Below are some photos from historic march to the Department of Justice in St Louis. It was led by faith leaders including; Rev Toni Blackman, Rev Sekou, Dr Cornel West, Pastor Mike McBride, Jasiri X and many others who sought to win justice not only for Mike Brown who was killed a year ago, but also for the countless other victims of police brutality…
Faith leaders march to Department of Justice in St Louis to win Justice for Mike Brown…
Oct 22 2013 On today’s Hard Knock Radio Show, we caught up with two individuals who belong to organizations that are on the front lines of dealing with police brutality. E Da Ref of the Black Riders Liberation Party and Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party..
Both gentlemen detailed the work they are doing from community patrols to education workshops to directly confronting the onslaught of police terrorism.. There’s an excellent in-depth article on the BRLP in a recent edition of the SF Bayview.. You can read about them HERE.
Carl Dix who is in the forefront of the fight to end Stop and Frisk toured the country with Dr Cornel West as part of his efforts.. Here’s some information about those efforts HERE
During our interview both talked about the need to take down the current system and replace it with one that is more accountable. They were realistic that such actions will not happen overnight , so they detailed the steps folks can take to help achieve that end.. E Da Ref talked at length about an array of strategies including Confrontation Politics.
Overall today brought forth an enlightening conversation given the fact that today marked the 18th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.
John Reimann
Later in the show we spoke with long time union member and activist John Reimann who talked about the larger implications that will soon unfold as result of the recent BART strike. He laid out key steps unions must take in the future and urged them to take time to connect labor struggles with the struggles everyday people are enduring.
Although the BART strike was settled Reimann felt the unions missed some key opportunities. He also talked about how the unions were forced to strike by BART management who waged unyielding campaign to ‘race to the bottom’. He also addressed the accidental killing of two BART workers who were killed by a trainee who BART management were hoping to have as replacement for striking riders..
You can get more information about John Riemann at http://oaklandsocialist.com/
Right click the link below to download or stream the HKR Intv
HKR-10-22-13 Oct22 Resisting Police brutality |BART and Unions Whats the Next steps?
It’s always a pleasure chopping it up w/ freedom fighter Carl Dix.. He’s dedicated to the struggle and willing to walk the walk of the things he talks. In recent months Dix along with scholar/activist Cornel West have pushed back hard on the NYPD and their infamous Stop and Frisk policy. They even put the policy on trial with plans to follow-up with similar measures in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
Last year over 680k people have been stopped and searched by police. Over 85% have been Black or Brown men with less than 5% convicted of carrying any weapon or committing crime. Dix noted that currently NYPD is on pace to stop and frisk over 800k. Dix noted the root cause of this disparity is racial profiling.
Currently Dix is down in Sanford, Florida on what is part of a BAsic Bus Tour through the South. Dix reaffirmed what M1 from dead prez had told us a few weeks back, that the spirit of resistance is alive and well and very strong in Sanford which is where the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman saga is unfolding. This is a story often overlooked by the mainstream media..
During our conversation, Dix makes the connection between the Stop and Frisk policies in NY and the current climate of vigilantism that we saw play itself out in Sanford.. You can peep that interview below..
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I hate to bring up instances of police brutality and terrorism because at this point in time in a very perverse way, I think the police feel emboldened and get off on stories highlighting their exploits. They know word of these accounts instill fear and leave many feeling overwhelmed and completely powerless.
At the same time we are challenged to alert folks because many are still in the dark and do not see these onslaught of brutality reports as systemic. Many have brought into the notion that the police don’t act out without reason. Hence when we hear a story about an unarmed man being shot, or someone being brutalized, many of us have been conditioned to ask 1-What did the victim do to deserve the mistreatment? 2-Did the victim have a troubled past?
Sadly many of us have come to rationalize police brutality as something that’s deserved if you have some sort of criminal record or fall into a marginalized demographic that has been grossly stereotyped and demonized. We buy into the police favored narrative because it’s comforting and allows us to avoid facing the fact that a system we come to believe in is broken and increasingly becoming more and more repressive.
Many of us do not want to face the fact that some sort of coup has taken place in this country where corporate entities are calling the shots and making policy while police forces all over are enforcing these rules and protecting their interests. Some call it Fascism.. Some call it the emerging police state. Whatever you wanna call it, its real and in your face. The question we need to be answering is how are we gonna deal?
The latest incursion comes at the hands of NYPD. This was an outfit we all sympathized with after brave officers lost their lives during the 9-11 tragedies. We gave the NYPD lots of leeway to recover and strengthen their force and in doing so, we either looked the other way or played dumb when they pushed for more powers. Now NYPD has vast sweeping powers. The most notorious is their Stop-N-Frisk policy where the police can at random pull you over while your walking and start searching you for guns, or contraband. Last year they stopped and detained over 680 thousand people with less than 10% resulting in any sort of violation of the law. Over 85% of those stopped were Black and Brown men.
