This is in response to Renee.
Thank you so much for all of your very thoughtful input and please excuse me for the time it has taken me to respond. I really appreciate your discussion.
As you probably know from looking at our blog I am part of the African People’s Solidarity Committee, a predominately white organization that was formed by the African People’s Socialist Party that leads the Uhuru Movement.
The Uhuru Movement organizes African people all over the world for the liberation and reunification of Africa as the birthright of African people everywhere. The solidarity committee organizes in white communities and among other people who want to become allies of the African Liberation Movement.
The Uhuru Movement understands that African people everywhere are one people, forcibly dispersed by the slave trade and that Africa is the birthright of all African people everywhere. Like the Palestinian people they believe in the right to return to their homeland.
Just recently the Uhuru Movement held a conference in Nairobi organizing the East African division of the African Socialist International. There will be a North American conference in Washington, DC on May 22, 23. More information is available at www.uhurunews.com Please also see www.apscuhuru.org where we have several power point slide show presentations on various issues.
I want to address two of the many good points that you make.
1. Yes, we must always use any political space Obama might provide to organize against imperialism, but I do not believe we are “safer,” because imperialism is in a deep crisis and is desperate. Besides, if a few of us inside the U.S. are less under fire it is because the hell has been intensified for just about everybody else, including the African and indigenous communities here.
As you point out they are closing Guantanamo but opening new dungeons inside the U.S. They just captured a 15 year old “pirate” who will be tried as an adult and will be sent to one of those places for life. The child was brought from Somalia where the U.S. destroyed the government, steals the oil, dumps toxic waste into the seas and plunged the population into near starvation. So who’s the “pirate”?
Obama’s “against torture” but will not prosecute anyone for 266 waterboardings of two people.
Obama surrounds himself with more Zionists than any government outside of Tel Aviv. He does not address the brutal containment policies against oppressed communities inside the U.S. Policies that have nearly 7.5 million people tied to the prison system, three-fourths of them African and Mexican.
As you point out Obama is representing the ruling class. He may have a somewhat different approach than Bush but represents the same parasitic system built on slavery, genocide and colonialism.
2. Regarding the question of the cops getting killed in Oakland:
While I would always support the organized liberation movement in whatever form it takes in Palestine or other colonized territories, I would also support an unorganized Palestinian child who killed an occupying solider with a rock or even a Palestinian drunkard or a thief who blasted a soldier or a settler.
The whole population is under the thumb of a murderous, vicious occupation that destroys the independence, freedom, future, economy and social cohesion of a people. A lot of people have social contradictions in conquered societies because the divisions and societal breakdowns are part of the colonizers’ counterinsurgency plan. The British said about Africa: “divide and rule,” and they did so brutally.
Some soldiers may be good fathers, nice guys etc., but they still have a job and that is to carry out the orders of the occupying state power against the oppressed people.
So, yes, I would always deeply understand the resistance of African people in the U.S. as justified. Resistance by any means necessary, no matter what form it takes, individualized, spontaneous or organized. Oppressed people have a right to resist and they may not always have the luxury to understand even what they are doing.
African working class communities live in unmitigated hell under martial law in the U.S. You probably saw on video the blatant murder of Oscar Grant as he was shot in the back in a subdued position by BART police.
But what about Caspar Banjo, 71, a famous African artist killed last year by police in Oakland, and Gary King and Jody Woodfox, and Anita Gay, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallou and countless others killed by police?
Kathryn Johnston, 92, was shot by drug cops who broke down her door. They left her to bleed to death and planted drugs in her basement in Atlanta.
Very few murderous cops have even lost their jobs for their crimes, much less stood trial.
In New York city last year 400,000 African and Latino men were stopped and frisked by police. There’s no such thing as “being good, avoiding trouble.” For every African woman pregnant with a baby boy there is a prison bed already planned.
And speaking of drugs. The U.S. government imposes the drugs on the community, and the government and the banks make the vast majority of the profits. That is well-documented by people like Gary Webb, even PBS Frontline documentaries and in many other places. You can also watch some of our slide shows or read my book, Overturning the Culture of Violence.
Long standing businesses in black communities all over the U.S. were destroyed after the Black Power Movement of the 60s. There are no jobs in African communities and real unemployment is 50% and higher. Nobody wants to grow up to be a drug dealer, but people are forced to put food on the table through a penny-ante trade, while white collar people make the real money on illegal drugs but never get their fingernails dirty.
