I know I’m a little late on this, but this news is very intriguing to me. For all of the apathy in me, and all of the hopelessness for change that stays fighting me, it’s shit like this that gives me hope. Even with all of the military, media, and businesspeople charging CodePink as anti-Amerikan, anti-military, and as negatively affecting downtown Berkeley business.
These protests by CodePink, World Can’t Wait, many other anti-war organizations and civilians alike, as well as those in support of the war, have been receiving international attention.
Hey look, another article written by the destructive journalist Kristen Bender (she seems to cover all of the topics that i wish to know more about, yet every time i read an article written by her i feel violated. She always seems to side with the money, business, dominant political interests involved, probably enforced guidelines at the Oakland Tribune (which just so happens to be owned by a corporation out in Denver, Colorado, MediaNews Group, which happens to be one of the largest newspaper companies in the country. So you know, just like ClearChannel filters, censors, and conservatively politicizes all that we here on radio stations, big media news corporations do the same thing with the news outlets- print, internet, televised, etc.).
CodePink has been in very strong opposition to the war(s) being fought for some time now. They are taking a stand in the face of extreme opposition, in times of great complacency, apathy, and hopelessness, they continue to actively pursue peace and i’m really all about that. It still trips me the fuck out that this war (shieeeeeet, many wars) is being fought because oil and weapons corporations run the amerikan government and are making the kind of money that i can’t even fathom to have a majority poor and working class people killing and dying and fighting in this unjust war.
These videos speak volumes about how passionately people feel on both sides and then there is the whole right wing fox agenda.
Hannity and Colmes Bullshitin with Madea Benjamin of CodePink
Allen Jackson, the president of the Berkeley branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, took a stand and decided to make a statement condemning the BPD two days after Anita Gay was killed February 16 by Berkeley police officer Rashawn Cummings.
Granted, even though it wasn’t until this morning that I even knew that Berkeley had a branch of the NAACP, this is still some bullshit to hear about how they, along with Henry Wellington, president of the Berkeley Police Association and Shira Warren, president of the Berkeley Black Police Officers Association are dumbing down Allen Jackson’s attempts to speak out against police brutality.
Now, I cannot personally recall a time when I’ve ever been glad to hear what the NAACP has to say, but that is not to say that they do not or have not played an important role in the history of Civil Rights in Amerika. They unfortunately have been pretty conservative in their politics for decades now, and do not have anywhere close to the level of credibility within “the black community” –(i don’t like using this term, because i do not believe that their is a black community nor do i like to generalize and use blanket statements as if there is one all encompassing black consciousness and view of things, but for lack of a better term)– that they once had… decades ago.
Despite this, it was nice to hear these words from Allen Jackson particularly because while living through times when it seems like every police officer- white, black, brown, purple, whatever- has immunity when it comes to killing black people, and in times when people of color, especially black people, are continuously fucked over over by this criminal (in)justice system we have in Amerikkka, it is nice to hear words that re-affirm your right to EXIST and have a voice, especially a voice that emits words of truth and go against the mainstream media coverage and dominant power structures.
I’d like to say thank you to Allen Jackson for his courageous words, and I’d like to say fuck you to the Oakland Tribune, Berkeley Police Association, and the Berkeley Black Police Officers Association for defending police brutality (no surprises there) even when fatal. And I would also like to say “Come on now… get it together…” to the NAACP nationally and locally.
Signing off from the city that they love to call liberal, even with racist cops killing black folks out here- Berkeley, Ca.
This post is dedicated to Anita Gay, Gary King Jr., all of their families and friends, and all of the countless other victims of police killings and brutality that go unnoticed, unannounced, and are given some form of justification by racist police departments across the country.
Gary King Jr. was wrongfully shot and killed by the notoriously corrupt Oakland Police Department on September 20, 2007. Immediately action was taken by his family, friends, and concerned community members to fight for justice in this case of fatal police brutality.
