Malik Washington: "Why I Fight So Hard For Our People!"

“The hypocrisy of American fascism forces it to conceal its attack on political offenders by the legal fiction of conspiracy laws and highly sophisticated frame-ups. The masses must be taught to understand the true function of prisons. Why do they exist in such numbers? What is the real underlying economic motive of crime and the official definition of types of offenders or victims? The people must learn that when one “offends” the totalitarian state it is patently not an offense against the people of that state, but an assault upon the privilege of the privileged few.” ~ George L. Jackson, from Blood in my Eye, p.107

Revolutionary greetings, comrades!

As I stare out of my window here at the United States Penitentiary in Pollock, Louisiana, I find myself in a pensive and reflective mood. I see razor wire as well as concertina fencing immediately outside my window. I see the prison yard, the grass, the gun tower and far off in the distance I see trees. I see a flag on a pole, it is the “stars and stripes”. This flag does not represent freedom to me, it represents oppression, abuse, social control and it represents the hateful legacy of slavery.

I woke up here in Pollock, Louisiana thinking of Angola 3 member Herman Wallace. I remember the day he died. I was listening to Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, and she played a recording of Comrade Herman describing the garden that he and his comrades were preparing behind the house he was planning to move into.

Once the state of Louisiana finally granted Comrade Herman release, he was on his last leg, the cancer had literally eaten him alive. When I heard the voice of Herman Wallace, with the anticipation of freedom and the hope of seeing a brighter day, I cried. I cried because I was angry, sad, and frustrated.

Louisiana had absolutely no love, compassion, or care for the Angola 3. What they had for them was racial hatred and decades of abuse. Comrade Robert King and Comrade Albert Woodfox made it out alive. Herman wasn’t so lucky.

Dear Warden Stewart

[In solidarity with Robert Earl Council AKA Kinetik Justice, the Free Alabama Movement, F.A.M. Queen Team, Unheard Voices OTCJ, T.O.P.S., and Fight Toxic Prisons, I answered the Call for Action by issuing this email to the warden at Holman "Correctional" Facility this afternoon. If I have not heard from Warden Cynthia Stewart by noon Monday, I will re-send the email every day until Kinetik Justice is released from solitary confinement. Needless to say, I signed the actual email with my real name.]


Dear Warden Stewart:

It is my understanding that Robert Earl Council #181418 was brought to your institution on February 28th and was subsequently placed in solitary confinement without cause, apparently in retaliation for his role in leading a peaceful work strike in 2014. As a result of this indefensible action on your part, I have now understood that Mr. Council has been forced to initiate an official hunger strike (refusing all food and liquids) in protest, and will remain on such until justice is met and he is placed back in a population where he can participate in all programs afforded to his peers and others of his class.  

From what I can gather, every day that goes by seems to prove that what Alabama needs is not more, bigger, and more expensive prisons, but rather administrators who are professionally capable of meeting the constitutionally-mandated and regulated responsibilities of their positions while preparing incarcerated citizens for their eventual release. Overcrowding, grossly inadequate staffing, and the overuse of random and brutal force against prisoners appear to run rampant in the Alabama DOC. Worse, any attempts to draw attention to such routine and unconstitutional practices result in the kind of retaliatory action such as you have now taken against Mr. Council since his arrival in your custody.

In any case, last week’s publicly reported descent of 300 “officers” on St Clair Correctional Facility (at what I can only imagine to be an incredible level of expenditure to the taxpayers of Alabama), followed so closely by your placing Mr. Council in solitary confinement without cause concerns me for his physical and emotional well-being. I am expecting you to release him into the general population immediately. I will continue to check on Mr. Council until this action is taken.

I feel it only fair to inform you that my blog on race relations and the criminal justice system has had more than 1,067,000 hits in nearly 200 countries. And I fully intend to publish a full accounting of this matter before nightfall.

Sincerely,

Changeseeker

CALL FOR ACTION!

The following Press Release has been issued by the Free Alabama Movement, F.A.M. Queen Team, Unheard Voices OTCJ, and T.O.P.S.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 7th, 2019

Robert Earl Council, AIS # 181418, is once again being held in solitary confinement at Holman Correctional Facility after the major Shakedown at St Clair correctional facility on February 28th 2019.