Then they bring in prisons with the largest prison population in the entire world by far. Where are prisons? They are in rural white communities for the most part and have long served as economic stimulus for country towns. In fact, prisons are the third largest industry in rural America today.
Towns all over the U.S. are vying for prisons for jobs, development, etc.—all at the expense of African and Mexican people incarcerated with discriminatory sentencing, Three Strikes and Jim Crow drug laws. Seventy-five percent of drug use and sales are by white people, but most of those who get sent to prison are African and Mexican. White people get rehab; Africans get 30 years to life.
I never knew Lovelle Mixon but I can bet that he wanted what most people want: a good job, a family, a nice place to stay. But he had nothing but grinding poverty and a dead end everywhere he turned. I read that he said that he said he did not want to go back to prison.
We must recognize that Occupied Palestine is right here, Iraq is right here, Afghanistan is right here, that there is a colony in every urban inner city that is at its boiling point and the resistance of the people will take place.
Showing posts with label Oakland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oakland. Show all posts
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
African people have a right to resist!
The New Year’s Day murder of young Oscar Grant who was shot at point-blank range after he was subdued by BART police in Oakland sparked large demonstrations expressing popular outrage.
Grant’s brutal murder followed on the heels of countless instances of police murder, harassment, profiling and general disrespect directed towards the African community in Oakland and throughout the U.S.
On March 21 in Oakland twenty-six-year-old Lovelle Mixon decided that he would not be a victim. For what ever reason he fought back against the oppressive police force bearing down on his community.
The police murders, torture, brutalization, harassment and frame-ups of thousands of African men and women in this country are not the result of a few bad cops.
Many police may be friendly, nice, religious, gay or female.
Whether a cop ever actively participates in the brutalization of the African or other community or not, is irrelevant.
Every cop is an arm of the U.S. state. The state is the institution of violence and coercion of the ruling class. The purpose of the state is to protect the status quo and maintain existing relations of wealth and poverty, power and oppression.
Other fronts of the state are the U.S. army, the courts and the prisons.
The state works to maintain a monopoly on violence.
We live in a country whose state was built on the enslavement of African people, on the genocide of the Indigenous people and theft of their land.
The U.S. state and capitalism itself are built on a pedestal of colonialism, the domination of oppressed peoples inside this country and around the world for the benefit of the white power system.
All branches of the U.S. military carry out the interests of the U.S. state abroad. All branches of the U.S. police carry out the interests of the State inside U.S. borders.
Both the U.S. military and the U.S. police carry out popularly-supported wars of aggression against oppressed peoples, enabling the U.S. to continue to plunder their resources, land and labor.
Every police officer in this country is a soldier of the imperialist state, no less than a U.S. marine in Afghanistan or an Israeli soldier in occupied Palestine.
The African communities of Oakland and the U.S. are communities under siege, occupied by a hostile, military force, just like the communities of Gaza or Fallujah.
Police in East Oakland are trained in the same Special Ops and counterinsurgency tactics as military forces in Iraq.
SWAT teams break down doors intimidating families, the elderly and children alike, while helicopters circle above. Police profile, beat and murder citizens. Discriminatory sentencing and Three Strikes laws lock up young African people for life.
In New York City last year the police stopped and searched five hundred thousand people last year, eighty percent of whom were African and Latino men.
Just like a soldier in the unjust U.S. army occupations abroad, a cop in the U.S. domestic force must prepare for the possibility of returning home in a body bag as the result of the resistance of the oppressed.
To denounce the resistance of the oppressed African community is to uphold the state’s right to a monopoly of repressive violence against the African community.
The African People’s Solidarity Committee supports the right of African and oppressed peoples to national liberation.
If their land, labor, oil, diamonds or coltan have been stolen from them through the violence of the imperialist state, they have a right to get it back.
The U.S. state violently enforces the interests of a parasitic system where 50 percent of the world’s resources are enjoyed by white society—only 5 percent of the world’s population.
The current economic crisis of imperialism makes it clear that this parasitic system built on the enslavement and oppression of most of humanity for the benefit of the tiny minority is not viable.
Peace and sustainability on this planet are only possible when Africans and all other oppressed peoples of this earth once again regain power over their lives, destinies and resources.
For white people there is no future for us in our self-imposed alienation from the rest of humanity.
