by Tyson Amir
Drugs get sold in the neighborhood when people are depressed, poor, unemployed, and without viable options for a healthy and productive life. There wouldn't have been a need for the drug economy if jobs weren't taken out of the inner city and if schools and social services were well funded. Provide people with access to good jobs and education, and you minimize the chances of poverty-induced epidemics. Our politicians act as if they don't understand that logic because they do not care about our lives. Clinton's apology in the grand scheme is confirmation that the system has been exploiting us, but tangibly it hasn't overturned any of the laws on the books. His apology has not set anybody free or changed one law.
We've even had leaders of major police forces and jails and prisons call for major reforms. They have come together and formed an organization with an official website and everything. They call themselves The Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration. In their own words:
“We believe the country can reduce incarceration while keeping down crime. We believe unnecessary incarceration does not work to reduce crime, wastes taxpayer dollars, damages families, and divides communities. We aim to build a smarter, stronger, and fairer criminal justice system by replacing ineffective policies with new solutions that reduce both crime and incarceration.”
Their Mission Statement
“As current and former leaders of the law enforcement community—police chiefs, sheriffs, district and state’s attorneys, U.S. Attorneys, attorneys general, and other leaders—protecting public safety is a vital goal. From experience and through data-driven and innovative practices, we know the country can reduce crime while also reducing unnecessary arrests, prosecutions, and incarceration. We can also reduce recidivism and strengthen relationships with communities. With the goal of building a smarter, stronger, and fairer criminal justice system, we are joining together to urge a change in laws and practices to reduce incarceration while continuing to keep our communities safe.”
This is an important move on the part of men and women who have played a role in perpetuating the system. They should be commended for speaking out against what they view as major wrongs. In short, the people that operate the system are saying it isn't fair. They are making my job that much easier. I am still definitely a very angry black man when it comes to the "justice system" in America. I wear that proudly on my shoulders but the system is justifying my anger by saying it is wrong. The architects of the system are saying it is unfair and it is destroying families. Black people have been in the know on that since 1619. That is the energy at the heart of Blue Devil. One of my lines is, "innocence is a commodity that's bought and sold but oddly escapes the possession of my black body, I manifest Rodney King dreams when I hear license and registration because reaching for my ID can be justification for my homicide, the wrong color at the wrong time, you're a fool if you believe justice is colorblind..."
The appeals and apologies made by the framers of this system are necessary, as well as their attempts at reform, but they are crocodile tears for the men and women who've encountered this misapplication of justice in America. No reform or apology will give years back, or lives back. And what about the blemished stigmatized existence many formerly incarcerated peoples deal with once they reenter society. Make no mistake, with no apology and no minced words, I hate the system. How could you love, respect or view in a moral light something that has been so grossly abusing lives for so long. This is what Blue Devil speaks to. It's the hate and contempt for a system that has wantonly terrorized black people for centuries and will continue to do so because the system is comfortable with how it operates. We will forever be at odds and therefore it will forever be the devil in our eyes.
Again, not all police officers are bad. Not all members of the CJS are evil and out to get black people, but the institutions as a whole all over the United States operate in a way that negatively impacts black people more than any other group. The disparate treatment is even more egregious when you compare and contrast the black and white experience with the system. It's wrong; my voice is not the only voice proclaiming how wrong it is. I hate it because I've lived through what it has done to people I love. It's unfair; it is unjust; it is apartheid. I'll end with this. For blacks in America, justice has never been the rule. It has always been the exception. For blacks in America injustice has always been the rule, no exception.
War Zones (2002)
I wrote this for my people.
We the types jumping out of street gutters
and man hole covers
I ran with brothers that came straight from the sewers
the type to give Freddy Kruger a nightmare.
Young folks of color without a care in the world
who ain't afraid to die.
From the Southside to the east
we war with the beast
police send in their calvary new battalions
while I'm freestyling rounds from under a broken street light
from a sniper's distance
with pinpoint accuracy
to cause confusion on the premises
to make sure that we safely retreat
but some of us won't make it back to the street
prisoners of war
held in detention camps with names like
Elmwood, San Quentin, Soledad Maximum Security Prison
I spit with conviction
until I get dizzy
stay camouflage by the foliage of the city
backtrack to the barracks
stay away from generic soldiers
turncoats, possible informants
young folks hollowed out by federal torments
reintroduced to the game
to prevent the gains
of the side they used to fight for
if you didn't know by now this life is war.
