the saddest thing is that it seems like it has always been this way. When I was a little boy, I learned about Emmet Till. I was told when I was visiting my granddad in Tennessee, that there were certain places I couldnt go, it wasnt safe. I grew up in Philadelphia, PA where the police declared open season on Black youth, and where I saw my father dragged out of my house in the middle of the night, naked on the sidewalk with a cops boot on his neck. My brother, stepmom and I were made to sit on the sidewalk with our hands behind our backs, while our house was ransacked. I was in the sixth grade when they took Mumia and High School when they bombed MOVE. I fought skinheads in college, and have continued to confront them on sight. Oscar Grant happened here, in Oakland. So I remember Howard Beach, Diallo. The list goes on and on...I was with a young man last year when he breathed his last. Weary is not a big or deep enough word to hold my simultaneous grief and rage at this war on Black youth. The police are afraid too is not an adequate reason or explanation. America does not value the lives of young Black men and we should not need to continually assert our humanity. We should not need to prove to anyone that we are safe. docile. impotent.not fully human. not men. not parents. not fathers. God is with us, with the people of Gaza. With all oppressed people. We must rise and fight. In every single way. Every drop of blood is precious. Yours and mine. What is the cost of a Black Mans Life? I dont want to go to any more marches. I dont want to fight the police in the streets. I do want to make it known that the deaths of these young black men have a cost. The killers must know this and the pain and loss of the families has to be widely witnessed and shared. What is our social cost of losing these young men? We have lost so much, so much pain in our communities, that we are numbed to the losses, we think this is normal! It is not normal, it is not okay and our passive response to this slow genocide of our kids is not acceptable. BLACK PEOPLE STAND UP AND DEFEND YOURSELVES! let me make this clear...I will fight anyone or anything to protect my community.
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 21:25:55 +0000
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