Meet Martin Gugino - The 75-Year-Old Assaulted by the Police and Attacked by Trump
Or, if you prefer the perspective of President Trump and associated right-wing conspiracy theorists: an Antifa provocateur who was harassing the police and trying to sabotage their equipment before deliberately falling "harder than he was pushed," cracking his skull on the sidewalk, and (intentionally?!) bleeding from the ear.
Setting aside the absurd notion that a man in his mid-70s—no matter how passionate and impressive a figure—would exaggerate his fall and risk permanent brain damage when a burly police officer 40 years his junior suddenly and forcefully shoves his chest, it's worth looking into who this man is. Is it possible that he is—as Donald Trump posed in a Tweet Tuesday morning—a member of "ANTIFA" (whom Trump has attempted to designate a "terrorist organization") sent to make the Buffalo police look bad? Or is Martin Gugino a gentleman of principle who was brutally assaulted and sent to the hospital in an incident that further exposed the hostility of police forces to the communities they "serve" and their pathological resistance to accountability? Spoiler alert: It's the second one.
Then again, I'm just a stranger on the Internet. Why would you believe me over the President of the United States parroting his favorite ass-kissing, propaganda network? Fortunately, you don't have to. In the difficult choice between a known liar who has never met Martin Gugino and a random stranger who has never met Martin Gugino, there exists a secret third option—people who know him:
Terrence Bisson, a mathematics professor at Canisius College, first met Gugino at a demonstration at Buffalo City Hall around 10 years ago. The two have since volunteered together at the Western New York Peace Center, where Gugino served as Treasurer and Bisson as chair on the Latin American Solidarity Committee—whose members are "committed to non-violent civil disobedience." Bisson describes Gugino as "funny and gentle" and says, "He'd never shout or oppose someone. He would ask questions if he thought something was not right."
While some observers have tried to find a provocation in the way Gugino stood in front of police, those individuals seem to have had an obstructed view of events (watching, as it turns out, from inside their own a**holes), and Bisson rejects the idea outright, saying that Gugino "is the last person you would want to push down; he's the kind of person who you would want to speak up."
Mark Colville, who founded the Amistad Catholic Worker house in New Haven Connecticut has likewise known Gugino for years and describes him as "shy and reserved," saying, "He likes his privacy. He doesn't make a spectacle of himself. He likes to show up and be present. He likes to be involved in these movements for justice. But he doesn't do it in a self-promoting kind of way."
Tom Casey, a Buffalo coordinator for Pax Christi—an international Catholic peace movement—dismissed the idea of Gugino as a provocateur, claiming, "I have never heard him use a vile or angry word against anybody and I spent a lot of time talking to him." Then again, this account is contradicted by Mary Anne Grady Flores, an anti-drone warfare activist who describes Gugino as "a gentle giant, who is so articulate, so thoughtful." Oh wait, not contradicted. The opposite of that.
In short, Martin Gugino, a retired computer programmer who has lived alone since the death of his mother, is a devout Catholic, a passionate peace activist, and probably not someone who conspires to be grievously injured on film or to "black out" police equipment with his cell phone—if that was even possible. You can disagree with his politics (especially if you suck, are racist, or love being ruled over by narcissistic billionaires), but you can't misrepresent him as something he's not.
He's not a provocateur, a terrorist, or even someone associated with the tactics or organizations indicated by the label Antifa. He was not—as Buffalo mayor Byron Brown has claimed—any more so than any passionate protester trying to agitate for meaningful reform. He did not provoke the police who shoved him, or "fall harder than he was pushed," nor did he "slip"—as one police union president claimed. He was peacefully participating in protests against police brutality following the horrific murder of George Floyd. He was standing in the way while Buffalo PD officers set out to clear Niagara Square, so he was pushed with enough force to send him sprawling against the sidewalk where he cracked his skull, bled from his ear, and was left lying motionless as police officers moved on.
The fact that 57 other police officers stepped down from their positions in protest of the idea that the officers responsible for that violence should be punished only reveals how entrenched and dangerous police unity is for communities that would seek to hold them accountable. And the fact that Donald Trump would magnify a conspiracy theory about Gugino serves as a reminder of how callous and instinctually authoritarian he is—with no regard for how this "shy and reserved" man who "likes his privacy" might be affected by the attention and no concern for the fact that his followers often follow up tweets like this with death threats.