We have lived on a pedestal at the expense of others, a privileged gated enclave surrounded by armed security guards.
Such an unjust arrangement doesn’t work for long.
All people on this earth have a right to self-determination, land, resources and a future for their children. As Malcolm X said, they will ultimately take that back “by any means necessary.”
African and other people are fighting for the right to forge their own destinies in a way that benefits the collective whole. Only in the process of liberation from this oppressive system will the oppressed peoples of the earth create a new and better world.
Join in solidarity with the movement for African national liberation—the movement that is actively bringing about positive transformation for everyone on the planet.
Grant’s brutal murder followed on the heels of countless instances of police murder, harassment, profiling and general disrespect directed towards the African community in Oakland and throughout the U.S.
On March 21 in Oakland twenty-six-year-old Lovelle Mixon decided that he would not be a victim. For what ever reason he fought back against the oppressive police force bearing down on his community.
The police murders, torture, brutalization, harassment and frame-ups of thousands of African men and women in this country are not the result of a few bad cops.
Many police may be friendly, nice, religious, gay or female.
Whether a cop ever actively participates in the brutalization of the African or other community or not, is irrelevant.
Every cop is an arm of the U.S. state. The state is the institution of violence and coercion of the ruling class. The purpose of the state is to protect the status quo and maintain existing relations of wealth and poverty, power and oppression.
Other fronts of the state are the U.S. army, the courts and the prisons.
The state works to maintain a monopoly on violence.
We live in a country whose state was built on the enslavement of African people, on the genocide of the Indigenous people and theft of their land.
The U.S. state and capitalism itself are built on a pedestal of colonialism, the domination of oppressed peoples inside this country and around the world for the benefit of the white power system.
All branches of the U.S. military carry out the interests of the U.S. state abroad. All branches of the U.S. police carry out the interests of the State inside U.S. borders.
Both the U.S. military and the U.S. police carry out popularly-supported wars of aggression against oppressed peoples, enabling the U.S. to continue to plunder their resources, land and labor.
Every police officer in this country is a soldier of the imperialist state, no less than a U.S. marine in Afghanistan or an Israeli soldier in occupied Palestine.
The African communities of Oakland and the U.S. are communities under siege, occupied by a hostile, military force, just like the communities of Gaza or Fallujah.
Police in East Oakland are trained in the same Special Ops and counterinsurgency tactics as military forces in Iraq.
SWAT teams break down doors intimidating families, the elderly and children alike, while helicopters circle above. Police profile, beat and murder citizens. Discriminatory sentencing and Three Strikes laws lock up young African people for life.
In New York City last year the police stopped and searched five hundred thousand people last year, eighty percent of whom were African and Latino men.
Just like a soldier in the unjust U.S. army occupations abroad, a cop in the U.S. domestic force must prepare for the possibility of returning home in a body bag as the result of the resistance of the oppressed.
To denounce the resistance of the oppressed African community is to uphold the state’s right to a monopoly of repressive violence against the African community.
The African People’s Solidarity Committee supports the right of African and oppressed peoples to national liberation.
If their land, labor, oil, diamonds or coltan have been stolen from them through the violence of the imperialist state, they have a right to get it back.
The U.S. state violently enforces the interests of a parasitic system where 50 percent of the world’s resources are enjoyed by white society—only 5 percent of the world’s population.
The current economic crisis of imperialism makes it clear that this parasitic system built on the enslavement and oppression of most of humanity for the benefit of the tiny minority is not viable.
Peace and sustainability on this planet are only possible when Africans and all other oppressed peoples of this earth once again regain power over their lives, destinies and resources.
For white people there is no future for us in our self-imposed alienation from the rest of humanity.
We have lived on a pedestal at the expense of others, a privileged gated enclave surrounded by armed security guards.
Such an unjust arrangement doesn’t work for long.
All people on this earth have a right to self-determination, land, resources and a future for their children. As Malcolm X said, they will ultimately take that back “by any means necessary.”
African and other people are fighting for the right to forge their own destinies in a way that benefits the collective whole. Only in the process of liberation from this oppressive system will the oppressed peoples of the earth create a new and better world.
Join in solidarity with the movement for African national liberation—the movement that is actively bringing about positive transformation for everyone on the planet.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Uhuru Movement statement
This statement also posted on UhuruNews.com.
