Simply put, no. Black people are not “more” homophobic than white people. That’s a myth. But here I want to unpack what purpose this myth serves for the status quo and how this myth distracts from white homophobia.

White dominated LGBT organizations such as GLAAD, NOH8, and the It Gets Better campaign mobilize celebrity advocacy,  fundraise and garner online support, their efforts consistently erase black support for LGBT causes, compounding a dangerous myth about black homophobia. As feminists have discussed, when LGBT organizations forgo intersectional approaches, they ignore how homophobia intersects with other oppressions: gender, income, location and of course, race. At the same time that black LGBT folk and allies are erased in the work of these organizations, homophobia is regularly coded as black. While gender, income and location are routinely omitted in white progressive discussions of homophobia negotiate race differently. Specifically, blackness is emphasized while whiteness is elided completely guided by a type of “selective colorblindness.”

Consider the following: Discussions of Frank Ocean’s “coming out” or Prop 8’s November passage in California routinely discuss homophobia in the “hip hop,” “urban,” and “black” communities, but the uniformity of homophobia among white conservatives, the around the block support for Chik-Fil-A, the Family Research Council’s dubious support for the Ugandan death bill never elicit a critique of the “white community” and white homophobia. White homophobia doesn’t have a race.

By only emphasizing race in instances of black homophobia, white progressives tacitly imply some hidden aspect of black culture itself that causes homophobia. In actuality, homophobia manifests differently in different spaces, based on the identities, resources, etc. of the people who inhabit them. This cultural meme of reflecting structural problems onto black folk is not unique to homophobia. This same trope displaces misogyny onto, where else, “hip hop culture.”

Certainly there is room within black publics to reflect on homophobia and many writers have done just that. But the selective colorblindness of white liberals obscures white complicity in homophobia, absolving whiteness as a factor in the American dissemination of homophobia. So while the NAACP endorsement of same-sex marriage is seen as the Black community reconciling traditions with new calls for equality, Republicans  blocking the Violence Against Women Act so it won’t protect victims of same sex domestic violence is not seen as a similarly emblematic of whiteness.

This is most acutely problematic because the fight against oppression demands a plurality of supporters. Any form of progress requires an understanding of the disparate ways homophobia arises in peoples’ lives. And intersectional resistance is not possible as long as “progressive” organizations capitulate to narratives of black inferiority, savagery and inhumanity, which equations of blackness and homophobia are want to do.

Even in 2013, black people don’t control our own image. Instead, we must negotiate our image and our identities based on very narrow representations in media. The moderate left, unwilling and unable to critique whiteness and its complicity in prejudice instead transfers the racialization of homophobia onto black communities. Instead of positing whether whites or black are “less” or “more” homophobic, LGBT folks, allies, and advocates should be interested in “how” and “why.” Understanding how homophobia manifests in different ways and different communities allows us to create cultural specific strategies to curb ramifications of homophobia in black, white Latino, Asian, and Native communities.

Sidney Fussell is a 24 year old freelance writer, occasional stand up comedian and full time videogame enthusiast from Little Rock, Arkansas. His research interests include kyriarchy,  simulated violence, dismantling compulsory heterosexuality, mental health and humor. His writings include intersectional feminist criticism of role playing games, the gendered dynamics of “trash talking” in online videogames, and the pedagogical potential of stand up comedy. Forthcoming projects include analyzing the construction of “post-oppression” mythologies by social media advocates and dissecting the racial anxieties of “ironic” racism. He can be reached via twitter or his wordpress.

In other words, my mother is a ritualistic person.  Every day she reads The Daily Word.  She usually has an inspirational quote-a-day calendar on her dresser.  She believes in breakfast in the literal and literary sense.   Just like eating first thing gives your body and brain something to work with as you face the day, reading something inspirational offers an inquiry and a clarity that can transform our everyday experiences into opportunities for insight and inspiration.

For this reason, and several others Yolo Akili’s new book of affirmations, Dear Universe passes the mama test.   I can count on my hands the books that I have read and then immediately gotten for my mother.   Only one of Toni Morrison’s books passed the test (A Mercy), my favorite Dionne Brand novel made it (At the Full and Change of the Moon) and all of Asha Bandele’s prose has made it so far (The Prisoner’s Wife, Daughter, Something Like Beautiful).   But Dear Universe has a special place on that list now because it is the only book on the list that is neither by a black woman writer nor about black mother/daughter relationships.   I intend to send my mother a copy of Dear Universe as an offering towards her daily practice of reading affirmations.   And I suggest that you not only let Dear Universe collaborate with you in the possibility of knowing something today that you might not notice any other day, but also let this small blue book collaborate in your most meaningful relationships as well, and this is why.

Unlike much of the inspirational and motivational literature out there, Dear Universe is not limited to a particular religious belief and even more importantly (from my black feminist point of view) it does not fall into the trap of apolitical individualism that much of the motivational writing I have read reproduces.   This is not a book that will try to convince you that if you just take enough deep breaths and think positive thoughts poverty will disappear like an imaginary video game cloud.   As womanist scholar Layli Maparyan notes in the preface, Yolo’s work “expands the world of inspirational and self-help writings” with a “finely tuned social justice orientation that incorporates and puts a new twist on the insights we often associate with critical theory and liberation movements.” (v)

It is not a coincidence that this book was written by a queer black male feminist anti-violence trainer, people’s astrologer, generation y yoga instructor from the US south.  And it is not a coincidence that we are who we are either.  Dear Universe candidly and clearly reminds us that our relationship with the universe is an opportunity for justice and that our connection to life itself is crucial as we seek to dismantle and transform the systems that impact our collective existence.   For example, one passage of the book reads

Dear Universe,

Today I ask that you help me to remember: Scarcity is not the natural state of the universe.

