Black Lives Matter

Black lives matter, or so the slogan goes. To who does these lives matter is the real question. Tell this to the black mother who teaches her son to be careful of strangers, polite and respectful to his elders. He pays strict attention to his mother and plays in the playground, where he feels safe. He runs back and forth playing with his friend, his little amerikkkan baseball cap and his two dollar plastic water gun, only to be shot down in a hail of 9mm bullets by men who spend their days training at a gun range qualifying to achieve only the highest marksmen scores.

Black lives matter, or so the slogan goes. Just attempt to explain that to the Black mother whose son’s bullet riddled body lies in the street on display for four hours, for other Black men to witness and be a reminder of what is in store for them if they dare think about talking back to a police officer. Yet after the gun smoke has cleared and the law deems this an appropriate action, against a creditable threat, there are those who still are foolish enough to think about having a sit down and dialog the matter of why Black lives don’t matter to them.

The so-called Black leaders are only leading us to the devil for slaughter. Black leaders jump on a plane and travel halfway across the globe in an attempt to diplomatically broker a cease fire in a foreign country, yet they are missing in action when it comes to driving into the next county to stand up to the racist cop who proudly stated that he hates niggas.

Black lives matter, or so the slogan goes. Yet if a gay couple gets stared at sideways, the whole country is up in arms and the very best lawyer that money could buy defends them, free of charge, to prove that this great country has stepped into a brand new day. While little Jamal’s mother is given some background public defender who claims that the world will listen to us and we will make a difference.

When will they learn that the only way these Black lives will matter is when they tell the world that talking and dialogs only ends up with dead children. The time is done for talking, let’s give them the only thing that they understand, the only thing they respect. When a rabid animal approaches you it’s not interested in talking or being rational, it deserves to be put down, or the infectious disease that it suffers from will only spread wider and stronger until it consumes an area that can no longer be contained. When will we wake up and stop being lead, and take the lead, before there are no more Black lives to matter.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We echo this writer’s call for organizing against the entire system that uses police brutality as just one tool in an arsenal of national oppression and social control. Dialogues with those who have the guns and power will not convince them to just give that up. We can only make serious and lasting change by force. This is why MIM(Prisons) is a revolutionary communist organization: we have learned from history that only a revolution, led by the proletariat and so fought in the interests of the oppressed and exploited, will put an end to the brutality and suffering under capitalism. Police brutality is just one aspect of this suffering.

This writer draws a contrast between the fight against gender oppression (against gays) and the fights against national oppression, noting that there is institutional money and support to fight the former while there is institutional support to maintain the latter. Overall we agree that within U.$. borders the majority actually enjoy gender privilege. But we should not ignore the hate crimes against the queer community. Many of these attacks target oppressed nations. Being New Afrikan and gay or transgender is even more dangerous than just being New Afrikan. In 2012, for instance, 50% of LGBTQ homicide victims were New Afrikan, 19.2% were Latin@ and only 11.5% were white.(1) And we should never pit the gender oppressed against the national oppressed. All oppressed people are allies in the fight against imperialism.