Voice of the International African Revolution! - Uhuru News

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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
April 2003 THE BURNING SPEAR 3 the Frontline AFRICAN St. Pete Police Aim To Provoke Another Rebellion Police attack child; arrest parents for protecting him! BY SATEESH ROGERS ST. PETERSBURG, Fl — On Monday, April 14, the St. Petersburg Police Department attacked 13 yearold Elijah Harrison near the corner of 14th Street and 7th Avenue. After the attack, the police brutalized and arrested his parents, Tammie Harrison and Kenneth Nichols for trying to protect their child. Since Mayor Rick Baker took office in 2000, police attacks against the African community have been on a steady rise. The city is attempting to bring back the brutal terrorist policies that led to the police murder of TyRon Lewis in 1996 and sparked righteous rebellions. However, the African community grows increasingly intolerant of the city’s activities, carried out in the name of preserving peace for the white community at the expense of every African man, woman and child in St. Pete. African parents brutally attacked in attempt to protect son from police harassment The police initiated the dispute when they stopped 13 year-old Anthony Haygood for "running a stop sign on a bicycle," according to police and witness accounts. Though there was no stop sign in the direction the child was headed, the police felt it necessary to harass this young man. While police were questioning Anthony, 13 year-old Elijah, who was walking home after being let off the school bus, was also attacked in plain view of his father who waits every day in front of his house for his son’s return from school. "I saw Officer Barber shove my son and I didn’t understand why. He’s just walking home," said Kenneth Nichols. So as any loving and concerned parent would do, he went over to see why a grown man with a badge would be attacking his son. Mr. Nichols asked Officer Barber, "Why did you put your hands on my son?" Barber Elijah Harrison replied, "You don’t have anything to do with it." Being that Elijah is his son — and a minor — Nichols had everything to do with it. So he took Elijah’s hand, turned around and was going to take him home. "Then someone yelled, ‘Watch out!’ and Barber said that I was under arrest," Nichols explained. He asked what he was being arrested for but no one would tell him. By this time, Ms. Harrison had already come out of her kitchen, where she was busy preparing dinner for her family. She came to protect her son who, by the time the police were done with their attack, had been shoved to the ground and had had his lungs severely bruised. Ms. Harrison described the situation. "I stepped in front of Kenneth because I just didn’t understand why they would attack my son and fiancée for no reason. I tried to ask what was going on. I just wanted to know what was going on." Officer Barber told Elijah’s mother, "Mind your business. This doesn’t concern you." But any parent see Harris, page 9 Police thugs brutalize 19 year old African woman; 13 year old child CLEARWATER, Fl — While George Bush contemplated carrying out terrorist assaults on innocent women and children in Iraq, a young woman and child were victims of terrorism right here in the African community in Florida. On March 8, 2003, 19-year-old Ashley Talley and her 13-year-old brother, Arron Scott, were attacked and brutalized by Clearwater police officers. At a concert being held by a local radio station, police snatched Ashley over a barricade as she tried to protect her 13-year-old sister from being squished against it by the crowd. The burley officer choked Ashley while she cried out for her little sister who was left behind the barricade. The officer pressed his thumb into her neck in a choke that the police use to knock out their victims, often killing them. Meanwhile, two other officers snatched Ashley’s little brother Arron over the barricade by his neck and slammed him to the ground. As one officer had 13-year-old Arron in a headlock, choking him, the other wrapped his hands around his neck, telling Arron that if he kept moving the officer would break his neck. Clearwater police officer chokes African woman attempting to protect younger sister Witnesses say that after this, several officers “dog-piled” Arron and handcuffed him. Arron was released shortly thereafter and was never charged with any wrongdoing or told why the police decided to terrorize him. In fact, the officer who handcuffed him was just as clueless as Arron himself as he questioned Arron about whether he knew what he had done. Ashley, however, was handcuffed and moved from paddy wagon to paddy wagon after she refused to leave without her younger siblings. Officers told her siblings that Ashley was only charged with “disorderly conduct,” a misdemeanor, for arguing with someone while trying to protect her sister, and that they could meet her outside the concert. Only later did they find out that she was charged with the felony “battery on a law enforcement officer.” This charge is ridiculous! The police report says that Ashley, 5-foot-4 and 110 pounds, “tried to box” the officer who was about twice her size. Witnesses say she never hit the pig. The police report also says that she “unlawfully brawled in public.” Witnesses say that the only physical movement she made, was after the police snatched her over the barricade and started choking her! So, how did the charges change from “disorderly conduct” to “battery on a L.E.O.”? If she had a felony charge from the beginning, then why were the police going to let her go? We know better! It is no new thing for police to brutalize an African and then charge the African with a crime to cover up their own terroristic actions! This is why the 8th point of the African People’s Socialist Party’s 14-Point Platform states: “We want the immediate withdrawal of U.S. police from our oppressed and exploited communities.” We understand that their purpose is to contain and terrorize us; to keep our communities destabilized and continuously under assault. Both Ashley and Arron have been traumatized by this assault. Ashley has been unable to sleep or eat. She can’t function at school because she shakes nervously. Her family moved her from room to room because she feared that police were looking in the window. It took some time before Arron would even begin talking again. These terrorist actions against our community by the police must stop! We demand that the trumped-up charges against Ashley Talley be dropped! We demand justice for Ashley Talley and Arron Scott! African People’s Socialist Party
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