Incredible Shrinking World - for Blacks

(I Can't Breathe, Matt Taibbi, Oct 2017)

Eric Garner died for nothing. He had been harassed by police for years. They went to extraordinary lengths to taunt him and keep him in the criminal justice system. Finally, one day police pulled up and sat in their car because Garner was across the street from his usual spot, using his huge bulk to break up a fight. With the fight over, the police attacked – Garner. He clearly had not been selling loose cigarettes, but that’s what they wanted to arrest him for. The rest is history.

Matt Taibbi’s visceral, disturbing and grinding book adds the missing context. He traces the lives of Garner and his family members, the cast of characters present on that fateful day, as well the police, lawyers and prosecutors involved. It’s a real life journey through the Twilight Zone, where the universe closes in, Garner has less and less space to live, and ultimately, no air to breathe. It’s an ugly reality for millions, as police policy is to be extremely strict with blacks and Hispanics, and then claim their areas are high crime, needing even stricter policing. Police on Staten Island routinely stopped blacks and Hispanics, beat them as desired (the opening chapter of I Can’t Breathe is particularly revolting), and humiliated them by often strip searching them right on the street, usually it seems, with no grounds whatsoever.

The criminal justice system further tortures them, with absurd and unprovable charges, absurdly high cash bail, multiple court appearances and endless additional arrests. And the goal is – what exactly? To make them move away? Or just to fulfill quotas. Taibbi shows the police union actually negotiating the monthly stop and arrest quotas for its members. So they round up the usual suspects, again and again. It is very sick, and sickening. Taibbi is clearly one of the sickened; he is unable to remain neutral.

The man most responsible for the protests following the Garner killing was Ramsey Orta, who videoed it. Police have been taking their revenge ever since. They even broke into his home, wielding not guns but cameras, taunting him with “You made a video – We make a video!” They wouldn’t let his naked wife dress, and tore the place apart. They follow his every move by tracking his mobile, and arrest him continually. He is now fearful they will kill him, because they publicly announced he is suicidal.

The point is it wasn’t just Eric Garner. All kinds of lives have been altered and often ruined in this ongoing process of state harassment. The system is clearly rotting before our eyes. The complete waste of it all is disheartening. It makes I Can’t Breathe a frightening document of our time.

David Wineberg