Council was inside his population cell at St. Clair Correctional Facility around 2 a.m. Thursday morning, when a platoon of ADOC CERT team members, and local law enforcement SWAT team members, entered his cell placing him in zip tie handcuffs and immediately escorted him to an waiting bus to be transported back to Holman Correctional Center.

Later that day Council arrived at Holman Correctional Facility and all too familiar scenery. Council was placed in Holman Correctional Facility solitary housing unit (SHU) once again, after spending 54 months in solitary for leading a peaceful work strike at Holman Correctional Facility in the summer of 2014.

He was finally released from solitary in late 2018 at Donaldson Correctional Facility after Attorney at Law David Gespass filed a Habeas Corpus on the behalf of council in the courts, challenging ADOC’s unconstitutional practice of holding of him in solitary confinement for 54 months without just cause. ADOC released Council right before a set court hearing on the Habeas Corpus in August last year, making the case moot. (See Robert E Council vs. Warden Bolling Cv. – 2017-101 filed in the Bessemer division of Jefferson County state of Alabama.)

These are strictly retaliatory actions in anticipation of a state-wide protest to stop the construction of new prisons over education and rehabilitation.

In response to being housed for no reason in solitary confinement, Robert Earl Council notified Warden Cynthia Stewart, at 3 a.m. on March 7th 2019 that he is now on an official hunger strike (refusing all food and liquids) in protest of the retaliatory actions taken against him, and will remain on such until justice is met and he is placed back in a population where he can participate in all programs afforded to his peers and others of his class.

If the demand to return Robert Earl Council back to population is not met by the Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeffery Dunn by March 15, 2019 a protest will convene at Holman Correctional Facility on March 26,2019.

Contact information for interviews on the above press release is as follows:

Unheardvoices78@gmail.com

David Gespass, Attorney-at-Law:  205-323-5966

Pastor Kenneth Sharpton Glasgow:  334-791-2433,  kennethglasgow@gmail.com

Marilyn Buck: "Black August"

On August 19th last year, I was in Washington, D.C., across the street from the White House with hundreds of other people from all over the country marching, chanting, speaking, and hanging out in support of the incarcerated people of America. Called the Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March, it had been planned for more than a year and inspired similar marches and demonstrations across the United States that weekend.

I got to catch up with other prison abolitionists I know well but don't see often. I got to meet formerly incarcerated leaders in the struggle, some of whom had been heroes of mine for a long time. And I got to connect face-to-face with some wonderful and dedicated younger people committed to prison abolition going into the future. I had already been to both Cuba and Montreal that summer and had just begun a new semester of teaching, so I was beyond exhausted. But I felt strongly that I needed to be there, needed to say my piece, needed to represent those I knew that are gone now, needed to renew my vow, as it were, to fight till I can't no more.

I knew I would only have five minutes. So I read a rant I wrote in the 1970s and then a poem by Marxist revolutionary Marilyn Buck who spent decades as a political prisoner before she was released in 2010, less than a month before she died of cancer. Comrade Marilyn went to prison in the first place at least partly for her role in helping to spring Assata Shakur from prison in 1979. Thirty years later, her poem "Black August" appeared in Issue 13 of 4StruggleMag, a publication featuring the written work of political prisoners.

I am posting it here in memory of Comrade Marilyn, to look back for a moment to the Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March last year, and to honor those who live or have died in the struggle to set themselves and others free. May those who are striking inside the walls across this country right now feel the love and the solidarity out here that is focused on them. And may we never forget that nobody's free until everybody's free.

"Black August"
by Marilyn Buck

Would you hang on a cliff's edge

sword-sharp, slashing fingers
while jackboot screws stomp heels
on peeled-flesh bones
and laugh
"let go! die, damn you, die!"
could you hang on
20 years, 30 years?

20 years, 30 years and more
brave Black brothers buried
in US koncentration kamps
they hang on
Black light shining in torture chambers
Ruchell, Yogi, Sundiata, Sekou,
Warren, Chip, Seth, Herman, Jalil,
and more and more
they resist: Black August.

