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The Amadou Diallo Trial
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"Lift every voice and sing…. By any means necessary… I had a dream … and Still I Rise…"
Do these words
mean anything to you? Well, maybe not to everyone, but to some African
Americans they do. Black History month was last month, a month of significance
to a given group's Collective Cultural Consciousness, yes Collective
Cultural Consciousness. But it was not an actual month to celebrate.
Where were our African American leaders when an African male, Amadou
Diallo, was gunned down by the police, in February 1999? Diallo was
shot at forty-one times. He was hit with nineteen of those bullets,
and the police were acquitted? That's right, he was killed, and they
were acquitted during Black History Month. Only a few African Americans
stood up and spoke out against the xenophobic, stereotype, discriminatory
actions of the New York Police Officers involved. Even the judge
put a twist on how the jury was to look at this case--through the eyes
of the police! What about through the eyes of the victim, reaching for
his wallet? I heard a juror say, "Why did he run?" That's
like asking, "Why do poor people live in the ghettoes?" Amadou
Diallo was a stranger, who may have been the victim of cultural clash--more
than once in his life. In 1878, William
Williams, a young African American male, was born in Tennessee. One
day he was going into the field, taking his grandfather his lunch. Young
Williams cut across a white person's yard; this was against the law.
And for that offense, 12 year old Williams was hang. I found this searching
through my family tree. So I should not be surprised at the verdict
in the Diallo case. And speaking of
twelve year olds, an African American child was found guilty of murder,
during Black History Month. This sadden me, because it means that laws
are ready to send children to the penitentiary to get the message to
society. Did I forget to mention Proposition 21? Will you rise? Where are our
wealthy African American athletes, making Nike commercials? Where are
our wealthy African American comedians, musicians, pop kings and soul
queens, actors, and politicians during crises like these? Where are
our well-to-do African American, middle-class? I've heard Reverend
Al Sharpton speak out against this injustice. Regardless, if you agree
with his views or not, at least he stood up. Where are the rest of you
famous, African Americans, still divided by the out-groups and in-groups?
If you have nothing to die for, what do you have to live for? Oh! I know, you
forgot what it is like living in ghettoes. You made yours through Affirmative
Actions, scholarships, a song and a dance. You now have people calling
you Sir and Ms., riding high on your ego. Since Diallo is not happening
to you or your family, it's not your problem. Well, wake up! I've heard Oprah
on national television complaining about her family asking her for money.
Why waste our time? You are so caught up in your own dialog that you've
forgotten where you came from, and who loved you first? Just like 0.J.
Simpson, when the chips were down, he was back to San Francisco and
to African American churches, campaigning for the African Americans
to believe him, yet he is the one with an identity crisis. What is there
to be celebrated when we have African Americans blessed with power and
fame and they are scared to use it? Will You Rise? As a people, yes,
my people that I love so much, who don't even know me. Wake up, your
funerals have been planned for centuries. Change needs to come. Most
of our so-called leaders are afraid to lead. They build churches and
preach old histories, and they haven't got a clue. Get out of your comfort
zones, our people are dying in front of our eyes, have you forgotten
how to March? Harriet Tubman
said, "I helped freed thousands of slaves, and I could of freed
thousands more, had they known they were slaves." A man was shot
at forty-one times. What was the real fear, xenophobia? The system sentences
a child to life in prison, at twelve years old! Is this to say that
African Americans are not worth saving, and that this child, who was
made an example of has the mentality of an adult? Wake Up! Collective Culture
Consciousness is all this happening just to become a memory? If so stay
a sleep. What is going to happen next Black History Month, next year?
Will you rise? I know that old Negro Spiritual: "Free at last,"
just as I know that old Negro conditioning that has been applied, with
the result of some people remaining deaf, dumb and blind. We have Africans
on the continent dying in floods, but here in the United States of America,
we have African Americans dying from false ego's, and a learned lifestyle
of complacency. Listen to your children these days; do you listen to
rap? These children are speaking in a different tone about the things
some of you once stood for and have forgotten. Look at most of
those children's lyrics. They do not have a leader or leadership to
look up to. They put their pain in their music, and you are wondering
why. Why they disrespect females in their lyrics--they haven't seen
an Angela Davis in their era. Why they disrespect their fathers in their
lyrics--because the fathers' voices are not heard. Why they disrespect
the police in their lyrics--because they know what it is like to be
Black, living in the ghetto and harassed by the police, merely because
of the color of their skin. Some people who
have money, power, fame, and position are dead, when they have the power
to make a stand for what is right. Some people are dead, lost in the
illusions that have overcome us. You don't listen to your children voices.
You don't acknowledge the signs of the times. Some of you don't even
vote, but you are quick to celebrate Black History Month with your,
"I remember when..." We are not only being slaughtered and
made examples of during Black History Months, but throughout the year.
The mind isn't
the only thing that is terrible to waste, so is the voice. Will you
rise? [
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