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Shooting at OPD officers’ funeral goes
unreported
By Jean Damu
March 30, 2009
The Oakland Police
Department suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to
the foot when it further racialized the March 28
shootings by rescinding Oakland mayor Ron Dellums’
invitation to speak at the public funeral of the four
officers who were gunned down.
Initial reports
indicated that at least two of the families of the slain
officers requested that Dellums not be allowed to speak
at the March 28 public event. One reason given was that
The Families didn’t want the funeral to become merely a
platform for politicians.
Since the major
media outlets, in their rush to canonize the dead
officers, have been negligent in following up this
story, one is only left to speculate why Dellums was
excluded.
But there are other
concerns as well.
Casual observers of
the Oakland political scene will say that even though
mayor Dellums has led the a fight to get more Oakland
police hired, relations between he and the department
are not good. This is hardly surprising; especially to
those who remember Dellums close relationship with the
Black Panther Party decades ago.
Even so, Dellums
recently was in the forefront of the struggle to have
more police cadets hired and worked closely with wide
sectors of the Oakland law and order support community
until those good citizens realized their property taxes
might go up in order to pay for the increased levels of
police protection. Then much of Dellums’ support for
that measure seemed to evaporate.
Given all the
history and the internal politics that likely exist, the
OPD and The Families had every right to rescind Dellums’
invitation. No problem there.
But here is the
larger issue.
If Dellums is to be
excluded from a public memorial service why not ask
another African American elected official to speak?
Congresswoman Barbara Lee was in attendance. She wasn’t
asked to fill in. State Assembly Member Sandre Swanson
was there. He was not asked. Nor was Keith Carson,
member of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.
Instead, and
despite The Families’ disingenuous protests they didn’t
want the event to become a political platform; four
white politicians, Attorney General Jerry Brown,
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senators Dianne
Feinstein and Barbara Boxer received the blessings of
the OPD and The Families. Nor was a Latino or Asian
elected official asked to participate.
By excluding
elected officials of African American descent, while
including whites only, the OPD and The Families
racialized the shootings in a way in a way the
ultra-left only could have dreamed.
This is not say
African Americans didn’t participate in the memorial,
but all were members and leaders of the OPD.
Is the OPD so
insulated from the communities they attempt to patrol
they think they are representative of those communities?
Are they that out of touch?
Are the major media
outlets so out of touch they think the people who
attended the public memorial represent the masses of
those with whom the police come into contact?
Here is an
instructive story. An on-line journalist from the Bay
Area was attending a major Hip Hop conference in Texas.
When television news stations there broadcast news of
the four OPD members being shot and killed, cheers
erupted.
That tells you all
you need to know about the great racial divide that
exists in this country-a divide apparently unseen by the
OPD, The Families, and white America in general.
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* * *
Notes from the occupied territories
Black America and the police
By Jean Damu
March 24, 2009
When the full story
is finally told, and though not likely freely admitted
by many, deep within the spiritual thinking of numerous
African Americans, an emotional candle will be lit in
the memory of Lovelle Mixon , the man who, in a horrific
shootout in which he was finally killed, shot five
Oakland police officers, four of whom have died. They
will then say to themselves, “But for the grace of God I
could have been he.”
Mixon, whom family
and friends say was not a monster, “he didn’t walk up
and down the street killing people,” was by many
accounts a marginally normal person in African American
neighborhoods. But the truth of the matter is, Lovelle
Mixon, who, police say, is suspected of an earlier
killing and rape, represented the man to whom society
had given almost nothing, the man of whom society
expected nothing. Lovelle Mixon was America’s worst
nightmare—the black man with nothing to lose.
The line between
those of us who have something to lose and those of us
who don’t is tenuous at best. In many cases the line of
separation is almost invisible. Virtually every African
American has a family member or knows someone who has
been to jail or prison, or remains there today. There
are no economic boundaries to this truth. Is there one
African American oriented church located in the black
communities that doesn’t have a ministry that outreaches
to the incarcerated? Likely no.
The day before the
East Oakland shootout this writer was on the phone
talking to a long time friend whose husband had been
released last year from Angola prison after serving 25
years. Louisiana paroled him to California where he
landed a job with a CalTrans program for parolees.
Too bad Mixon, who
had been trying to get a job, wasn’t guided toward that
program. But chances are it wouldn’t have done any good.
Even though African
Americans are just 13 percent of the population, we
currently comprise 50 percent of the US prison
population. Many might say this is because during the
1990’s president Clinton enacted draconian drug laws
that unfairly were weighted against blacks. Although
this situation has always existed, the criminally
lopsided racial disparities of those who are sent to
prison were widely existent as far back as the era of
slavery. In the early 19th Century in several states
that outlawed slavery blacks made up 50 percent of those
who were incarcerated.