Nat Turner insurrection chief executed: Black August
Jonathan, George dead in battle's light: Black August
Fred Hampton, Black Panthers, African Brotherhood murdered:
Black August
Kuwasi Balagoon, Nuh Abdul Quyyam captured warriors dead:
Black August
Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Ella Baker, Ida B. Wells
Queen Mother Moore -- their last breaths drawn fighting death:
Black August

Black August: watchword
for Black liberation for human liberation
sword to sever the shackles

light to lead children of every nation to safety
Black August remembrance
resist the Amerikkan nightmare
for life

__________________________________________________________

NOTE: The photo at the top is of me at last year's march with my close friends Robert King and Albert Woodfox, two of the Angola 3. The photo at the bottom is of Marilyn Buck and co-defendant Mutulu Shakur in the early 1980s.

Rest in Power, George Jackson

“Right now, we are in a peak cycle. There’s tremendous energy out there, directed against the state. It’s not all focused, but it’s there, and it’s building. Maybe this will be sufficient to accomplish what we must accomplish over the fairly short run. We’ll see, and we can certainly hope that this is the case. But perhaps not. We must be prepared to wage a long struggle. If this is the case then we’ll probably see a different cycle, one in which the revolutionary energy of the people seems to have dispersed, run out of steam. But – and this is important- such cycles are deceptive. Things appear to be at low ebb, but actually what’s happening is a period of regroupment, a period in which we step back and learn from the mistakes made during the preceding cycle.” ~ George Jackson
___________________________________________________________
NOTE: The graphic above was done by artist and social justice warrior Kevin "Rashid" Johnson More of his work can be seen here.

Dear Warden

This has been a complicated week. I somehow wound up at the center of just the kind of situation I long ago learned to avoid like the plague. Nevertheless, as is not always but sometimes the case, I think it has all turned out (so far) fairly well. The end result (I hope against hope -- I have other urgent business to attend to) is the following letter, which I just drafted to send to a warden I spoke with at some length this afternoon. I don't typically talk a great deal to wardens at all, but on occasion have felt it necessary and have always used the opportunity to accomplish as much as possible, under the circumstances. One never knows when a little dropped knowledge can ultimately bear fruit.

I have decided to publish the letter for several reasons, which I am not going to discuss, and I am publishing very nearly all of it, except for details that would specifically identify any of those involved. So I do not call names, but I think the points I made during my conversation and then repeated in my letter were important and general enough to apply to what is building in prisons from coast to coast in the United States. Please feel free to share it as appropriate. 

Call for Immediate Action!

The following communique was received today (handwritten) from men incarcerated at David Wade Correctional Center. We need to get these brothers some immediate attention, aid, and relief. The Governor's website literally has a heat warning listed.

Louisiana prison officials have a Constitutional obligation to provide conditions of confinement that comport with present day concepts of Human Dignity and we are requesting State and Federal Louisiana Public Officials, the media and Legal Aid Organizations to use their Official and Regulatory Powers to immediately investigate the foregoing Conditions of Confinement at the David Wade Correctional Center N-1, N-2, N-3 and N-4, 670 Bell Hill Road, Homer, Louisiana 71040, United States of America.

Warden: Jerry Goodwin
Phone: 318-927-0400

Governor: John Bel Edwards
Phone: 225-342-7015 or 866-366-1121

State Speaker of the House: Taylor F. Barras
Phone: 225-342-7263 or 225-342-8336

Call For Action by IDOC Watch

IDOC Watch has issued a call for action on behalf of co-founder and Chairman of the New Afrikan Liberation Collective Kwame Shakur (Michael Joyner), presently incarcerated at Pendleton (Indiana) Correctional Facility. IDOC Watch has received word that Chairman Shakur has been attacked by Pendleton staff for the second time recently. It is thought that he may have sustained serious injury to the head.

IDOC Watch writes:

The assault comes shortly after Shakur was dismissed from a medical examination after insisting he be treated for an auto-immune condition caused by a TB outbreak in Pendleton. It also follows the most recent assault on him during a punitive shake down in retaliation for his political activity. 

Pendleton has made Kwame Shakur a primary target in their suppression of inmate struggle and if they are not stopped, the violence against Shakur will only escalate. Pendleton was most recently in the news for the arrest of three corrections officers caught on tape severely beating an unarmed inmate. Warden Dushan Zatecky assured the public that their arrest was proof of Pendleton's commitment to inmate safety. Yet assaults on inmates, of which Kwame Shakur is just the most recent is a constant occurrence at Pendleton. 