Whether you believe it or not
we squeeze shots to ease tension on the block
avoid lockdown
David versus Goliath.
We triumph with justified violence
fling rocks blessed by the Most High
from sling shots concealed in pockets of our baggy exterior
with name brands like Akademiks
because the mission is truth
salute my folks with the words of peace.
Not knowing if our eyes will meet again
just knowing that we fought for what was right in the end
the end
the end
war zones
war zones that we're forced to call home.
My pants sag when I walk to show ain't nothing you can tell me
every social institution you created has failed me
all they do is kill and jail me
to wipe out my chromosomes
so every block
I walk
filled with cops
is a war zone,
a war zone
Most likely seen running from cops in Reebok high tops
because they got high ankle support
got to get free
alive you ain't taking me
ain't trying to see the inside of a court
jury of my peers
even if innocent they'll make me serve 10 years
there goes the prime of my life time
when we hear them sirens
iron is flying
under the night stars and sky line.
Ain't trying to see a cell with iron bars
repel down the sides of building walls
with a camouflage
beaning around my noggin.
We move in secrecy like Bin Laden
communicate with young soldier
on chips in Motorolas and two-way Nextel
who accustomed to having they flesh swelled
by them demons, them devils with the letters PD on they lapel.
They get done up like Latrell Sprewell
so cold
because little Lakim got hit
with a Radio Raheem chokehold
12 years old,
snot nosed
armed with a snow cone
they said it was a handgun,
they choked him until he coughed blood on his And 1's.
I'm told this is how they have fun
and one comrade named his magnum Adil
the arabic word for justice
the enemy tries to crush us
this oppression hugs us
don't question our actions
only God can judge us
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Reflections of a Black Boy
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.” (Frederick Douglas)
__________________________________________________________________________
These words by Fredrick Douglas in 1852 in many ways sum up the tortured existence of black people in America. We live in a land that claims freedom, liberty, equality, justice, fraternity, and a path for pursuing happiness, for all. Those words ring hollow in the ears of America's despised and dispossessed black sons and daughters. We often hear about the greatness of this country; we are told about the amazing freedoms which are reserved for every man. What we know and in the event that we forget, America is quick to remind us with multiple examples that that "freedom" was not and will never be for us. This means that our fight for freedom continues while the others are well into their second century of victory celebration. I wasn't born to fight. I often describe myself as a lover and not a fighter. I am a lover who has been forced to learn the ways of a fighter. I wish I did not have to fight like I do. I wish with my entire being that my people didn't have to fight the way that we do. I wish that we didn't die so often in America like we do. All of this is because we are not free, and so we fight. For us the battlefield that we call America has been a dark night on an unforgiving mine-riddled terrain passed down to us like an unwanted hand me down. We're scratching and crawling to make it to the day, and we know that the day carries no guarantees that it will be any better. One of the greatest revolutionary/freedom fighter minds of the 20th century, Dr. Huey P. Newton commented on the reality of a revolutionary/freedom fighter.
Dr. Huey P. Newton quoted Bakunin, who said, “The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man. Unless he understands this, he does not grasp the essential meaning of his life.” This is part of the reason Newton coined the term "Revolutionary Suicide"; this term reflects a knowledge of taking up a fight against the power structure that will more than likely result in death before victory. In his Manifesto section from his autobiography Revolutionary Suicide, Newton quotes Che Guevara, who said, “to a revolutionary death is the reality and victory the dream.”
Newton went on later to say when explaining his theory of revolutionary suicide, "Yet when I think of individuals in the revolution, I cannot predict their survival. Revolutionaries must accept this fact, especially the Black revolutionaries in America, whose lives are in constant danger from the evils of a colonial society. Considering how we must live, it is not hard to accept the concept of revolutionary suicide.”
Although I fight, the fact remains that I wasn't born to fight; I inherited this battle from my parents who received it from their parents who were simply passing on what was given to them. It's a generational fight, and when my number is called I have to assume my position in the battle. All those who answer the call to arms have become Arjuna in the “Bhagavad Gita.” We are a princely warrior caste, and we must do our dharma, which is to fight because our home has declared war upon us due to the color of our skin. The black child is born into a war zone, where he/she is destined to live and die.
