Below is an insightful statement from the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement about Trayvon Martin.. They not only give us keen analysis but also put forth sound, practical solutions.. We also sat down with MXGM member Kali Akuno who was in Jackson, Mississippi who provided additional context to this statement.. The link to our Hard Knock Radio interview is located below.. Please check out the conversation while you read the statement.
HKR-Kali Akuno intv on Trayvon verdict
The Zimmerman Verdict is a Refelection of the Times People Must Organize
Trayvon Martin was never going to get justice from a courtroom of the United States government. Justice for Trayvon and for the hundreds of other Black women, men, and children executed by someone employed or protected by the US government on a daily basis will only come from our people and the power we are able to wield through the strength of our organization and the resolve of our will. Zimmerman was only put on trial because millions of our people took to the streets in early 2012 and threatened to disrupt the system. The trial was a means to divert our energies and return things to the status quo.
Obama’s statement that a “a jury has spoken” encouraging what he called, “calm reflection”, is just another effort to lure Black people to sleep and keep us accepting the status quo. The status quo of white supremacy has never and will never work for Black people. As W.E.B. DuBois stated, “a system cannot fail those who it was never meant to protect.” White supremacy and the systems that support and reinforce it like capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy must be defeated and dismantled. We must always keep this in mind and be prepared in concrete, organized ways to ensure that there will be no peace if there is no justice. Now is the time for direct action in the form of organized Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns that disrupt the status quo systems of the US government through massive non-compliant resistance.
We must also be clear that the Zimmerman verdict is a reflection of the times. 17-year old Trayvon Martin was the 31st Black person executed by someone employed or protected by the state in 2012. As we demonstrated in Operation Ghetto Storm, 313 Black women, men, and children were executed without trials by the police, security guards or certified “neighborhood watchmen” in 2012. These extrajudicial killings have by no means stopped or slowed down, as witnessed by the execution of Kimani Gray and dozens more Black people in the first six months of 2013. With the Zimmerman verdict justifying and setting new precedent for the disposal of Black life, we should expect the number of extrajudicial killings to increase. It is now more imperative than ever for us to strengthen the organization of our communities and defend ourselves.
We must defend ourselves, and we have every right to do so by any means necessary.
Black people are in a heightened state of crisis. Since being brought to the shores of North America as captives from European wars of aggression we have constantly battled one crisis after another. However, there are times that are more critical and intense than others. We are presently living through one of these super -critical periods.
We have been hunted and killed in cold blood by the US government in increasing numbers and herded into prisons like cattle in record numbers. The facts presented in Operation Ghetto Storm: 2012 Annual Report on the Extrajudicial Killing of Black People presents us with a deeper understanding of the utter disregard held for Black life within the United States.
The continual practice of executing Black people in the country without pretense of a trial, jury, or judge is an integral part of the government’s current overall strategy of containing the Black community in a state of perpetual colonial subjugation and exploitation. The verdict in the George Zimmerman trial is a testament to the reality that the institutions of the United States uplift and are complicit in the ongoing genocide of Black people.
The only way we are going to defend ourselves against these genocidal challenges is to create a massive social movement. We need a movement that strategically takes on the systemic oppression and exploitation that prevent Black people from exercising self-determination and human rights.
In order to fight effectively we have to organize ourselves on a higher level. One of the critical areas where we have to step up our organizing efforts to be qualitatively more effective is in the area of self-defense. We have to be clear that we cannot and should not count on our enemies – like the courts, and other forces of the US government or transnational corporations – to protect us. We have to protect ourselves.
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) believes that an essential part of our Movement for survival must be Self-Defense Networks.
We think there are two types of Networks that we have to build:
New Afrikan or Black Self-Defense Networks are alliances, coalitions, or united fronts of Black organizations whose purpose is to defend the Black or New Afrikan community from external (the police, FBI, white terrorist organizations, etc.) and internal (agent infiltration, intra-communal violence, etc.) threats to its safety and security.
People’s Self-Defense Networks are multi-national (or multi-ethnic and/or racial) alliances, coalitions, or united fronts whose purpose is to defend their communities against mutual enemies and threats and advance a common agenda based on shared interests, hopes, and aspirations.
Oppressed peoples and communities can and will only be secure in this country when they are organized to defend themselves against the aggressions of the government and the forces of white supremacy and capitalist exploitation.
The Every 28 Hours Campaign proposes a model for organizing:
- The formation of Black Self-Defense Networks to defend our people and combat police terrorism. These Networks should seek to build Copwatch programs, engage in mass rights based education trainings for the community, serve as first responders to acts of Police Terrorism, and help coordinate mass resistance to these acts via mass mobilizations and direct action. These Networks should also be encouraged to engage in offensive campaigns, such as referendums to institute Police Control Boards.