What this should
signal to those who are paying attention is that the US
doesn’t have a clue when it comes to creating racial
equality.
Everything that has
resulted from the civil rights movement, up to and
including the limited efforts at affirmative action, in
actuality is little more than window dressing. Many have
benefited but a huge and growing black and Latino
underclass simmers.
Despite the rapid
influx of immigrating cultures in recent decades, the US
mostly still conforms to the example of the apple. At
the apple’s core exists the historic white/black
dichotomy. Around the core revolves the more recently
arrived or peripheral cultures.
It is for this
reason that in America the issue of race is almost
always a significant factor in every significant issue,
from the destruction of the economy to March Madness.
With all due
respect and sympathy to the survivors of the fallen it
has to be noted the deceased officers, all white, lived
in Tracy, Danville, Concord and Castro Valley. The white
officers, who on a daily basis, travel from mostly white
America to patrol black and Latino America is not a
unique situation. Anyone who has seen the film, the
Battle of Algiers, will immediately recognize the
situation for what it is: occupation.
It’s the same in
most US cities. It’s true in San Francisco, Chicago, New
York and most definitely, perhaps especially, given its
unwarranted progressive reputation, Berkeley.
Of course in all
similar situations it’s never just an issue of color-nor
is it just an issue of an occupation force keeping their
booted heels on the necks of the oppressed. Because
within the dialectics of progressive philosophy it’s a
time-honored truism that capitalism tends to turn its
opposites into itself.
Thus it has become
that in a multitude of circumstances blacks often have
become the oppressors of blacks—regardless of whether
they belong to the local police agencies or Crips and
Bloods type criminal organizations. In some cases, as
has been alleged in regards to several elements of the
Oakland Police Department, the line between paramilitary
and criminal agencies has become vague, perhaps even
disappeared.
It is believed in
some quarters that an investigation into the possible
blurring of distinction between some members of the
Oakland Police Department and criminal formations in the
city is what led to the assassination of Oakland
journalist Chauncey Bailey.
All of the media,
all the local and state political classes will come
together to honor the murdered police officers as heroic
defenders of the state. There will be great and
emotional public displays of grief. Bagpipes will be
ubiquitous as California's paramilitary organizations
gather to honor their fallen comrades.
The bagpipes,
played at the funeral of all police and fire department
funerals in the US indicate it is those agencies through
which the Irish were allowed entrance into the US middle
class 200 hundred years ago—a privilege not extended to
African Americans in any numbers until just one
generation ago.
But for those who
experience the daily tactics and attitudes of the
paramilitary occupation forces, distrust and questions
will remain.
The
Oscar Grant
demonstrations, in protest of his New Years Day shooting
by a Bart police officer, should continue.
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* * *
Jean Damu
is an educator, journalist, trade unionist and political
activist. In his capacity as a former member of the
National Committee of the Venceremos Brigade and as a
private citizen he has traveled to Cuba 18 times (and
counting), Africa, Asia and Latin America. He is also a
member of NʼCOBRA (the National Coalition of
Blacks for Reparations in America) and serves on the
steering committee of the Black Alliance for Just
Immigration. He has written on numerous
topics and has a special interest in Africa.
posted 24 March 2009
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* * *
News Update
Oscar Grant’s
killer on trial again for police brutality—23
November, 2011—Former San Francisco BART police officer
Johannes Mehserle is on trial this week, and if his name
and affiliation rings a bell, there is good reason:
Mehserle was found guilty of killing Oscar Grant, an
unarmed transit rider, during a 2009 incident. As luck
would have it, that wasn’t the first time that Mehserle
went a little overboard. Less than two months before he
executed Grant at pointblank range in an Oakland,
California train station, the ex-officer allegedly used
excessive force and violated the constitutional rights
of Kenneth Carrethers at a separate Bay Area Rapid
Transit hub.
 |
Carrethers’ attorneys say that on November
15 2008, their client was angry over the
BART cops’ lack of help in a case of
vandalism that targeted his car. Carrethers
says that he called the police force
“useless,” and from there Mehserle and a
handful of other offices became irate.
According to court filings, Mehserle used a
leg sweep to take Carrethers to the ground,
then punched and kicked him while he was on
the pavement.
