Rebel against racism!
By Monica
Moorehead and Larry Holmes
Martin Luther King III, president of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, issued a powerful statement
on Jan. 12, 2000, about the case of Black revolutionary,
political prisoner and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal.
The statement was written in honor of King's father, the
slain civil-rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who
would have turned 72 this Jan. 15.
It reads in part: "First of all, at the SCLC we are
unequivocally opposed to capital punishment. The conductors
of the evil system of injustice made Abu-Jamal a political
prisoner and now they have planned his execution. As
'conscience-raising members' of the global society, we cannot
afford to sit back and let an innocent man die."
"The world must know that the judge purposely withheld
'crucial evidence' from Abu-Jamal's case," King wrote.
"Experts say this evidence alone could have brought an
acquittal. We can no longer afford to allow bias in the
criminal justice system to continue.
"We must stand by Abu-Jamal's side, just as we stood by
the sides of Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Ben Chavis and
Joann Little."
He continued: "I do not believe it is incidental that I
find myself protesting for the life of this innocent man one
month after my family and I received the verdict from a
multicultural jury that said my father's assassination was
part of a conspiracy. Martin Luther King Jr. was brutally
murdered because he spoke out against social injustices.
"Today we must unite together in the name of justice to
stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a young man who was
respected in the community for reporting stories about
economic and social injustices.
"We must come together as a family in the spirit of my
father, who said, 'the arc of the universe is long but is
bent towards justice,' and never give up until we save the
life of our brother, Mumia Abu-Jamal," King concluded.
This moving statement of support for Abu-Jamal should have
been printed in every major newspaper across the country. The
question is: Why wasn't it?
Corporate media whiteout
King has stated on more than one occasion that he firmly
believes that Abu-Jamal is innocent and should not be
executed. And King is certainly not viewed as a radical, a
revolutionary or someone who is against the capitalist
system.
Such a statement could go a long way toward attracting
broader support for Abu-Jamal.
One would think that a statement from the leader of a
well-respected civil-rights group, as well as a son of the
most famous civil-rights leader, would warrant some attention
from the mainstream media. But with few exceptions there was
dead silence.
The same can be said for the media whiteout of the
barbaric execution of Wanda Jean Allen in Oklahoma Jan. 11.
Allen was an African American lesbian who was poor and
mentally disabled. She was the first Black woman to be
executed in the United States since 1954.
Even the New York Times, the mouthpiece of the so-called
liberal capitalist establishment, did not see fit to report
on this atrocity.
Think of how millions of women took a great interest in
the sexual-harassment case that Anita Hill brought before the
1992 Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee
Clarence Thomas. In the same way, millions of women would
have taken a great interest in Allen's case and organized
against her execution, had it been reported in the major
media.
Then there's the issue of how George W. Bush ascended to
the presidency. His victory came about mainly due to the
political disenfranchisement of thousands of Black voters in
Florida.
Bush--along with his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush,
Florida Attorney General Katherine Harris and other
Republican Party leaders--carried out a racist conspiracy.
This has been well documented.
But the big-business media have done their best to
downplay this fact since the U.S. Supreme Court voted five to
four in Bush's favor and halted the Florida recount.
Ruling class fears
anti-racist rebellion
What do Mumia Abu-Jamal's case, Wanda Jean Allen's
execution and the Florida vote theft all have in common?
They are all manifestations of racist repression.
The corporate-dominated media know racism is at the core
of these issues and more. So why do they ignore it or
actively cover it up?
Because it's in the best interests of safeguarding
capitalist rule to give little or no attention to racist
repression.
At the heart of maintaining the U.S. capitalist system--a
form of class rule based on production for profit and the
exploitation of wage labor--is a racist ideology based on
white supremacy.
What do the media and the billionaire ruling class fear
more than anything?
They fear rebellion of all types. What the bourgeois class
especially wants to avoid is working-class rebellion based on
unity against racism.
That's why they fear Abu-Jamal. He symbolizes rebellion.
Support for his cause transcends racial and class lines,
especially where young activists and revolutionaries are
concerned.
