MALCOLM’S WORDS 59 YEARS AGO STILL RING TRUE TODAY

BY AJ WOODSON

…all of these inhuman atrocities have been inflicted upon us by the American governmental authorities, the police themselves, for no reason other than that we seek the recognition and respect granted other human beings in America. The American Government is either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property of your 22 million African-American brothers and sisters. We stand defenseless, at the mercy of American racists who murder us at will for no reason other than we are black and of African descent… We have lived for over three hundred years in that American den of racist wolves in constant fear of losing life and limb. Recently, three students from Kenya were mistaken for American Negroes and were brutally beaten by the New York police. Shortly after that two diplomats from Uganda were also beaten by the New York City police, who mistook them for American Negroes.

If Africans are brutally beaten while only visiting in America, imagine the physical and psychological suffering received by your brothers and sisters who have lived there for over three hundred years. – Malcolm X speaking at Organization of African Unity meeting in Cairo, Egypt July 17, 1964

I remember reading an article in The Amsterdam News, I believe in the beginning of August 2014 about the 50th anniversary of a speech Malcolm X delivered in July 1964 and could not help but to think just how much his words still ring true today, with all the recent acts of police criminality and Public Executions. The killing of Black People at the hands of law enforcement is still as American as Apple Pie. I sat for a minute and jotted the following words;

Some of you may be reading this may be saying to yourself, we have come a long way baby, my president is black. Ok so we are not marching for the right to vote or to sit where we want on a public bus, but two months ago Mount Vernon residents, clergy and civil leaders marched for the city to maintain and restore a public park.

The police are not blasting us with water hoses and releasing their dogs to tear us apart with their teeth anymore. That’s been replaced with death by the chokehold (Eric Garner), and illegal killing of blacks in their homes by the police (Kenneth Chamberlain and Ramarley Graham). The shooting of unarmed black males like Mike Brown in Ferguson and Travon Martin, to name just a few. These are just some of the recent crimes our people have suffered at the hands of the police. Jim Crow has been replaced with the ‘broken windows policy’ and the notorious and unconstitutional stop and frisk campaign. The commonality in the two troubled times in the urban, low income communities are the blatant acts of police criminality committed upon us by the very police officers hired to protect and serve us. You ever find yourself wondering, who will protect us from police.

The very words spoken by our slain leader, Malcolm X; “We stand defenseless, at the mercy of American racists who murder us at will for no reason other than we are black and of African descent…” could not be more appropriate for ‘we the people who are darker than blue’ as brother Curtis Mayfield put it.

While I too wanted to write and celebrate the 50th anniversary of brother Malcolm’s speech, but I’m was left with the daunting task and talking about how we are still defenseless against those in blue who terrorize our community with no malice or fear of being punished, even when caught in video tape.

Back in the Rodney King incident, 20-plus-years-ago, those officers didn’t know their crimes were being caught on tape. In the Eric Garner incident, knowingly being recorded wasn’t enough to prevent the NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo from choking the life out of and killing another brother. So, tell me just how much has really changed since Malcolm uttered those words 59 years ago?

On July 17, 1964 Malcolm X, acting in his capacity as “observer”, distributed this memorandum to delegates of the Organization of African Unity meeting in Cairo, Egypt. A clear indication of his growing “internationalism”, it represents his most powerful formulation about the struggle being over “human rights” rather than “civil rights” also it represents Malcolm’s awareness of the fact that we needed an international voice. I believe if Malcolm had lived longer, we would have membership in the African Union today.

I share that portion of Brother Malcolm’s speech to show police brutality and the killing on Africans in American is not a new phenomenon. Our community have been dealing with this since we were first brought to this country against our will. As a people we are told to or expected to just get over it. Move on like it never happened. From slavery to Jim Crow we are told to forgive but have never seen anything in the form of an apology. There are those who would even acknowledge it ever happened like a repeating painful figment of our imagination.

You cannot treat a group of people a certain way and never expect them to get up and stand up for their rights. This book is meant to give those who have no concept of what we feel, what we’ve been through and why we feel the way we feel an inside look to our pain and frustration, which spills out into our protest or music and they way we see things today.