PLEASE CALL: 
Indiana Department of Corrections Commissioner Robert E. Carter at 317-232-5711. Press 0 for operator and ask for the Commissioner; then leave a message if no one answers. Ask for the commissioner, but if you are routed to a secretary, leave a message.

SCRIPT:
"I am calling because I am concerned about the safety of Michael Joyner #149677 of Pendleton Correctional Facility. Yesterday, he was assaulted by staff and likely has a severe injury to the head. I would like to know his whereabouts and request an investigation into the incident."

You do not have to say more than that and you do not have to give any information about yourself. Expect lies and dodges. The point is to make them aware that they are being watched and that Chairman Shakur has supporters on the outside.

Interestingly enough, the town of Pendleton has a long history of White Supremacist violence. According to Wikipedia, in 1824, three White men massacred a group of Seneca and Miami Natives. And in 1843, Frederick Douglass and two other men were brutally attacked by what Douglass called "mobocrats" when they visited Pendleton in response to an invitation to speak to the townspeople. Douglass was knocked unconscious, beaten while he was on the ground, and suffered a broken right hand that never properly healed. Realistically though, I guess any town that has less than 5000 residents -- 97% of which have been socialized to believe they're "White" and probably most of whom work at one of the three (count 'em, three) prisons -- may not have come too far.

Assata Shakur: "To My People" (1973)

After a couple of months of dividing my time between attention to my teaching position and attempts to restore my badly decomposed physical and emotional well-being after trying to do way too much for way too long, I slipped quietly onto my blog site the other day and discovered that -- while I was among the missing -- Why Am I Not Surprised? crossed the line into its second million pageviews. It now stands at 1,034,127 hits in 200 countries. I am grateful that the Universe moved me to take on this task twelve years ago. I am inspired to imagine that there are so many "out there" who share my passion for justice. And I am humbled by your support.

We all share in this remarkable feat because I could write till the cows come home, but if you don't care, there's no point. We are engaged in a daily practice of living our commitment to change the world. Thank you for being a part of my life and letting me be part of yours.

To celebrate this remarkable feat, I'm posting the stirring statement Assata Shakur recorded from jail in 1973. She had been shot, tortured, brutalized, vilified, humiliated, held incommunicado, and finally locked in solitary confinement. Nevertheless, despite the possibility of dire repercussions for such a bold act, she and her lawyer recorded this statement and released it publicly to those who were waiting -- breathlessly -- for a word from one of their most fearless leaders.

The day I discovered that you and I had crossed the million mark together, I was listening to Assata's Autobiography while I drove around in my car. Suddenly, I felt so connected to her and to the struggle to overcome White Supremacy, a struggle that has continued since the first European took it into his head that "White" people are superior to everyone else on the planet. Assata Shakur's words are just as powerful, just as true, and just as reasonable as they were 35 years ago. May they burn themselves into our consciousness as we read them over and over that we might honor her ongoing sacrifice and earn our own place in history.

Shadowproof: Florida Officials Deny Operation PUSH Is Ongoing, Even As They Retaliate Against Prisoners

OperationPUSH supporters demonstrate in Gainesville, Florida, on January 18th
(Photo by FightToxicPrisons) 

On Thursday, January 25th, I posted about Operation PUSH and the Florida Department of Corrections' attacks on Kevin "Rashid" Johnson for publicly reporting earlier in the month on the conditions in the FDC. The following article, which was written by Brian Sonenstein and appeared that same day at Shadowproof.com, provides more detail about the development of this situation over the past three weeks. It is re-posted with permission. Where details have been duplicated in my earlier post and this one, I have indicated abridging.

Stand For Prisoner Being Tortured For Speaking Out

On January 15th (Martin Luther King, Jr., Day), the prisoners in the Department of Corrections in the state of Florida kicked off a mass multi-prison month-long work stoppage to protest their conditions. They have called the action #OperationPUSH and their demands are: "(1) payment for our labor, rather than the current slave arrangement; (2) an end to outrageous canteen prices; and (3) reintroduction of parole incentives to lifers and those with Buck Rogers dates." According to The Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons, 150 organizations coast to coast now stand in solidarity with #OperationPUSH and the Florida prison strike. But such actions always create a backlash and this one is no different.