When reached for comment by USA Today, Gugino responded to his assault at the hands of the police with a simple tweet: "No comment other than Black Lives Matter. Just out of the ICU. Should recover eventually. Thx."
Guardian Angels Clash with Rioters in NYC: A Better Model for Policing?
And in many ways Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, would probably meet your expectations. He is a brash Republican talk show host who is hoping to unseat Bill De Blasio as mayor in 2021. He's fond of dramatic publicity stunts, he's currently advocating for more aggressive police action to break up the protests...of aggressive police action, and he referred to the East Village Foot Locker he and his fellow Guardian Angels defended from violent looters on Tuesday night as "the jewel in the crown" because he assumes that rioters "were looking for the sneakers, limited edition." In other words, Sliwa is kind of gross, but his organization is surprisingly not.
An unarmed volunteer organization that Sliwa founded in the late '70s to patrol streets and subways in order to deter crime and fight off muggers, the Guardian Angels' ranks were mainly made up of young black and Latino men who wanted to fight back against the crime that ravaged their New York City communities. While that vigilante impulse has often led to violence and further injustice, the fact that the Guardian Angels were armed with nothing but their signature red berets and "karate," operating mainly through collective intimidation to deter crime in their communities, speaks volumes in their favor.
© Stephen Shames/Polaris
It's no wonder the organization grew so quickly, with chapters opening all over the world. Admittedly their prominence has declined somewhat in recent decades, but considering the adoption of hyper-violent vigilante symbols by many police officers, perhaps it's time for the Guardian Angel's model of vigilantism to have a resurgence—or perhaps even to be adopted for official police tactics.
Imagine a world where seeing a police uniform didn't automatically indicate someone with a gun. What if guns were reserved for certain officers and certain situations, and patrol cops relied on numbers, intimidation, and non-lethal force—including but not limited to martial arts (and maybe those sheets that Japanese police roll people up in)—to prevent, deter, and defuse violent crime. And imagine if those cops had close ties to communities they patrolled—actually lived in those neighborhoods—and had that added incentive to resolve situations peacefully.
While some cities have residency requirements for their police, these measures are often not enforced. And even in cities like New York, where police use of guns has declined, the constant threat of possible gun violence heightens tensions between police and the communities they're intended to serve—especially when there is no sense that the officers have any investment in the neighborhoods they patrol.
Obviously, the danger involved in fighting crime and arresting criminals shouldn't be downplayed—Sliwa and at least one other Guardian Angel were hospitalized with serious injuries following Tuesday night's confrontation with looters—and sometimes firearms are necessary in that work. But considering how many nations' police don't regularly carry guns—and the fact that pizza delivery is technically a more dangerous job—maybe the average beat cop can get by with a Kevlar vest, a bodycam, and some martial arts training. Maybe these cops could be part-time or semi-professional—like an officially sanctioned neighborhood watch or citizen patrol with some training, arrest powers, and extra pocket money. If we dramatically scaled down the size of our traditional police forces, then we could afford programs with a less hostile approach to localized patrolling.
Curtis Sliwa and a fellow Guardian Angel survey the West Indian Day parade in Brooklyn, 2007
Needless to say, this is in no way an endorsement of Curtis Silwa, who faked his own 1980 kidnapping and once had his members spraypaint "KKK" and "White Power" outside their headquarters for publicity. He was and remains a jackass, but even a jackass is entitled to a good idea now and then. And considering the current backlash against excessive force and the militarization of the police, maybe the Guardian Angels' model can point the way for some of the necessary reforms.
Would it solve everything? No. After all, Derek Chauvin didn't even need his gun when he killed George Floyd—only his knee. But we have to do something, and maybe treating our police more like red berets rather than green berets could begin to ease tensions in over-policed neighborhoods—and could start to heal the painful history of oppression and institutional violence in America's minority communities.
Was the Jimmy Fallon Blackface Skit Intentionally Released as a Distraction from the Murder of George Floyd?
Most recently, Twitter canceled Jimmy Fallon after an unquestionably racist skit from the 2000 season of SNL resurfaced online. The skit features Fallon impersonating Chris Rock, complete with black-face and an offensive imitation of Rock's speech patterns.
