---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 13:08:08 -0700
From: radtimes <resist@best.com>
Subject: Meanwhile, Life Outside Goes On
http://personal.mia.bellsouth.net/atl/i/c/icim/TheDISHv4no39.htm
Dot's Information Service Hotline (DISH)
October 5, 2001 [Vol. 4, No. 39]
Meanwhile, Life Outside Goes On
By Ronald M. Jacobs <rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu>
While the US keeps its eyes on the Pentagon's preparations
for war and its nose in the air fearing biological or
chemical attack by unnamed terrorists, the men in blue got
away with another murder. The officer who shot 19-year-old
Timothy Thomas in Cincinnati, Ohio last spring was acquitted
of all charges by a municipal judge on Wednesday, September
26th. While the media feeds us stories of heroes in
Manhattan and GW Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft
try to tear up the Bill of Rights in the name of security,
terrorism against African-Americans by law enforcement
continues its shameful history.
If one recalls, Thomas' murder caused major unrest in
Cincinnati last spring. On a smaller scale, more unrest was
seen in the wake of this verdict. There will be those who
decry violence as inappropriate in the wake of the terrible
bloodshed perpetrated on 9-11 against New York City and the
Pentagon by terrorists assumed to be associates of Osama
bin Laden. While they may have a point, it is important
to recall the terrorism visited on people of color since
America's founding. The legacy of African slavery and
African American second-class citizenship, of which police
murders are but the most obvious manifestations today,
influences all facets of American life.
If there is war and U.S. soldiers find themselves fighting
an unending campaign with deaths higher than those in
Vietnam, one can be certain that a large number of those
dying will be African-American. Unfortunately, those who
come back alive will be subjected to the same type of
policing that killed Timothy Thomas. While African-American
men and women have been told they are fighting for freedom
in every war since the end of the Civil War, it has been
elusive upon their return to peacetime America. Baseball
hero Jackie Robinson served in World War II; he found
himself in trouble because he opposed the racism he found
stateside both on and off the baseball diamond. Black
Panther Geronimo Pratt, a battle-decorated Vietnam veteran,
found the racism and police mistreatment of African-
Americans so distasteful he became a revolutionary who ended
up being framed and imprisoned for 27 years on false charges
of murder. The story of African-Americans used by the US to
fight its wars then find nothing changes once the uniform
is off is an all too familiar tale.
There were those against the Vietnam War who tried to link
the war and racism at home. Some even made the claim that
the two wars were the same. This conclusion requires no real
extension of the imagination. Indeed, the attacks on New
York and the Pentagon have brought out some of the worst
racism against Asian and Middle Eastern people. The growing
peace movement has been careful to address this in its
slogans and literature, calling for an end to discrimination
against Arab-Americans and Muslims. It would do well to
include in its struggle a call to end the seemingly never-
ending war against African-Americans, who, despite the
systemic and individual racism they face every day, grieve
as deeply as all other U.S. citizens for the innocents
killed on September 11, 2001, and who will most likely die
in numbers greater than their proportionate ratio of the
U.S. population should the Bush war on terrorism proceed.
-- Ron Jacobs lives in Vermont. He is a father, works at a library and is against war and racism. Jacobs is the author of The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground.Copyright (c) 2001 Ronald M. Jacobs. All Rights Reserved.
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