Gary King Jr. was 20 years old when he was killed by Sgt. Pat Gonzalez of the Oakland Police Department. A myspace page with a brief profile has since been set up in his memory. Also the city of Oakland allowed family and friends to erect a mural on the pillars of the BART tracks at the place he was slain.
The incidents around King’s murder remain extremely suspect. Police claimed he was reaching for a weapon as he ran away, but witnesses (even “neutral” witnesses) say that he was pulling his pants up as he ran. He was suspected of being a suspect, and ultimately killed for being a young black male in the vicinity of a police officer who was willing to shoot and kill King in the back as he ran away from being accused of a murder that he did not commit and was not even a suspect in! According to an article written by George Ciccariello-Maher:
…Gary King and a group of friends were walking out of East Bay Liquors. A patrol officer, Sgt. Pat Gonzales, was headed southbound on the other side of MLK, near the 55th Street light. The officer claims to have identified King as a potential suspect in a murder that had occurred nearby a month prior – note here the words “potential” and “suspect.”
For anyone who knows the geography of the incident, this “identification” was quite a feat: A full block away, looking diagonally across six lanes and between the thick pillars supporting the BART tracks, Gonzales was allegedly capable of identifying King.
The officer crossed under the tracks, tires squealing, to confront the group of teens in front of the liquor store. According to witnesses, Gonzales grabbed King by his dreads, while it remains unclear if the officer was attempting to carry out an arrest. After King pulled away from Gonzales, the officer used his Taser to try to incapacitate this “potential suspect.”
It is terribly disturbing that in damn near every case where police officers murder people, the media is quick to justify it through somehow placing a weapon on the victim. It is just as disturbing that so many people are quick to believe these stories that are often so far fabricated and one-sided (MOST OFTEN THE POLICE DEPARTMENT’S SIDE) that they choose not to even interview witnesses with disputing accounts of what happened. Even when they do they tell the public the story from the perspective of the police who OF COURSE are going to say that it was justified. Why would they do the right thing and claim that they have officers who patrol our streets and murder people for no good reasons.
Sean Bell’s father testified this morning about the final night he spent with his son.
These murders committed by police of black people across the country have all somehow been justified. But all of these cases, plus all of the cases that do not receive national or even local attention continue to represent unprovoked violence to the point of being fatal upon black bodies across the nation. These racist, ignorant, and rash tactics take lives that could have been spared, and continue to remind us as black people that we are ALWAYS under the constant threat of fatal violence especially by those who they try to convince us are here to “protect and serve.” That’s all bullshit to me. I don’t trust police, and I never will trust police.
These killings also demonstrate something that far too many people do not understand and that is that the race of the officer who shoots and kills these victims is irrelevant in terms of the racism involved. Let me make that make sense. A black or latino officer that kills another black person is committing a racist crime. While the officer may not be outwardly racist or even believe himself to have made an incredibly rash decision based on race, we live in a country that teaches us to fear black and brown bodies, and this teaching is embedded into ALL OF US despite the color of our skin. These killings illuminate how our fears of dark bodies and our subconscious racism becomes externalized in the most disturbing and fatalistic ways.
These murders HAVE NOT remain unnoticed. Much activism and progressive media has gone into fighting for the rights of Sean Bell and Gary King Jr., and others.
March for Justice in the Murder of Gary King Jr. and in solidarity with the Jena 6.
Michael Moore on police brutality, racism, and the murder of Amadou Diallo. (Moore turns it into satirical humor, which none of what i just wrote is like, but he makes some good points in it. It seems like white folks need to be spoonfed shit in a humorous way or else they ain’t tryin to hear it, ex. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert).
Saul Muhfuckin’ Williams.While i (believe i) know that ‘muhfuckin’ is not his real middle name, i like to pretend that he might say “what is real” or “what’s a name” and then spin 4,000 meanings about each of those phrases and take your mind on a trip to wherever.
