Tag: political protest

Ava DuVernay undertook the documentary “13th” in order to explore and bring attention to the Prison Industrial Complex. The film’s title refers to the 1865 amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in which slavery was abolished “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” The story told by “13th” thus goes back to the early chain-gangs of Black prisoners – men arrested for petty offenses under the post-Civil War Black Codes who were then contracted out to perform labor that they had previously performed as privately-owned slaves.

Since September, over three hundred Black Jews have announced their intention to refuse any military order to report for reserve duty, accusing the Israeli government of state-sponsored racism against citizens of Ethiopian origin. The soldiers, who include fighters from all Israel Defense Forces infantry brigades, as well as some of its most specialized commando units, say that as long as the state does not respect their civil rights, they will in turn refrain from fulfilling their civic obligations.

Many activists may not know we were supposed to rise up in national “Day of Rage” actions on July 15, but that is because the call was not really directed toward us. I believe we should look at the “Day of Rage” call, supposedly from “Anonymous,” as a COINTELPRO operation intended to damage growing support for Black Lives Matter (BLM) and to help the state evaluate how much panic could be induced from a completely manufactured threat.