Jimmy Fallon Blackfaceyoutu.be
This quickly led to the hashtag #jimmyfallonisoverparty trending on Twitter. While fans seemed split on whether Fallon should be forgiven for the 20-year-old misstep, most everyone agreed that Fallon should apologize regardless. This morning, he did just that in the form of a tweet.
As far as celebrity apologies go, Fallon's is a pretty good one. He doesn't try to sidestep the blame, he doesn't bring up the fact that there were undoubtedly many, many other individuals involved in the creation of the skit, and he doesn't even mention the fact that in 2000, many people still thought it was possible for black-face to be done in the spirit of fun, because the deeply racist nature of the act was largely ignored in mainstream (white) media. Of course, we know better now, and it's easy to see that a white person doing an exaggerated imitation of a black person—darkened skin included—can only be a racist, belittling act with a long, dark history of racial oppression. With that in mind, Fallon's only option was to apologize without caveat or reservation. Indeed, it's refreshing to see a celebrity apology that doesn't try to justify or minimize their own misstep. While we can all agree Fallon made a terrible, racist choice 20 years ago, we have to believe that, like all of us, he's grown since then. If cancel culture is to have any efficacy in making the world a better place, it has to leave room for forgiveness and growth. Hopefully, the whole affair will leave Fallon (and those who witnessed it) more racially sensitive.
All of that being said, one has to ask why the clip was brought up now, given that it's been circulated around the Internet before, and the specific YouTube clip that was shared was posted on the site over a year ago. It's also worth noting that the version of the clip that was going around Twitter has a text overlay that reads: "NBC FIRED MEGAN KELLY FOR MENTIONING BLACKFACE. JIMMY FALLON PERFORMED ON NBC IN BLACKFACE."
Megan Kelly, an outspoken conservative, was indeed fired from her job at NBC because she defended the use of blackface in Halloween costumes, saying on her talk show, "Truly, you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface for Halloween, or a black person who put on whiteface for Halloween," she said. "When I was a kid, that was OK as long as you were dressing up as a character." While Fallon's instance of racial insensitivity was in 2000, Kelly defended blackface in 2019, long after society at large had begun to acknowledge the hurt that blackface and other forms of racial impersonation could cause. This fundamental difference aside, Kelly also has a long history of racial insensitivity that Fallon does not, even once saying, "What is the evidence that what happened to Eric Garner and what happened to Michael Brown has anything to do with race?" in a conversation about the epidemic of racist police officers in America.
Given the text overlay, it's pretty clear that whoever began the #jimmyfallonisoverparty was not necessarily seeking justice for the black community, but was instead trying to imply hypocrisy in the cancellation of Megan Kelly, given that Fallon (who has been outspoken about the flaws of the Trump administration and political pundits like Kelly) is still on the air. One even has to wonder if, given that it's obvious that the #jimmyfallonisoverparty trend was begun by a conservative individual or group, if the trend was meant to be a distraction from the widespread racist police violence that has been emphasized in recent weeks by incidents like the death of George Floyd, a black man who was murdered in Minneapolis by a white police officer on Monday. It seems oddly coincidental that the clip of Fallon should flood the Internet with controversy the day after Floyd's murder, unfortunately serving to help steer conversation away from Floyd's unjust death.
George Floyd
Indeed, under the unquestionably racist Donald Trump administration, more and more black people are being harassed, attacked, and murdered at the hands of racist white civilians and police officers. But Trump and his supporters don't want you to focus on that–so much so that it doesn't feel impossible that the Fallon skit was intentionally weaponized as a distraction.
In the last few weeks alone we learned that Ahmaud Arbery was murdered senselessly by a white man while simply out for a jog, and we all witnessed the harassment of Christian Cooper, a black man who was threatened by a white woman in Central Park who didn't want to put her dog on a leash. It's clear that racism in America cannot be reduced to insensitive skits from 20 years ago but is instead a current and deadly problem. What Jimmy Fallon did in 2000 was racist, yes; but don't let that distract you from the deadly consequences of racism in 2020, don't let celebrity apologies make you take your eyes of our lawmakers, who aren't doing enough to protect people of color in this country. Don't let the latest "#_____isoverparty" trend distract you from the deadly consequences of racism in our laws, culture, and criminal justice system.