Miscellaneous

I don’t know what to say about today that has not already been said. Voting is not only your right but a hard won privilege. In March of 1965 I stood on a bridge with future congressman John Lewis along with over a hundred other people preparing to march from Selma Alabama, in the cause of getting a voting rights act that we hoped would stand the test of time. If you have ever seen footage of what happened that day you know that we were people of all ages, and colors I was a …teen. We were charged by troopers on horseback, policeman with shotguns and clubs and driven back..the day became known as “Bloody Sunday”.. many of the people who have been voted into office at this time have conspired to take much of what we fought for away. Many of you have told me on facebook that voting means nothing, many of you have said that the parties are all the same and it makes no difference who we vote for or even if we show up… well, if you pay attention to what has happened with our Supreme Court lately you should be able to see that it makes a big difference who is voting in Congress.. and what if anything they stand for, the people who win today will be setting policy that will effect you your children and your grandchildren. Regardless of how you feel about voting , not showing up today will be letting them down..and if you still don’t believe in voting shut the hell up and let the rest of us take care of business

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With the big push for voter registration not to mention the fact that my grandson’s Mom has been out of town and my grandfatherly duties always come first. I have not had much time to comment on wha…t everybody else seems to be commenting on. Well when I get a chance to watch or listen to the news one thing that bothers me is how many people who are from somewhere else have come running down to Ferguson. Some to show their support for the people some to demonstrate and a disturbing number of people have come in order to agitate. Everything that can go wrong has gone wrong in Ferguson. It has also brought attention to what those of us who live in the city already know too well . Poorly trained police and young or in some cases not so young Black men AND often women don’t interact well and this too often leads to abuse by the police and even death to the Black or Brown person involved. This is not something new. In my own family I have had three relatives all young Black men killed by Police for one reason or another. One cousin, Neville Johnson set off two weeks of rioting in Miami back in the early 80s When he was shot for absolutely no reason by a police officer. This problem is far from being something new…. it’s one of the things that gave rise to the Black Panther Party in 1966 that I became a part of . The original name was Black Panther Party for Self Defense. All Black men live with the possibility of something going wrong just about every time we have to interact with Police. This abuse happens every single day … it’s only the extreme cases or the very visible ones that make the news and from time to time they set off extreme reactions like in Ferguson ..this has been happening throughout the “post slavery” period. Every city in the United States is Ferguson. But what bothers me is that some people have been waiting for a chance to show just how “radical” they are.. or to prove themselves as militants and have flocked to Ferguson just to get a piece of the “action”. They have gotten in the way of the local people from Ferguson trying to talk with and reason with police officials and many times have been the ones who have actually provoked an already nervous and poorly trained police force sparking even more stupid reactions from police. The problem in Ferguson is a NATIONAL problem. A problem that needs to be addressed in every city in the country. From the militarization of police forces to the very poorly trained police officer on the beat. from the way so many already violent and racist individuals gravitate toward the police departments to the stagnant job rate and frustration in the street. There is work to do working on these problems WHERE YOU ARE. And Like the people from the so-called New Black Panthers or the traveling Anarchists and people from the Bob Avakian cult who call themselves Revolutionary Communists … all groups so desperate to get a piece of this riot and civil disobedience action that they have actually become what we used to call in the old days “Agent Provocateurs” need to go back home. If they want to be of use they can organize “cop watch” patrols in the cities where they come from. They should go home and counsel young people on how to safely interact with police…and take their romantic notions of throwing a tear gas canister back at a policeman back home.

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Today marks a first..this morning I have over 20 facebook private messages, from a Jewish American who moved to Israel to live in a settlement ten years ago. “I told you so, as long as they are guided by Hamas the Arabs have no interest in peace” From a musician friend who lives in Jordan and thinks I am pro-Zionist..”You see, you call me an extremist and you can’t see that the Zionist only stopped negotiating for peace because they were getting ready for this” meaning the bombing. Several local and non-local Jewish Americans some of whom have called me an anti-semite say and I para-phrase “Those murderous Palestinians will all pay for their crimes”..many people on both sides telling me “I told you so, and you called me an extremist” One of the hardest things about being an African American in America and having any political opinions beyond say civil rights movement or social conditions in the USA. is enduring the almost knee jerk reaction  programed into a lot of  White people . Sometimes it’s in the tone of voice, sometimes it’s just a facial expression and sometimes I’ve even heard it said out right “how the hell would you know”  On this subject regarding the Palestine/Israel conflict I actually may have more right to speak than many white Americans. In the early 1970s  a group of  Black Panther Party members went to Israel . For the most part this was after a long discussion with the writer Jean Genet who thought that we could be helpful in helping a group in Israel made up of  Mizrahi Jews..a Jewish population made up of  Jews from middle eastern countries. After a visit there by Angela Davis four of us agreed to go..Being Black Americans we noticed right off that these people were usually darker than most Israelis …some were even darker than many of us . We began teaching our usual community control program…something I had used many times in small towns in the South eastern United States.. mostly centering around efforts to get the people  to legally be able to vote and helping create a communal sense by putting together groups of people to help provides services like rides to the markets and child care . After a number of brutal police attacks in March of 1971 the group took the name Black Panthers..and made plans for a major demonstration to unite as many factions of Mizrahi as possible ..This was mostly the brainchild of a man named Saadia Marciano..on May 18th on what became known as the “Night of the Panthers” in Zion Square. About 6 thousand people demonstrated for the rights of the people ..it got real nasty ..real fast.. dozens of people were injured and about 70 Israeli Panthers were jailed…somebody must have talked because the next day all four of the us…Panthers from the USA were arrested. For 18 days I was held far from the city in a place I later found out was the  Ktzi’ot prison ….far from Jerusalem and what I did not know then was I was far from where the Mizrahi Panthers were held..We were beaten with these flexible sticks every day ..and asked, who sent us,? over and over …after about four or five days …I still can’t remember how many ..somehow they decided I was the leader of the American group….I was not… a man I remember only as “Dotan” came in to speak with me..for the next I think three days he and his friend did things I still can’t talk about..I know my grandchildren may read this one day …they don’t  need to know how cruel humans can be. Dotan just knew I was sent by some group in Syria and wanted me to admit that our reason for being there was to paint a bad picture of race relations in Israel. Looking back on it …today ..I don’t think I said anything …but I may have said yes ..just to get them to stop…I don’t claim to be some kind of hero …but I can tell you torture is NOT a way to get to the truth. When I was finally released I found that it was group of people who worked on a Socialist Kibbutz who had looked for us and worked to get us freed …it took about two and a half weeks for me to be well enough to travel back to Jerusalem and then home ..many of those people …the ones still alive are still my friends today..for the White Americans who read this I hope you learn from this that you never can be sure just what a person  knows or can speak with authority on just because of their race..The friends that I made during that time Jewish, Arab and even Christian missionaries in Israel mostly remain friends..and they represent a wide range of opinions …we agree sometime ..and don’t agree sometimes..But  let me say this, I think the horror of the current situation in Palestine/Israel while largely the fault of the current government in Israel who really did fan the flames when those three children went missing ,is just as much the fault of the hawks on the otherside who control the feeble yet still scary arsenal of rockets ..too few to do any substantial damage but just enough to provoke a massive response…..just everyday life in Gaza like in all of Palestine/Israel for Arabs is already a living hell..why provoke the massive retaliation from the IDF??. This should have been the time for both sides to get their extremist factions in check. So to all the people who think they can say “I told you so” on one side or the other …I say I told you so, your extremism is a danger to all …

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