Kevin "Rashid" Johnson (#158039), a prisoner who has been moved from prison to prison in state after state because of his history of speaking truth to power, wrote an article about the impending strike that was published online January 6th. The following day, Warden Barry Reddish retaliated against Johnson's use of his 1st Amendment rights, ordering that he be given a disciplinary infraction for "inciting a riot."

On January 19th, Johnson wrote to his lawyer:

 "Need your and folks' immediate mobilization. Am being literally tortured in retaliation for article on prison strike and conditions, by the warden. No heat. Cell like outside, temp in 30s. Toilet doesn't work. Window to outside doesn't close and cold air blowing in cell. Copy everyone with this letter! Just put into this cell. It's daytime and so cold I can barely write. This is obvious set up [...] This is a genuine emergency! Take care, Rashid"

Florida State Prison Warden Barry Reddish can be reached at 904-368-2500. He needs to move Johnson immediately to a climate-controlled cell with a working toilet. He needs to give Johnson continuing contact with his lawyer. And he needs to stop all retaliation against Johnson for reporting on conditions at the prison. Now.

Most prison wardens are notoriously agitated by any sense that they are not in complete control of everything in their purview. (One can only imagine what the lives of their spouses and families must be like.) So when a prisoner challenges their power  -- however reasonably and Constitutionally-mandated that challenge is -- it must be brutally addressed. This is what Barry Reddish is doing. But Reddish needs to be reminded that when a person in a position of authority tries to "make an example" of a human being just because they claim their human rights, it threatens all of us.

It appears that not only does Reddish, as a representative of the Florida Department of Corrections, want complete control over "his" prison, so that he can implement policies and practices that are both inhumane and illegal, but he wants to operate in secrecy while he does it. We will not allow that to be an option.
__________________________________________________________
NOTE: Report back to jaybeware@riseup.net on your actions and anything you may learn in the process.

UPDATE: Rashid Johnson was able to see one of his lawyers on Friday. There are no specifics released as yet, but he is okay and his conditions have improved. On Thursday afternoon (before I published this post), I ranted at spoke with the warden's secretary for long enough (threatening mayhem on this blog) that she gave me a another number to call. I called and left a message -- again referencing this blog. On Friday afternoon, I received a call back, but I wasn't able to return that call until after the close of business. I left another message, assuring them that I would be back in touch Monday morning for an update. Don't ever think they don't listen. Even if they don't admit it, if enough sand is raised, some of it will go in their eyes. I promise.

From The Belly Of The Beast Near Dallas, Texas

A message to us from Rakem Balogun (dated 1/10/18):

Peace, Power and Prosperity, Comrades and love ones.

I'm very eager to inform you that I'm doing well during this time of trials and tribulation for me, my family and comrades. I'm truly thankful for all of your love, support, and prayers. This situation has us closer in solidarity and has proven that we are ONE body as people fighting for liberation. I’m honored to see those around the country rally for my release and for the boost of my morale. I thank every single person who has brought awareness to this situation. This proves that attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.
 
I take pride in this hardship due to the fact that our elders and ancestors have prepared me for this struggle through their hard sacrifice for our liberation. Brothers and sisters such as Geronimo Pratt, George Lester Jackson, Assata Shakur, Afeni Shakur, Mutulu Shakur, Marilyn Buck, Mumia Abu Jamal, H Rap Brown, and the list goes on and on. Studying history through political education made me accept my fate ten years ago. I used my time as wisely as possible through exercise, reading, meditating and fellowshipping with our brothers who are also detained by the United States of Amerikkka Federal Institutions. My goal is to educate those within the belly of the beast one conversation at a time with love and patience.

They can jail me but they cannot jail our movement, which is thousands strong national and world wide. I'm grateful to have GMF, GJU, BEM, Geronimo Tactical, NBPP, HPNGC, The People's Brigade, Harambee Culture, APSP and so many others in support and solidarity. Thank you for all you have done and the effort brings warmth to my heart and tears to my eyes to see love for our unity.

