even a dream becomes powerful because you are fast asleep, you have lost all consciousness. Even a dream is powerful, and you are so weak that you cannot even doubt it. Even in an absurd dream you cannot be skeptical, you will have to believe it. And while it lasts, it looks real. You may see just absurd things in the dream, but while you are dreaming, you cannot doubt. You cannot say this is not real; you cannot say this is a dream; you cannot say this is impossible. You simply cannot say it because you are so fast asleep. When consciousness is not there even a dream affects you. While awake, you will laugh and you will say, “It was absurd, impossible, this cannot happen. This dream was just illusory.” But you have not noticed that while it was there you were influenced by it, you were totally taken over by it. Why was a dream so powerful? The dream was not powerful – you were powerless. Remember this: when you are powerless even a dream becomes powerful. [MORE]