My comments delivered at the Michael Brown Vigil last night. The problem of police brutality is not a new one. We hold our heads down in somber recognition of the loss of Michael Brown’s life and for the family of Michael Brown. We hold our heads down in somber recognition of a judicial system that does not treat all equally. We are full of sadness, disbelief and/or anger at the way this story has proceeded. Many of us are here in solidarity with the family and friends of Michael Brown, and yet, this story has a much earlier beginning than August 9, 2014. Black communities have long been fighting police brutality and injustice and dishonesty in the legal system. Plantation slavery ended in 1865 in the United States but Reconstruction, the period of brief freedom, was over by the end of the 1800s; with the end of Reconstruction came 100 plus more years of institutionalized racism. In the next couple minutes, I will share with you some of the Black organizations that have long fought police brutality and an unjust legal system. 1909. Ida B. Wells, the primary investigator and reporter of lynching in the US, exposed that from 1899 to 1908 – 959 people were lynched of which 857 were people of color. In a piece on lynching Wells says, quote: “Various remedies have been suggested to abolish the lynching infamy, but year after year, the butchery of men, women, and children continues in spite of plea and protest. Education is suggested as a preventative, but it is as grave a crime to murder an ignorant man as it is a scholar. …Lynching is color-line murder.” 1920, Marcus Garvey, the leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, said quote: “our race is denied the right of public trial accorded to other races…We assert that the Negro is entitled to even-handed justice before all courts of law and equity in whatever country he may be found, and when this is denied him on account of his race or color such denial is an insult to the race as a whole and should be resented by the entire body of Negroes.” In 1963 Martin Luther King said quote: “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.” In the 1960s the Nation of Islam included police brutality in their Program and Position: they said, quote: “We want justice, equal justice under the law. We want justice applied equally regardless of creed, class or color…and, We want an immediate end to the police brutality and mob attacks “ In 1966 it was included in the Black Panther Party Platform and Program: “We want freedom. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.” In 1998 the Black Radical Congress explicitly addressed the legal system with quote: “We are determined to end police brutality and murder: We will fight for strong civilian oversight of police work, we seek fundamental changes in police training and education, and we seek to limit incarceration.” In 2001 the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network led by Russell Simmons called for changes in the legal system with quote: “We want the total elimination of racism and racial profiling, violence, hatred and bigotry. We want the total elimination of police brutality and the unjust incarceration of people of color and all others.” As you can see, Black communities have long suffered at the hands of the so called justice system. The riots and protesting we currently see are not just the consequence of the death of Michael Brown but are the result of hundreds of years of oppression. People who criticize rioters and protesters are people who believe the justice system works, that it operates, that it will proceed in a fashion that is equitable and beneficial to all those involved – in this type of system it makes sense to let the legal system “do its job.” But for those that have continuously observed a legal system that is NOT equitable come to believe that the only way to be heard is to protest and fight for justice. I end with a quote by Frederick Douglas: (1852) “For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.”
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 19:37:03 +0000
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