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<h2 class="itemTitle"> Black Struggle Is Not a Sound Bite: Why I
Refused to Meet With President Obama </h2>
<span class="itemDateCreated"> Thursday, 18 February 2016 </span> <span
class="itemAuthor"> By <a
href="http://www.truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/51943">Aislinn
Pulley</a>, <br>
</span>
<div class="itemFullText"><b><small><small><small><small><em><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34889-black-struggle-is-not-a-sound-bite-why-i-refused-to-meet-with-president-obama">http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34889-black-struggle-is-not-a-sound-bite-why-i-refused-to-meet-with-president-obama</a></em></small></small></small></small></b><br>
<p>On February 18, civil rights activists and leaders from around
the country were invited to the White House for what the Obama
administration has called a "first-of-its-kind"
intergenerational meeting to discuss "a range of issues,
including the administration's efforts on criminal justice
reform" and "building trust between law enforcement and the
communities they serve." The event's guest list includes
high-profile civil rights leaders like Al Sharpton, student
organizer DeShaunya Ware and others.</p>
<p>As the cofounder of Black Lives Matter Chicago, I was issued an
invitation to this event, and various news outlets have already
listed me as an attendee. But as a radical, Black organizer,
living and working in a city that is now widely recognized as a
symbol of corruption and police violence, I do not feel that a
handshake with the president is the best way for me to honor
Black History Month or the Black freedom fighters whose labor
laid the groundwork for the historic moment we are living in.</p>
<p>I respectfully declined the invitation to the White House to
discuss criminal legal reform and to celebrate Black History
Month. I was under the impression that a meeting was being
organized to facilitate a genuine exchange on the matters facing
millions of Black and Brown people in the United States.
Instead, what was arranged was basically a photo opportunity and
a 90-second sound bite for the president. I could not, with any
integrity, participate in such a sham that would only serve to
legitimize the false narrative that the government is working to
end police brutality and the institutional racism that fuels it.
For the increasing number of families fighting for justice and
dignity for their kin slain by police, I refuse to give its
perpetrators and enablers political cover by making an
appearance among them.</p>
<p>If the administration is serious about addressing the issues of
Black Lives Matter Chicago - and its sister organizations that
go by different names across this nation - they can start by
meeting the simple demands of families who want transparency,
and who want police that kill Black people unjustly to be fired,
indicted and held accountable. A meeting arranged to carry this
out is one that would be worthy of consideration. Until this
begins to happen on a mass scale, any celebrations of Black
history that go on inside the walls of the White House are
hollow and ceremonial at best.</p>
<p>Dialogue around the issue of the criminal legal system (and the
injustice of this system) is crucial to the struggle against
anti-Blackness. But when we confront issues of policing and
incarceration, we must be very intentional about who is framing
such dialogues, and what agenda that framing serves.</p>
<p>When we talk about criminal "justice" reform, we must first
consider that which we are defining as "criminal." In Chicago,
under Mayor Rahm Emanuel's reign, we must ask why he is not
considered a criminal for closing half of the city's mental
health-care centers. We must ask why he is not considered a
criminal for conducting the largest public school closing in US
history. We must ask why the State's Attorney Anita Alvarez is
not considered a criminal for conspiring to keep hidden for over
400 days the videos of the killings of Laquan McDonald and
Ronald Johnson. We must consider who is criminal and what the
criminal legal system is when Dante Servin - the Chicago police
officer who gunned down Rekia Boyd - can be acquitted of
involuntary manslaughter on the grounds that her murder was an
intentional act, and leave a courtroom with his job intact. We
must consider who is criminal when Emanuel, the Obama
administration's former chief of staff, let the <a
href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32650-when-not-to-listen-to-a-columnist-the-dyett-hunger-strikers-must-be-heard"
target="_blank">Dyett High School hunger strikers</a> starve
for 30 days while fighting to save the only high school in their
South Side neighborhood from closing.</p>
<p>We must consider what is criminal when Chicago State
University, the city's only predominantly Black university, may
close due to the state government's inability to pass a budget.</p>
<p>We must consider what is criminal justice when not one officer,
including former Commander Jon Burge, has been held responsible
for the torture of over 100 Black and Latino men that occurred
for over 30 years in the city of Chicago - a city where torture
