A letter from a youth organizer who was part of yesterday's civil disobedience to stop "stop & frisk." It was read at a program at Revolution Books in NYC on Oct 19th.
Dearest family, friends, and supporters:
On October 21st I will join Cornel West and Carl Dix in a civil disobedience action targeted at stopping the illegal, unconstitutional "Stop and Frisk" policy by the NYPD. 600,000 stops and frisks per year; 1,900 stops per day; 85% of which are Black and Latino; we're talking about a policy implemented by the NYPD that deliberately absolves 4th Amendment rights from whole sections of the population, and criminalizes an entire generation of youth because they "fit the description." This is the other end of police brutality, the pipeline to prison—the slow, relentless obliteration of entire communities.
...Although the experience of being a Black male informs my decision, I am not doing this because of some personal vendetta against the police, or even because I am directly impacted by this policy...read more.
The New Jim Crow just met the new Freedom Fighters
just received this statement from the Stop Mass Incarceration Network:
From Up Against the Wall to Up in Their Faces . . .
A Movement has begun to
STOP "Stop and Frisk"
The New Jim Crow just met the new Freedom Fighters
On Friday afternoon in Harlem people stood up and said "Enough!" to our youth getting jacked up and humiliated every day by the NYPD's Stop and Frisk program. Cornel West, Carl Dix, Rev. Stephen Phelps, Rev. Earl Koopercamp and 29 others were arrested in a non violent civil disobedience action blocking the doors at the 28th NYPD precinct in Harlem. Hundreds came out in support including a contingent from OCCUPY WALL STREET which endorsed the action the night before.
700,000 youth will be stopped and frisked in NYC this year. This is the first step in a pipeline that has locked 2.3 million in prison. People movingly testified to their experience of being degraded and humiliated and treated like criminals just for being Black or Latino. Those who have had to live with the fear that these "routine" stops can result in your death if you dare to ask what right the police have to stop you - were able to feel what it's like to not just have to take it. Because these 33 protesters put their bodies on the line to act – while 100's of others stood with them, supporting and bearing witness – you have to say it was a beautiful day for the people.
Time to Get Organized and Fight to Win
A movement of resistance was born today but now it's up to you to help take this forward. We are calling you to step up and be part of what is needed to stop this!
Release and Drop the Charges Against Noche & Jamel
#1: The police singled out 2 youth organizers of the protest, Noche & Jamel – releasing all the other protesters but them. One of these youths is a member of the People's Neighborhood Patrol of Harlem whose purpose is to prevent law enforcement from violating the peoples' rights and brutalizing them under the color of authority. The first thing in building this movement: Demand these young fighters' release and donate funds for their legal defense.
#2: Come Sunday, October 23, 2011 to the IMPORTANT "GET ORGANIZED" MEETING to organize the next action and the movement to end mass incarceration, ST. MARY'S CHURCH, 2:00 PM, 126th Street between Old Broadway and Amsterdam Ave.
When Cornel West and Carl Dix began this movement they wrote: “If you are shocked to hear that this kind of thing happens in this so-called land of freedom and democracy - and it does happen all the damned time . . . you can't stand aside and let this injustice be done in your name.”
Yesterday was just the beginning. This will continue and spread until stop and frisk is stopped!
That requires you. Join or be part of the next action – first one neighborhood, then the next. Spread the word. Donate funds. To be a part of stopping this injustice join the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. Call us at 973.756.7666 or email to stopmassincarceration@ymail.com
Statement from Carl Dix before yesterday's arrest in Harlem - appearing in Huffington Post
Like most Black people in this country, I will never forget my first encounter with the police. Like most Black people in this country, it was not a pleasant experience. Before I take you down that memory lane with me, let me say up front that today I am joining arms with Cornel West and others to voluntarily land myself in the custody of the police. We are conducting non-violent civil disobedience at the 28th Police Precinct in Harlem, New York to put a Stop to the NYPD policy of "Stop & Frisk."
.... An undercover man ran up from behind and tackled me. Next, he decked me. He said someone had been robbed and I "fit the description." It soon became clear what "description" he was talking about. He and other cops had also stopped a 40-something year old who was 5'6" with a full beard. I was only 13 years old, no facial hair yet, and six feet tall. The only thing we had in common was our Black skin and our stylish trench coats (which, again, everybody was wearing).... read more
Historic Non Violent Civil Disobedience TOMORROW to STOP "Stop & Frisk" -- Be There, Spread the Word!!
From “Up Against the Wall” to
Up In Their Faces
STOP, STOP & FRISK!
