My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color. I am an ex-political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984.
ALGIERS, Algeria – The thawing of U.S.-Cuban relations has inspired hope thousands of miles away for those seeking self-determination for Western Sahara, a small nation called Africa’s last colony.
Prisons employ and exploit the ideal worker. Prisoners do not receive benefits or pensions. They are not paid overtime. They are forbidden to organize and strike.
In 2014, we saw a lot of brutality. Unarmed black men and women were killed by police, women were raped on college campuses and in military barracks…
The Afro-Brazilian Quilombola people were forced from their land in Brazil in order to make way for eucalyptus plantations, which produce toilet paper destined for Western markets.
For much of the right-wing media it was payday. Two New York City cops were murdered by a troubled gunman who had allegedly suggested on social media that he’d kill cops…
Pick up the phone, Mr. President! Make the call!” That was Alan Gross’s demand when I visited him in a Havana prison a year ago…
If there really was a war on drugs, it wouldn’t make for very good media fodder: bullet-riddled packets of cocaine (or cigarettes, for that matter) don’t bleed, and following the newspaper industry rhyme…
The word “Ferguson” has become synonymous with racism and police brutality in the U.S. today, in the same way that the name “Rodney King” did in 1992. And yet there remains a persistent and reactionary response from some white Americans who vehemently view themselves as the victims and black Americans as “violent thugs” who deserve the treatment they receive from police and the criminal justice system. The doublethink of domination and victimhood is central to the pathology of white supremacy in the U.S. It is used to dupe and confuse us into believing that there is nuance in brutality and justice in murder.
The highly publicised killing of Michael Brown, a young black man, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, last August was a dreadful event that led to violent local protests and expressions of outrage across the US.
This will long be remembered as the week when another grand jury declined to prosecute another white police officer in the death of another unarmed African-American man, this time in the nation’s largest and most diverse city, a supposed bastion of liberalism.
After a grand jury in Staten Island decided not to indict the NYPD cop who choked Eric Garner to death this week, thousands of people across the nation took to the streets in protest. Many of those angry people were white and I am willing to bet most were genuinely outraged. But when it comes to the issue of “feeling our pain,” white people just can’t go there with us.
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• What is NAARC’s 10 Point Plan?
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• Reparations Advocate Sign Up
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