The Uhuru Movement thanks all of our friends and supporters who have voiced their concerns about the position taken by the Uhuru Movement on the March 21 killings of four Oakland policemen and twenty-six year old Lovelle Mixon.
We unite with your interest in dialog and resolution to this situation and in building unity among the various communities in Oakland through genuine social justice.
The Uhuru Movement has always understood that our friends may disagree with some of our positions—positions which always uphold justice for the African working class community.
We understand and unite with your concerns that the tense situation in Oakland must be resolved.
It is unfortunate that it takes a situation like this to bring Oakland’s real problems to the surface.
We have to take the March 21 events in the context of the long history that the Oakland police department has had with the Oakland African working class community.
It was the infamous brutality of the Oakland police that gave rise to the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in the 1960s.
There has been the exposure of the notorious Oakland “Riders,” whose brazen violence, harassment, racism and dishonesty are well known.
There have been relentless police murders of African community members young and old, such as Casper Banjo, an elderly African man and well-known, respected artist who was blatantly shot by the police last year.
There are hundreds of African and Mexican working class people who have been murdered by police over the years, real human beings whose names fade from the collective memory so quickly. Many of these victims have been blatantly slandered in the media, doubling the pain of the grieving families.
The recent cold-blooded, point blank BART police murder of young Oscar Grant was only unusual because it was caught from many angles on video.
But it is much more than this. Oakland has a very clear publicly supported policy of police containment, implementing an incessant martial law with ever-present SWAT teams and police helicopters circling over neighborhoods daily.
California’s prison population is the fourth largest in the entire world and the OPD does everything possible to feed young African men and women from Oakland into that system for their entire lives.
Discriminatory legislation such as Three Strikes locks up countless African people as young as 14 years old for things that white people get to go to rehab for.
It has long been documented in articles by journalist Gary Webb in the San Jose Mercury News, for example, that the US government is responsible for imposing the devastating crack cocaine plague in African communities, and it is well known that the police have and continue to facilitate this.
The Uhuru Movement does not support the loss of life of any person. But the loss of life at the hands of the police in the African community of Oakland has been going on for half a century.
The “tensions” in Oakland are caused by the police, not by an impoverished community struggling to survive.
Even the mainstream media sources such as the New York Times and National Public Radio have had to mention in most reports that many in the African community do not support the police’s position in this case, and understand that the Mixon’s actions were the result of years of oppression of a whole community which has come to a boiling point.
Lovelle Mixon’s life, like that of thousands of young African men in the impoverished neighborhoods of Oakland, was over long before he was killed by police. He faced a hopeless dead end of joblessness, poverty and criminalization by a society that would rather lock up young African men than make college or jobs available to them.
The police are not social workers; they are a military force with the assignment to carry out a violent containment policy against a whole community. The purpose of the police is to maintain power for the status quo and uphold the relations of poverty and wealth in the city.
If we want to move forward and “build bridges” as a city there is only one road to do so. We have to truly understand the calls of a community under siege and demand an immediate end to this completely failed public policy of police containment, this war without terms waged against the African community of Oakland.
We have to demand a policy of genuine economic development for the African community—development that truly benefits and uplifts the deeply impoverished African working class of this city, and is not just another cover for gentrification and dispersal of the oppressed.
We appreciate your continued support of the Uhuru Movement and urge you to take an active stand in transforming Oakland into a model city of shared prosperity and true social justice.
Uhuru!
The Uhuru Movement thanks all of our friends and supporters who have voiced their concerns about the position taken by the Uhuru Movement on the March 21 killings of four Oakland policemen and twenty-six year old Lovelle Mixon.
We unite with your interest in dialog and resolution to this situation and in building unity among the various communities in Oakland through genuine social justice.
The Uhuru Movement has always understood that our friends may disagree with some of our positions—positions which always uphold justice for the African working class community.
We understand and unite with your concerns that the tense situation in Oakland must be resolved.
It is unfortunate that it takes a situation like this to bring Oakland’s real problems to the surface.
We have to take the March 21 events in the context of the long history that the Oakland police department has had with the Oakland African working class community.
It was the infamous brutality of the Oakland police that gave rise to the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in the 1960s.
There has been the exposure of the notorious Oakland “Riders,” whose brazen violence, harassment, racism and dishonesty are well known.
There have been relentless police murders of African community members young and old, such as Casper Banjo, an elderly African man and well-known, respected artist who was blatantly shot by the police last year.
