Store
‘One more reason for a powerful October 22nd protest,’ highlighting urgent local issues, follows
Statement by Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
Corey Harris, a junior at Dyett High School, a star basketball player and captain of the baseball team, was the first Chicago student to be killed by gun violence this school year – shot to death on Sept. 11. He was killed after school, shot in the back as he ran away from a man with a gun.
There was no media outcry over Corey’s murder, no statement from the White House about their distress over it. Hundreds of students and adults who loved Corey attended his funeral, but there was no parade of politicians there. The name of his murderer is known by the Chicago Police Department and yet he walks the streets today, uncharged for this murder. Why? The man who executed this unarmed student was an off-duty Chicago cop.
Last year the Chicago police killed 21 people.
The death of Derrion Albert, an honor student at Fenger High School in Chicago, is also a horror for the people. On Sept. 24, the nation was stunned by vivid images of the Fenger High School melee resulting in his death. People are agonizing over how did we get into a hellish situation where parents watch students being killed over nothing, where kids grow up haunted by images of gunfire. Everyone talks about responsibility. But who and what is responsible for this situation?
A poem by Oscar Brown Jr., “Children of Children,” includes these lines:
“The children of children trapped by dark skins to stay in and play in a game no one wins / The children of children while still young and sweet are all damned and programmed for future defeat / The children of children are trapped by adults who fail them then jail them to hide the results.”
It is a crime of this system that our youth internalize the message they get every day through the worthless schools and degrading conditions and brutalizing cops – the message that this system has no future for them and that they don’t even deserve a future – and then they act it out against each other. More police are not the answer, as the police murder of Corey Harris shows.
Youth need to be inspired, encouraged, organized and unleashed to stand up against and resist the conditions they face, including degradation, dehumanization and outright murder they face at the hands of the police. In the course of this, and joining with others to throw off oppression throughout the world, people can and will change themselves.
“The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people, here and all over the world … when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness … those days must be GONE. And they CAN be.” – from “The Revolution We Need … The Leadership We Have,” Revolution #170, July 19, 2009
October 22nd is the National Day of Protest to STOP Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. It is the day to begin to stand up and resist the outrage of police brutality and police murder. FIGHT BACK! WEAR BLACK!
For assembly points, go to october22.org/Assembly2007.html.
Contact Carl Dix at comradecarl@hotmail.com.
One more reason for a powerful October 22nd protest
by October 22nd Bay Area
People are outraged, and they should be!
The rally and march on Thursday, October 22nd, must be a powerful political expression of our anger and determination to stop a system which sets the police on the people and then defends them from punishment.
First the police murder Oscar Grant in cold blood! Now, the judge has agreed with the murderer’s attorney that killer cop Johannes Mehserle cannot get a fair trial in Oakland. A screaming irony, considering the “fair trial” that Oscar received at the hands of judge-jury-executioner Mehserle. Justice for Oscar Grant!
The system looks like they’re fixing to let killer cop Johannes Mehserle walk free. We’ve seen this before. The cop/killers of Amadou Diallo were acquitted when the trial was moved from New York City – where Amadou was shot 19 times – to conservative and cop-friendly upstate New York. And we remember the innocence verdict that was given to the cops who mercilessly beat Rodney King, after the venue was changed from L.A. to Ronald Reagan-land and cop city, Simi Valley. That one was also on video!
The judge and Mehserle’s attorney, Michael Rains, agree. Too many people have heard about the case. Too many people have protested. And, incredibly, Rains argued that so many Black people in Oakland have been brutalized by the police that they would be incapable of rendering a “fair” judgment!
No, the problem is not that people know too much about police brutality. Except for those millions whose daily lives are under the heel of police 24/7, most people from other sections of society know too little – choose to ignore or are kept ignorant – of the exploding national epidemic of police brutality and murder, growing repression, and the criminalization of a whole generation of youth. And hardly anyone knows the extent of this brutality, with thousands having been killed at the hands of law enforcement.
Johannes Mehserle’s attorney Michael “Rains argued that so many Black people in Oakland have been brutalized by the police that they would be incapable of rendering a ‘fair’ judgment!”
This has to change, and it can. By building a powerful rally and march on October 22nd, encouraging people from many sections of society to step out that day, crossing the divides that separate us, standing with the people who are the targets of police violence – we can send a loud message that says:
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! NO MORE STOLEN LIVES!
Contact October 22nd Bay Area at oct22bayarea@gmail.com or (510) 725-8754.
