Bag of Snakes is an occasional email series that highlights different aspects of the criminal punishment system in Arkansas. Learn more here.
Be advised that this edition of Bag of Snakes features a song with explicit lyrics.
Lockdown: Militarized Policing, White Backlash, and a National Uprising
By Zachary Crow
The murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin sparked a national uprising with expressions of solidarity across the globe. At the height of COVID-19, Black activists and their co-conspirators, understanding that the nation was battling two pandemics (coronavirus and white supremacy) abandoned the safety of their homes for the urgency of the streets.
Mass demonstrations calling for an end to police brutality, unfettered killings, and other forms of racial injustice, erupted in cities across the country, mobilizing veteran activists and budding protestors alike. Set against this backdrop comes Lockdown. In search of a “protest song that people could dance to,” Anderson .Paak marries his signature soul-rap sound with lyrics commemorating George Floyd and chronicling the protest and police violence that erupted in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and across the nation following the murder of George Floyd.
Black musicians have always scored the soundtrack for mass movements. From its outset, hip hop has sought to carry on this legacy of anthemizing the struggle for Black liberation. In an interview with American Songwriter, Anderson .Paak acknowledges that the music he most admires from the ‘60s and ‘70s was “based around protest, around the revolution that was happening, and around social issues,” and seeks to inhabit this long lineage with his track Lockdown.
You should've been downtown (Word)
The people are risin' (For real?)
We thought it was a lockdown (What?)
They opened the fire (Man)
Them bullets was flyin' (Ooh)
What said it was a Lockdown? Goddamn lie.
Oh my
Time heals allx, but you out of time now (Now)
Judge gotta watch us from the clock tower (True)
Lil' tear gas cleared the whole place out
I'll be back with the hazmat for the next round.
We was tryna protest, then the fires broke out
Look out for the secret agents, they be planted in the crowd
In the summer of 2020, national protest reached heights unseen since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Activists came face to face with a militarized police presence that labeled them terrorists and treated them as combatants. By June 2, 2020 (just eight days after the murder of George Floyd) the National Guard had been activated in at least twenty-eight states. Infiltration, mass arrests, rubber bullets, tear gas, flash grenades, and other military-grade weapons, were immediate and served as ways of criminalizing and stifling free speech. The music video for the Anderson .Paak track Lockdown visualizes these realities. .Paak and friends can be seen recuperating after what appears to be a bloody confrontation with law enforcement.
These realities are not new. Since its inception in 1996, the Defense Department's 1033 program has transferred more than $7.4 billion worth of military equipment—including grenade launchers, batons, combat vehicles, and hundreds of thousands of rifles—to police and sheriff’s departments. In addition to possessing an unprecedented arsenal, law enforcement officers are imbued with a “warrior” mindset and trained to enact deadly force without hesitation. A 2016 study into police training revealed that officers receive 168 hours of firearms training, self-defense, and use of force while only receiving nine hours of conflict management training. As a result, American police officers are In addition to its unapologetic critique of police, Lockdown exposes a white citizenry that would scoff at looting while turning a blind eye toward the killing of Black Americans.
Politicians, elected officials, media, and members of the public attempted to depict the uprising as “civil unrest.” In response to police violence, some peaceful protesters escalated their tactics, engaging in acts of property damage and destruction. Mainstream critiques of rioters and looters were intended to delegitimize the movement and paint protestors—rather than homicidal policing and other forms of white supremacy—as the true problem. Donald Trump called demonstrators “thugs,” threatened them with “vicious dogs” and tweeted a quote popularized in 1967 by Miami police chief Walter Headley: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Whether it be the erection of confederate monuments in response to Reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement or the dramatic shift from Barack Obama to Donald Trump, white backlash has always followed the advancement of racial equality. Despite recent studies from the New York Times which show, that the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement gained more support in the summer of 2020 than the previous two years combined. This surge in approval was short-lived. White opposition remains widespread. Over the past year, support for BLM has fallen to rates lower than before George Floyd’s death. As is the common practice in seasons of Black resistance, protest in 2020 was met with white denial, apathy, and self-victimization. Anderson .Paak articulates it this way:
Said, "It's civil unrest," but you sleep so sound
Like you don't hear the screams when we catchin' beatdowns?
Stayin' quiet when they killin' n******, but you speak loud
When we riot, got opinions comin' from a place of privilege
Sicker than the COVID how they did him on the ground
Speakin' of the COVID, is it still goin' around?
And won't you tell me 'bout the lootin'?
What's that really all about?
'Cause they throw away black lives like paper towels
More than a year after the murder of George Floyd, a national reckoning on race and policing has yet to be fully realized. Lockdown reveals a harsh reality in which Black Americans are still treated as disposable (like paper towels). Not only are they criminalized, abused, and killed by police, but also maligned in public opinion. Despite personal epiphanies among some white Americans over the past year, most have failed to connect this watershed moment to systemic injustice and take appropriate action. A philosophy of “bad apples,” rather than one rooted in an understanding of white supremacy, allows the system to persist. Bad apples grow on rotten trees. Anderson .Paak invites listeners to an ongoing revolution intended to dismantle a system of injustice that dates back to slavery. Listen. Answer the call.