There are hundreds of African and Mexican working class people who have been murdered by police over the years, real human beings whose names fade from the collective memory so quickly. Many of these victims have been blatantly slandered in the media, doubling the pain of the grieving families.
The recent cold-blooded, point blank BART police murder of young Oscar Grant was only unusual because it was caught from many angles on video.
But it is much more than this. Oakland has a very clear publicly supported policy of police containment, implementing an incessant martial law with ever-present SWAT teams and police helicopters circling over neighborhoods daily.
California’s prison population is the fourth largest in the entire world and the OPD does everything possible to feed young African men and women from Oakland into that system for their entire lives.
Discriminatory legislation such as Three Strikes locks up countless African people as young as 14 years old for things that white people get to go to rehab for.
It has long been documented in articles by journalist Gary Webb in the San Jose Mercury News, for example, that the US government is responsible for imposing the devastating crack cocaine plague in African communities, and it is well known that the police have and continue to facilitate this.
The Uhuru Movement does not support the loss of life of any person. But the loss of life at the hands of the police in the African community of Oakland has been going on for half a century.
The “tensions” in Oakland are caused by the police, not by an impoverished community struggling to survive.
Even the mainstream media sources such as the New York Times and National Public Radio have had to mention in most reports that many in the African community do not support the police’s position in this case, and understand that the Mixon’s actions were the result of years of oppression of a whole community which has come to a boiling point.
Lovelle Mixon’s life, like that of thousands of young African men in the impoverished neighborhoods of Oakland, was over long before he was killed by police. He faced a hopeless dead end of joblessness, poverty and criminalization by a society that would rather lock up young African men than make college or jobs available to them.
The police are not social workers; they are a military force with the assignment to carry out a violent containment policy against a whole community. The purpose of the police is to maintain power for the status quo and uphold the relations of poverty and wealth in the city.
If we want to move forward and “build bridges” as a city there is only one road to do so. We have to truly understand the calls of a community under siege and demand an immediate end to this completely failed public policy of police containment, this war without terms waged against the African community of Oakland.
We have to demand a policy of genuine economic development for the African community—development that truly benefits and uplifts the deeply impoverished African working class of this city, and is not just another cover for gentrification and dispersal of the oppressed.
We appreciate your continued support of the Uhuru Movement and urge you to take an active stand in transforming Oakland into a model city of shared prosperity and true social justice.
Uhuru!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Stop the Genocidal War on the African Community Now! Economic and Social Justice for the African Community!
The following is a statement put out by the Oakland branch of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement about the situation in Oakland, CA, reposted from UhuruNews.com.
The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) calls on all progressive-minded people to stand against the brutal, long-standing, publicly-supported policies of police containment that keep the African community under the grip of a colonial occupation for which the Oakland Police Department (OPD) is the front line of assault.
We call for support for the African community demands for genuine economic development and social justice for the African community.
The deaths of four members of the OPD on March 21, 2009, were the result of these relentless policies, which are manifested daily in the cold-blooded police murders, brutality and harassment of African men and women, youth and elderly by the heavily armed, military style Oakland police force;
In draconian laws such as Three Strikes that discriminatorily lock up tens of thousands of African people for life in the multi-billion dollar California prison industry;
In the hostile, substandard education system that profiles African male children as young as six years old as criminals and “super-predators,” and feeds the shameful juvenile prison industry that violates every principle of international law;
In the highly-documented government-imposed illegal drug trade which is often the only last-ditch source of employment in a community whose own economic infrastructure has been destroyed by “urban renewal” and gentrification;
In the specific targeting of African homeowners for predatory subprime mortgages, thousands of which are now in foreclosure;
In the cruel foster care system that turns African babies and children, victimized by this system, into profitable commodities for the lucrative white foster-care industry.
It was the historic brutality of the Oakland Police Department that gave rise to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in the 1960s.
We recognize that African communities of Oakland and throughout the U.S. are locked down under a deadly colonial occupation no different than the conditions imposed on the Iraqi and Afghani people under the U.S. military occupation and the near genocidal colonial assault on the Palestinian people by the illegitimate settler-state of Israel.
We believe that all oppressed and colonized peoples have a right to struggle for liberation and to resist, as Malcolm X said, by any means necessary.
