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Our Newsletter (Winter '09-'10)
Hurricane survivors have serious charges against the federal, state and
local governments for violating their human rights. The charges cover
three periods of abuse: (A) Pre-Katrina/Rita, (B) Katrina/Rita storm, flood, occupation, and removal (evacuation) related abuses, and (C) post-Katrina/Rita. Learn more ...
Earn $$ for MXGM while you search the internet - simply click above and enter "Malcolm X Grassroots Movement" as the organization
UPDATE FROM SUPPORTERS OF NJ4: There's a new website dedicated to the New Jersey 4. At www.justice4nj4.com, you'll find ways we can help the
four imprisoned young women. There's also a discussion board, so you can
share your opinions, ideas, experiences, announcements, and any actions you
plan to take on behalf of the NJ4. We'll be adding more to the
site soon, including:
additional ways to help the 4 and their families
upcoming events in support of the 4
more information about the case, including the media coverage
updates about the young women and their legal appeal
personal messages from members of the 4 and family members
Please check in from time to time, and please help us spread the word about
this new website in support of the New Jersey 4.
Thanks!
Background
On Aug. 16, 2006, seven young, African-American, lesbian-identified friends were walking in the West Village. The Village is a historic center for lesbian, gay, bi and trans (LGBT) communities, and is seen as a safe haven for working-class LGBT youth, especially youth of color.
As they passed the Independent Film Cinema, 29-year-old Dwayne Buckle, an African-American vendor selling DVDs, sexually propositioned one of the women. They rebuffed his advances and kept walking.
“I’ll f— you straight, sweetheart!” Buckle shouted. A video camera from a nearby store shows the women walking away. He followed them, all the while hurling anti-lesbian slurs, grabbing his genitals and making explicitly obscene remarks. The women finally stopped and confronted him. A heated argument ensued. Buckle spat in the face of one of the women and threw his lit cigarette at them, escalating the verbal attack into a physical one.
Buckle is seen on the video grabbing and pulling out large patches of hair from one of the young women. When Buckle ended up on top of one of the women, choking her, Johnson pulled a small steak knife out of her purse. She aimed for his arm to stop him from killing her friend.
Interview originally aired December 10, 2007 on The Tavis Smiley show.
A longtime community organizer, Kali Akuno is executive director of the
People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition and director of
the Stop the Demolition Coalition. He is calling for action opposing
HUD's plans to tear down four major public housing developments in New
Orleans. Akuno previously worked with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
and founded and directed the Oakland, CA-based School of Social Justice
and Community Development.
Hear the entire interview by clicking on the play button below:
For full transcript, click the "read more" button bellow, or visit the The Tavis Smiley show website.
One of the main implications of the case of the Jena 6 is one that has sent countless activists to prison. The
implication-if you dare to remove yourself from the role of a victim
and attempt to assert justice yourself, you will pay a heavy price. The
notion that six young Black men responded appropriately by not allowing
an environment of terror to exist in their lives and their community
enrages a society that does not want to see Black people recognizing
and acting on the understanding that we alone will change our
conditions. This case would have made countless people considerably
more comfortable if these young brothers did not engage in a physical
encounter with the white student. Many would have been appeased if we
as a community continue to appeal to a legal system that has made it
clear that it doesn't place much, if any value on the lives of Black
people.
The legacy of lynching continues today
The Jena 6 engaged in an act of self-defense and their actions reflects our reality. Lynching,
a genocidal act that occurred with the consent of the government, has
long been a part of Black Experience in North America. In a petition
submitted to the United Nations in 1951, titled "We Charge Genocide",
Paul Robeson and other prominent Blacks, documented that at least
10,000 Black people had been lynched since the abolition of slavery.
The exact number of people murdered can never be known. The horrendous
act of lynching did not stop with the Civil Rights movement and our
communities remain intimately familiar with the legacy of the noose.
Countless numbers of Black people have been killed throughout recent
history with the legal system failing to prevent similar cases from
reoccurring.
THE SAN FRANCISCO 8 are former Black Panthers (ages 56 to 72) who were arrested last
January on charges related to the killing of a San Francisco police
officer in 1971. That case was thrown out in 1973 when it was
revealed that policetorture
had extracted so-called "confessions" justifying the case. Now
the case is back on-based on the same flawed
evidences.
Program:
Gil
Noble, respected producer and host of ABC-TV's Like
It Is
Francisco
Torres, Harold Taylor and other SF-8 defendants
People everywhere organize 'End JENAcide everywhere' rallies in their home town. The focus of these rallies will be multi pronged: One, to demand the dropping of all charges in the Jena 6 case. And also: to bring attention and national pressure to local examples of unequal justice. Through this campaign, family members of the Jena6 hope to broaden the struggle for juvenile justice across the land and begin to systemically correct the way this countries handles criminal justice. In each city, the following 3 points should be articulated:
Drop all charges against the Jena 6 NOW
Fund education in our communities and repair our schools
Being young and black is not a crime: Stop harassing our youth
A Call to Stop Ethnic Cleansing and the imminent assault on Gaza.
Gaza photo courtesty of sarahasphotographer (flickr.com)
The Question.
Are the revolutionary and progressive movements in the US going to sit idly by and wait for
the Zionists and imperialists to raze Gaza to the ground? Or are we
going to take preventative action to stop the genocidal assault being
so thoroughly planned (and executed) right in front of our eyes?
What is at Stake?
The
US Left, and all of its national and social sectors, must be clear
about what Palestine represents in the capitalist world-system today.
Palestine is the barometer of the extent to which imperialism is
willing to go to in the present era to liquidate the struggles for
national liberation. In Palestine, particularly since the elections of
January 2006, we see the overall political and financial commitment of
imperialism to crush any movement that threatens the political
integration and homogenization now required for
capital accumulation. Where white supremacy, colonial occupation,
capitalist patriarchy, mass incarceration, and economic strangulation
are not enough to either contain or destroy the national consciousness
and anti-colonial sentiments, ethnic cleansing and genocide are now
wholly justifiable and permissible options for
imperialism. This is what is happening to Palestine, specifically to
the people and political forces in Gaza being deprived of electricity,
water, medical aid and supplies, and food by the Zionist occupying
forces. The recent designation of Gaza as an "enemy entity", with the
full backing and encouragement of their US masters (see the statement
of the Israeli Security Cabinet on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
during a visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice), seeks to legitimize the cleansing of Gaza by military means and prepare the political justification for its imminent execution.
It should go without saying that given Palestine's preeminent
position amongst the anti-colonial struggles of the world that if
imperialism is able starve and cleanse Gaza in order to liquidate its
liberation movement, either in whole or in part, the prospects for
the remaining national liberation struggles, either less well-known or
developed (ex. the New Afrikan and Puerto Rican liberation movements
against US colonialism, the Basques, the Kurds, and countless 1st
Nation or Indigenous Peoples), to attain self-determination and
independence will be seriously compromised, if not practically
extinguished for the foreseeable future.
Gaza photo courtesty of sarahasphotographer (flickr.com)
If there ever was a time for the US Left to devise its own "preemptive" action plan that time is now. Considering what is at stake
for
the Palestinians and oppressed peoples all over the world, the US Left
cannot allow its internal confusions and aversions about the various
national liberation and social movements currently at play in the world
to come in the way of defending the human rights of the Palestinian
people as they did in the case of Haiti and the Lavalas Movement in
February 2004. Our varying positions on Hamas and its tactics of
resistance to Zionist occupation should in no way prevent us, in our
totality, from trying to prevent the wanton destruction and wholesale
massacre being planned for Gaza.
Friday Nov. 30, 2007, 7PM
