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police brutality
When the Margins Catch Fire, We Should Ask Why
Mainstream coverage—especially in conservative media—attempts to pathologize public rage, diagnosing it as deviance or irrationality rather than consequence.
Jul 05, 2025
The press was all over the unrest in Los Angeles about a month ago. But since then, the impatient gaze of the industry turned toward Iran, beautiful budgets, trials of the century, and Elon v. Donald. Still, the cycle of urban margins catching fire needs attention—not just as spectacle, but as the result of fixed systems and broken promises.
The recurring tableau of public rage in urban America has been reduced to visual shorthand—burning cars, shattered glass, tossed stones, fleeing reporters, looting desperados, and the theater of rubber bullets, tear gas, and battle gear. The corporate media narrative rarely strays from this script, obedient to its reflexive calculus: Unrest equals lawlessness and unmoored anger.
Regardless of editorial intent, such mainstream coverage—especially in conservative media—attempts to pathologize public rage, diagnosing it as deviance or irrationality rather than consequence. In doing so, the narrative dismisses the very legitimacy of grievance among those already made to feel they do not count because they do not carry the full weight of citizenship. In supremacy logic, “noncitizen” is often polite talk for racialized otherness.
Peace without justice is an anesthetic, and anesthetics wear off.
This reduction of protest to pathology has consequences. It gives cover to expanded exercises of state power, such as, normalizing greater surveillance capacities, lowering thresholds for suspicion and probable cause, suppressing dissent and academic freedom—all upheld by populist rhetoric and sycophantic media amplification.
We’ve seen this spectacle before. In Baltimore in 2015, protests following the death of Freddie Gray were reduced to a looped image of a burning CVS pharmacy, as if fire alone explained a century or more of exclusion. The substance of the protest—calls for justice, dignity, and police accountability—was overwhelmed by sensational visuals. In Ferguson the year before, armored police vehicles rolled through suburban streets, rifles trained on unarmed civilians, creating scenes indistinguishable from war footage. The tableau was complete: disorder, danger, deviance.
In 2019, nearly 700 undocumented workers were arrested in Mississippi in a high-profile Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid conducted on the first day of school—leaving children stranded and traumatized. No white-collar managers were arrested. The arrests were real, but the performance was unmistakable.
Normally locked in the vaults of academia, scholarship occasionally does help in offering names to describe what we all know and recognize through lived experience. For example, scholarship on “advanced marginalization,” as Loïc Wacquant words it, documents the corrosive effects of persistent exclusion of marginalized communities and their political, social, and economic exclusion. Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s research argues that state institutions produce and maintain zones of “organized abandonment”—communities targeted not only by economic disinvestment but by punitive state power and carceral responses: false imprisonment, law enforcement overreach, racial profiling, and harassment. When entire communities are hemmed in by political structures and policies that monitor, contain, and discipline rather than support or uplift, protest becomes not a departure from reason but its rational consequence.
The truth in our current context is simpler: ICE raids—often carried out by masked agents who withhold identification—serve not merely as immigration enforcement, but as public theater: performative acts of state power designed to instill terror that pushes minorities into greater marginalization.
More recent victims of government signaling include Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University, who was forcibly detained by six masked DHS agents and transported through a multi-state labyrinth of detention centers before being released. Kilmar Ábrego García was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March, despite a 2019 court order barring his removal. At Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil, a green card-holding graduate student and Palestinian rights activist, was arrested by ICE as he prepared to graduate. He was released last month..
I fear that these incidents are part of an unfolding pattern in which immigration enforcement becomes a form of ideological policing, where dissent, origin, appearance, or even academic expression can become grounds for removal. These actions are not just about controlling borders—they are about signaling who belongs in the nation’s narrative and who can be disappeared from it.
The carceral logic of state power is vulnerable to disrespecting constitutional protections and rights. Once these rights are on the run, there’s no corralling them back. It is logistically impossible to deport all people who are in the country illegally (as they say). As such, it seems that ICE has been transformed into a performative arm of white nationalist fantasies—a tool not only for deportation but for public signaling. Migrants from south of the border, Muslims, and international students from the Global South are subjected to raids, surveillance, and public humiliation.