Just like the resistance of Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser, enslaved Africans once vilified and today considered heroes, African people in Oakland have a right to struggle against this government-imposed terror. This is exactly what our brother Lovelle Mixon did.
We believe the actions brother Lovelle Mixon took were in fact a direct response to a system that upholds itself and protects itself through the imposition of a police state within the African community to enforce systematic harassment, torture, death and destruction on the African community, so that it can continue to thrive.
Africans have come to the conclusion that if you do not resist oppression from the police, you will end up unjustly murdered by them, all criminal charges will be dropped against them, hence injustice within the system perpetuates itself while Africans continue to die.
Knowing the history of how the police treat Africans, Lovelle Mixon felt he had to defend himself in the face of the oppressive police state. And he did so, honorably. Like the missiles launched from Gaza and the Iraqi resistance forces, African people will rightfully fight to free themselves against oppression in every form.
We call on the citizens of Oakland to unite with the demands raised by the Uhuru Movement for genuine economic development to the African working class community, for reparations for the families of victims of police violence, for a community controlled police review board with subpoena powers and for an immediate end to these failed public policies of police containment which have brought so much suffering to the African community for so long.
We call on Oakland citizens to join us in rejecting the knee-jerk criminalization of the oppressed African community by the city and state governments, and in recognizing that in order to go forward as a city we must unite in the quest for economic and social justice for the African community.
Uhuru!
The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement is an organization led by the African working class to defend the democratic rights of the African community.
The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) calls on all progressive-minded people to stand against the brutal, long-standing, publicly-supported policies of police containment that keep the African community under the grip of a colonial occupation for which the Oakland Police Department (OPD) is the front line of assault.
We call for support for the African community demands for genuine economic development and social justice for the African community.
The deaths of four members of the OPD on March 21, 2009, were the result of these relentless policies, which are manifested daily in the cold-blooded police murders, brutality and harassment of African men and women, youth and elderly by the heavily armed, military style Oakland police force;
In draconian laws such as Three Strikes that discriminatorily lock up tens of thousands of African people for life in the multi-billion dollar California prison industry;
In the hostile, substandard education system that profiles African male children as young as six years old as criminals and “super-predators,” and feeds the shameful juvenile prison industry that violates every principle of international law;
In the highly-documented government-imposed illegal drug trade which is often the only last-ditch source of employment in a community whose own economic infrastructure has been destroyed by “urban renewal” and gentrification;
In the specific targeting of African homeowners for predatory subprime mortgages, thousands of which are now in foreclosure;
In the cruel foster care system that turns African babies and children, victimized by this system, into profitable commodities for the lucrative white foster-care industry.
It was the historic brutality of the Oakland Police Department that gave rise to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in the 1960s.
We recognize that African communities of Oakland and throughout the U.S. are locked down under a deadly colonial occupation no different than the conditions imposed on the Iraqi and Afghani people under the U.S. military occupation and the near genocidal colonial assault on the Palestinian people by the illegitimate settler-state of Israel.
We believe that all oppressed and colonized peoples have a right to struggle for liberation and to resist, as Malcolm X said, by any means necessary.
Just like the resistance of Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser, enslaved Africans once vilified and today considered heroes, African people in Oakland have a right to struggle against this government-imposed terror. This is exactly what our brother Lovelle Mixon did.
We believe the actions brother Lovelle Mixon took were in fact a direct response to a system that upholds itself and protects itself through the imposition of a police state within the African community to enforce systematic harassment, torture, death and destruction on the African community, so that it can continue to thrive.
Africans have come to the conclusion that if you do not resist oppression from the police, you will end up unjustly murdered by them, all criminal charges will be dropped against them, hence injustice within the system perpetuates itself while Africans continue to die.
Knowing the history of how the police treat Africans, Lovelle Mixon felt he had to defend himself in the face of the oppressive police state. And he did so, honorably. Like the missiles launched from Gaza and the Iraqi resistance forces, African people will rightfully fight to free themselves against oppression in every form.
We call on the citizens of Oakland to unite with the demands raised by the Uhuru Movement for genuine economic development to the African working class community, for reparations for the families of victims of police violence, for a community controlled police review board with subpoena powers and for an immediate end to these failed public policies of police containment which have brought so much suffering to the African community for so long.
We call on Oakland citizens to join us in rejecting the knee-jerk criminalization of the oppressed African community by the city and state governments, and in recognizing that in order to go forward as a city we must unite in the quest for economic and social justice for the African community.