Thank you and I will be seeing you soon.

Rakem Balogun
____________________________________________

You can support Rakem by writing him at:
Christopher Daniels #56601-177
Federal Correctional Facility
PO Box 9000
Seagoville, TX 75159

You can keep in touch with the movement to free him at: https://www.facebook.com/freerakembalogun

Public Service Announcement: Cointelpro 2.0

In the early 1990s, when I was in grad school, a young El Salvadoran revolutionary came to campus to talk about why she had joined the guerilla forces fighting to overthrow the repressive right wing government that had already killed more than 70,000 of her fellow citizens. One of the students in the audience raised her hand and said timidly, "I'm uncomfortable with the idea of using violence to create social change. How do you know when to pick up a gun?"

The young revolutionary didn't hesitate a moment as she replied matter of factly, "When they start shooting at you."

The audience laughed, but it is unlikely that any of them -- all being  young and White, as I recall -- were considering the possibility that their government, their military, their local and state law enforcement officers would boldly and unapologetically turn on them one day. Sitting there, thinking back to experiences I had twenty years before, I recalled seeing blood shed in just such confrontations in the streets of America. And I recalled the four students killed for demonstrating at Kent State in 1970. But when that happened, the shock ripples were palpable from coast to coast.

The deaths (even the blatantly public deaths) of People of Color, however, and most particularly Black people, haven't historically created the same reaction. And this is what I'm blogging about today.

Last Week In Alabama

If you haven't been hiding in a cave somewhere, you know that two middle-aged White male politicians had a scuffle last Tuesday in Alabama and, inexplicably, the one who isn't a known pedophile won. Not by much, I must hasten to add, but won, nonetheless.

Interestingly enough, the winner also distinguished himself once by successfully prosecuting two KKK members for the bombing deaths of four little girls in the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham back in the day. While his opponent shot himself in all his feet making remarks about slavery that he would have done better to keep to himself.

Anyway, Lesle' Honore' (see photo above) wrote this poem the day after the election, giving props to the voters in Alabama who carried the day. Lest you have any doubt, I'm providing the statistics at the bottom of this post. Hopefully, they will give us all pause. What this exercise in political will demonstrates rather clearly is that whenever solidarity hooks up with action, anything can happen.

If We've Fallen Down A Rabbit Hole, Does It Have A Bottom?

Maybe I'm just getting old. I mean I am 71. And it happens to everybody -- until they die. And I'm still producing more than the average person I know. After all, I taught six courses to three hundred students this spring, including one that turned ten students into social change agents and ended with a performance titled "Truth Be Told" -- on speaking truth to power (with no holds barred).

The end of May, I went to Havana, Cuba, for nine days to work on organizing a conference there for sociologist/activists from all over the world to meet, learn from, and network with each other for five days in November. I've taught two more rapid-fire Intro courses online this summer already while healing a broken foot, getting over a hellified parasitic invasion I dragged back from Cuba, and recording my book on race relations so people can buy an audio edition (it's been out as paperback and Kindle editions for two years). I'm still sending money to a family I know in Haiti, to Black Lives Matter, and to build an underground hospital where women can more safely birth their babies in Syria while U.S.-provided bombs fall often and without warning from the sky.

But it's never enough when reading your Facebook feed becomes an exercise in shock-and-awe, dead bodies all over the place with no repercussions, things just getting weirder and weirder in Washington, and the police reaching new heights in horror and new lows in morals daily. The prisons have become physical and emotional pressure cookers, where men, women, and even children are being par-boiled in their own juices in a summer determined to prove that climate change is real, with or without scientists to tell us so.

So everybody I know is either stumbling through their lives in a state of numb acceptance, doing what has to be done to pay the rent, but little else. Or they're careening through a tsunami of one kind or another trying not to wind up unemployed, incarcerated, or dead. I'm trying to soldier on, but what the fuck? I mean, really, what the fuck?

A Communique From A New Afrikan

On occasion, I like to post or re-post things written by others, particularly People of Color who have something I think my readers would want to read or benefit from reading. The following communique was developed out of a conversation I had with a brother inside the walls.
__________________________________________________________

Greetings, New Afrikan womyn, men, and all people’s POWER!!!!