On October 21st at 1 pm be at the State Office Building in Harlem as:
Cornel West, Professor, Author, Public Intellectual
Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party
Rev. Stephen Phelps, Interim Senior Minister of Riverside Church
Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, Rector of St. Mary's Episcopal Church
Debra Sweet, National Director of World Can't Wait
Rev. Omar Wilks, Union Pentecostal Church
Prof. Jim Vrettos, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Elaine Brower, Military Mom and World Can't Wait
Commit Non-Violent Civil Disobedience to STOP “Stop & Frisk”
The New York Police Department is on pace to “Stop & Frisk” over 700,000 people in 2011! That's more than 1,900 people each day. More than 85% of those stopped are Black or Latino, many are as young as 11 or 12, and more than 90% of them were doing nothing wrong when the police stopped, humiliated, brutalized them or worse.
Everyone knows it is wrong. It is illegal, racist, unconstitutional and intolerable! But THIS FRIDAY people are putting themselves on the line to STOP IT. This is the beginning; this is serious; we won't stop until Stop & Frisk is ended.
Join the non-violent civil disobedience – OR – BE THERE TO BEAR WITNESS & SUPPORT!
WEAR BLACK
Friday, October 21
1pm Rally at Harlem State Office Building
1:30 March to NYPD 28th Precinct at West 123rd and Frederick Douglass Boulevard
Endorsed by:
Rev. Luis Barrios, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Herb Boyd, journalist, author, Harlem NY
Brian Figueroux, Esq.
Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist
Nicholas Heyward, Father of Nicholas Heyward, Jr. who was killed by police
Sikivu Hutchinson, author
Lawrence Lucas, Our Lady of Lourdes RC Church
Cynthia McKinney, former Congressperson
Efia Nwangaza, Malcolm X Center, Greenville, SC
Bill Quigley, Loyola Law New Orleans
Mark Taylor, Princeton University
Sunsara Taylor, writer Revolution Newspaper and World Can't Wait Advisory Board
The Stop Mass Incarceration Network: PO Box 941, New York, NY 10002 stopmassincarceration(at)ymail.com * 973.756.7666 * stopmassincarceration.tumblr.com
Why are Carl Dix, Cornel West, Rev. Phelps, Rev. Kooperkamp, Rev. Wilks, and Prof. Jim Vrettos Getting Arrested on Friday?
To put a STOP to the slow genocide of mass incarceration of Black and Latino youth and others -- and the constant harassment, humiliation, discrimination and brutality of the NYPD's "Stop & Frisk" program which is carried out 1,900 times every single day here in New York City.
Occupy Wall Street -- Mass Arrest and Yet the Masses Keep Coming...
It is now confirmed that some 700 people were arrested yesterday in a protest by the Occupy Wallstreet crowd. It sounds like the police consciously led people into a situation where protesters would be penned in and mass arrested. This is similar to what was done by police in other mass arrest situations, particularly in Minneapolis during the last Republican National Convention.
One arrestee who got out of jail sometime in the middle of the early morning hours told me about how she was held after being arrested on a city bus which had been commandeered by police. It sounds like the police planned a mass arrest – that is why they took ten or more vans from Rikers Island. But it then sounds like they went even bigger than they had prepared for in their arrests – so they commandeered city buses.
Young & Black? Expect to be "Stopped & Frisked" if not killed by police
Below are excerpts taken from today’s NYTimes http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/nyregion/12frisk.html?pagewanted=4&hp about the rampant “stop and frisk” policy where each year now the NY Police Department stops and frisks over half a million people – the majority of them for reasons such as “furtive movements.” This article features the most targeted area where the average young Black man (starting at the age of 15!) is stopped on average FIVE TIMES A YEAR!
Throw this in the mix of the recent slap on the wrist given just days ago to the cop who executed Oscar Grant in front of a crowd hundreds and viewed by millions on youtube.
I don’t want to hear any more talk about how this is a “post-racial” society. Walking around young and Black still means two things. First, you are a suspect. Second, you are a target of police all the way up to and frequently including police murder.
The time is now to be exposing and resisting these outrages, and to be building up the strength to put an end to this madness through real, genuine communist revolution at the soonest possible time. Nothing can excuse what you are about to read below.
“The officers stop people they think might be carrying guns; they stop and question people who merely enter the public housing project buildings without a key; they ask for identification from, and run warrant checks on, young people halted for riding bicycles on the sidewalk.
“One night, 20 officers surrounded a man outside the Brownsville Houses after he would not let an officer smell the contents of his orange juice container.
“Between January 2006 and March 2010, the police made nearly 52,000 stops on these blocks and in these buildings, according to a New York Times analysis of data provided by the Police Department and two organizations, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the New York Civil Liberties Union. In each of those encounters, officers logged the names of those stopped — whether they were arrested or not — into a police database that the police say is valuable in helping solve future crimes.
