Oakland Braces for Sentencing of Killer Cop

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Oakland Braces for Sentencing of Killer Cop

Oakland Braces
for Sentencing of Oscar Grant, Jr. Killer Cop

Again, the City of Oakland circulated a letter to downtown businesses to usetheir best judgment whether they should leave early on Friday inanticipation of a light sentence for theBART police officer who shotOscar Grant in the back while under arrest on last New Year's.

Men'sWarehouse is boarded up. Shall there be another Day of Absence withwhite workers fleeing the area early Friday afternoon? They did so whenthe verdict was announced. They fled by car, bus, subway, taxi, and onfoot. It was a day of fear of the North American African response toinjustice by Euro Americans, part of a 400 year train of injustices.

Willthe murder cop get 14 years? We highly doubt it. Some say five years,31/2 serve, 1/1/2 years probation. Of course this is a light sentenceby a wicked society protecting one of their own who kill under the colorof law.

What should be our response? Personally, we feel brotherLovelle Mixon got justice for Oscar Grant when Mixon smoked fourOakland police. The universe has a way of getting justice. Sometimes wepray when God has already answered!

There is no black army forjustice. The Oakland Black Panthers were the last to attempt puttingpolice under community control. At least they took the oppression offthe people for a moment by having the police focus on crushing thePanthers. Panthers gave the people a time to breathe while the pigskilled Panthers and Panthers killed them. The BPP became a threat to thenational security of the United States, according to the FBI's J. EdgarHoover. His plan COINTELPRO or counter intelligence was to stop therise of a black messiah by any means necessary, including assassinationor outright murder in the case of Chicago BPP leader Fred Hampton, Jr.and Oakland's Lil Bobby Hutton, murdered by the OPD in a shootout inwhich Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver was wounded.

Whenviolence occurred a few months ago after the verdict, manslaughterinstead of murder, small business owners suffered damage and could notunderstand why they were attacked. Many purposely displayed an OscarGrant poster in their windows. The small business owners should bespared violence. But we know agent provocateurs shall be in the crowd.And the police are totally useless and themselves provocative. After theverdict was announced and looting at Foot Locker, radical civil rightsattorney Walter Riley was beaten by police as he tried to enter hisoffice next door to the Foot Locker. The police were apparentlyunconcerned about the looters.

The Nation of Islam's newspaperMuhammad Speaks used to have a cartoon of police brutality that asked inthe caption Who do you call for protection? We must protect ourselves.We can provide community security. In Iraq the US stopped the insurgentviolence by hiring them to secure their communities. It offered theinsurgents jobs, education and housing. It is doing the same inAfghanistan with the Taliban.

So we must move beyond focusing onthe police, they are the neo-slave catchers and must fulfill theirduties. We can respond to them tit for tat, as Mixon demonstrated,liberty or death!

We can also stop being reactionaries and beproactive with respect to black on black violence. Is Oscar Grantselective suffering? Why is there no anger when we kill each other butonly when the white man kills us-- murder is murder, death is death, andwrong is wrong. It is hypocritical for us to only respond to policeabuse. What about all the suffering families who've lost loved ones toblack on black homicide. Why don't we riot about that, kick some doorsin about that?

Why do we not protest black on black murder. Whydo we not demand blacks use their arms for community defense rather theattacking each other for mostly minor matters. Ain't no nigguhs gettingkilled over millions, billions or trillions. Most of the homicide isover pussy and dick, not drugs, but pussy and dick matters between allgenders. Domestic violence, partner violence is such that half thecommunity attends court mandated anger management classes.

Wemust get beyond physical violence, verbal and emotional abuse. Wesuggest a self imposed tone test with each other and the police. Basedon our tone of voice, we can, when stopped by the police, get killed,arrested or released. With each other, whether on the street or in thehome, we can use the language of love and unity.

We must practiceeternal vigilance, stay aware of our surroundings and not try tofunction in a mind altered state. These are dangerous times and we mustwear the armor of God consciousness. For example, we were trapped in thecrowd of the millions for the Giants World Series parade. People werepushing at our back yet there was no room to move. We could have reactedto the constant pushing and shoving, but we kept our cool, refused torespond to the fools at our back. We could have turned around and bustthem in the mouth. But we were cool, even though the day was hot, thecrowd impossible, we're sweating and fools trying to push us forward.

Therecomes a time when politics becomes war. But you can't make war if youare not prepared, if you are not organized. Marcus Garvey said the worldis moving against all unorganized people.
Mao Se Tung told you to get organized. Yet it is helter skelter in the hood.

Welike to cry crocodile tears, attend funerals and suffer our griefalone. Whatever the sentence tomorrow, whatever the community response,this will not bring Oscar Grant back, and yet because family andcommunity organized, a killer cop was at least charged and convicted forthe first time in California history. Imagine, Oscar has had more powerin death than in life, a few days ago the Longshoreman's union closeddown all Bay Area ports in honor of Oscar Grant. There wereproclamations by European countries in honor of Oscar Grant. Honor himby continuing to organize against all violence, whether police under thecolor of law, or black on black violence, or the violence caused by thetrillion dollar US defense budget that causes violence around theworld.
--Marvin X

Poet, playwright, essayist, Marvin X holdssessions of his Academy of da Corner at 14th and Broadway, downtownOakland and Third and LaSalle, Hunters Point, San Francisco. He'spublished five books this year: The Wisdom of Plato Negro,Parables/fables, volumes I and II;
The Mythology of Pussy and Dick,toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality, Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prezand Yoself, essays on Obama Drama, and I AM OSCAR GRANT, essays onOakland,
Black Bird Press, Berkeley. Visit his blog: www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com. Email: jmarvinx@yahoo.com.

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