There is enough food.  The problem is we live in a system that does not support everyone being fed…

Universe, today I ask that you help me recognize how I contribute to a culture of scarcity in my life and in the world. (12)

This book empowers us not by seeking to remove us from the problems that we face in this universe, but by allowing us to see the distance (which is sometimes lightyears) between what we have resigned ourselves to and what reality offers.  This book does not separate us from the major issues and problems of our society. It implicates us by reminding us how powerful we are in a time when our species could get into alignment with the universe or expire.   I find these affirmations to be reminders that help me to tune into my connection to everyone and everything especially at times where I feel exactly as disconnected and alienated as capitalism would want me to feel.

In fact, the universe did a funny thing when Yolo was sending me a review copy of this book.   The universe used the postal service to somehow withhold the book, sending it on an unknown journey so long that Yolo finally considered the copy lost and sent another copy in the mail.  And guess what happened?  Two differently mailed, differently packaged copies of Dear Universe arrived on my porch on exactly the same day.  The message is clear.  We should all get more than one copy of Dear Universe so we can share it with the people in our lives!!!

Dear Universe is a valuable tool to use to invite other people in your life to join in a practice of transformation without judging them.  This book gives us and the people we love the opportunity to question ourselves deeply and to grow while remembering that as, June Jordan’s “Poem About My Rights” teaches, wrong is not our name!

When the subtitle of Dear Universe claims to be affirmations “for all of us,” it doesn’t only mean those of us who are not southern yoga teaching, astrologizing, gendered violence dismantling queer black feminist men, it also means it is for every part of us…not just the hopey, changey parts, but also the tired parts, the judging everyone around us parts, the not loving ourselves like we used to parts, the still spouting the same platitudes about oppression at every meeting parts, the can’t figure out a way to be honest with a friend parts, the learning the same lesson again and again parts, the way too cute parts…all of us!   And the expansive definition of the universe that Yolo offers (which includes among other components “Cousin Pookie and Aunt Minnie”) opens us up to multiple intersecting forms of love. (vi)

The universe is loving us with the blessings of the people and passionate experiences in our lives and the universe is loving us by offering us the most frustrating and potentially revelation filled moments of our days.  The universe loves us with every breath.  And right now the universe is loving us really hard through Yolo Akili.   Get the book.  Get a few so the universe can love everyone you touch through YOU!

Dear President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder,

At the risk of running afoul of the PATRIOT act, we declare that we still love and respect Assata Shakur no matter what you say.

The FBI’s Aaron Ford, head of the Newark (NJ) division, announced the renewed manhunt for Assata.

Assata Shakur

Black people are in a new nadir, and Assata Shakur comes out of a tradition of committed revolutionaries who have resisted the forces that got us there. Assata is truly a political prisoner because, as Eugene Puryear says, “what changed in the recent days and weeks to now put her on the ‘Most Wanted Terrorists’ list? The FBI presented no evidence against her and revealed no terrorist plots. Assata’s real crime, FBI spokesman Aaron Ford said, was that from Cuba she continues to ‘maintain and promote her … ideology’ and ‘provides anti-U.S. government speeches espousing the Black Liberation Army message’—an ideology and message that the U.S. government has declared ‘terrorism.’” In other words, she is suddenly a “terrorist” because she has remained ideologically committed to Black freedom.

Assata was a member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) (1966-1982) and later the Black Liberation Army (BLA) (1970-1981), when FBI and local police murders forced elements of the BPP to continue the freedom struggle underground. The time since the demise of these organizations has seen a worsening of the conditions they struggled against, including murderous police, what is now called the prison-industrial complex, and the ongoing crisis levels of Black poverty. By branding Assata a terrorist, the FBI is effectively branding the BPP a terrorist organization.

But also, more than this, the FBI engages in a revisionist history project that has been under way since the BPP’s inception, to suppress Black radical thought of any kind. What we are seeing now from your administration is a continuation of the FBI’s project to contain Black freedom struggle by only allowing those activities of Black organizations that agree ideologically with the dictates of white supremacy, organizations that never present material challenges to white domination.

Lance Hill’s The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement is a good reference on one Black armed resistance  group that operated in cooperation with the supposedly “nonviolent” Civil Rights Movement.

You could learn from history, but instead you fight it. When you call Assata a terrorist, your administration attempts to remove legitimacy from the tradition of armed resistance of which she is a part that has been crucial to the very survival of the Black America that, in your 2004 convention speech, you said you don’t see. How true that turned out to be. You don’t see us. Your renewal of the attack on Assata assumes there was no basis for Black self defense at the moment Assata emerged as a leader, or today. This assumption clearly runs counter to the narrative of American history as most Black folks understand it. Throughout our history, from the Maroon societies of slavery, to the Rosewood Massacre in Florida and the Tulsa Race Riot in Oklahoma, to Robert and Mabel Williams in Monroe, North Carolina, up to the Jena Six and countless other little-known incidents, we have repeatedly had to physically resist where the state would not protect us or was actively joining mobs in persecuting us. To label Assata a terrorist is to call a whole long legacy of armed Black resistance terrorism, when, in fact, we were resisting terrorism from violent white mobs, the Ku Klux Klan, the police, and others. We already know that we would never have survived if we had not responded when attacked, regardless of the odds of victory.

Professor Akinyele Umoja’s new book, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement, proves that armed resistance was crucial to the success of the Civil Rights Movement.

And Black people aren’t the only ones who are aware that we have had to engage in armed resistance just to survive. Even traditional historians teaching in bastions of state power have been studying Black insurgency and “the importance of armed self-defense groups to the [Civil Rights] movement’s ultimate success.” That quote comes from the US Army War College description for a course called American Insurgencies: The Struggle for Black Liberation in the South, 1865-1965. Although one would probably be hard-pressed to find such a course at most Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), let alone other schools, it appears that the army sees fit to study that history and acknowledge the ongoing necessity of the tradition of Black armed struggle.