The Stop and-Frisk policy has drawn lots of criticism and even a few lawsuits, but that has not stopped NYPD who now are set to take this to a whole other level. Its called the Clean Halls policy.. This is a new law that allows the police to come into public or private buildings including your residence and search you.. Yep you read that correctly.. Below are excerpts from recent Rollingstone Magazine article giving you all the info .. Please check it out
An amazing lawsuit was filed in New York last week. It seems Mike Bloomberg’s notorious “stop-and-frisk” policy – known colloquially in these parts by silently-cheering white voters as the “Let’s have cops feel up any nonwhite person caught walking in the wrong neighborhood” policy – isn’t even the most repressive search policy in the NYPD arsenal.
Bloomberg, that great crossover Republican, has long been celebrated by the Upper West Side bourgeoisie for his enlightened views on gay rights and the environment, but also targeted for criticism by civil rights activists because of stop-and-frisk, a program that led to a record 684,330 street searches just last year.
Now he’s under fire for a program he inherited, which goes by the darkly Bushian name of the “Clean Halls program.” In effect since 1991, it allows police to execute so-called “vertical patrols” by going up into private buildings and conducting stop-and-frisk searches in hallways – with the landlord’s permission.
According to the NYCLU, which filed the suit, “virtually every private apartment building [in the Bronx] is enrolled in the program,” and “in Manhattan alone, there are at least 3,895 Clean Halls Buildings.” Referring to the NYPD’s own data, the complaint says police conducted 240,000 “vertical patrols” in the year 2003 alone.
In addition to this, you may wanna check out the insightful interview we did with activist, freedom fighter Carl Dix about NYPD’s Stop and Frisk policies from a couple of months ago.. here’s the transcript from our radio interview on KPFA
http://mediaroots.org/mr-transcript-davey-d-carl-dix-resistance.php
Here’s a short excerpt of that interview
Carl Dix: “We’ve been out in Harlem, talking about Stop and Frisk. And before we did the first action what we would hear, often from the same person, is I hate Stop and Frisk. They did this to me. They did this to my son. They did this to—even sometimes—they did this to my sister, or my daughter. You know, because they’re doing this to women as well.
“But then the next point is: But you can’t do anything about it. And that’s why we decided we have to do something about it. And we launched this campaign to stop Stop and Frisk, which is a policy under which the police can just step to you, stop you, make you turn out your pockets, or search you themselves. And then often bust you for nothing.”
Davey D (c. 29:00): “Right. I don’t think people really clearly understand here [in the S.F. Bay Area] ‘cos we don’t see it as much. But in New York that is a huge problem that you could be walkin’ with a tuxedo on with your wife and kids and they pull you over and say, empty out your pockets, to make sure you don’t have a gun.”
Carl Dix (c. 29:46): “Yeah. And how big is it? They stopped and frisked almost 700,00 people; it was 684-thousand-plus last year alone in New York City: 85% of them Black or Latino, more than 90% of them they let you go after they’ve harassed you and humiliated you, but then even some of that 10% that they don’t let go, some of them were doing nothing wrong because when we did the action in Queens, they held us overnight. So, we were in there with a bunch of other people and people were telling us, Oh, they stopped me under Stop and Frisk. I didn’t have my driver’s licence. I didn’t have an ID, so they ran me in the prison.So, it’s like, did I wake up in Johannesburg, South Africa, 30 years ago when there were past laws? Because what’s the crime in not having an ID?”
Davey D (c. 30:39): “Right. And that’s why I ask the question because it is so massive. We just had, you know, we did a show about a brother who was killed over Stop and Frisk. He had a little bit of weed. The cops came by. He decided to walk, you know, into his building—I’m sure you remember this.”
Carl Dix (c. 31:01): “Yeah. I’ve seen the video of it.”
Davey D: “He just walked into his building—he wasn’t under arrest or anything—they ran up into his apartment, kicked down the door, and shot him in front of his grandma. There was no gun, no nothing. But there was a couple of joints that he was trying to get rid of, but this becomes the justification that is often used. Well, they should’ve just listened to the authorities. Or, they shouldn’t run. Or, you shouldn’t, if you don’t have anything to hide, then there won’t be any problem. But it’s those types of encounters that we see over and over again where people are like, the police are here, they’re gonna find something. I don’t want to deal with this. And oftentimes it’s a fatal situation.
