Voice of the International African Revolution! - Uhuru News

2 THE BURNING SPEAR April 2003
Reports from
THE U.S. WAR ON THE
While the world is focused on the murder and mayhem the U.S. government is currently wreaking on the Middle East and the rest of the world, the U.S. remains
undistracted from the centuries-old war it inflicts on the domestically-colonized African community. In fact, this war against our people provided the foundation
for the U.S. to be capable of committing atrocities in Iraq and the rest of the world. In this section, the Spear provides only a few brutal examples of the war on
our community from some of the cities in which the African People’s Socialist Party is active. Spear readers are urged to bring to the Spear news from the frontlines
in your community for publication. Write to P.O. Box 11281 • St. Petersburg, Fl • 33733-1281, or email speareditor@yahoo.com.
Oakland police assualt
anti-war student protest
1
Sequence of a police attack: demonstration of predominately
African and Raza highs school students convenes
peacefully at Oakland’s “Jack London Square.”
2
Dozens of Oakland domestic military units attack on
motorcycles
On March 5, 2003, the U.S. was
on the brink of a military assault
against defenseless Iraqi men,
women and children. Meanwhile,
thousands of miles away, Oakland
police had already begun their
assault on young African and
Indigenous students who dared
speak out against U.S. imperialism.
On this day, 300 to 400, mostly
non-white students from high
schools and middle schools militantly
marched out of their classrooms in
defiance of the status quo, while the
U.S. threatened its brutal “shock and
awe” slaughter campaign in Iraq.
This walkout was reminiscent of
35 years ago, when young folks took
a similar militant stand against that
time’s manifestation of U.S. white
power - the “Vietnam War.”
After walking out of their classes,
the students converged on downtown
Oakland and marched to Jack
London Square, a gentrified tourist
neighborhood on the waterfront. The
march was fully non-violent and fell
within the parameters of basic democratic
civil rights described in the U.S.
constitution. When they reached Jack
London Square, the police encircled
them with a phalanx of approximately
30 motorcycle cops.
3
Motorcycle police coral demonstrators, driving directly
into them, riding over their feet, and forcing them into
an ever-tightening pack.
4
Police violently throw people onto the ground, arresting
them for attmepting to excercise “free speech.”
Police attack peaceful protest
The pigs began using their vehicles
as weapons, running over the
feet of the young comrades and pushing
them closer together - in effect,
corralling them as if they were cattle.
It was during this attack that J.R.
Valrey and Sister Rashida, two
African reporters for a local black
community news journal the San
Francisco Bay View, were arrested
on charges of assault on a police officer
and resisting arrest.
The public policy of police containment
of the African community
has not missed a beat, even in the
face of the City of Oakland paying
out nearly $11 million to 119 people
as part of a court settlement for the
police terror and brutality which has
come to be known as the “Oakland
Riders” scandal.
In addition to the brutality on the
streets of Oakland, many African students
were prevented from participating
in the walkout.
Students from Oakland high
schools testify that school gates and
doors were locked to hold up the students.
This is a blatant violation of
school and district fire codes. In the
Oakland school system, which has
55,000 mostly African, Raza and
Asian students, those who dared to
consider exercising their conscience
to participate in the walkout were
threatened by the school administration
with expulsion. However in the
nearby, mostly white Berkeley school
district, students were officially
excused from class, encouraged to
participate in anti-war actions, and
given extra-credit for doing so.
This component of oppression of
African people is just another front of
the U.S. war against colonized people.
Iraq is another.
Peace will come only through
true liberation of African people
Inside the U.S., and in the San
Francisco/Oakland Bay Area in particular,
we see the absence of
African, Indigenous and other
oppressed people at these peace
rallies where hundreds of thousands
of people attend. This is because the
“peace movement,” led by the white
left, will organize marches and rallies
against a war in Iraq, but refuse
to address the domestic war against
African people.
In response, the African
People’s Socialist Party is building
a contingent of African people to
converge on an anti-war march
and rally scheduled for April 5,
2003 in Oakland. It is necessary to
bring significant numbers to this
mobilization.
If the students who were attacked
seek to join forces with those who
are truly their allies, brothers and sisters
in the struggle for peace and
social justice, they will join the Uhuru
Movement contingent.
The Uhuru Movement not only
fully supports the right of the Iraqi
people for self-determination, but we
also are determined to raise the
rights of African people for social justice
and national liberation as the
basis for peace. If African people are
not free, there will be no peace for
anyone.
The time is now for African people
to be selfish with building our own
movement for our own benefit.
The days of supporting what
white people think peace should look
like — a peace on the plantation,
where the slave is prevented from
rising up and fighting by any means
necessary, for total, unequivocal
freedom — are over.
Time to struggle! Time to win!
African People’s Socialist Party