Robert and Mabel Williams, advocates of Black self defense in Monroe, North Carolina, are part of the long tradition of Black armed resistance.

It is not hard to see where this is headed. If it is considered “terrorism” to resist murder by corrupt police departments, as Assata has, and if one can be branded a terrorist without evidence proving conclusively that one has committed or intends to commit a crime, then your administration, or subsequent administrations, have granted yourselves unchecked powers to respond to Black folks’ demands for basic human rights and social justice not only with infiltration, wiretaps, killer drones, and SWAT teams, but also, as insidiously, with high school and college history books that whitewash the Black experience. Not only will your branding of Assata cast her out of the history books. So, too, the Panthers; the brave residents of Rosewood in Florida and “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Robert Charles of New Orleans–people who had to use weapons to resist lynch mobs that were prepared to torture, rape, murder, and mutilate– will become as illegitimate as the right wing has tried to make ethnic studies in Arizona.

Candidate Obama’s friend, former FBI fugitive William (Bill) Ayers (far left), was an admitted saboteur and co-founder (with Bernadette Dohrn, far right) of the Weather Underground, an organization affiliated with the BLA.

(And, President Obama, where would you be now if the authority you have granted yourself to assassinate without trial anyone who associates with “terrorists” had been wielded against you for your association with Bill Ayers?)

The problems Black folks face are not just that the police are shooting us down every 28 hours; there are also ongoing crises like gangsterism, pimping, and rape culture; the proliferation of drug economies; and homicidal violence in Black communities all across the United States. But even here, the police have cultivated antagonisms between gangs and provided material support to drug dealers in Black communities. Journalist Gary Webb’s series of articles for the San Jose Mercury News and his book exposed “Freeway Ricky” Ross as a collaborator with CIA operatives Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses in introducing crack cocaine in the Black community, and Ross has expressed deep regret for his role in the crack epidemic. Drug dealer-turned-fugitive Larry Davis maintained until his death that NYPD officers forced him to sell drugs for their profit.

Geographers Mike Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore have shown how the LAPD sabotaged peace negotiations between rival gangs like the Crips and the Bloods. And let’s not forget criminal enterprises within police departments operating in Black and Latino areas, including but not limited to Chicago’s torture scandal, Los Angeles’ Ramparts scandal, Richmond, California’s “Cowboys,” and Oakland’s “Riders,” to name only a few. These were gangs of police that engaged in various criminal activities, including racial profiling, drug trafficking, brutality, torture, murder, and more. Black folks know these are hardly isolated incidents; they are structural inevitabilities. Police are the ultimate terrorists of the Black community.

Two women show their participation in one of the programs that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover said made the Black Panther Party “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.”

The BPP and BLA arose organically from the young Black masses in response to a range of problems affecting the Black community, problems that police often exacerbated and the state neglected. The BPP and BLA’s practices and ideological commitments addressed those Black masses, young and old, and rightly understood that Black people treating each other right was of paramount importance in resisting the police-imposed social death of the Black community. This included addressing criminal activities that harmed the Black community, activities that the police often encouraged and profited from. As Assata’s fellow revolutionary soldier Dhoruba bin Wahad points out in his essay on the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams, “The rise of street gangs directly coincide[d] with the destruction of grass root militant movements that would have otherwise occupied the energies of several generations of African-American youth.”

Wahad continued:

Tookie Williams [a founder of the Crips gang who later renounced the criminal life and dedicated his biography to several Black revolutionaries] was executed to send a clarion signal to African youth that redemptive militancy is unacceptable – only rejection of your social history and complete surrender to the myths of white America could possibly save your life. In this sense, his execution was a commentary on the cowardice of many of today’s Black leaders – who want to be both patriots and champions of Africans in America. This is the age of American empire, you can’t be both.

Unlike Tookie, Assata does not have any redeeming to do; she has worked tirelessly to improve conditions in the Black community. But, as Tookie did toward the end of his life, Assata maintains her militant stance to this day. That must be why you feel it necessary to eliminate her. Assata Shakur is a hero to a significant number of people. But few people in the mainstream media are saying why the state has placed her under attack in a brand new way. And people need to understand this: It can only be because she remains consistent in her opposition to the ways US civil and political society destroy Black life.

Assata struggled and struggles against the terrorism of neo-slavery directed against Black people. We encourage those holding it down for Black liberation to keep struggling, like soldier’s must do, and like Assata has. In doubling the reward for the re-enslavement of Assata, you lessen your legitimacy among Black people and all those who want freedom. You place yourselves on the wrong side of history. And you will lose. We won’t give up on Assata because she has never given up on us.

Hands off Assata! 

Free all political prisoners!

The struggle continues…

———-

Gregory L. Caldwell is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Consciousness program at UC Santa Cruz, and a community activist and writer from Richmond, California.

Omar Ricks is a member of The Feminist Wire’s Editorial Collective.

Friday, May 10, 2013

.

President Barack Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20500

.

.

Dear President Obama:

.

We write to urge you to overrule the FBI’s decision to put Assata Shakur, aka Joanne Chesimard, on the “Most Wanted Terrorists List, with $1 Million FBI Reward Offered for Information Leading to Her Capture and Return,” as phrased by the FBI’s May 2, 2013 announcement.  This $1 million combines with the $1 million bounty already offered by New Jersey. We know of no support for the claims by the FBI in making that announcement that Ms. Shakur has used her asylum in Cuba to “promote” “terrorist ideology” and espouse “terrorism.” We ask that the FBI be directed to publicly produce documentation to support these claims, and that until and unless this is done, its officials be directed to withdraw these assertions. The FBI’s accompanying actions should also be immediately withdrawn for the following additional reasons.