These are deliberate acts of political semiotics—meant to declare who belongs and who does not, a specious restriction of what qualifies as the right kind of identity. The cumulative effect is a wounding of body and psyche—a slow, grinding reminder that certain lives exist only at the mercy of others. The nationwide protests over ICE mandates, arrests, and their social meaning are, in a way, a protest to dismantle the “mercy” arrangement.
The aftermath of unrest is often met with rhetorical sleight of hand: Chaos is condemned while its causes are conveniently ignored. Calls for peace are often made by those woefully insulated and racially protected from the very conditions that make public rage inevitable. Peace without justice is an anesthetic, and anesthetics wear off. The question is not why rage appears, but why so little has been done to acknowledge the legitimacy of frustration and address it without the militarization of American cities.
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Family of Robert Brooks Says Killing by Prison Guards Must Be 'Catalyst for Change'
"We are demanding that every single person, every single thug, that had anything to do with the death of Robert Brooks be fired and arrested," said one advocate.
Dec 31, 2024
As family members and supporters held a vigil at Monroe County Jail in Rochester, New York, on Monday night, inmates in the prison cells above them flashed their lights on and off in solidarity with Robert Brooks, who suffered an apparently fatal beating at a facility more than 100 miles away earlier this month.
Body camera footage of Brooks being savagely beaten by 14 correctional officers and prison staffers at Marcy Correctional Facility was made public on Friday by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The video, which was taken on December 9 from body cameras worn by four of the staffers, showed officers choking Brooks, one person kicking him and forcing him onto an exam table, one punching his upper body, and two officers dragging his limp body over across the room and trying to hoist him up against a window.
Brooks, who was 43, was pronounced dead the following day at a hospital. An autopsy report has not yet been released. A preliminary report from the medical examiner's office showed "concern for asphyxia due to compression of the neck as the cause of death, as well as the death being due to actions of another."
At the rally on Monday, his son, Robert Brooks Jr., said Brooks "had a loving, generous heart and a special concern for young people" and said the family's "deepest wishes are that my father's death will not be in vain."
"His killing must be a catalyst for change," he said.
Brooks' father also spoke at the vigil, decrying the actions of both the people who beat his son and of a nurse at the facility who, according to the video, stood by and watched while the beating took place.
"When you have taken the law officers' oath of honor, the Hippocratic oath, or the Florence Nightingale Pledge for nurses, but you participate or sit idly by smiling and chatting as if this was just another day at the office, while a man is being beaten to death, that's evil," he said. "Between 2016 and 2019, approximately 15,679 fathers, daughters, mothers, and sons died in state prisons. They say 47% died from illnesses—I don't believe it. After watching that video, there is nothing they can tell me that I will believe."
Brooks was more than halfway through serving a 12-year sentence for assault, which he had been serving at nearby Mohawk Correctional Facility. He was moved to Marcy on the day of the attack, The New York Times reported.
The Correctional Association of New York, the state's independent prison watchdog, completed a report on Marcy in 2022, finding that 70% of inmates reported racial bias among staff members. Brooks was Black and the officers in the video—like 91% of the prison's staff members, according to the 2022 report—were white.
Four out of five inmates reported having experienced or witness abuse my correctional officers or other staffers, with one saying physical abuse was "rampant" and reporting that an officer had told him Marcy was "a hands-on facility."
The Times reported on Saturday that at least three of the guards implicated in Brooks' beating had previously been named in federal lawsuits filed by inmates who they attacked; one plaintiff was left using a wheelchair after the beating and another was disfigured.
Elizabeth Mazur, an attorney who is representing Brooks' family, told Rochester-based CBS affiliate that the reports about the officers raise "questions about you know whether there's a real cultural problem that's been allowed to fester at Marcy or sort of within the prison system in general."
"The way that Mr. Brooks was killed is just horrifying," she said. "It's terrible enough to lose a loved one, especially an incarcerated loved one when the family knows that they weren't with them during their final moments, but I think it's especially hard to know that you've lost a loved one this way—to this kind of senseless act of violence."
The family is planning to file a civil lawsuit in the future, Mazur said.
Rallies were also held to demand justice for Brooks in New York City, with supporters gathering outside Gov. Kathy Hochul's office.
"We are not going to sit down and just pray, and just hope," said Rev. Kevin McCall, a community activist. "We are demanding that every single person, every single thug, that had anything to do with the death of Robert Brooks be fired and arrested."