“These encounters amounted to nearly one stop a year for every one of the 14,000 residents of these blocks. In some instances, people were stopped because the police said they fit the description of a suspect. But the data show that fewer than 9 percent of stops were made based on ‘fit description.’ Far more — nearly 26,000 times — the police listed either ‘furtive movement,’ a catch-all category that critics say can mean anything, or ‘other’ as the only reason for the stop. Many of the stops, the data show, were driven by the police’s ability to enforce seemingly minor violations of rules governing who can come and go in the city’s public housing.”
Skipping ahead in the article…
“And some, from academics to the residents of these streets in Brooklyn, believe the stops could have a corrosive effect, alienating young and old alike in a community that has long had a tenuous relationship with the police.
“’This is an important issue, right now, that the N.Y.P.D. must get out in front of as soon as they can,’ said Richard Rosenfeld, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. ‘And the best way they can do that is to provide credible evidence that the stop-and-frisk campaign actually is responsible for the crime reductions the city has enjoyed.’
“Without that evidence, he said, the stop-and-frisks that do not result in arrests could ‘reduce the perceived legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the public.’”
Okay, that above quote is very revealing – basically this guy is pointing out that this practice of “stop and frisk” that is disproportionately targeting and terrorizing Black people so blatantly violates what most people consider decent and legitimate (even according to the proclaimed principles of the U.S. constitution and laws), that if they don’t cook up some kind of PR rational for this they could undermine the legitimacy of the very armed force and terror their system relies on to function.
Everyone who is sincere, needs to come to grips with the fact that the outrage of police violence and terror against Black people in this country is so widespread, so pervasive, so dehumanizing and degrading to Black people as a whole that IT ALONE is reason enough for revolution. Further, everyone interested in revolution ought not to fail to see how significant and strategic a potential vulnerability this kind of ongoing police terror is to the legitimacy of this entire system. There is tremendous potential to bring forward – through fighting the power and transforming the people FOR REVOLUTION – an alternate legitimate vision, authority, and specter of a radically different society, a revolutionary society, that can put an end to this madness and attract many people into this today.
The article continues later…
“Inside the project buildings and out, males 15 to 34 years of age, who make up about 11 percent of the area’s population, accounted for 68 percent of the stops over the years. That amounted to about five stops a year each, though it was impossible to tell how often someone was stopped or if that person lived in the neighborhood, because the data did not include the names or addresses of those stopped. Police officials say the age figures sound right, since most crime suspects fit that description.
“Young black men get stopped so often that a few years ago, Gus Cyrus, coach of the football team at nearby Thomas Jefferson High School, started letting his players leave practice with their bright orange helmets so the police would not confuse them with gang members.
“’My players were always calling me saying “Coach, the police have me,”‘ Mr. Cyrus said.”
Just think what that means – that the football coach had to let his players borrow bright orange helmets so that they would have a higher chance of not being stopped and harassed and humiliated and possibly beaten or killed by police! In his epic talk, “Revolution: Why Its Necessary; Why Its Possible; What Its All About,” Bob Avakian talks about how it is doubtful that any young Black man grows up in an inner city without being traumatized by the fear of being brutalized or killed by police. This story from this coach just captures one small dimension of that – but it speaks volumes.
By the way, there is an additional irony in that little excerpt in that the name of the high school is “ThomasJeffersonHigh School.” Jeffersonian democracy is supposedly what makes this country so free and guarantees all people equal rights and protections under the law. But, in reality in its original conception – and as it is clearly functioning today – it has white supremacy woven into its very fabric. At the time of Jefferson, this took the form of outright slavery. Today, there is – among many other things – the situation that is described in this article from the NYTimes.
“Almost everyone in the projects has a story. There is Jonathan Guity, a 26-year-old legal assistant with no criminal record, who, when asked how many times he had been stopped in the neighborhood where he grew up, said, ‘Honestly, I’d say 30 to 40 times. I’m serious.’”
…
“One recent evening, the police stopped a 19-year-old man for spitting on the sidewalk, a health code violation, and entering Langston Hughes Apartments without using a key or being buzzed in, even though the doors were unlocked. ‘I’ve lived here for 19 years,’ the young man, who lived in a neighboring building, protested. ‘You see me coming into these buildings every day, and now you’re going to stop me.’”
If you can stomach all this, you have a serious problem. If you cannot, its time to get more serious about the real revolution.
Sunsara Taylor is a writer for Revolution Newspaper, a host of WBAI's Equal Time for
Freethought, and sits on the Advisory Board of World Can't Wait. She has written on the
rise of theocracy, wars and repression in the U.S., led in building resistance to these
crimes, and contributed to the movement for revolution to put an end to all this. She takes
as her foundation the new synthesis on revolution and communism developed by Bob
Avakian. You can find her impressive verbal battles with Bill O'Reilly and various
political commentary on things from abortion to religion to cultural relativism by searching “Sunsara Taylor”
on youtube.