The
complaint continues that cops tied up
Carrethers’ arms and legs before hauling him
away. "Well, have you learned not to
mess with police officers?" Mehserle
allegedly asked him. Carrethers was
initially charged with resisting arrest, but
six weeks later a cell phone camera filmed
Mehserle executing Oscar Grant while the
unarmed black man man laid face down in a
BART station. A civil case was filed by
Carrethers a month later, but was put on
hold while Merhselrs waited behind bars
during his trial for the Grant incident. |
A jury went on to
find the ex-officer only guilty of involuntary
manslaughter and mobs rioted the streets of Oakland,
California. Johannes Mehserle only served 11 months for
killing Grant. To RT, a family member of Grant said that
the sentence demonstrated "just how racist this criminal
justice system is." Mehserle, a white man, is once again
being charged with using excessive force on an unarmed
black man. Five officers in all are on trial for the
beating of Carrethers, 43, as well as attacking him for
exercising his freedom of speech. Mehserle is expected
to testify on his own behalf.—rt.com
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* * *
3 Officers Are
Dead After Shootings in Oakland—Tension between
police and the community has escalated since the fatal
shooting of an unarmed 22-year-old, Oscar Grant III, by
a transit police officer on New Year’s Day. Mr. Grant was shot
at close range while lying face down on a train
platform. He was among several people who had been
removed from the train by police officers investigating
a fight. The former Bay Area Rapid Transit officer
accused in the shooting, Johannes Mehserle, has pleaded
not guilty to a murder charge. Violent protests
hit the streets in the weeks after Mr. Grant’s death. On
Jan. 7, more than 100 people were arrested after
protesters marched through the city breaking store
windows and setting cars and trashcans on fire.
Oakland’s black
community and law enforcement have had a tense
relationship for years, including a corruption case
known as the Riders case in which a group of police
officers were accused of abusing and falsely accusing
suspects. Three of the officers were acquitted, but the
case nevertheless damaged the department’s reputation. The Associated
Press reported Saturday that people lingered at the
scene of the traffic-stop shooting. About 20 bystanders
taunted the police.—NYTimes
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* * * *
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The Cold-Blooded
Murder of Oscar Grant—BART cop Tony Pirone, an
ex-Marine, was on the platform and he immediately began
targeting Black and Latino youth—although he had no
description of anyone in the reported “fight.” When four
of Oscar’s friends get off, Pirone let three of them
leave but grabbed one. Then, yelling and cursing, Pirone
banged on the train window and pointed his taser at two
young Black men—Oscar and his friend Michael—and ordered
them off the train.
As soon as Michael and Oscar stepped off the train, they
were hammered. Pirone lunged at Michael, grabbed him by
his dreadlocks, and slammed his head, face
down, on the concrete, leaving a large cut
on the bridge of his nose. Michael’s friends
started to yell, “why are you doing that?”
“What did we do?”
|
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Then Pirone grabbed Oscar and
hustled him to a wall. Soon other cops came and
threatened more youth with their tasers, yelling the “N”
word at the young men, calling them “motherfuckers.”
When three of Oscar’s other friends got off the train
they too were held against the side of the train by
Officer Marysol Domenici who thrust a taser at each one,
tapping one between the eyes with it.
Another video clip, not shown on TV until weeks after
the murder, shows Pirone suddenly stride by Michael, who
was handcuffed and lying on the cement, across the
platform toward Oscar, hitting him hard in the face,
causing his head to snap back.—BlackAgendaReport
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* * * *
Thousands Attend
Oakland Officers' Funeral—All sworn officers and
administrative staff members of the police department
were given time off to attend the funeral, with
personnel from other departments and local sheriff’s
deputies covering their shifts. Police headquarters was
closed until late afternoon, with a line of police cars
from other jurisdictions parked in front. Nearby, a pile
of flowers and handmade tributes covered the sidewalk.
One read, “We Support OPD.”
The service was
held at the arena, home to the Golden State Warriors
basketball team, just two miles from where the four
officers were gunned down by a 26-year-old parolee,
Lovelle Mixon. The police said Mr. Mixon was a prime
suspect in a recent rape. Mr. Mixon was
pulled over by two motorcycle police officers, Sgt. Mark
Dunakin, 40, and Officer John Hege, 41, shortly after 1
p.m. last Saturday while driving through East Oakland,
and soon began shooting. Sergeant Dunakin died at the
scene; Officer Hege died later at a hospital.Mr. Mixon fled,
only to barricade himself in a building, where he
fatally shot two SWAT team members, Sgt. Ervin Romans,
43, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35. A third officer at the
scene was injured. Mr. Mixon, who had a warrant out for
his arrest, was also killed.—NYTimes
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Leading the march down MacArthur Boulevard
near the scene of Saturday’s shootout were
Lovelle Mixon’s mother (in red) and, beside
her, his wife. His brothers and a cousin
were also there. – Photo: Dave Id, Indybay |
Lovelle Mixon’s cousin spoke passionately at
the rally on Wednesday. The photo on the
poster is of Lovelle and his wife. – Photo:
Dave Id, Indybay
|
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* * * *
Kill and be
killed: Police murders in Oakland—It’s time to
recognize the harsh reality. Police are virtually an
occupying military force in Black urban centers. Their
presence will neither eliminate the plague of rampant
crime nor address the underlying disease of extreme
impoverishment.
