On Saturday, August 17, 2013, the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (INPDUM) will join forces with community activists and other organizations as the Black is Back Coalition (BIBC) to hold the March for Black Justice, under the slogan, “Zimmerman is the NYPD! Put the State on Trial!”
The march will begin with a rally at 11am on the corner of 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. We will then march northwest on 125th Street, ending at St. Mary’s Church (located at 521 W 126th Street), the site of the BIBC national conference. The conference will be held on Saturday, August 17 from 2-8PM and Sunday, August 18, from 2-6PM.
Through this march, the BIBC will expose how George Zimmerman’s murder of Trayvon Martin was no different from the countless acts of genocide the U.S. government has been committing against African people for the last 500 years.
In addition, the march will serve to expose the black misleadership, forces like Barack Obama and Al Sharpton, who mislead the masses of African people into believing we will get justice from our oppressors.
That is essentially what was done throughout the entire Trayvon Martin struggle.
Despite the fact that the State clearly did not want to lock Zimmerman up, much less convict him, forces like Obama and Sharpton assured African people that justice would prevail under the U.S. court system.
This has clearly not happened.
Police murders of African youth set the standards for Zimmerman
In oppressed African communities like East Flatbush and the South Bronx, our youth are the primary target of the most vicious military aggression the U.S. government has inflicted on any oppressed population worldwide.
This reality is confirmed in the 2012 statistic by Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, which reveals that an African is murdered by U.S. police forces every 28 hours in this country. Here is the report that goes in greater detail: http://mxgm.org/operation-ghetto-storm-2012-annual-report-on-the-extrajudicial-killing-of-313-black-people/
The most recent murders of Kimani Gray and Shantel Davis, both by the 67th Precinct of the NYPD in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, as well as the killing of Ramarley Graham in the Bronx, are not only three of the most recent and glaring cases of straight-up brutality and murder in New York City. They are also three of many examples of the U.S. court system’s refusal to prevent such brutality and murder.
In all cases, the pigs who have murdered these Africans are walking around free, still foot soldiers of the colonial army that is the NYPD. They have all been criticized by the community for previous similar acts of brutality against Africans.
Mourad Mourad, one of the pigs responsible for Kimani Gray’s death, has at least three open federal lawsuits filed against him. Jovaniel Cordova, the other pig who shot Kimani Gray, has two lawsuits against him.
Most of the charges revolve around the question of illegal stop and frisks and false arrests. The exact charges can be found in this NY Daily News article: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/cops-killed-kimani-gray-named-federal-lawsuits-article-1.1290342
The manner in which Sergeant Phil Atkins brutally murdered Shantel Davis was not out of character for him, either. Atkins is a part of the NYPD's notorious narcotics unit, a unit well-known for placing more drugs in the African community than it removes.
Atkins has been sued seven times in the past 10 years by Africans against whom he has used undue force and fabricated charges, according to court documents.
At least four of those cases ended in settlements by the City to the victims as a means to avoid the irreparable political damage to the NYPD and city government that would have been caused through an actual trial.
More about Atkins’ track record can be found in this article: http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120615/east-flatbush/cop-who-killed-shantel-davis-accused-of-past-aggressive-behavior
Despite this track record, these pigs have been allowed to continue to function in the African community of East Flatbush. The 67th Precinct of the NYPD has been allowed to stay open without any type of intervention from its superior offices.
The Brooklyn district attorney has yet to prosecute any of the pigs involved in the murders of Kimani Gray or Shantel Davis, despite the fact that there were countless eyewitnesses in both murders.
As a justification for its delay in prosecuting the killer cops in either case, the DA’s office claims it could not find any witnesses to step forward. This is hard to believe, considering the fact that many eye witnesses have spoken to ruling class media about both cases.
The DA, the NYPD and the New York City Council clearly have no interest in prosecuting these pigs, or the NYPD as a whole, for its attacks on the African community.
The recent exoneration of the cop Richard Haste for the murder of Ramarley Graham is another example of such injustice. The official justification of the judge’s decision to let Haste walk free was on a legal error on the prosecution’s part.
However, this judge’s decision was consistent with the stance taken by every other judge in the U.S. on the question of police who kill Africans. It is neither the judge, nor the law. The problem is that the entire social system, including its legal and judicial components, is controlled by our oppressors.
This deafening silence from every agency of the U.S. government (local, state and federal) regarding the activities going on in colonized African communities like East Flatbush, Brownsville and the South Bronx is clear indication to InPDUM that the U.S. government encourages this type of conduct from its foot soldiers and local military outposts.
This understanding is reinforced by the reality that right now in the U.S., every 28 hours another African is murdered by the police. Through the historic consistency of the tactics of repression and injustice for African people by the U.S. government through its prison, police and court system, InPDUM is clear that this is a colonial government and State power that will never provide protection or justice to African people.
NYPD Impact Zones public policy of containment
On Sunday, August 4, another young African was murdered by the NYPD. His name was Shaaliver Douse. Today marks just two days after this most recent police murder of an African and the anti-police brutality movement is confronted with questions it has long needed to answer: “What makes this murder different?” and “At what point will we attack the system itself?”
Again, police murder an African at least every 28 hours. During the 27 hours that the police are not murdering an African, they are engaged in ongoing counterinsurgent warfare against the entire community.
This is the basis for the existence of such colonial military/population control programs such as NYPD’s Impact Zone project, or the policy known as “stop, question and frisk.”
The Impact Zone project’s existence is evidence of a tactic used by the State to criminalize the entire community and abrogate any legal or democratic rights that would have otherwise existed were it not for such criminalization.
A cop who is a part of the Impact Zone team told a New York Times reporter, “the Constitution has been thrown out the window when it comes to stops.”
The police who function in the Impact Zones are given legal consent by the same U.S. court system that set Zimmerman free to disregard all laws contained within the U.S. and NY state constitutions.
Impact Zones, which exist all over the City of New York, are essentially iron traps, encircling the entire community while tearing asunder those who might resist and try to break free. The unusually high amount of “stop and frisks” and other thuggish intimidation of the people is a primary feature of the Impact Zones.
Through the program of stop and frisk, over the last ten years, the NYPD has literally stopped and frisked nearly five million people, the vast majority of them young African and Latino men.
These numerous attacks launched on the African community by the police in New York and everywhere else is a clear indication that police murders of one individual are a symptom of a greater problem: the system of colonialism and parasitic capitalism, a social system built and sustained by the oppression of black people.
InPDUM understands that the colonial State will continue to murder, stop and frisk and deny African people justice until African people ourselves get organized to win power and build courts that bring us real justice.
African people will never know peace and security until we get organized to win the power to protect and defend our community from any future Zimmermans, whether they wear police uniforms or not.
InPDUM also makes it clear that our commitment to the struggle against the ongoing colonial violence we experience as a people requires us to be relentless in our criticism of the black misleadership that claims to struggle in the interests of African people when in the reality they are struggling in the interests of imperialism and white power. We must reclaim leadership over our own struggle!
As a member of the Black is Back Coalition, the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) unites with the upcoming March for Black Justice because we understand it is about more than Trayvon Martin or any one individual who has lost their life. It is about mobilizing the African community to get Black Power!
It is a call for everyone who has ever been or who knows someone who has been a victim of stop and frisk or police terror to stand up and demand justice on our own terms.
It is a call for Africans to march from 125th Street and back into the many communities we come from.
It is a call to build revolutionary organization to challenge and ultimately destroy the capacity for the police and other agents of the U.S. colonial State to harm another African!
Join us as we march for black justice!
For more information or to be placed on the speakers list call 215-459-7551.
