Opinion

OP-ED: U.S. Spends Extraordinary Amounts on ‘Guard Labor’

Published

12 years ago

February 18, 2014

America’s gun culture costs lives and feeds our fears. Consider the most recent injustice in Florida, the verdict in the Michael Dunn case, and the most recent news about America’s “guard labor.”

In Jacksonville, Fla., Michael Dunn, a 47-year-old white man, was aggravated by the loud rap music coming from an SUV filled with four Black teenagers in a convenience store parking lot. An exchange of insults ensued. Dunn, who was armed and clearly dangerous, claimed that he was threatened by Jordan Davis, a 17-year-old high school senior, and later claimed he saw the barrel of a shotgun coming from the SUV.

There was no shotgun; no other witness saw anything that might resemble a shotgun. Dunn opened his door and fired 10 shots into the SUV as it drove away, killing Jordan Davis. Dunn then drove away without calling the cops, and without ever mentioning that the boys had a shotgun.

Under Florida’s inane “Stand Your Ground” law, however, Dunn had the right to use lethal force to defend himself if he “reasonably” thought his life was threatened.

Dunn’s lawyer said, “I don’t have to prove the threat, just that Mike Dunn believed it.” The Jacksonville jury found Dunn guilty of three counts of “attempted murder” in his strafing of the car, but they couldn’t come to a decision on his murder of Jordan Davis.

In Florida, it is increasingly dangerous to be young, black and male.

In the New York Times on Monday, Samuel Bowles and Arjun Jayadev report in “One Nation Under Guard” that the U.S. now employs more private security guards than high school teachers.

Tallying up all of what they call “guard labor,” including police officers, prison guards, soldiers, etc., they come to a figure of 5.2 million, more than all teachers at all levels.

The “guard labor” share of the labor force in America has risen dramatically since the 1970s, as inequality has reached new extremes.

Bowles and Jayadev find that guard labor and inequality are connected. We have four times as much guard labor as Sweden, a country of equal living standards but far less inequality.

States with extreme inequality like New York and Louisiana have far more of their work force employed in guard labor than states with less inequality like Idaho and New Hampshire.

Bowles and Jayadev discount race as a factor, but obviously Sweden, New Hampshire and Idaho are also far less diverse than the U.S., New York and Louisiana, respectively.

Bowles and Jayadev note that social spending seems to decline as guard labor grows. The U.S. is spending more of its money on guards and less on opportunity.

One haunting feature of South Africa under apartheid was the extent to which the homes of the affluent whites were protected by walls, barbed wire and private guards. Fear of crime and of majority revolt pervaded the country.

Our gun and guard culture is, at root, also about fear. We pride ourselves on being the home of the brave and land of the free. But increasingly we are the home of the fearful, and land of the armed. Michael Dunn’s murderous rage was grounded in fear.

Our soaring guard labor reflects rising fear. As Jacksonville demonstrated once more, guns can make those fears deadly.

We would be far better off investing in opportunity rather than fear, making the country less unequal and more confident in its diversity.

Contrary to the NRA, spreading concealed weapons around makes our streets more, not less, dangerous. Contrary to real estate agents, gated communities and armed guards offer more provocation than protection.

In the end, real security comes not from guards or guns, but from justice.

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

4 days ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.