_

President Obama, commenting on the Boston Marathon bombings last month, you declared “Anytime bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.” This is consistent with the generally accepted view of terrorism as “the calculated use of violence or threat of violence against civilians for the purpose of intimidation or coercion or changing government policy.” There is no evidence that Ms. Shakur has taken part in any violence or threats of violence against civilians to intimidate or coerce changes in government policies. Going back 40 years, the May 1973 incident, which led to her only criminal convictions, was initiated by the New Jersey State Police.  They pulled the vehicle she was in off the highway based on an allegedly defective tail light. This type of police action was consistent with tactics used to harass Black people generally, particularly Black males; and, sometimes provoke incidents particularly against members of Black militant organizations during that period. The loss of life on both sides ensuing from that stop was clearly regrettable; and, we do not intend to retry here her controversial trial and conviction before an all white jury. We know that there were serious questions of fairness sufficient to draw international attention and for Ms. Shakur to be granted political asylum in Cuba nearly 35 years ago, although Cuba has returned some others wanted by U.S authorities.

.

We believe putting Ms. Shakur’s name on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorist List,” and increasing the $1 million bounty to a total of $2 million, 40 years after the fact, only makes sense in light of recent press reports regarding your administration’s consideration to take Cuba off the U.S. list of nations that allegedly sponsor terrorism – a designation which is so unfounded that it has become an embarrassment to our country.  Opponents of steps towards normalization with Cuba have seized on this aged and disputed case in what we view as a transparent attempt to recast this history into today’s fears, using Assata Shakur as a pawn in their political maneuvering.

.

The FBI’s participation in this political maneuvering by joining with New Jersey to offer a $2 million bounty is a dangerous act, encouraging someone to try to kidnap her, breaking Cuban law as well as being a violation of International Law. Should the offer be taken seriously by someone, the foreseeable result would be bloodshed, if not also a major international incident.

.

The FBI’s stated rationale for these actions is also regrettable and dangerous because it equates radical beliefs favoring fundamental social and economic change, with “terrorism.” These serve to intimidate and chill others who dare to speak out against United States’ domestic and international policies.  In this regard, these actions directly undermine the protections given all citizens under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

.

Finally, this decision continues to racialize the United States criminal punishment system, a system that since the enslavement of African peoples has targeted Africans and African Americans for harsher punishments than those given particularly to similarly situated whites.  The accusation of terrorism has fallen prey to this continuing travesty of making the color of “crime,” now the color of “terrorism,” black.  One needs only recall the early reports of who was suspected of the Boston Marathon bombing to support this conclusion: the first reports were of a darker-skinned male, possibly African American.  This message scrolled continuously on CNN for a number of hours and then “African American male” was deleted, leaving darker skinned male.  But the alleged perpetrators were far from “darker skinned.”

.

In conclusion, we ask that you stand behind the statements made by Attorney General Holder when he became the Attorney General in 2009 in addressing assistant United States attorneys and make these statements applicable to the FBI:  “Your job is in every case, every decision you make, to do the right thing.  Anybody who asks you to do something other than that is to be ignored.”  The FBI’s recent actions are far from the “right thing” for this country and we urge you to reverse them.

.

Please reply to:

Law Office of Arthur Heitzer

633 W. Wisconsin Ave., Suite 1410

Milwaukee, WI 53203 USA

414-273-1040, ex. 12; fax 414-273-4859

.

Sincerely,

.

