(NAME-MCE) Come Out Against Racism!

[Kearney Lykins]

Aukram,

Re: the mass educational work that remains to be done.

During the past thirty years or so the left has embarked on a highly successful effort to raise the consciousness of Americans' racial, sexual, and class identity. The results of this effort have been that many people think of themselves as hyphenated Americans first, and as plain old Americans second, if at all. One pitfall of this redefinition of consciousness has been the increased hostility between the races and sexes and classes at work, in academia, and in the public sphere. When people are constantly barraged with messages that encourage them to see the differences between each other, and when they are concurrently encouraged to ignore their similarities, what do you expect? 

Could you explain for our listserve participants what "mass educational work" remains to be done?


Regards,

Kearney Lykins




 
 
 
Kearney_Lykins at yahoo.com
 




________________________________
From: Aukram Burton <aukram at ramimages.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 5:27:38 PM
Subject: (NAME-MCE) Come Out Against Racism!




We clearly need broad mass responses, but it is also clear that we have to do a lot of mass educational work around increasing mass consciousness regarding race and class. What is good about what happened is that we were able to get a snap shot of how the american public sees race and class. We can also see how the right has mobilized to seize the time and build off of the populations reactionary and backward understanding of race and class. The right realized that this is still a live and hot wire and they are exploiting it for all they can get in order to build public opinion that can have negative impact on the positive reforms that the Obama administration is trying to bring forth.

Pass this on!


From: Bail Out the People Movement - Boston <bopmboston at gmail.com>
Subject: 7/29: Come Out Against Racism - Stop Racial Profiling
To: iacboston at organizerweb.com
Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 2:04 PM

Come Out Against Racism!



Stop Racial Profiling and Police Brutality!

Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Was Right!

The Cambridge Cops Must Apologize!

Youth Need Jobs & Schools - Not Jails!

Demand a Justice Department Investigation of Racial Profiling Across the US


Wednesday, July 29
5:00 pm - Gather
5:30 pm - Press Conference

6-8:00 pm - Police Review and Advisory Board Special Meeting

Cambridge City Hall, Sullivan Chamber
795 Mass. Ave., Cambridge
(one block from Central Square Red Line T)


The arrest of Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by a Cambridge police officer after showing two forms of identification after he, along with a Black limo driver, had unjammed the lock to the front door of Gates' own house in a predominantly white, upscale neighborhood known as "Harvard Square" has brought the struggle against racism to the front pages of newspapers throughout the US and around the world.

The Cambridge Police Department and their racist allies have worked overtime to slander and vilify Prof. Gates. But his only crime was in fact to resist the racist arrogance of the Cambridge Police and not acquiesce to their racist and unjust treatment of him. The torrent of racist vitriol targeting Prof. Gates as well as the absolute racist arrogance displayed by the Cambridge Police Department in demanding that Pres. Obama and Gov. Patrick apologize for expressing support for Prof. Gates, cannot go unanswered!  It is time for all poor and working people, and particularly whites, to come out against these racist attacks and stand foursquare in 100% solidarity with Professor Gates and against racial profiling and police brutality.

Cambridge, Harvard University and Boston are seen around the world as bastions of liberalism, hotbeds of progressive ideas and prestigious places from which cutting-edge research emanates. But the racial profiling and arrest of Prof. Gates have re-raised the question of how much has changed since the 1970s when, in the wake of court-ordered busing for desegregation, white racist mobs were stoning buses carrying Black school children and attacking Black people on the streets and in their homes.

Gates was Right! The Cambridge Police Department was Wrong!

Racial profiling is another expression of institutionalized racism. In the U.S., racial profiling and police brutality have become an unfortunate reality of life for people of color, especially youth. It doesn't matter whether it occurs in the inner city, a small town, or an upper-middle class suburb.

In a 2004 report entitled "Threat and Humiliation: Racial Profiling, Domestic Security and Human Rights in the United States," Amnesty International documented that in a year-long investigation, an estimated 32 million people had been racially profiled--the vast majority of them from nationally oppressed groups. One can only imagine how much these numbers have increased over the last five years, not only for those born in the U.S. but also for immigrants.  Since 9/11 there has been a corresponding increase in racial profiling targeting the Arab and Muslim communities.

The police have been, by far, the most feared perpetrators of racial profiling, and understandably so. Police harassment and brutality is an epidemic.  According to a 2008 report by the Washington, D.C. based Campaign for Youth Justice entitled ”Critical Condition: African American Youth in the Justice System” African American youth make up 30 percent of youth arrested while they represent only 17 percent of the overall youth population. Additionally, African American youth are 62 percent of the total number of youth prosecuted in the adult criminal system and are nine times more likely than white youth to receive an adult prison sentence.

One only needs to remember how the Somerville 5 (5 Black youth from Somerville who were arrested on racist frame up charges by the Medford Police)  or the Jena 6 were treated.  Not to mention the racism that followed the devastation of the 9th Ward in New Orleans as a result of hurricane Katrina.

As the economic crisis deepens the ruling class will use all means at its disposal to foster artificial divisions between white workers and Black, Latina/o, and immigrant workers.  It is our responsibility to build a movement based on anti-racist, class-wide solidarity--as workers of all nationalities are losing their jobs, homes, health care and pensions in rapid numbers; and as the economic crisis becomes even more acute.

--

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