First (clear) thoughts on the verdict

 

It’s almost two days since the words “Not guilty on all counts,” came ringing in my ears. It’s taken that long for me to be able to allow my anger and sadness to recede and stop messing with my brain — for me to even think a sentence that does not begin with the word “Pigs . . .”

The night before the Bell trial, I set my alarm to the “radio” setting. I listened, every 22 minutes getting the same story until the anticipated and dreaded 9am hour, when coverage went live as the judge was set to give his ruling (the Bell trial went straight to the bench, rather than a jury). I wanted to hear it, when it happened, to give myself the maximum amount of time to be ready for the day.

JUDGE RULES SEAN BELL SHOOTERS NOT GUILTY, ALL COUNTS

Save us all . . . everyone be careful out there. Go to the rally at the Queens DA’s office, and make sure to ask them why they took a dive on this.

One hour until the Sean Bell verdict starts coming down

At under ten hours to a verdict in the Sean Bell case

A random observation with under 10 hours to go to the verdict in the Sean Bell case:

A helicopter — I’m pretty sure it was an NYPD helicopter — was circling my area in Bedford Stuyvestant, Brooklyn, shining a spotlight down onto the direction of the projects.

They watch and await. We are watching as well.

Is “Anti-Oppression” enough?

This is a comradely criticism/critique of the current theory and practice of Students for a Democratic Society. It’s assembled from notes and recollections of various conversations. By no means is it meant to tear down anyone’s work in SDS. I understand this is controversial, but I hope that as a comradely critique this leads to a deepening of both theory and practice in SDS.

Anti-oppression. It’s this buzzword I’ve only recently encountered due to heavy involvement with SDS. I have to say, I have an almost constitutional dislike for the modern-Leftist fixation with “anti” formulations (anti-[fill in the blank]ism”), perhaps due to an early love of Elements of Style, but also because I find that it reflects the modern ideology of neverending resistance struggle without revolution — for a sharp discussion of that, here’s Zizek.

Anti-oppression, as it’s been put before SDS at least, is a catch-all term for the praxis built around political/popular education against forms of systemic oppression — white supremacy, patriarchy, heterosexism, and capitalism — for the sake of having the male, pale, and stale Left confront these things as they show themselves in both society and in the movement (as a reflection of society, however distorted). It gets translated into organizations usually running down a laundry list of oppressions they oppose, and the stances they take up in opposition (i.e., “anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-patriarchy, anti-heterosexist” etc.)

Of verdicts and resistance . . .

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

- Claude McKay, 1919

NYC ready for protests

By TOM HAYS – 21 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — When police killed an unarmed African immigrant in a hail of 41 bullets in 1999, outrage filled up the streets of New York.

About 1,200 people were arrested, including elected officials and celebrities, during a month of daily protests. Thousands more marched after four white officers were acquitted in Amadou Diallo’s death.

Nine years later, three officers will learn their fate Friday in a case over another heavy police barrage — 50 shots aimed at an unarmed black man outside a nightclub on the morning of his wedding. The city is bracing for more protests if the officers are acquitted. [. . .]

Why “white supremacy?” Why not just “racism?”

Something’s been on my mind of late. Namely, with Left terminology and trying to break it down for folks, there’s an inevitable friction: why do we have to know all these terms? Aren’t the things that “normal people” say just . . . . ok? Are we just engaging in some jibber-jabber, as Mr. T would put it, where we speak this private language of oppressions and exploitations and alienations and so on and so forth?

I’ve been thinking this through, because I’ve gone through quite a few strange encounters between people of color caucuses and confused whitefolk. The most recent being at a convention of the Northeastern SDS chapters in Boston, which at some point just became a strange exchange of jargon which wasn’t at all collective, which had a certain ring of rote memorization of formula.

(Im)print the legend

The following is a response to a manuscript of an article I helped edit, entitled “Giving Form to a Stampede: The First Two Years of the New SDS,” which is to be published in the May issue of Upping the Anti. The authors are Brian Kelly and Joshua Kahn Russell.

The article is notable in dispelling myths of how the new Students for a Democratic Society formed. Chiefly, there are two myths: first, that a few dedicated dudes (and they were all, supposedly, dudes — sorry Ms. Rapchik!) got together and made Students for a Democratic Society. The other myth is that the new SDS just materialized out of thin air, a la Pentecost, and we all started speaking in tongues to the four corners of the United States.

Trust me, the article’s great — a much needed and a timely look back on some three years of struggle. I would like to use the occasion of the article, however, to speak of the mythology of the old SDS and how it has been used and misused.

Ransom Stoddard: You’re not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?
Maxwell Scott: No, sir. This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

- an exchange from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The above quote is often used as a commentary on how Hollywood inevitably distorts the truth for the sake of entertainment (and more butts in theaters, more DVD’s in your Netflix queue, etc.) The point being that in even in the face of hard facts, we hold on to prized legends, handed down from generation to generation.

As long as I have been involved in projects of the Left, I have had to deal with the fact is “print the legend” is standard operating procedure in most parts, and that the legend becomes reality. In a broad sense, we see this in society (the myth of soldiers being spat on by rabid hippies being an evergreen one).

Beyond people in general, however, there’s a subset of people who “print the legend” (and believe it): that is the Left. We believe ourselves better than the average bear when it comes to our history, but when it comes to the history of the original SDS (and the New Left) very often we see a certain tendency to unconsciously mistake ideological mythology for history within SDS.

Justice for Sean Bell!

COME OUT:

APRIL 25^th at 5:30 pm

@ the Queens DA’s Office

125-01 Queens Blvd (between Hoover Ave & 82nd Ave.)

E or F train to Union Turnpike (directions)

The NYPD’s murder of Bell and attempted murders of Benefield and Guzman are NOT isolated or random events. They represent the continued targeting of communities of color by the police and the lack of accountability for police misconduct and abuse.

Endorsers (list in formation as of 4/15/08): Audre Lorde Project (ALP), CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, Congress for Korean Reunification, Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), DJ Chela, Domestic Workers United (DWU), FIERCE!, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition/NYC, Hasan Salaam, Hip Hop Caucus, Immigrant Justice Solidarity Project, International Action Center, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ), Justice Committee, Lynne Stewart Organization, Make the Road by Walking, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Mano a Mano, May 1^st Coalition, National Hip Hop Political Convention, New Abolitionists, Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, October 22^nd Coalition, Parents Against Police Brutality, Rebel Diaz, Revolting in Pink (R.I.P), Rights for Imprisoned People with Psychiatric Disabilities (RIPPD), VAMOS Unidos, War Resisters League.

For more information about the April 25^th rally/community speak-out, Peoples’ Justice, and other cases of police violence go to: peoplesjustice.org and myspace.com/peoplesjustice or email info@peoplesjustice.org

* If the judge goes back on his word and chooses to delay delivering the verdict, COME OUT on April 25^th at 5:30 pm and go to peoplesjustice.org and myspace.com/peoplesjustice to find out about next steps.

Express yourself!

I’m establishing this blog as a matter of trying to give voice to some Left ideas that are — shall we say? — currently taboo to speak of openly within Students for a Democratic Society.

I was considering writing a long-ass manifesto about this. But here’s a much shorter one, courtesy of Straight Outta Compton-era NWA:

DRE: Yo man there’s a lot of brothers out there flakin and perpetratin but scared to kick reality

ICE CUBE: Man, you been doin all this dope producin’, you ain’t had a chance to show ‘em what time it is

DRE: So what you want me to do?