Rabab Abdulhadi

Vanessa Agard-Jones

Adjoa A. Aiyetoro

Cathy Albisa

Abdul Alkalimat

Adisa A. Alkebulan

Bettina Aptheker

Iván Arenas

Anjali Arondekar

Brooke Elise Axtell

Sara Atlas

William Ayers

Paola Bacchetta

Ajamu Baraka

Fr. Luis Barrios

Ellen Barry

Susannah Bartlow

Crista Bell

Dan Berger

Alisa Bierria

Martha Biondi

Carl Bloice

Lisa Brock

Prudence Brown

Margaret Burnham

Lucy Burns

Judith Butler

Linda Carty

Monica J. Casper

Frank Chapman

Piya Chatterjee

Patricia A. Clark

Cathy J. Cohen

Marjorie Cohn

Brittney C. Cooper

Dara Cooper

Gary L. Cozette

Kimberlé Crenshaw

Lisa Crooms-Robinson

Otis Cunningham

Rev. Dan Dale

Angela Y. Davis

Nicole Melanie Davis

Michael Dawson

Gina Dent

Cindy Domingo

Barbara Engel

Evalyn Tennant

Mireille Fanon-Mendes

Kenyon Farrow

Roderick Ferguson

Bill Fletcher

Rhone Fraser

H. Bruce Franklin

Jane Franklin

Regina Freer

Rosa Linda Fregoso

David Gespass

Angela Gilliam

Stephanie Gilmore

Pat Gleason

Danny Glover

Van Gosse

Jaime Grant

Herman Gray

Kai Green

Farah Griffin

Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Jeff Haas

Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler

Sarah Haley

Rev. Dr. Lora. F. Hargrove

Cheryl Harris

Mark Harrison

Arthur Heitzer

Linda J. Holmes

Cheri Honkala

Byron Hurt

Rev. Dr. Nozomi Ikuta

Nicole Nicolette Ivy

Lynnette A. Jackson

Ricardo Jimenez

Joseph F. Jordan

Adam Juranishi

Mariame Kaba

Robin D. G. Kelley

Alice Kim

Saul Landau

Andrea Lawlor

Rev. Phil Lawson

Lisa Yun Lee

Heidi R. Lewis

R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy

Tamura A. Lomax

Ana Lopez

José E. López

Toussaint Losier

Wahneema Lubiano

Saba Mahmood

Graciano Matos, Sr

Tracye A. Matthews

Erica Meiners

Jodi Melamed

Bernadine Mellis

William Minter

Roberta Meek

Chandra Mohanty

Alejandro Luis Molina

S. Mandisa Moore

Michelle Morales

Premilla Nadasen

Mark Anthony Neal

Alondra Nelson

Prexy Nesbitt

Bruce D. Nestor

Camille Odeh

Cheryl Johnson-Odim

Cara Page

Iris Dawn Parker

Tianna S. Paschel

MaryLouise Patterson

Charles Payne

Ted Pearson

Imani Perry

Rev. Chris Pierson

Erin Polley

Gordon Quinn

Ahmad Rahman

Carlos Ivan Ramos

Inez Ramos

Barbara Ransby

Raka Ray

Shana L. Redmond

Ronald Reosti

Beth E. Richie

Omar Ricks

Lynn Roberts

Jamala Roders

Michael Rodriguez

Charo Mina Rojas

Jada Russell

Luis Sanabria

Melissa Santana

Ora Schub

Raquelle Seda

Azadeh N. Shahshahani

Aishah Shahidah Simmons

Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons

Montague Simmons

Che Rhymefest Smith

Michael Steven Smith

Karen Sotiropoulos

Robyn C. Spencer

Pamela Sporn

Jill Stein

Neferti Tadiar

Heather Laine Talley

Salamishah Tillet

Leti Volpp

Alice Walker

Dan S. Wang

Eligan G. Ward

Sali Vickie Casanova-Willis

Standish Willis

Dr. Jeremiah Wright

Charles Wynder, Jr.

Rebecca Zorach

.

.

Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression

International Association of Democratic Lawyers

National Boricua Human Rights Network

National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL)

National Lawyers Guild

.

.

.

cc: Mr. Eric H. Holder

Feminist women of color activists and anyone who considers themselves our allies in the struggle for justice need to be outraged that our sister Assata Shakur, a 65-year-old grandmother living in political exile in Cuba, was added to the Most Wanted Terrorists List on May 3, 2013.  FBI Special Agent Aaron Ford, on behalf of the New Jersey State Police, the New Jersey Attorney General’s office, and the U.S. Marshall’s office, announced this extreme action. This was done after 40 years, they say, because she was convicted of the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper, escaped from prison, and she continues to espouse “revolution and terrorism.” Furthering the outrageous claim, they also raised a bounty on her capture from one million dollars (2005) to two million dollars.

It is important to understand what this means in both symbolic terms and real-time.  First, by all reasonable accounts Assata Shakur is innocent.  The original trial that led to her conviction in 1977 was a travesty. Three neurologists testified that the first gunshot shattered her clavicle and the second shattered the median nerve in her right hand. That testimony proved that she was sitting with her hands raised when the police shot her.  Further testimony proved that no gun residue was found on either of her hands, nor were her fingerprints found on any of the weapons located at the scene. In addition, trial transcripts show that Trooper John Harper, the other NJ State Trooper on the scene, admitted under cross-examination that he had lied in all three of his official reports and in his Grand Jury testimony.

An all-white jury stoked by racism convicted her. Lenox Hinds, her trial attorney, called the trial “a modern day lynching.” Interestingly, the trial judge tried unsuccessfully to have Hinds disbarred for saying that. Today, attorney Hinds is the U.S. lawyer of Nelson Mandela, another person who was on the U.S. terrorist list until 2008.

Let’s interrogate another point. The fact that the announcement linked the terms “revolution” and “terrorism” is telling. Sohail Daulatzai  convincingly argues in “Are we all Muslim now? Assata Shakur and the Terrordome,” that with the inclusion of Assata on the Terrorist Most Wanted List, the grand logic of the U.S. Administration (at least its criminal wing) is revealed. The “War on Terrorism,” the “War on Drugs,” and the “War on Crime” is one unified policy objective aimed at “narrow[ing] the scope of dissent” both domestically and globally by criminalizing communities of color as well as whole regions of the world. Monitoring, jailing, killing, and droning the Black Criminal, the Muslim Terrorist, and the Latino Drug Lord/Illegal Alien are effective tools to beat back those who resist the neo-liberal agenda of privatization and exploitation. As Angela Davis said in her interview on Democracy Now, it is the U.S. government that is using tactics of terrorism to squash dissent. The placing of Assata Shakur — a known leader from the black power/civil rights era who is cherished for her revolutionary spirit — on this list and putting a huge bounty on her head, is aimed at terrorizing us all who dare to criticize, mobilize, and resist state policies and practices.

Indeed, Assata Shakur’s story embodies this fiendish nexus between resistance and the label of criminal and terrorist.  As described in her own words:

My name is Assata (“she who struggles”) Shakur (“the thankful one”), 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….I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program. Because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it “greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.

For those just learning about Assata Shakur, it is important to know that COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) was a secret operation, aimed at destabilizing and neutralizing progressive people and organizations. The tactics used involved framing organizers on trumped-up charges, infiltrating provocateurs and informants into organizations, and sometimes the outright murder of known leaders.

Once the activities of COINTELPRO became publicly known, a Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities was convened by the Senate in 1975.  The Final Report stated that:

The Committee finds that the domestic activities of the intelligence community at times violated specific statutory prohibitions and infringed the constitutional rights of American citizens. …Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that…the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association….

Assata was charged with six crimes, ranging from armed robbery to murder. When she courageously resisted arrest by going underground, she was put on the FBI’s most wanted list. It was while she was already on this list that the shootout occurred on the New Jersey Turnpike. Why is this important? Because had not the FBI knowingly charged Assata Shakur with crimes she did not commit, and not put her on the FBI’s most wanted list, the zealousness of the State Troopers might have been mediated and the shootout might not have occurred.  Yet, one must keep in mind that police violence against black and peoples of color can and does happen at anytime.

