THE POWER OF RESISTANCE
by Sista Shiriki Unganisha
TheRE IS A saying "Truth crushed to the earth shall rise again." Truth is rising today. People are denouncing the use of the deathpenalty in the US because it does not deter crime, is more expensive than life imprisonment without parole, is racist in its application, and results in executing innocent people. In Chicago a few years ago, a conference on the death-penalty focused on the conviction of innocent people. Some twenty-eight people shared their horrifying experience as wrongly convicted prisoners on death-row.
When the world witnessed the brutal beating of Rodney King, some white citizens justified the beating by saying he caused it by not following the instructions of the wolf-pack to lie still while being beaten! In early July, once again caught on video, rogue kops beat Thomas Jones, a black man, and those in power once again tried to justify police brutality.
We are all supposed to have freedom of speech and expression, yet hundreds of political prisoners/prisoners of war are held in US dungeons because of their activities and political views opposing US policy.
The attack on Al-Amin (H."Rap" Brown) is an example of the continued US assault on activists and organizations. The kop involved in a shoot-out said he wounded the suspect, supposedly Al-Amin, who escaped, When Al-Amin was arrested, he had not been shot, yet the government continues to charge him with the murder.
As the truth rises, it reveals corruptions within the US criminal system, such as the Rampart Division scandal, the DuPage Five scandal of prosecutoral misconduct, and the brutality by guards inside the prisons. We Afrikans in the US have always maintained that we are being terrorized in our communities by agents of the government--the police and the criminal justice system in general.
The KKK is not on the government's list of "Hate Groups" and holds a "charter" like the Boy Scouts of Amerika. Therefore, the KKK is a legal organization protected by the government in spite of its murderous history. This government can label a political organization, such as the Black Panther Party, the greatest threat to internal security, but not the KKK?
Dr. King spoke about making this government ungovernable until we receive social justice through the power of resistance. The bus boycott, the garbage workers' strike and the lunch-counter sit-ins were all forms of economic sanctions. During the bus boycott, communities pulled together and met their own transportational needs. The white power structure did not change its evil ways until hit with the bottom line--the almighty dollar.
The power of resistance is the most powerful tool an oppressed people can use. When Dr. King used Ghandi's non-violent tactic as a blueprint for Afrikans to gain social justice in the US, he missed the most important component of Ghandi's strategy: Ghandi and his followers were in their homeland. What can the colonizers do when millions of people refuse to participate in their own oppression? Gandhi helped the people of India understand that they were the ones who gave the government the power to operate, and they could stop that operation by the power of resistance.
Celebrities, politicians, musicians and athletes called for economic sanctions against one USA (United South Afrika), why not against another USA (United States of Amerika)? Before there was apartheid in South Afrika, there was apartheid in the USA in the form of Jim Crow laws, legal segregation, and white-only signs. This same discrimination exists today in the form of crack-cocaine vs. power cocaine laws, the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Mandatory Minimum Sentencing, Three Strikes, and the Welfare Reform Act.
Amazingly, there is no massive movement here calling for economic sanctions for social justice against the US. Once truth is revealed, people have a responsibility to oppose a wicked system that is out of control. To paraphrase Malcolm X, sticking a knife in my back and pulling it out six inches doesn't relieve my pain.
It is time for the struggle for social justice in the US to be taken to another level.
--Feel Free to call Sista Shiriki at (819) 333-9814, or write me at P.O. Box 320441, Kansas City, MO 64132, or email me at <Shiriki@gvi.net>.