continues today in places like <a
href="http://www.truth-out.org/art/item/30792-one-morning-in-homan-square"
target="_blank">Homan Square</a>.</p>
<p>We must ask when and where justice can be found when just
blocks away from Homan Square, Black Panther Chairman Fred
Hampton and Deputy Mark Clark were <a
href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/4/watch_the_assassination_of_fred_hampton"
target="_blank">murdered in cold blood by Chicago police and
the FBI</a> while they were sleeping 40 years ago last
December 4.</p>
<p>We must consider who is criminal when, the day after Christmas,
19-year-old college student Quintonio LeGrier called 911 three
times and was hung up on by the operator before Officer Robert
Rialmo showed up and killed him and his neighbor, Bettie Jones,
a mother of five, from 20 feet away. We must consider who is a
criminal when this same officer <a
href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34808-chicago-cop-s-lawsuit-against-estate-of-slain-teen-might-be-a-first"
target="_blank">files suit against the young man he killed</a>
for emotional distress.</p>
<p>Truly, we must ask, who is the criminal and what is justice and
who is this system for, when George Zimmerman, Darren Wilson,
Jon Burge, Glen Evans, George Hernandez, Dante Servin, Anita
Alvarez and Rahm Emanuel walk free? And we must ask, who then
has been criminalized, who is behind bars and why are they
disproportionately Black and poor?</p>
<p>We must ask <em>what is criminal justice</em> when children,
the elderly, the disabled and everyday working people in the
city of Flint, Michigan, cannot safely drink their water due to
lead contamination which has occurred because the local
government switched the city's water sources in 2014 in order to
allegedly save money.</p>
<p>And finally, we ask, what can criminal justice mean in a
country that houses the most incarcerated people ever recorded
in human history?</p>
<p>In Chicago, opposition to the oppression that perpetuates these
circumstances has happened in the streets, at police board
meetings and in community spaces. While we continue to live in
struggle, battles have been won. In 2015, we became the first
city in the nation to award reparations to police torture
survivors. Our young people have protested and organized
relentlessly. We have a long road ahead, but the gains we have
made have come through laborious organizing and antagonism of
the system.</p>
<p>The Cook County criminal legal system, federal and all county
court and prison systems are corrupt and racist. In order to
make substantive change, Black Lives Matter Chicago demands an
end to cash bail. We demand an end to grand juries. We demand an
investigation of the Cook County state's attorney's office for
extensive cover-ups of police crimes. We demand an end to all
mandatory minimum sentencing. We demand the defunding and
ultimate closing of the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center
and Cook County Jail and all juvenile detention centers. We
demand community control of all police departments with the
creation of an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council
with the power to hire and fire police officers and
superintendents, by civilian representatives voted in by each
neighborhood, with mandated inclusion of survivors of police
violence and torture. We want a redirection of funds saved to
support free health care for all; we want housing for abandoned
youth, the homeless and nearly homeless; we want a federal jobs
program for the unemployed and underemployed; we want a living
wage for all workers; we want fully funded schools and fully
funded crisis centers nationwide.</p>
<p>We demand the immediate closing of Guantánamo Bay and the
return of the confiscated land to the people of Cuba. We demand
the return of all troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. We demand an
immediate end to all money going to Israel while the occupation
of Palestine continues. We demand an immediate withdrawal of all
US troops in Africa under US Africa Command. We demand an end to
the ongoing police violence against Indigenous people and that
this colonized United States be returned to Native peoples. We
demand the immediate halting of the deportation raids of
undocumented people. We demand full reparations for all
descendants of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.</p>
<p>Finally, we assert that true revolutionary and systemic change
will ultimately only be brought forth by ordinary working
people, students and youth - organizing, marching and taking
power from the corrupt elites. No proponent of this system -
Democrat or Republican - will upend the oppressive structures
that maintain it. To hold the powerful accountable for their
harmful and oppressive actions, we must continue to build power
in the streets. We must act in concert and in coalition within
our communities, because together, we have the power to uproot
all oppression and systemic violence.</p>
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Freedom Archives
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San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
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