Importantly, after Assata was captured, but before the trial for the shoot-out and the death of Trooper Joe Forrester, she was tried for all the cases for which she had been originally charged.  In every single case, all six of them, she was acquitted! Only on the final case for the shootout on the New Jersey turnpike, which could have been prevented, was she found guilty and sentenced to Life + 33 years.  We need to ask, “Who is to blame for the shootout?”

Assata Shakur is a political exile. Under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, a person owing to fear of persecution in her or his country of birth is able to apply for and be granted political asylum. For the United States to put a bounty on her head is both immoral and illegal. Moreover, provoking bounty hunters to break another nation’s laws in order to capture and kidnap a person is completely unethical and against all laws with respect to national sovereignty.  If all countries did this, there would be bedlam and bloodshed, leading to international incidents of huge consequences.

But she is in Cuba; the small island nation of 11 million against which the U.S. maintains a 50-year long economic blockade and ongoing hostilities. Importantly, the recent action by the FBI may very well be as much about U.S. policy with Cuba as about the status of Assata Shakur. Just before the May 3^rd announcement, three policy changes were under discussion by the White House: finally a colloquy about the closing of Guantanamo (the illegal U.S. base on Cuban soil); a push from certain sectors for the removal of Cuba from the “states that sponsor terrorism” list; and renewed congressional debate and discussion on the normalization of relations with Cuba. Our sister has been used as a pawn before in such parleys.

Yet, Assata Shakur is living peacefully in exile.  She has dedicated her life to challenging injustice and working on behalf of those most persecuted by the imperialist politics of various nation-states.  She has been cut off from her family and her large network of associates and comrades and is in no way  “living large,” as indicated by the FBI in their statement. She continues to advance the struggles for people everywhere as a writer and an artist.  She is not a terrorist and should never be captured.

As women of color feminist activists, we have a great deal to learn from her struggle for justice. We have many better ideas about how to spend $2 million of our nation’s dollars than as a bounty for Assata Shakur.  Please pass along the story, organize a Teach-In and sign the petition asking that the bounty be rescinded and her name be removed from the Terrorist List.  Our freedom is directly linked to hers.

________________________________________

Lisa Brock is the Academic Director of Arcus Center of Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She has been an activist all of her life and a scholar activist over the last 25 years.  She was born in the Cincinnati, Ohio area in 1956, where she fought against segregation and for black studies and girls’ rights in the public schools of the Cincinnati, Ohio area. While an undergraduate in Washington D.C., she became well known for her work around police brutality, and while in Chicago pursuing her Ph.D., she became known as an Anti-Apartheid Activist.  Since the early 1990s, Brock has been researching and writing on African Diaspora History with a focus on African-Americans, South Africa, and Cuba. She has published dozens of articles and chapters in Cuba, the U.S. and South Africa, and co-edited the 1998 book Between Race and Empire: African-Americans and Cubans Before the Cuban Revolution, with Professor Emeritus Digna Castaneda-Fuertes of the University of Havana. She is a trustee of the Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund (for student activists) and on the Editorial Collective of Radical History Review.

Beth E. Richie is Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy and Professor of African American Studies and Criminology, Law and Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  The emphasis of her scholarly and activist work has been on the ways that race/ethnicity and social position affect women’s experience of violence and incarceration, focusing on the experiences of African American battered women and sexual assault survivors.  Dr. Richie is the author of Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence and America’s Prison Nation (NYU Press, 2012), which chronicles the evolution of the contemporary anti-violence movement during the time of mass incarceration in the United States,  and numerous articles concerning Black feminism and gender violence, race and criminal justice policy, and the social dynamics around issues of sexuality, prison abolition, and grassroots organizations in African American Communities. Her earlier book, Compelled to Crime: the Gender Entrapment of Black Battered Women, is taught in many college courses and cited in the popular press for its original arguments concerning race, gender, and crime.  Dr. Richie is a qualitative researcher who is also working on an ethnographic project documenting the conditions of confinement in women’s prisons.  Her work has been supported by grants from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The National Institute for Justice, and The National Institute of Corrections.  Among others, she has been awarded the Audre Lorde Legacy Award from the Union Institute, The Advocacy Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and The Visionary Award from the Violence Intervention Project. Dr. Richie is a board member of The Woods Fund of Chicago, The Institute on Domestic Violence in the African Community, The Center for Fathers’ Families and Public Policy, and a founding member of INCITE!: Women of Color Against Violence.  In 2013 she was awarded an Honorary Degree from the City University of New York Law School.

“No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.”
—Assata Shakur

Over the past three and a half months, The Feminist Wire has been publishing “Feminists We Love” each week in order to acknowledge and honor the feminists and womanists whose works amplify myriad aspects of our mission.  This week, we honor Assata Olugbala Shakur. Assata, she who struggles. Olugbala, for the people. Shakur, the thankful one.

Recently, Assata Shakur (identified by her former name, Joanne Deborah Chesimard née Byron) became the first woman ever listed on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list. The FBI defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”  In outrage, we wondered how such a brilliant and courageous freedom fighter could be defined in this way.  We wondered how Barack Obama, our first self-identified Black President, and Eric Holder, our first self-identified Black Attorney General, could define our sistermother in this way. We wondered how a government could apply a definition more appropriate for itself and its actions to a woman who was willing to relinquish her “freedom” so that we, her people, could be free from the terror we have endured in this nation for centuries.

At first, we wondered. Then, we realized that we actually do know the reasons why Assata Shakur has been labeled a terrorist. Seven years ago, Inderpal Grewal, Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University, stated, “I am interested in the kind of binary of terror-security, as a particular way of binary in which certain kinds of new politics are getting mobilised. And I am interested in the binary of terror and security precisely because what it does is governmentalise security in the interest of terror in new ways [...] I am interested in the forms of surveillance and the subjects that are produced through the politics of security.”  Any force attempting to nourish and empower Black and Brown bodies in this country becomes a subject to be surveilled.  Subsequently, any attempt to nourish and empower Black and Brown bodies in this country is met with fervent resistance. This resistance is always already inextricably linked to racism and violence intended to mentally, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and physically cripple our efforts save our own lives.