- The formation of People’s Self-Defense Networks to defend the lives and interests of all oppressed peoples’ and exploited classes against various forms of state terrorism. These People’s Self-Defense Networks would work as multi-national alliances to engage in a broad manner all of the tasks mentioned above to defend oppressed peoples and targeted communities, such as LGBTQ2GNC communities, against institutionalized racism, white supremacy, institutionalized sexism, patriarchy and state repression be it racial profiling, gender profiling, stop and frisk, mass incarceration, or mass deportations.
- Waging campaigns for local referendums to institute Police Control mechanisms – i.e. community based structures that have the power to hire, fire, subpoena, and discipline the police on the local level. And waging massive, non-compliant campaigns of resistance employing BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanction) strategies and tactics on statewide, regional, and national levels.
- Forming People’s Assemblies, on local, citywide, and regional levels to engage in program and demand development initiatives that will enable the people to engage in the broad implementation of people’s programs for self-defense and mutual aid.
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) and the Every 28 Hours Campaign seeks to strengthen organizing initiatives within Black or New Afrikan communities for self-defense, by presenting these initiatives with a comprehensive analytical framework and practical organizing tools to ground and unite them.
MXGM offers to Black and other oppressed communities three resources 1) Operation Ghetto Storm, a full report on the 2012 extra judicial killings; 2) Let Your Motto Be Resistance, an organizing handbook for self-defense; and 3) We Charge Genocide Again!, a curriculum for the Every 28 Hours Campaign, to further this objective
Links:
Operation Ghetto Storm: 2012 Annual Report on the Extrajudicial Killing of Black People
http://mxgm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Operation-Ghetto-Storm.pdf
Let Your Motto Be Resistance
http://mxgm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Self-Defense-Manual-MERGED.pdf
We Charge Genocide Again!
http://mxgm.org/we-charge-genocide-again-new-curriculum-on-every-28-hours-report/
For more information on these resources or trainings please contact Kali Akuno at kaliakuno@mxgm.org.
For coalition building and Self-Defense Networks please contact Taliba Obuya at taliba@mxgm.org.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmJqzEVKwoU
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
An eye for an eye and we’re all blind.
I read the Operation Ghetto Storm Report cover to cover. I have to say that from the point of view of someone who’s background is primarily in the field of Statistics, the “evidence” for a widespread campaign to kill African Americans is very flimsy. Also, I’m sorry, but if you read some of the stories of how people died, I just don’t see how engaging in a gun battle with police counts as “extrajudicial” killing. If you want to play war with the police and you end up getting killed it’s not really anyone’s fault but your own.
That’s not to say the very real impact of racial bias and attitudes is not exacting a terrible toll in terms of innocent people killed. I think a far more interesting approach to solving this aspect of the problem ( the racial bias of law enforcement ) would be a three step process:
(a) disarm America en-mass ( including the police )
(b) decriminalize drug use ( end the war on drugs ) and end the use of private for profit prisons.
(c) increase the funding and support for community based programs like head start, community farms, Boys and Girls Club, and medical clinics; and,
(d) require Police officers all do at least 4 hours a week of (1/2 paid shift in uniform) community service in one of these programs
We need to humanize the people we disagree with so that we can come to see them as reflections of our selves. We all have the same desires for happiness. While you will gain some short term wins by meeting violence with violence, in the long run lasting justice and peace requires Truth and Reconciliation.
I would say this is a serious wake up. Black’s have been getting done in for so long it’s like a vast % have become desentized and just accepted being abused and killed off or locked up in these updated slave plantation prisons.
Media is racist just like this article! Why not use the current photo of Trayvon Martin? Not the one when he was 12 years old….It is a tragedy when any life is taken but for every action there is a reaction.
Fact:
Trayvon Martin was Trespassing in a gated community.
Fact:
George Zimmerman was the Neighborhood Watch Coordinator
Fact:
The neighborhood had a rash of break-ins, burglaries and robberies.
Fact:
Trayvon Martin attacked George Zimmerman
Fact:
Trayvon Martin could have kept walking out of the area he was trespassing in.
Fact:
George Zimmerman exercising his right to stand his ground shot and killed Trayvon Martin.
FACT: How come you are not reporting on the Black on Black Murders for they far outweigh any rally for racial killings…..
Focus on the solution to save lives not the excuses of media and society…I would think chances are that if a man of Trayvon Martin’s size attacked you in your neighborhood and you had a gun you would have shot him too!
I get so irritated at the “Victim Mentality” if we want to go by facts here is one for you that you never hear about and there isn’t a Irish History Month bet you didn’t know this? http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_history_of_Irish_slavery_in_the_1600s_in_Colonial_America
Maybe you should look at Democide by Obama killing US Citizens without due process in Yemen and all the innocent children, women and men that were the collateral damage there of!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW15CGAiscw
Please get some facts before pushing your anti- American Black agendas!