Now, let me spin a story please:
In high school i was struggling to find a place where i could unleash my wide range of emotions (this is not what i was thinking at the time, but looking back i can see it and know it this way) in a productive and creative way. My mom and dad were beefing hardcore and i, the middle child (not old enough to neglect it, not young enough to not comprehend what was going on) was caught in a crossfire of bitterness and words that could easily pierce our roughest exteriors. It was during this time that defense mechanisms like retreating to my room when confronted with shit I didn’t want to hear developed, and also the time when I remember music becoming my life-line.
In those times I went on journeys with Outkast and Goodie Mob.
I burst all my rage out listening to 2pac. I got loose and Bay wit it with pre-thizz Mac D-R-E. I spent many nights blending passionate arguments, beats, held back as well as free flowing tears, my imagination, etc into inspiration and my first poem (i had probably written a poem before this but this one stands out to me as my first, probably because of what it meant and means to me). I don’t remember exactly how it went, but i know it started like this:
We shuck and jive
and dip and dive
through pain that
runs so deep…
It had to do with my mother’s pain and my pain specifically, and just how i saw people acting all the time and how we were dancing and dodging through life trying to avoid what it was that really caused us this pain. That was 9th grade i think, and from then it was lightweight on.
After these writings started up, i started going to the poetry events at Berkeley High (where i went to high school), and people were just dope as fuck to me, and they inspired me to get up there and share one time (and then a couple more after that). Now, while when i look back on what i read i turn in embarrassment, but they were still meaningful moments because no matter what you went up there and spit you got love- like genuine teenage we all need emotional releases and support in those releases- type love. People were just spittin’, it was crazy. People from other schools came through and ripped shit. I remember all kinds of dope people rockin their shit and it was all free and spontaneous.
Then shit changed for me when I went to college at UC Santa Cruz. Maybe it was cause i wasn’t in the same raucous crowds of B-High anymore, or maybe it was cuz i was older, or maybe we were in the middle of redwood trees rather than cement, or maybe it was because it just felt like i was spittin’ to nobody who i could really relate to. At the high i felt like we were all spittin to each other cuz we HAD to in order to feel okay, in Santa Cruz i felt like reduced to feeling like a voice for black people so that the white people in the crowd could better understand thoughts and actions of black people. It felt the same speaking in classes, but it felt a little different expressing myself on a stage.
The ways it fucked with me as far as identity were significant. I just felt like the black guy. Being multi-racial, but identifying (as far as how i believe others, including government agencies view me) as black has it’s problems, but it gets worse when worrying about how other’s are identifying you before you even say a word. I felt confined in a world of racism, time-limits, scorecards, unfettered whiteness privilege and structure. While white college aged poets went up and read poems that other white college aged could easily relate to, i found it incredibly difficult after a certain point to even allow myself to say what i had to say to people that i felt would never really get what i was trying to tell them. Added to that was what i felt was a standardization of what poetry was and what expression was/is supposed to be all about: Spontaneity, rhythm, confusion, vulnerability, confidence, and dopeness, etc. Not formulaic, not a standard form.
It began to feel as if people had mastered the art of obtaining perfect scores rather than spittin some shit that was written by them for them and expressed and shared with the group. It felt more like people were writing to get to the next round and they knew that throwing the paper down in a certain way, or inflecting your voice in the right spot, and inserting the funny line in the right place would get them that 10 they needed for the next round. It felt like the soul had been sucked from the poetry scene where i was.
It felt like how it feels (for me at least) to look back at the moment when white people started profiting off of rock & roll after black folks had been doing it for years, and watching it become cleaned up, dumbed down, given strict formulas and guidelines and packaged, marketed, distributed and accepted by the masses.
This is when i bring back in Saul Williams.