We remember the stories of our fallen daily. There is no day without a fight. We are perpetually engaged in a fight against the state. Every twenty-eight hours, a black person is killed by a law enforcement/security agent. About every four hours another one of our comrades dies. This means that in a twenty-four hour span, about six black bodies die every day, 365(6) days a year. When it comes to our casualties, we have dead above and below ground. Our men and women confined behind bars, cells 6 by 9, are our walking dead who have been buried alive. Those who have had their lives stolen are our physical dead. More black people are killed by police every year than casualties that America experiences in "real wars" in Iraq or Afghanistan. We are at war for our very survival in America. A few generations ago, black men and women were lynched almost daily. A few generations before that, slavery was still legal in the United States as a viable source of labor for America's agricultural economy. Black men and women have been fighting for their survival since the day they were first brought to these shores. There hasn't been a ceasefire. There is no stalemate. The war simply rages on. The shelling doesn't stop, so much so that we do not have the time to count how many we've lost. We can't predict how many will be lost in the days ahead. All we know is that this is war, and our survival as a people is at stake.
Our insurgency, our resistance is not one of choice. It's a matter of consequence. We are drafted into the fray. Our B-day is D-Day, and we're pushed from the womb into no-man's land. Raised in the trenches. Conscripted by birth, our uniforms are many shades, but the battle is the same. And the fight is not our doing. We did not start the fight, but we are so deeply involved in the core of the struggle that we know that we have to fight it to the finish. We know we are being slaughtered by the millions, yet we press on. Because we know to not fight means certain death. To fight at least allows us to remain hopeful that there might be some victory in the not-too-distant future. To fight means that we can at least look at ourselves in the mirror and be proud of that fact that we lived and died with dignity.
Our great poet Claude McKay said:
“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 death blow!
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!”
We could hope for a peaceful rest knowing we lived and died as strong men and women fighting for the cause that we believe in, which is our freedom and survival. The betterment of our world for our offspring. That we did not die in vain. This is why we are insurgents. It's the only way we can live and truly be proud of who we are in this war zone.
Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton:
“Thus it is better to oppose the forces that would drive me to self-murder than to endure them. Although I ris
k the likelihood of death, there is at least the possibility, if not the probability, of changing intolerable conditions. This possibility is important, because much in human existence is based upon hope without any real understanding of the odds. Indeed, we are all—Black and white alike—ill in the same way, mortally ill. But before we die, how shall we live? I say with hope and dignity; and if premature death is the result, that death has a meaning reactionary suicide can never have. It is the price of self-respect.”
Daily reminders are seared into our brains to indicate that this land and this freedom is not for us. Although we've built up the foundation of America, we've built it up for another people to enjoy, and any time we try to enjoy a piece of what we think is rightfully ours and is rightfully ours, the system responds with all its various types of warfare. Be it total war, destroying our communities with guns, dope, and under-developing schools and social services. Every social institution geared to help is equipped with munitions that are directed at black lives. They've used operation redline to house us in ghettos that slowly suffocate the lives in our communities. We've seen their concentration camps like jails and prisons that house millions of our brothers and sisters in arms. We face espionage; the use of the media and other public outlets to attack and brand us as criminals and deviants.
One of the most recent and popular tactics has been counterterrorism, sending the police into our neighborhoods instead of other communities to "serve and protect." They preemptive strike with their stop and frisk policies and detain with no probable cause. We've also witnessed drone warfare; politicians and businesses making policy decisions from afar to limit opportunities. They sit comfortably in offices in remote locations and push buttons and pull strings that result in death and destruction on the ground. I would argue the most insidious method of all is their version of Cold War, the art of fighting without technically fighting. The United States has the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments; we have various civil rights acts and voting rights acts. Brown v. Board of Education and MLK Jr. Day is a federal holiday. We have affirmative action and provide some government assistance and use politically correct speech. The forty-fourth president of the United States is half-white and half-African with a black wife from the South Side of Chicago and two black daughters. From the outside, it would appear that all is right and there is no reason to fight, but the fighting is cloak and dagger; it's covert and discrete. We don't see the attacks, but we feel the losses. Black unemployment is the highest of all populations; black incarceration is the highest. Black infant mortality is the highest; black education is the lowest. Black earnings from jobs are the lowest. We feel the force of the blows but the Cold War masks the attacks.
