Black Panther Leader Led Rainbow Acupuncturists Treating Addictions Acupuncturist and activist Mutulu Shakur died on July 7 at the age of 72. Mutulu helped raise rap icon Tupac Shakur and led a group of White, Black and Puerto Rican revolutionaries pioneering the use of acupuncture to treat addiction in New York. He had spent more […]
The post RIP Mutulu Shakur first appeared on CovertAction Magazine.
On Thursday, December 4, 1969, at about 4:30 AM, three unmarked Chicago police cars and a panel truck left the 26th Street office of the Cook County state’s attorney and headed west. The lakefront air was bitterly cold, and the vehicles moved deliberately past the empty lots, gutted warehouses, and walk-ups that dotted the city’s west side like rows of rotting teeth.
Mass resistance against police brutality in the US resurfaced after 18-year-old Michael Brown was murdered by the police in August of 2014. The sights of tanks and militarized police forces in response to the subsequent rebellions in Ferguson and St. Louis only blew air on the flames of injustice that were ignited when Michael Brown’s killer, officer Darren Wilson, was not indicted by the US judicial system. Since then, hundreds of Black Americans have been killed at the hands of the police.
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.
– Assata Shakur
Sugar-coated fantasies about the United States of America as a “post-racial society” that guarantees equality before the law are and have always been precisely that: fantasies. Much like the “sugar high” induced by consuming copious amounts of physical sugar, voracious ingestion of this saccharine social delusion leads individuals to similar political and intellectual stupor.
Did you really believe Darren Wilson was going to be indicted for murdering Michael Brown? Did you think a cop was going to face a trial for gunning down a young man he thought should be arrested? Do you think the law treats all people equally-civilian and cop, rich and poor, black and white? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you have been watching too much television.
“If you are deaf, dumb, and blind to what is happening in the world, you’re under no obligation to do anything. But if you know what’s happening and you don’t do anything but sit on your ass, then you’re nothing but a punk.” — Assata, page 207
I am a graduate of Skidmore College. I majored in social work. I chose to major in social work because there was little else offered that I could relate to personally and politically. Most courses and majors prepared students ideologically and professionally to manage the affairs of US imperialism. By the time I had to declare a major, I was more interested in plotting and planning how to destroy this system rather then learning how to manage its affairs.