It was Saul Williams who was my first introduction into what (slam) poetry was. He was at that point in time around 1998 everyone’s introduction into what ’slam’ poetry was/has become. He says himself that he has only “slammed” three or four times. Slam seemed the way that poetry in my college days was dominantly performed. They were the ones who got love. People who didn’t have direction were not scored highly. Made to feel less than. That shit sucked for a lot of people. Mainly people of color. So many poems felt like essays recited. But see, Saul Williams and Langston Hughes never spelled out the moral for you (completely), there is/was always room for interpretation. No direction is often times a direction in and of itself.
Saul has got Soul… Now, I definitely have to admit that I’ve never even heard his first album, “Amethyst Rock Star,” and I didn’t even play his last album all that much as a complete album (mostly because i just really have to be in the right mood which = patient, which is often not me), but i liked many of the songs. But, I just downloaded his most recent album “The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust” from his website for $5 last weekend and gave it a run-through. I HELLA liked it. I’m in a reflective kinda mood these days (which kinda explains my neglect of blog posting, and the length and open-ness of this post) and doing a bunch of reading. Saul Williams has been a big part of that. And it’s not always what he is saying but moreso the fact that he is saying it which pushes me to say (and write) the things i have inside of me, and that’s what i appreciate most about the dopeness of Saul Williams. He pushes me to drop down my walls of defense and open up to the possibilities of forever and stances against bullshit. I also just read “,said the shotgun to the head,” today and i got “The Dead Emcee Scrolls” coming in the mail.
You can tell I’m in a zone right now.
Peace. Piece. Paz.G-Mitch aka SlaveName
ps- i only fuck with a few people who do slam poetry, and i know most of them. i’m hella biased, but that’s the way it be sometimes.
In a complete biting of the S/HEROES category on my main man Colin’s page (hey man, good ideas are meant to be bitten huh? hahaha!) I would like to say Happy Birthday to Brotha Bob! I love this man. I remember listening to Legend in my best friend’s basement on summer days, just fuckin’ chillin’ and drinkin’ Slurpee’s and eatin’ candy and chips. Smoking hella bomb and listening to some funky ass reggae rhythms with all the patnas.
Robert Nesta Marley made me think about and feel happy about the world and about life in general, his songs were tragically insightful and outsightful. Poetic and timeless his music had the power to reach ALL people on so many got- damn levels it’s scary. Bob Marley was a real ass dude. His life along with his wife Rita and many other band mates were shot because of the inspiration and messages they put out into the world and during some politically hot times in Jamrock.
Damn, Will Smith talking about Bob Marley in another movie where Big Will saves the world. It don’t get no better than this.
This Bi-racial baby made some of the best rebel music that has ever been recorded and distributed by any human being. Representing the struggle of oppressed and suffering people internationally and locally. He sang about love, peace, unity, struggle, hope, war, revolution, Rastafarianism etc.
Don’t it look like Bob made a youtube video, Hahaha! Crazy shit.
Unfortunately he like many of out s/heroes has been turned into an icon and made to seem otherworldly, while in life it was his humility and humanness that made him relate to so many people. We can live his messages and create our own messages in the spirit of Brotha Bob and all of the other people we admire and respect for their sacrifices and achievements.
It is also sad that the spirit and music of Bob Marley has been so co-opted by white folks that it made me not even want to have anything to do with reggae for years. It’s because the music that is so African and Carribean in spirit is danced to by all the non-deoderant wearing blonde dreadlocked birkenstock white folks in all the damn bars and clubs in Santa Cruz I couldn’t take that shit. It just felt so damn distance. All that “unfettered whiteness” is hard to deal with. Being back around some people of color listening to reggae is beginning to bring back those good, happy, and inspiring feelings that it used to bring me.
His kids are doing the damn in holdin down the legacy in his absence so mad Big Ups to them Brrrrrahhh Brrrrrrrrrrrrrahhhh!
Y-YO Y-YO YO YO!
So Happy Birthday My Brother in struggle and music and all that other good shit (and he was born the day before me so I feel him that much harder) (yea, that was partly a little birthday plug for myself, haha).
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