Let us be reminded that Assata Shakur fed hungry Black and Brown children. Assata Shakur helped Black and Brown mothers overcome drug addiction. Assata Shakur taught Black and Brown communities how to love and protect themselves. Assata Shakur fought against the prison industrial complex that profits from enslaving Black and Brown bodies. Assata Shakur never let us forget that Black and Brown bodies were worthy of love, empathy, protection, and meticulous care. Assata Shakur was a teacher and healer. We know this because we have committed our lives to honoring her story, standing on her shoulders, and speaking truth to power.

Regarding these recent events, Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at the University of California—Santa Cruz, stated, “I can’t help but think that it’s designed to frighten people who are involved in struggles today.”  We wholeheartedly concur. But we will not be frightened. We will not be silenced. We will continue the struggle. We will recognize, without hesitation, that Assata Shakur is a feminist we love.  Typically, we interview the “Feminists We Love” in print or audiovisual form to give our readers the opportunity to know and love them as we do. However, since Assata Shakur is in political asylum in Cuba (as she has been since 1984), either approach would significantly jeopardize her safety and security. Instead, then, we are publishing this “Love Note” in hopes that she and her loved ones are able to read and find strength in it.

********************

Dearest Assata Shakur,

In 1977, when you were convicted of first-degree murder related to the shootout that occurred on the New Jersey Turnpike, I was not yet a glimmer in my mother’s and father’s eyes.  By the time you found political asylum in Cuba, I was just 2 or 3 years old. It would be many more years before I even knew your name.

Shot. With your hands up. Unable to pull the trigger. Paralyzed.

As I began my intellectual development during college, I often found myself thinking of you.  I found myself thanking you for the texts on my desk and on my bed.  In my hands were Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Gloria Naylor, Richard Wright, Ann Petry, Langston Hughes, Toni Cade Bambara, Charles Chestnut—myriad Black artists and activists speaking to me and so many others. I was grateful. Grateful that I could read and engage them in an academic space, all because of you and the others that stood with you.  Where would I, and others like me, be if you hadn’t forcefully resisted the status quo and demanded Black Studies during the lock down at the Borough of Manhattan Community College?

Shot. With your hands up. Unable to pull the trigger. Paralyzed.

Now, 10 years after I graduated college, I’m a professor.  Now, I teach those Black artists and activists, courageously and proudly.  You were willing to die so that I could be here.  You were willing to give up your freedom so that I could be here. I owe you my life and my love.  I try, each and every day, to honor your steadfast commitment to justice.  Where would I, and others like me, be if you hadn’t forcefully resisted the status quo and demanded more Black faculty during the lock down at the Borough of Manhattan Community College?

Shot. With your hands up. Unable to pull the trigger. Paralyzed.

As I read more and more about your life, it struck me that you divorced your husband left the Black Panther Party due, in part, to problematic gender roles. You once said, “A revolutionary woman can’t have no reactionary man.”  The moment I read that was the moment I fell in love—with you.  Now, I’m a proud Black Feminist.  A Black Feminist wife.  A Black Feminist mother. A Black Feminist student.  A Black Feminist teacher.

Shot. With your hands up. Unable to pull the trigger. Paralyzed.

Still, I had no idea what was in store for me as I continued studying you, your activism, and your words.  Everything I thought I knew or believed in became tragic to me.  I struggled with anger.  I struggled with hatred.  I struggled with peace and love.  I didn’t know if I had the courage or knowledge to seek freedom.  I felt as if I didn’t know anything at all.  There was no such thing as truth.  Nor was there justice.

Shot. With your hands up. Unable to pull the trigger. Paralyzed.

And still, there is no justice.  And because of that, I still struggle. With the approval of President Obama and Attorney General Holder, the FBI has named you one of their “Most Wanted Terrorists.” They are “offering a reward of up to $1 million for information directly leading to the apprehension of Joanne Chesimard.”  A Black woman still cannot define and name herself.  A Black woman can still be erased.  Disappeared. A Black woman can still be kidnapped and murdered as her government and country applaud. A Black woman can still die while only her closest loved ones shed a tear. A Black woman still has no story worth hearing, worth loving.  To them, you are still Joanne.  There is no justice.

Shot. With your hands up. Unable to pull the trigger. Paralyzed.

Because of you, I remind us all that while there is no justice, there is truth.  On the shoulders of Audre Lorde, I remind us all that our silence will not protect us. Until we each take our dying breath, we must remind the world that by virtue of your willingness to stand in truth and justice, you have been and continue to be a victim of terrorism. Your government has failed you. Your country has failed you.  Your President has failed you. But we will not fail you.

Here we stand.  Still black.  Still strong.

With love,

Heidi R. Lewis on behalf of The Feminist Wire

do not dry like dissipated plums under castro’s bronzing sun

you mural fortress

you live memorial

spirited artifice

rouged sea salt that marinates america’s wound

Assata

you like stripped bone road unaware of which

exit is free birth  brown coagulated rhythm

redefined reborn rumba queen

Assata

dusk breath unaware of next exhalation’s destination

like a steel slingshot bullet that knows not its resting place  maybe

Assata

you are a maimed structure who refuses to die out

arthritic fist still clutches black power

and remembers the white man foot stomps mating with sternum

and ribs that deny shattering

Assata

i smell renewed blood thirst

the resurgence of hound claws

salivate your noosed neck

limp feet suspended over earth

Assata

the skin can not relive your turnpike eyes’ coronary chase

and dewy palms arched over steering wheel

i dissect this thoroughfare     glance the backstory

your automobile nightmare in review   i gulp this prison freeway

Houston, TX native, Ebony Noelle Golden, is a public scholar, performance artist and director of Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative.  She also serves as the artistic director of Body Ecology Performance Ensemble. BDAC specializes in creative workshops, curriculum development, cultural and performance art design for progressive social change.  Working nation-wide, her work spans creative, academic and community organizing spheres.  ​

The National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL) condemns the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s recent placement of activist Assata Shakur on its Most Wanted Terrorists list, and its increase of the reward for her capture to $2 million. These actions by the FBI should alarm everyone in the United States as they only serve to criminalize the right of people to disagree with governmental policies. These actions intimidate activists and recklessly expand the use and meaning of the word “terrorist.”

