Socialist Action /May 2001
Commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal:
Cincinatti Fires
"The government is only as lasting as your
understanding of administration. The Army is nothing without people, the
Air Force is grounded without your endorsement, the ships of the Navy could
never have sailed if your leaders didn't have you sail 'em, and the brutal
depravity of police would be non-existent if you didn't wear the uniform."
-John Africa, "On the Move" (1975)
Black youthful rage explodes in Cincinnati, Ohio,
and several nights of fire, rebellion, and pain reminds us that the much-maligned
and heralded '60s were really not so very long ago.
For like the riots that rocked the nation in the
1960s, the precipitating event was an act of brutality and violence by police
against black folks. Police violence against blacks has sparked rampages
of rebellion from coast to coast, costing hundreds of millions of dollars
in destroyed property, and hundreds of lost lives.
Over 30 years have passed, and in the intervening
years we have seen the emergence of the black political class and the entrenchment
of the black poor in inner cities, projects, and ghettos more desolate,
more isolated, and more hopeless than the 1960s.
We have seen the explosion of the Prison Industrial
Complex, at rates that would've been unthinkable in the 1970s, with upwards
of 2,000,000 men, women, and juveniles in American jails.
The U.S., with only 5 percent of the world's population,
has 25 percent of the world's prison population! And for black young men
and women, the horror of prison has become a perverse rite of passage, marking
one's transition from youth to adulthood.
So, while things have gotten better for some African
Americans since the l960s, things have gotten demonstrably worse for millions
of other, poorer blacks. Public schools, never quite outstanding in the
first place, have gone into decline. City services have declined. Industries
have fled cities for the South and the suburbs, leaving cities with less
employment, and with remaining jobs paying far less money, while costs have
gone up.
Cincinnati, sparked by the police shooting of a
black man, could have happened anywhere in America. The social ingredients
are all there, in every major city in America.
In every major city is economic and social despair
mixed with a militaristic police force that targets black life and liberty.
In every such city are black politicians who function in the role of keeping
the restless natives in check; keep them suffering in silence.
Cincinnati represented the eruption of youth who
see their position in grim, hopeless situations. Cincinnati is a harbinger
of things to come. Cincinnati is the fire next time.
© Mumia Abu-Jamal, 2001. Reprinted with permission
of the author.
To communicate directly with Mumia, please write
to him at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335,
SCI-Greene,175 Progress Drive,
Waynesburg, PA 15370.
Socialist Action /May 2001 |