The historical
record amply demonstrates this fact though there remains
wide disagreement on the reasons. My view is that police
represent the propertied and monied power structure in
this country which both exploits and excludes the
overwhelming majority of our population, particularly
minorities.
The police role,
therefore, is consciously limited to containing and
minimizing inevitable explosions of violence that
periodically burst from the enormous pressures of ghetto
existence. Police neither have the resources nor job
description to resolve the enormous social problems
endemic to these communities.
In that way, police
actions are remarkably similar to U.S. failed military
strategies abroad. Police units are dispatched from
their headquarters’ bunkers on “search and destroy”
missions soon to return to the comfort and safety of the
“Green Zone.”
Enormous resources
are wasted on these failed military strategies, both
abroad and at home. The Oakland police budget, for
example, consumes an incredible 43 percent of the city’s
General Fund. Clearly, despite repeated calls for more
cops, ending violence in the Black Community is not a
matter of devoting more police resources. In fact, as we
shall see from our later examination of Oakland’s sordid
police brutality record, police activity often generates
its own crime wave.
SBayView
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* * * *
 |
Police officer convicted in California
subway shooting— Johannes Mehserle
was found guilty of involuntary
manslaughter. He shot Oscar Grant in the
back in Oakland, California, on 1
January 2009, while attempting to subdue
him following a fight.
Mehserle told the Los Angeles court that
he had mistaken the pistol for an
electric Taser weapon on his belt. . . .
The trial was moved to Los Angeles
because of the tensions in Oakland.
Speaking after the jury's finding,
California Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger called on state residents
"to remain calm in light of the verdict
and not to resort to violence".
Mehserle,
28, faces years in prison.. . . .
Mehserle fled to Nevada following the
shooting and was arrested about two
weeks later.
BBC
|
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* * * *
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The right verdict in
Mehserle case—Involuntary manslaughter might seem an
unsatisfying outcome for the killing of the unarmed Oscar Grant
on Jan. 1, 2009, but it was consistent with the evidence that
could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt against former BART
police Officer Johannes Mehserle. Anything less would have been
an injustice. Anything more would have required conclusions
about Mehserle's state of mind that were not sufficiently
supported in trial. .
. . Mehserle, 28, claimed it was an accident, that he
thought he was firing a Taser instead of a handgun at the
detainee. The explanation stretched the bounds of plausibility,
given the difference in weight, feel - and position on his
holster - between the nonlethal weapon intended to immobilize
and the Sig Sauer P226 pistol that is used to kill. He clearly
was negligent. It was a crime, not an accident.
The other two conviction options
available to the jury—second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter -
would have required the jury to find that Mehserle meant to kill Grant. The
evidence indicated the officer's state of mind was contradictory at best.
His reaction immediately after the shooting suggested disbelief at what he
had done. Yet his explanation of having mistaken his gun for a Taser did not
emerge for several days. In other words, there was reasonable
doubt about his intent, which was the standard the jury needed to overcome,
even if that will not fly in the court of public opinion.
SFGate |
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Africa Makes Some Noise—Documentary on contemporary music from Africa
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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Hopes and Prospects
By Noam Chomsky
In this urgent new book, Noam Chomsky
surveys the dangers and prospects of our
early twenty-first century. Exploring
challenges such as the growing gap
between North and South, American
exceptionalism (including under
President Barack Obama), the fiascos of
Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.-Israeli
assault on Gaza, and the recent
financial bailouts, he also sees hope
for the future and a way to move
forward—in the democratic wave in Latin
America and in the global solidarity
movements that suggest "real progress
toward freedom and justice." Hopes and
Prospects is essential reading for
anyone who is concerned about the
primary challenges still facing the
human race. "This is a classic Chomsky
work: a bonfire of myths and lies,
sophistries and delusions. Noam Chomsky
is an enduring inspiration all over the
world—to millions, I suspect—for the
simple reason that he is a truth-teller
on an epic scale. I salute him." —John
Pilger
In dissecting the rhetoric and logic of
American empire and class domination, at
home and abroad, Chomsky continues a
longstanding and crucial work of
elucidation and activism . . .the
writing remains unswervingly rational
and principled throughout, and lends
bracing impetus to the real alternatives
before us.—Publisher's
Weekly
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* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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