Uhuru!
The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement is an organization led by the African working class to defend the democratic rights of the African community.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Vigilante McCullough shot 16-year-old black neighbor; Fronts for white gentrification, would deepen division, inequity, insecurity in Oakland
(left, Patrick McCullough in 2005, being given a party by a Rockridge family following the shooting of 16 year old Melvin McHenry)In 2003 George Bush led the U.S. bombing and invasion of Iraq. It is a war that many now agree is an unjust assault on an oil-rich nation that has left massive death, displacement and destruction in a vain attempt to maintain cheap and plentiful gas for the U.S.
In 2005 Patrick McCullough shot his unarmed 16 year old teenaged neighbor, Melvin McHenry as he was coming home from school.
As a black man fronting for the interests of property and white gentrification in the long-standing African community of Bushrod, McCullough’s assault on an African child could be compared on a neighborhood scale to Bush’s aggression against the people of Iraq.
Like the U.S. war, the stance upheld by McCullough represents the arrogant assumption that the “haves” can forever ramrod their interests over the “have-nots” regardless of the human and societal price to the victims.
Like the Bush government’s attempt to seize other people’s oil resources, McCullough represents the white community drive for real estate in what many up until recently believed to be an endless Bay Area housing boom.
As the low interest rates of the early 2000’s fueled a frenzied housing bubble, many white people who were priced out of the trendier Oakland neighborhoods found “bargains” in West and North Oakland areas that have long been African communities.
As the white people move in with renovations, privacy fences and landscaping, they set up vigilante and police organizations such as neighborhood watch to push out and contain the African community, whose incomes are often way below those of the new homeowners.
If the gentrifiers can find a black man like Patrick McCullough to front for this community invasion, all the better.
In Oakland the gap between the more affluent white and the impoverished African communities has deepened and intensified over the past few years. While the top 20 percent of Oakland lives on nearly $100,000 a year, a recent article in the New York Times stated that one fifth of Oakland subsists on less and $15,000, well below the federal poverty level.
While most white children in Oakland expect to go to college and find meaningful and gainful employment, an African child born in Oakland today faces the high probability of poverty, joblessness, prison or early death. There are no bright futures for thousands of Oakland residents on the other end of the gentrification equation.
In the face of the recent “invasion” robberies –the result of deepening poverty and desperation, some politicians are pushing for more and more police.
Clearly, the ever-growing resistance in Iraq should show us that oppression, martial law and containment policies will never make Oakland more secure.
As long as one community continues to live at the expense of another there will be no security, safety or peace in our town. McCullough’s campaign for City Council represents the same oppressive approach as America’s failed war against the Iraqi people.
For security, peace and prosperity in Oakland we need genuine and massive economic development to uplift and stimulate the conditions faced by the entire African community, to give a future to all children and the opportunity to develop their talents, skills and abilities.
Say no to Patrick McCullough, gentrification and injustice on June 3rd.
Say yes to peace the only way peace ever works—peace built on a foundation of social and economic justice and true community solidarity, no one community at the expense of another.
Join the Uhuru Movement, an African working-class led movement for liberation, self-determination and economic and political development for African people in Oakland and worldwide.
Uhuru Solidarity Movement provides and opportunity for white people to come together to participate in righting these long-standing historical wrongs in a country whose wealth is built on slavery and genocide. USM is for white people who find living at the expense of African and oppressed people intolerable.
Oakland must not be the command center for the war against the African community. Let’s make it a model community for the world to emulate.
Election Rally and Community Forum on Thursday, May 29th, 7pm
Humanist Hall, 390 - 27th St., Oakland
For more info 510-625-1106
oak_office@apscuhuru.org
http://uhurusolidarityoakland.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Defeat Patrick McCullough in Oakland District 1!
In 2005 self-appointed Bushrod neighborhood vigilante Patrick McCullough shot his neighbor, 14 year old high school student Melvin McHenry in the back as he was running away from McCullough.
McCullough was not charged or jailed for his crime. He was praised as a hero by police, city officials, the media and white people who are gentrifying the historically black Bushrod neighborhood.
Now McCullough is running for city council from North Oakland’s district one on a platform of law and order violence targeting the African community.
McCullough is a black man who acts as a convenient front for all those intent on dealing with Oakland’s deep social and economic problems with a military solution similar to Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian people of Gaza.