“When you have these types of scenarios, Amadou Diallo, another victim of Stop and Frisk, all he had was a wallet, shot 41 times. How did we go from the Panthers and Dr. King and Malcolm X to allowing ourselves—or did we allow ourselves?—to be in such a situation right now where it’s not even talked about in the mainstream, even amongst our pundits? You know?
“I mean, you do it. Cornel does it. But if I tune on and I see our own folks sitting up there, they’re not really making this a front and centre issue. You know? They’ll talk about LeBron James and what team he’s gonna choose before they’re talking about the absurdity of 700,000 people being stopped in one year.”
Carl Dix (c. 32:24): “Okay, two things. The first thing is we’re acting to change that. And tomorrow night, when I talk, I’m gonna talk about a proposal for a national day of resistance to mass incarceration. That’s the first thing, but to get back to your question: How did we go from the days of the Panthers to this kind of situation?
You can also see another interview we did on this topic where go more in depth HERE
Larry Elders vehemently defends George Zimmerman
With each passing day more and more jerks step out the woodwork around the Trayvon Martin case. . For example, we had talk show host Larry Elders, a Black man yapping away defending George Zimmerman, the wannabe cop who decided he wanted to hunt down and shoot an unarmed, law-abiding Trayvon Martin.
We shouldn’t be surprised because Elders is the type of brother who as my friend George Galvis noted.. May be Black or Brown but functions white... meaning, he has brought into lots of aspects of white supremacy..He’s that type of guy..
I thought it was interesting he was defending Zimmerman knowing that good ole George has a domestic violence record… but hey what do i know?
I bring up Elder for another reason…because he’s a Libertarian..same as presidential candidate Ron Paul and folks need to fully understand the full extent of their thinking-Might makes Right..
Elders said the FBI need to investigate to keep up appearances… He later compared the Trayvon situation with that of subway vigilante Bernard Goetz who shot 4 Black men on a subway with an unlicensed handgun 25-30 years ago.. For those who don’t recall Goetz said he was being robbed..on other hand, Zimmerman went looking for Martin who did nothing of a sort… Anyway.. you can peep the interview here..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFllsX-AFf8
Geraldo Rivera says Black and Brown men shouldnt wear hoodies
Not to be out down we have long time news personality Geraldo Rivera (real name Gerry Rivers) who wanted to offer up some sound parental advice to Black and Latino parents… This morning Geraldo tweeted the following;
“Trayvon killed by a jerk w a gun but black & Latino parents have to drill into kids heads: a hoodie is like a sign: shoot or stop & frisk me”
The flaws in that argument should be clear as day, but for those who somehow are thinking, oh yeah.. if only Black men would pull their pants up and stop wearing hoodies, we wouldn’t be shot by racist clowns like Zimmerman...
I hit Geraldo back and reminded him of a few things.. First, 9-year-old Brisenia Flores was shot in Arizona by a wannabe border patrol agent..who busted into her house thinking her family were undocumented.. The father Raul wasn’t wearing a hoodie in the 100 degree Arizona sun when he was shot to death, nor was his precious daughter…
I also reminded Geraldo that 7-year-old Aiyanna Stanley-Jones from Detroit wasn’t wearing a hoodie as she slept next to her grandma when cops busted up in her house and shot her in her sleep.
I also reminded him that last year in New York City where Stop and Frisk policies are in effect, that over 680 thousand people were stopped in the streets and frisked by police officers who ‘suspected’ they had guns..less than 1% of those stops netted anything.. That’s why we had folks like educator Cornel West and organizer Carl Dix and lots of other folks protesting the policy… Out of the 680k stopped over 80% were Black and Brown men..
Maybe its me, but that doesn't look like a hoodie.. perhaps homeboy shouldn't be wearing a biking helmet
The shows that I’ve done on this topic garnered the following info from ACLU lawyers..According to NYPD they look for people who make furtive movements which is subjective.. Some cops consider it furtive if you look at them as they drive by.. Some say its furtive when you look away.. Still others consider it furtive if you start scratching ..they say your acting nervous… Translation; Hoodie or not you’re gonna get stopped and frisked..but lets not digress.. lets ask ourselves why are they doing an action that yields such a low return?
Back to Geraldo and his parental advice, I asked him if he’d prefer during the winter months or rainy days which was the case for Trayvon, that these Black and Brown men wear baseball caps instead, or ski masks? Perhaps a Yamaka, Turpin or a big ole Abe Lincoln style top hat..
Bottom line Geraldo is making the case that it’s up to Black and Brown men to make the police feel safe.. not the other way around.. What a damn idiot..
Two Sellouts rushing to the aid of a racist dog…