That would be great!
Hakim Green: This statement from Dhoruba Bin-Wahad former Black Panther Party member who was targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO.. He served 19 years of his life, 7 in solitary confinement, for being what others fantasize about… Dhoruba Bin-Wahad Marches and Rallies have limited political utility because they reflect either intentionally or unintentionally the degree of MOBILIZATION of a particular MOVEMENT. While a MOVEMENT is a reflection of the effective ORGANIZATION of a primary or popular Political or social Strategic Vision by either a United Front or a Coherent Political Party. Because everyone is taking to streets in post-verdict outrage over the Trayvon Martiin travesty and people are holding rallies all over the place and at odd hours at night, each led by a disparate group of individuals and and organization many with reactionary and backward politics, sends a clear message to the Gatekeepers of the Status Quo, and to the NSS of political and social weakness of those who oppose institutional racism, class rule, and the political power of the Police (armed agents of the State). Knee-jerk reaction to institutional Racism inevitably is co-opted by the likes of the Negro Leaders on who’s Watch the reality of a “New Jim Crow” was established. The mere recalibration of white supremacy is a pointless. Only its institutional abolishment makes any political sense (from the perspective of its victims). Indeed, the politics of legalistic reform absent a Politically sovereign Power base is how we arrived at the charade of a Criminal Trial in the Martin case where Racism was the 2 Ton Elephant in the Court Room that the Prevailing Euro-centric racist culture could not and would not recognize. Our struggle for freedom and liberation has been reduced to “legalism” and peaceful collaboration with a corrupt and ineffective system to reform it out of existence. Fear has made us delusional at times. We manufacture straw-dogs to avoid inevitable confrontation with a raging Pit-Bull that is racist law enforcement! Every Charlatan, opportunist, marginalize and maligned sell-out Black politician has embraced the so-called revelatory analysis of the Alexanders “New Jim Crow” while avoiding the reality they themselves help perpetuate and that undergird her analysis and that is a system of DOMESTIC COLONIALISM based on race, class, and evolution of historical racial servitude and that is impervious to meaningful reform. Therefore, I’m not referencing the academic middle-class reformist notion of the “New Jim Crow ” (as praised by many Gatekeepers desperate to find a easy way out of what they have so mindlessly help create) – but the reality on the ground: In the urban and rural communities of Black America that constitute a unique system of Domestic Colonialism, not a condition of residual racial discrimination that can be legislated or legally sanctioned out of existence but a form colonialism requiring systematic “decolonization” or abolishment. Colonialism in any of its forms cannot be RE-formed! It is either abolished or not. What the historical moment requires is a New Abolitionist Movement in America led by the most maligned sectors of American society. Abolishment Not Reform. Build an effective mass movement with that as a fundamental Strategic Vision with independent political grass-root organization around injustice, political and racial repression, economic marginalizaiton etc. and we will be well on the way of bringing this entire stinking edifice of Democratic Fascism to its knees. Just getting out in the streets rallying every time African people here are dogged out always sputters out until the next outrage. And only the “professional” Civil Rights Leaders, National Spokespersons/Stars/Media personalities benefit and resurrect their tired Mitt-game. Just remember, The National Police State executed Troy Davis, folks demonstrated for a while, wore appropriate T-shirts, and moved on to the next drama. While former Black Panther have languished in Prison for 40 years with hardly whimper from all those outraged by the Martin Verdict. Over 35,000 prisoners, mostly Black and Latino are on Hunger Strike in California, no outcry from those outraged over the Martin Verdict. Muslims are being Tortured in Prisons under the direct command of a Mixed Race President and there is admitted sense of hypocrisy or at least reservation over the fact that the same “Justice” Department the Sharptons and “prominent” Black leaders want the US to bring Civil charges against Zimmerman also provided the legal framework for this torture and murder of Muslims. The same Justice Department that placed Assata Shakur on “America’s Top Ten Most Wanted Terrorist List” to redefine not only the Black Liberation Movement of the sixties and seventies – but the legacy of the so called Civil Rights Movement as well and retrospectively canonize COINTELPRO as basically a good thing. The Parents and Family of Trayvon Martin who suffered the lost of their child should not be made into the poster family for useless legal reformism like “abolish stand your ground laws” while Prisons are full of Black Political Prisoners who stood their ground against racist agents of Law Enforcement and the courts- much like Rosa Parks was substituted for another Black woman who refused to sit in the back of the bus before Sister Parks because she was less “appealing” to white folks sentiments and the image local Civil RIghts leaders wanted to project. We all know the results of that Switch-up. We can ride anywhere on the bus now, and still can’t get justice in the courts, because we never demanded justice for those who fought against the legalized brutality of law enforcement and advocated “Black self-defense” failures on that level has led to inevitable not guilty verdict in the Martin Trial – plus we are still fighting for “voter rights.” There will always be new Trayvons as long as we refuse to fight for abolishment of the institutions of white supremacist control that determine our lives and create new caring institutions of self-governance that reflect our true reality not populate racist institutions with Black faces in High places. Least we forget, the City Manager of Sanford Florida is Black! Don’t get mad… get even.