 

~~ from Mujahid Kambon ~~

Last week, a brutha and elder gave me a copy of Negroes with Guns by Robert F Williams to read. It's a short book without complicated words or obtuse ideas, yet it affected me deeply. I had never heard of Bro. Williams before nor his struggle in Monroe, NC, in the 1950s and early 1960s. But after leaving the Marines in 1945, he felt compelled to serve his people in their struggle for justice and human rights.

Russell Rickford: "The Fallacies of Neoliberal Protest"

One of the organizers of Cornell BSU's Black Lives Matter rally on 9/23/16

(Credit: Julia Cole Photography)

 

This post is an amended version of remarks read at a rally organized by Cornell University’s Black Students United (BSU) on September 23, 2016. Students gathered to protest the recent police shootings of Tyree King, Terence Crutcher, and Keith Lamont Scott. It appeared originally on the blog for the African American Intellectual History Society and it is being re-posted here by permission of the author.

Sisters and brothers:

I’m delighted that you are mobilizing. Your demonstration reflects your recognition that the escalating crisis of racial terrorism requires a firm and uncompromising response.

Your protest in the face of daily atrocities is a sign of your humanity and your determination to live in peace, freedom, and dignity.

But as we demonstrate, we must take pains to avoid certain tactical and programmatic errors that often plague progressive protest in a neoliberal age.

Kai Davis: Fuck I Look Like?

I came to Louisiana for a nine-month temporary gig in August of 2007. So, by the time I finish this school year, I will have taught here for a decade. The day I arrived, I was told, "You will find our students lacking. They're under-prepared. They don't like to read. And they don't know that's a problem."

My thought at the time was, "Even if that's true, why would somebody say that to me on Day One? That's like calling students incapable before I even meet 'em." But it turned out that, by and large, I was being told the truth.

On the other hand, I eventually learned (on my own) that, while any low income student might demonstrate the traits I had been warned about and even students from families with money might have succumbed to the traits along the way, Black students, in particular, were the most likely to arrive as first year students looking and sounding like they fit the profile.

Then, I started dragging them to my office one at a time to explain the okey-doke. I assured them that, with a little input and a lot of effort -- despite the obstacles placed in front of them since birth -- they could build the boat while it was in the water and they were standing in it. Over the years, more than a few have proven me right.

The upshot is that, while many classes on the campus have two or three Black students at most in them, my classes tend to weigh in at 30% or better Black -- even the first year students who just arrived and are taking Intro courses with 90 students in them. It's not because I'm wonderful. It's because I tell them the truth. And I know who they are. And in the mirror of my face they see themselves succeeding. Because -- given a real shot -- they are ferociously ready to learn and ready to teach.

So What Are We To Do?

I'm launching my book on race Saturday. The press release appeared in the daily newspaper last Sunday and the flyer is making the rounds. I put up a Facebook event page for it. Then, when I found out about Alton Sterling this morning, I fired off a letter to the editor. Sterling was killed 45 miles from the little town where I live, so I decided to make Saturday's launch an opportunity to invite White townspeople who want to become part of the solution to show up. I don't know if the editor will print it. It might be seen as somewhat confrontational (a-hem!), which was not my intention. I just thought maybe a few folks might be ready to answer a call to action. Though I have no control over who all might show up...

Regardless, I'm not posting about Alton Sterling's murder because the news is unfolding every two minutes and there are many ways to get it faster. Besides, I'm pissed and depressed and feeling helpless and hopeless. And everybody's being whipped to a lather already on social media anyway, but I do need to write something about what we can do to stop this.

Conway & Lutalo on Violence and Counter-Violence

Focusing on how White Supremacy as a system uses "law enforcement" to brutalize -- or even kill -- those who resist its power can leave us shaking in our boots. Yet there has always been resistance by Africans, other colonized People of Color, and those who fight for justice alongside the members of those groups. Here Chris Hedges gives us an opportunity to learn from Eddie Conway, former member of the Black Panther Party in Baltimore, and Ojore Lutalo, member of the Black Liberation Army, both of whom have now been released after spending long stints in prison because of their commitment to the people's struggle. They have earned our undivided attention. And we need to know what they have to tell us. Listen up.