The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said Monday that 13 people involved in the attack have been suspended without pay, while one person has resigned.
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Rights Groups Demand End to 'Heavy-Handed' Crackdowns on Pro-Palestine Campus Protests
"We're urging schools once again to exercise restraint, practice de-escalation, and protect free speech and dissent on campus," said the director at the ACLU's Human Rights Program.
Oct 31, 2024
Three leading human rights groups on Thursday responded to U.S. university and college crackdowns on pro-Palestine campus demonstrations by jointly calling on higher education presidents and administrations to respect and protect "the right to protest under the First Amendment and other international human rights law," citing potentially unlawful uses of force.
"Universities are responsible for protecting both physical safety and free expression on campus," Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program, said in a statement. "It's deeply concerning to see universities needlessly expose students to police violence for peacefully expressing their political opinions. We're urging schools once again to exercise restraint, practice de-escalation, and protect free speech and dissent on campus."
In the open letter, the ACLU, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch (HRW) wrote that "we are exploring claims of heavy-handed and excessive responses by some university and college administrators and police following campus protests in support of Palestinian rights. In many cases, peaceful protests were met with use of force by campus police or local law enforcement summoned by university officials."
"Universities have a responsibility to protect academic freedom and the rights to freedom of expression, and to peacefully protest, and we will be watching to ensure they do."
Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice over its ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip, launched after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. As the U.S. Congress and Biden administration have backed the Israeli campaign with billions of dollars in weapons and by blocking United Nations cease-fire resolutions, students and professors at campuses across the United States have gathered to call on their government and educational institutions to divest from the war.
While student demonstrations have occurred over the past year, they escalated last spring, when protesters from Columbia University in New York City to the University of Texas at Austin faced police violence. Meanwhile, Biden and federal lawmakers in both major parties smeared all the protests as antisemitic‚ even as Jewish students have often led the events. After cracking down on anti-genocide actions this spring, New York University even kicked off the current academic year in August with a new policy equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
The rights groups wrote that "we have serious concerns about the violent consequences when university officials call in police to quell protests, and the impact on freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly. Based on news reports, student protesters were often met with police in full body armor who used physical force, including batons, kinetic impact projectiles such as rubber bullets and foam-tipped rounds, and chemical irritants such as pepper spray and, in at least three instances, tear gas."
"Media reported witness accounts of injuries such as bleeding puncture wounds, head injuries, broken teeth, and suspected broken bones, most notably at the University of California Los Angeles, Columbia University, and the City College of New York, among others," the coalition highlighted.
The groups noted that "criticism of summoning law enforcement to disperse protests has been widespread, including from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, and a number of U.N. human rights experts, including the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to education."
"While privately owned universities do not have the same obligations as state-owned universities, all universities have a responsibility to respect human rights," they explained. "Though not bound by the First Amendment, private universities are bound by their policy commitments to freedom of expression and academic freedom."
Tanya Greene, director of the U.S. program at HRW, stressed that "instead of resorting to police action that both shuts down free speech and heightens the risk of injuries, universities need to do more to protect student speech from violence and intimidation, and actively ensure that peaceful student expression continues without interference."
Amnesty International USA researcher Justin Mazzola said that "the information we have gathered on excessive use of force against student protesters is extremely worrisome and we are still in the beginning of our investigation."
"With the continuation of the Israeli military's assault on Gaza and the risk of U.S. complicity through the sending of weapons, campus protests in favor of stopping the violence and destruction will continue," Mazzola added. "Universities have a responsibility to protect academic freedom and the rights to freedom of expression, and to peacefully protest, and we will be watching to ensure they do."
The rights groups' letter and remarks came after a federal judge in Austin determined on Monday that pro-Palestinian student groups can sue multiple Texas universities' presidents and board members for alleged discrimination and First Amendment violations.
The judge's decision is "a major win for anti-genocide protestors across the country," said the Council for Islamic American Relations (CAIR), which is representing plaintiffs in Texas.
"The court's ruling confirms what we already knew," said Gadeir Abbas, a national deputy litigation director at CAIR. "The government cannot make special rules insulating Israel from criticism, and pretending those rules are about antisemitism does not save them from constitutional scrutiny."
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