@alexhorovitz Firstly, your name sounds Jewish and that alone makes anything you say about Black people null and void. Secondly, A white man once said, their are “lies, damn lies and statics”. Please don’t do Black people any of your favors with your studies and what not.
We have another trial coming up in September that needs to be looked at very closely. Even more closely than the Martin trial and that’s the Jordan Davis trial. Florida
W
@hunglikejesus your anger shines right through. The good news is that there is a path to happiness and an end to your suffering. ( follow the path found here: http://www.amazon.com/Siddhartha-Hermann-Hesse/dp/1613823789 ).
I seek only to try to help live out the following four principles:
May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness;
May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering;
May all sentient beings have joy and the causes of joy;
May all sentient beings remain in great equanimity, free from attachment and aversion.
( which would make me a buddhist )
@Wayne
You seem a bit confused Wayne. Let me see if I can clear some things up for you.
1. Trayvon was not engaged in any crime (i.e. attempting to break into someone’s home) when he was accosted by Zimmerman. He was simply walking while black, wearing a hoody (in the rain, at night) with a cell phone, a bag of candy, and a soda. How does that make him suspicious or threatening?
2. Zimmerman automatically assumed that Trayvon was up to no good. Why? There had been previous break-ins, in the community, by one or more black guys. This was Zimmerman’s Suspicious Individual formula.
Black Guy + in predominantly white community + nighttime + wearing hoody = Potential Criminal
This is called racial profiling.
Zimmerman was the aggressor, not Trayvon.
3. Trayvon’s background was completely irrelevant on the night in question. It had no bearing on Zimmerman’s actions because Zimmerman didn’t know anything about Trayvon except that he was black, wearing a hoody, in a predominantly white community…
4. Zimmerman never identified himself, to Trayvon, as a member of the Neighborhood Block Watch.
5. Zimmerman is not a cop.
6. Trayvon had every right to defend himself against a perceived threat in a ‘Stand Your Ground’ state. Some of us find some whites to be very threatening. I guess this never occurs to whites.
What is not being stated by many is that whites are allowed to defend themselves (with impunity) against a real or perceived threat but blacks aren’t.
– Marissa Alexander, a black woman, received 20 years in prison for defending herself (firing a warning shot) against an abusive husband. The husband was unharmed because she did not point the gun at him. This happened in the ‘Stand Your Ground’ state of Florida.
– John White, black, who shot an enraged white teen (part of a rabid white mob) on his property (in New York), was convicted of manslaughter for defending his home and family from a rabid white mob.
– John Horn, white, shot and killed two black men (in Texas) for robbing his neighbor’s house. This man admitted that he was out to kill these black men who were not on his property and were not engaged in a violent act. Horn received zero jail time.
The obvious pattern is being ignored by man people. The double standard is painfully obvious. I know this is a fact many whites want to deny in a “post-racial” America. But the fact is America likes to criminalize black men. And that’s what Zimmerman did to Trayvon. Not to mention the jury consisted of one latina and five white women. Not one black man or woman on the jury?? Why is that? And we can’t forget that Zimmerman’s daddy is a judge. I’m sure he pulled some strings. The fact is the deck was stacked against Trayvon from the get-go. These are the facts. I hope that clears it up for you. Case closed. 😉
Thanks for all the real details.
What you said is real obvious.
There are some mentally sick people who support Zimmerman this twisted,racist court decision.
All this talk of him defending his right to defend hisself and his rights to bear arms is just smokescreen.
The fact is he got away for killing an innocent 17 year old kid and then has evil nerve to still want to carry the gun around he used to kill the kid with.
This dude and his supporters have some serious issues when it comes to real justice and freedom
I hear you man. These people don’t think we know the “criminal” justice system operates. Don’t let them confuse you with their lies and half-truths. We know the deal.
There has to be a renaissance of the black mind, the black man and the black woman
@alexhorovitz If you meet a Black man that’s not angry at the absolute shit that he and people go through on a daily bases, then what you have there is a truly blind Negro that is no good for Black people. He’s probably better for his Jew-Wish handlers than anything Black people need i.e. the music industry.
And tell me how in the hell am I suppose to be happy with anything that comes from this system of pure fuckery? Have you not been paying any attention to the conditions of Black Amerika? Like I said: please don’t do any Black people any favors with your hocus pocus word games. We had just about enough of that witchery.