Philadelphia, PA—Since February there have been occurrences of what the white ruling class media are calling “flash mobs.” In reality they are gatherings of young African people, male and female, who have come together to demonstrate their rejection of neocolonialist authority and rule.
First it was in Center City. Then it happened on South Street.
These large groups of African youth are actually rising up, coming together to show their unity and resistance against a city that attacks African people.
Reports state these defiant youths are organized primarily through cell phone text messaging, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. One message sent travels through thousands of cell phones—resulting in thousands of African youth converging on a central location in the city.
The last gathering that occurred on South Street—a gentrified section of South Philly—had the white people too scared to leave the trendy restaurants they were dining in. The city has responded to these uprisings with arrests of dozens of young Africans and a media campaign to criminalize all African youth, thus the term flash mobs.
But every black person in this country knows that the term mob refers to the gangsters in Chicago and Philadelphia or white lynch mobs who have historically and continue to terrorize our people.
Currently 11 African teenagers have been wrongfully convicted of rioting and given sentences ranging from probation to imprisonment in a juvenile prison.
Youth uprisings trying to achieve consciousness—response to Philadelphia war on African community
One article in the Philadelphia Daily News reported that the Africans who stormed on South Street were chanting “Burn the city down!” and “Black boys! Black boys!” During the February 16th near rebellion in front of the Macy’s department store, Africans started throwing all sorts of objects at the police.
It is clear that young Africans as a whole are resisting the oppressive conditions being imposed on our community by the real flash mob—City Hall. The contradictions between the government and the African community is growing sharper by the day—as Africans continue to have no confidence and no respect for a system that only can imprison them and shoot them down in the streets. No jobs and no future is the reality in this present system.
On May 5, 2008, three young African men were stopped and viciously beaten by a gang of at least nine police. The beating looked like the one Rodney King received before the African community rose up in rebellion demanding justice.
The entire world saw the beating on a FOX News video camera. However, in July 2009, a grand jury investigation under former district attorney Lynn Abraham found that the cops who beat these brothers did not commit any crime!
Now, the American Arbitration Association has announced that the pigs who brutalized these brothers are going to get their jobs back—with back pay!
That is just one of many examples of the terror against African people being funded by the City of Philadelphia. However, everywhere we go in Philly Africans are faced with poverty, police brutality and powerlessness.
The city spends 25 percent ($1.1 billion) of its budget on police, prisons and courts that keep Africans separated from our resources.
Only 7percent ($300 million) is spent on education. That funding which does go towards education is spent on a school system that is anti-African. Our youth are taught white nationalist curriculum and attacked by police, faculty and staff.
Meanwhile there is no economic development. Fifty percent of African youth are unemployed and students have no job market to look forward to after graduation. The only option is the illegitimate drug economy which the government uses as a means of trapping the masses in prison. Forty percent of the African community lives in poverty.
It is not just the government that participates in our oppression and exploitation however. Parasites like Macy’s and the stores on South Street, the targets of the outrage, take resources from the African community everyday but they don’t do anything for the community. This blood sucking relationship is the real crime in Philadelphia.
The war on African youth is a war on the African community
The State is using our youth as an excuse to criminalize African people the same way it uses “the war on terror” as an excuse to invade Iraq and Afghanistan.
While he portrays African youth as a threat to the public’s safety, Philadelphia police chief Charles Ramsey makes announcements to intensify the police presence in the city. However, Ramsey had nothing to say when the white people tore up South Street after the Phillies won the World Series, or when the white boys got drunk on St. Patrick’s Day and ran wild through Center City.
If Charles Ramsey, Michael Nutter, Seth Williams and the negro judge who sentenced the young Africans involved in the February 11 police attack represented the black community’s interests they would prosecute the real flash mobs: the police who murder, brutalize and violate the rights of African people and the city administration that steals African resources.
The fact is that the white man put these thugs in office as part of a strategy to convince Africans that the government is helping us by locking up our youth. As long as the black community thinks these forces represent power then we won’t demand real black power. Black power is when the African working class achieves the ability to be self-governing—in control of our own government.
Only revolutionary organization will fulfill true purpose of youth resistance
The State fears large groups of Africans gathering because it is only a matter of time before these gatherings become politically conscious of their power and aspirations. This is why the youth are starting to resist. We must not unite with the government’s attack on us.
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Philadelphia InPDUM leader Diop Olugbala conducting outreach on South Street to organize the youth for black power.
The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement has been on the ground in Philly struggling to forward the Revolutionary National Democratic Program (RNDP) calling for reparations and independence for African people.
We support the African youth disobedience to a criminal government. We believe Africans have a right to resist. We also believe that the uprisings will only realize their full significance when they are fighting for the self-determination for the African community.
At the same time, InPDUM will only reach its full significance when we have successfully organized the masses of Africans in their own interests. Only when the masses are organized to take power we will solve the problem.
We are calling on these same young Africans to reach their full potential as freedom fighters by joining InPDUM and fighting for the following demands derived from our RNDP:
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Hands off the Philly African youth gatherings: drop all trumped-up charges against those Africans rounded up in the Center City and South Street incidents.
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Reparations to the African community: $1.1 billion for community-controlled education, housing and economic development—not police containment.
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We demand community control of the police.