Oakland just granted $7.7 million of tax payers’ money for more police and has launched an aggressive recruitment drive for the OPD with base salaries of over $87,000 a year and up to $244,000 with overtime.
Since this police budget was allocated in March already 2 people have been killed within a few days by the OPD. Casper Banjo, 71, a well-known and respected African artist was gunned down on March 14 by police. On Wednesday, March 19 Oakland police murdered a 15 year old Mexican youth. Both took place in East Oakland.
This is the murderous climate advocated by McCullough. In Oakland, according to the New York Times, one in every five families live on less than $15,000 and the poorest 20 percent live on $7,600 annually. Oakland is a city of deep disparities: crushing African poverty while the Bay Area has the highest rate of millionaires in the country.
California has the world’s sixth largest economy and the third largest prison population. The black population of California is 7 percent but 32 percent of the population of California’s prisons, a growth industry that pumps billions of dollars into the state’s economy.
In 1996 Gary Webb from the San Jose Mercury News exposed that the U.S. government was responsible for the massive influx of crack into Oakland. This came in the wake of COINTELPRO that destroyed the Black Power Movement of the 60s and assassinated L’il Bobby Hutton right here in Oakland.
Urban renewal and gentrification destroyed the economy of the African community where today it is estimated that half of young black people face unemployment. Sometimes just to put food on the table African people are forced into a government and corporate-controlled drug economy that studies show pay minimum wage for young street workers but make millions of dollars for banks and Wall Street.
In a city where white people are snapping up deals on houses and lofts at the expense of an impoverished African community the question is “who is the real criminal?”
The problem is poverty, oppression and public policies of police containment of the African community.
For peace and unity in Oakland we need genuine economic development to transform the conditions of the African and other impoverished communities. We need an end to police containment and violence against African and Mexican people. We need people like Patrick McCullough to pay a political price for their white-backed terror of the African community.
Defeat Patrick McCullough, District 1!
For more information call 510-625-1106.
McCullough was not charged or jailed for his crime. He was praised as a hero by police, city officials, the media and white people who are gentrifying the historically black Bushrod neighborhood.
Now McCullough is running for city council from North Oakland’s district one on a platform of law and order violence targeting the African community.
McCullough is a black man who acts as a convenient front for all those intent on dealing with Oakland’s deep social and economic problems with a military solution similar to Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian people of Gaza.
Oakland just granted $7.7 million of tax payers’ money for more police and has launched an aggressive recruitment drive for the OPD with base salaries of over $87,000 a year and up to $244,000 with overtime.
Since this police budget was allocated in March already 2 people have been killed within a few days by the OPD. Casper Banjo, 71, a well-known and respected African artist was gunned down on March 14 by police. On Wednesday, March 19 Oakland police murdered a 15 year old Mexican youth. Both took place in East Oakland.
This is the murderous climate advocated by McCullough. In Oakland, according to the New York Times, one in every five families live on less than $15,000 and the poorest 20 percent live on $7,600 annually. Oakland is a city of deep disparities: crushing African poverty while the Bay Area has the highest rate of millionaires in the country.
California has the world’s sixth largest economy and the third largest prison population. The black population of California is 7 percent but 32 percent of the population of California’s prisons, a growth industry that pumps billions of dollars into the state’s economy.
In 1996 Gary Webb from the San Jose Mercury News exposed that the U.S. government was responsible for the massive influx of crack into Oakland. This came in the wake of COINTELPRO that destroyed the Black Power Movement of the 60s and assassinated L’il Bobby Hutton right here in Oakland.
Urban renewal and gentrification destroyed the economy of the African community where today it is estimated that half of young black people face unemployment. Sometimes just to put food on the table African people are forced into a government and corporate-controlled drug economy that studies show pay minimum wage for young street workers but make millions of dollars for banks and Wall Street.
In a city where white people are snapping up deals on houses and lofts at the expense of an impoverished African community the question is “who is the real criminal?”
The problem is poverty, oppression and public policies of police containment of the African community.
For peace and unity in Oakland we need genuine economic development to transform the conditions of the African and other impoverished communities. We need an end to police containment and violence against African and Mexican people. We need people like Patrick McCullough to pay a political price for their white-backed terror of the African community.
Defeat Patrick McCullough, District 1!
For more information call 510-625-1106.
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