Dec. 15, 2012

Power to the People Everywhere

by Khalfani-Malik Khaldun (author's profile)

Transcription

"POWER TO THE PEOPLE EVERYWHERE"
(A Political Message on International Human Rights Day)

Against all odds, New Afrikan and poor oppressed people everywhere in America and abroad, by the sure realities of their life experiences of oppression, have forged a solidarity and unity based on their understanding that collectively together once organized, poor people have the power to change their lives. The Human Rights Movement revolution that swept around this country and nation, became the political weapon needed to confront white supremacy and governmental domination.

There is no system more corrupt than a system that represents itself as the example of freedom, the example of democracy, and can go all over the earth telling other people how to straighten out their house, and you have citizens of this country who may have to use self-defense if they want to cast a ballot. The greatest weapon the colonial powers have used in the past against the oppressed masses has always been divide and conquer.

The oppressed all have the same goals, the same objectives, the objective of obtaining freedom, justice and equality, we are fighting for the right to live as a free human being in this society. We are fighting for the rights that are even greater than civil rights and that is Human Rights. As an oppressed community, we must have Human Rights before we can secure civil rights. We must be respected as humans before we can be recognized as deserving citizens:

"What to the American Slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, celebration is a sham, your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity, your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour." FREDERICK DOUGLASS - Rochester, New York (July 5, 1852)

Frederick Douglass was one of the bold captains of social protest and a towering leader of the African American Protest Movement. Even today Douglass' passionate and eloquent protest rhetoric has a startling relevance. It captures the collective critique, defiance, and aspirations of millions of African Americans, and oppressed people of color, who have experienced historical oppression and racial discrimination.

The Human Rights Movement evolved out of a series of deliberate multifaceted activities of oppressed groups that are directed specifically toward altering or destroying the system of domination that produces and manages the system of social inequality being imposed on the oppressed masses. The Abolitionist Movement, Protest Movements, Human & Civil Rights Movements, gave birth to groups such as the Black Panthers, Brown Panthers, Native American Independence Movement, Latin Independence Movement. These groups and movements raised the national & revolutionary consciousness of a lot of people. The primary objective was empowerment, and initiating social change.

Like the white abolitionists who helped Harriet Tubman during the "Underground Railroad" hiding runaway slaves were friends of the people. Today, we have a lot of young white revolutionaries who are sincere in attempting to embrace and assist our struggle, making a reality out of the high moral standard that their parents only expressed, in looking for new leadership, the young white revolutionaries have found these leaders in the African American community, and throughout the world.

As we know repression breeds resistance, political consciousness moved from the outside, as revolutionaries experienced imprisonment. They would ultimately impact revolutionary consciousness throughout the prison plantation system nationally.

Organizations such as The Innocence Project, led by attorney Barry Scheck, motivated by Human Rights, have helped to free or exonerate hundreds of convicts through DNA testing and investigative research. Human Rights organizations influenced Governor George Ryan (who is no longer Governor), to release many prisoners from Illinois Death Row, that amounted to a windfall of other releases. George Ryan placed a moratorium on, shutting it down. In 1997, Human Rights Watch released a scathing report called: "COLD STORAGE: Super Maximum Security Confinement in Indiana". It details "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment" experienced by men in 2 of Indiana's prisons. Westville Correctional Unit (WCU) and the Special Confinement Unit (SCU). Go to hrw.org and find the report "Cold Storage".

The Cointelpro (Counter-intelligence Program), brainchild of J. Edgar Hoover, had a severe impact on the movements for Human & Civil Rights, through age-old infiltration tactics, slowly these organizations would experience members going to prison, being murdered by the police, or being manipulated by infiltration. Many became victims of the divide and conquer method. We must rebuild our Human Rights Movement, agitate, educate, and organize.

Anyone looking to respond to this blog may do so by writing to me directly at my address below.

Salutations to you on Human Rights Day! (Monday, December 10, 2012)

(FREEDOM, JUSTICE and EQUALITY)

Bro. Khalfani Malik Khaldun, 874304,
(Leonard McQuay) GCH/17-2C,
Pendleton Correctional Facility,
4490 W. Reformatory Road,
Pendleton, IN. 46064

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