Dr. Martin Luther King gave a speech titled, The Other America four years later, March 10, 1968 in New York City. Fifty-two years later and especially with the current occupier of the White House, Donald Trump, we are still living in two Americas. My goal in this book is to give a glimpse into the Other America they do not teach you about in school. Until we learn each other’s history there will always disrespect for each other. In this book I hope to create that conversation with is essential to combat racism. But this book is also for us because many of us do not truly know our history. Many have fallen for the illusion of inclusion, that because they live in a good neighborhood and have a good job and their children go to good school racism does not exist. They two, even being African-American cannot comprehend the deadly consequences of being black until they get that wake-up call and it hits their front door. Until they are racial profiled in their nice neighborhood, where at the time the pedigree and degrees are not seen, only the color of their skin. Until then they too look down at Black people from the hood through the same lenses as white people. No amount of money can spare you. Even actor Ving Rhames who had just started in the Mission Impossible movies had the police called on him by a neighbor while he was in his own backyard in July 2018. The officers did not see an actor, just another black man who did not belong in that neighborhood. Ving Rhames shared a racial profiling experience that falls in the category of “relaxing at home while black.” The 59-year-old actor was asked about dealing with racism during an interview with Sirius XM’s Clay Cane show on Friday (July 27) where he revealed that police held him at gunpoint after a neighbor called 911 to accuse him of breaking into his own home. Rhames said that the police encounter took place at his house in Santa Monica, Calif. sometime this year. The Mission: Impossible – Fallout star was kicking back in his boxers one afternoon when he heard commotion around the house.

Rhames assumed that the noise came from his puppies running around the backyard, until he heard a knock on the door. “I opened the door [and] it’s a red dot pointed on my face from a 9 mm,” he recalled of the cops storming the house. Throughout the ordeal, Rhames said that he remained compliant and kept his hands in the air. Luckily, one of the officers recognized him because their sons played sports against each other in school.

“My hands are up and they have me outside,” said Rhames. “It was a police officer with a 9 mm pointed at me, one officer behind him and two…to the left of me was the captain of police [department], and another officer with a police dog. I get out and [one of the officers] recognized me.”

After a little investigating, Rhames found out that his neighbor called 911 to report a “large black man” breaking into the house. Not surprisingly, the neighbor denied calling cops when confronted by Rhames and the officers. Recently we reported a story in Black Westchester where Grammy Award Winning recording artist Jeff Redd accused the Mount Vernon Police Department of racial profiling him while sitting in a car smoking a cigar and talking to his fiancée across the street from his house. It was the black officer who threatened to drag him out of his car through the window if he did not produce his drivers license in a timely matter.

Had Ving Rhames not been recognized by one of the officers, or he or Jeff Redd responded in frustration - as would have been understandable - either of them or both for that matter could have suffered the deadly consequences of being black. This is just a reality in the world we live in. This is something white folks do not truly understand because they do not have to deal with this. So, it’s understandable that they cannot comprehend the ramifications of being black in America.

But what about the everyday folks who are not Grammy Award winning singers or actors in blockbuster movies. One of the first stories I wrote for Black Westchester was about four African-American parole officers who were held at gunpoint for 45 minutes by white police officers in Ramapo, New York. They were wearing bulletproof vest with the words NYS Parole on them, with their badges hanging from chains around their neck, and they were treated like common criminals. Of course, none of the officers were disciplined or suspended so the four parole officers were hold a press conference to announce their lawsuit against the police department.

My partner Damon K. Jones who is the publisher and co-founded or Black Westchester and a correction officers with 30 years on the job who is the president of Black In law Enforcement of America spoke at the press conference. I videotaped the presser and then wrote an editorial basically asking the question, if four black parole officers in uniform are not safe what chance does an average brother like me have on the streets.

Black Westchester was born and we vowed to help change the narrative or how we are portrayed by the media.

Dr. King said in that speech in March of 1968; I want to deal with all of this by using as my subject tonight “The Other America.”

And I use this subject because there are literally two Americas. One America is flowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of equality. That America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies, culture and education for their minds, freedom and human dignity for their spirits. That America is made up of millions of young people who grow up in the sunlight of opportunity.

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