Abu-Jamal is a longtime Black revolutionary. He
understands that racism and repression do not exist in a
vacuum, but are integral components of the capitalist system
that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. They are part
and parcel of the system that denies oppressed people their
basic democratic rights--including the right to vote.
Not only does Abu-Jamal speak out militantly on these
subjects. He also inspires young people in the United States
and worldwide to rebel against the entire capitalist
system.
That's why the corporate media have tried to marginalize
and vilify Abu-Jamal, labeling him a "cop killer" at every
opportunity. They hope to scare away any mass support for the
former Black Panther, so they can proceed with their plan to
silence his revolutionary voice through state-sanctioned
murder.
Abu-Jamal is a modern day Gabriel Prosser, Nat Turner,
Denmark Vesey and John Brown all rolled into one. These
heroic individuals were all Southern slaves except Brown.
They were all executed for attempting to organize their
brethren to rise up against their oppressors in the name of
liberation and social justice.
The worldwide workers' movement and all progressives,
especially inside the United States, must do everything
necessary to stop the legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Congressional Black Caucus protests
The ruling class wants to carry out racist repression but
avoid the rebellion of the masses against this oppressive
system. They dispatch the police as occupying armies from
Harlem to Watts to try and keep the oppressed masses in
check. But they know that rebellion is the inevitable
reaction to exploitation and repression.
It's no wonder that the U.S. ruling class was so nervous
when members of the Congressional Black Caucus staged a
protest and walkout against the selection of George W. Bush
as president at a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6. The
CBC members saw this as a golden opportunity to again raise
the specter of voter disenfranchisement.
This protest was one kind of rebellion. The bourgeoisie
had hoped that the Florida vote theft had finally been swept
under the rug rather than have it once again become a focus
of national attention.
The Black Caucus's action also served to demonstrate the
bankruptcy of the Democratic Party, whose leadership is just
as tied to big business as the Republicans.
Not a single white Democrat showed any solidarity with the
Black Caucus's challenge to the Florida electoral
votes--including Al Gore, who presided over the session.
Ever since Bush stole the election, the president-select
and his advisors have worked overtime to portray him as a
"compassionate conservative."
First of all, there is no such animal.
Second, this bogus image has been further exposed by what
happened in Florida, by Bush's right-wing cabinet
nominations, by his pro-death-penalty stance, by his close
ties with the Pentagon and Big Oil, and much more.
All these factors have not only angered large sectors of
the people, but will help motivate many of them to take to
the streets.
The capitalist class knows this all too well. It wants to
take every precaution to avoid any kind of political
embarrassment for Bush during his Jan. 20 inauguration.
Bush's worst nightmare
The authorities in Washington are taking extraordinary,
illegal and repressive measures to try to scare away
demonstrators and the general public or make it impossible
for them to protest against the inauguration parade.
The ruling class is taking special aim at Washington's
80-percent African American population. Three-fourths of
African American youths who live in the district are in the
criminal-justice system's clutches.
Imagine seeing thousands of Washington's Black youths
together with other protesters of all nationalities holding
placards and banners--lining the parade route to raise
Abu-Jamal's case, oppose the racist death penalty and the
Florida vote theft, defend women's right to choose, protect
the environment and much more.
It's the Bush administration's worst nightmare.
This would be another kind of rebellion--this time by the
masses as they brave thousands of federal and local police
agencies and the Secret Service, who plan to set up
checkpoints and other obstacles to keep the people from
unifying against their common enemies: Bush and his
reactionary cabinet.
But these repressive measures can't silence the struggle.
This was demonstrated by the birth of a dynamic new youth
movement against corporate globalization and injustice.
As racist repression and exploitation deepens, so will the
resistance to it.
As hard as it tries, the ruling class is incapable of
keeping a lid on the boiling pot of racism. Some day it will
explode in a giant rebellion against the whole rotten
capitalist system.
Bush's blatantly racist, anti-poor and anti-worker
policies will become a lightning rod for winning more
soldiers to the people's struggle, regardless of ideology or
social background, to free our brother Mumia Abu-Jamal, end
the death penalty and abolish all forms of racist
repression.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
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