In the 1960s Assata Shakur was active in several human rights causes, such as the Black Liberation Movement, the struggle for student rights and activism to end the war in Vietnam.  She joined the Black Panther Party, an organization that by the late 1960s was persecuted by the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO). COINTELPRO notoriously utilized covert and often illegal tactics in an attempt to discredit and destroy a wide range of groups, including the NAACP, groups advocating for the rights of Native Americans, groups associated with the women’s rights movement and groups that opposed the war in Vietnam. Like other members of the Black Panther Party, on more than one occasion Shakur was falsely charged with crimes, and in six different cases where she was indicted she was either acquitted or the charges were dismissed.

On May 2, 1973, Shakur was a passenger in a vehicle that was stopped on the New Jersey turnpike by state troopers for an alleged “faulty tail light.” That vehicle stop ended in one of Shakur’s companions being killed and a trooper being killed. Shakur, whose hands were in the air per the police’s instructions, was shot twice. Sundiata Acoli, the third person in Shakur’s car, was also shot.  Another state trooper present admitted to shooting Shakur’s companion, yet Shakur and Acoli were charged for his death under the felony murder law. Shakur and Acoli were also both charged for the trooper’s death, though both were unarmed and the evidence indicated that someone else shot the trooper. Shakur was found guilty by an all-white jury and sentenced to life imprisonment plus 33 years. Shakur’s treatment as a prisoner –which included being confined to a men’s prison and being subjected to anal and vaginal searches—led to her being declared a political prisoner by the United Nations and other organizations and individuals. On November 2, 1979, with outside assistance, Shakur escaped from prison. In 1984 she fled to Cuba, where she was granted political asylum.

Why, when Shakur has lived in Cuba for nearly three decades, has the FBI elevated the importance of her capture by placing her on its  Most Wanted Terrorists list? Why, since 2005, has the FBI labeled Assata Shakur a terrorist?

These actions by the FBI are a continuation of the government’s efforts to intimidate activists and stifle political dissent. In 2005, utilizing the definition of “domestic terrorist” under the PATRIOT Act, the FBI was able to designate Shakur a terrorist. The criminalization of dissent is a standard tactic of State repression.

Labeling Shakur as a terrorist and placing her on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list not only further criminalizes Shakur, it creates political and emotional circumstances on which the government could rely for justification or excuse in the event of her assassination.

The FBI’s actions can also be interpreted as maneuvering by the Obama Administration to keep Cuba on the list of countries supporting terrorism. This also sends a message to the leftist governments in Latin America that are friendly with Cuba.

In addition, very importantly, this recent action by the U.S. government specifically sends a message to Black people in America that if they oppose systemic oppression and police violence they will be labeled criminals and hunted down. Further, it attempts to revise history by claiming that the brave people that fought for the rights of Black people in the 1960s and 1970s are not heroes, but vicious criminals. It attempts to absolve the United States government of its sins of the past, as it ignores its sins of the present.

The NCBL demands that the government remove Assata Shakur from any terrorist list, and cease all pursuit of her. Further, the U.S. government must finally acknowledge the role that it played in criminalizing people such as Assata Shakur who fought for Black liberation in the 1960s and 1970s, and free all political prisoners.

(Source)

I was one of those seasoned activists who were utterly taken by surprise when Assata Shakur was recently placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Terrorists List.  Having known Assata for several decades and having been involved in many aspects of her defense over the years, my first thoughts were for her safety.  But then I also realized that while she was the specific target, the scope of  this unexpected drama of repression was much vaster. Indirectly, it targets activists, young and old, working for radical change in many arenas.  Since Assata has been living in Cuba since the 1980s, this act also seems designed to misrepresent the country that granted her political asylum as a haven for terrorists and thus to prevent the normalization of relations with Cuba

Many years ago, I was similarly shocked to learn that I myself had been placed on an FBI list – of the Ten Most Wanted Criminals. This only began to make sense to me when I realized that I was not the exclusive target: through me, the FBI was transmitting a message to all revolutionary activists that they would be marked as criminals and that, in fact, our movements against imperialism and for racial and gender justice would be generally criminalized.

Today, forty years after Assata was arrested (and later convicted) for a crime she could not have committed, she has emerged as a symbol of continuing resistance  to racism,  gender repression, and contemporary challenges to U.S. empire.  I personally feel compelled to defend and protect Assata because I love and respect her as an individual and know her commitment and compassion to be exemplary.  At the same time, I know that if we expect to move forward in our many collective efforts to achieve social justice, we will have to compel President Obama to hear our message.  We urge him to reverse the FBI’s decision to make Assata Shakur the face of terrorism in this country.  And we say to anyone who might be thinking of collecting the $2 million bounty:  Hands Off Assata!

________________________________________

Angela Y. Davis is Distinguished Professor Emerita of the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is known internationally for her ongoing work to combat all forms of oppression in the U.S. and abroad. Over the years she has been active as a student, teacher, writer, scholar, and activist/organizer. Her long-standing commitment to prisoners’ rights dates back to her involvement in the campaign to free the Soledad Brothers, which led to her own arrest and imprisonment. Today she remains an advocate of prison abolition and has developed a powerful critique of racism in the criminal justice system. She is a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex.