Sisters and Brothers,
Sitting in the court in Queens listening to the prosecution and the judge talk about this trial isn’t about Stop & Frisk but about whether Jamel, Morgan, Bob and I ‘broke the law,’ took me back to the 1960’s and the struggle to end Jim Crow segregation. Whites only facilities, Black people having to ride on the back of the bus or sit in the balcony in movie theaters and the lynch mob terror the enforced all this. That’s the legacy our campaign to Stop “Stop & Frisk” stands on the shoulders of, and those prosecutors are the current day version of those who put 1960’s freedom fighters in jail, and worse.
We’re one week into this trial. The trial is recessed till Monday,(now probably Thursday 11/1) and we have a chance to make the fact that 4 people who protested that racist, immoral policy are facing time in prison a major story in NYC and beyond. On Monday, the prosecution will put on its major witness and show the video of the protest at the 103rd precinct. The next day, a couple of the defendants will testify. In strategizing over these next few days, we should remember the impact our protests had last year. Think about the youth who faced being harassed, disrespected and worse by police every day, who drew hope and inspiration from what we did. The people who didn’t face being stopped and frisked themselves, but who were horrified to learn that people faced this treatment because of the color of their skin and felt it was wrong. We need to figure out how to tap into all this.
Bloomberg and Kelly are doubling down on Stop & Frisk, defending it in the face of continuing exposure, mounting resistance and disagreements among the powers thqat be over whether and how to continue that policy, with elected officials and the NY Times expressing concern that the controversy over this policy is feeding broader discontent in society. We need to reach out to the people who are disgusted by Stop & Frisk with a simple message. “If you don’t like Stop & Frisk, then you need to have the backs of the people who stood up against it and are facing time in jail for that righteous stand.”
How do we do that? One way would be for some of us to come out to the next day of the trial when a press conference and rally is planned, and for all of us to reach out to our networks and encourage everyone we can reach to come out in support of these defendants. We all have various platforms we could use in doing that. Some of us could get this story into various media. (Jamel and I are available for interviews if you’d like to have a defendant involved in the story, altho’ it’d be fine for you all to be the person interviewed.) There are different audiences we all could speak to about the trial. There are other ways we could generate support for this trial. We should use all of the platforms available to us to the max.
Here are crucial things people could do to manifest their support:
Carl Dix
[email protected]
Sitting in the court in Queens listening to the prosecution and the judge talk about this trial isn’t about Stop & Frisk but about whether Jamel, Morgan, Bob and I ‘broke the law,’ took me back to the 1960’s and the struggle to end Jim Crow segregation. Whites only facilities, Black people having to ride on the back of the bus or sit in the balcony in movie theaters and the lynch mob terror the enforced all this. That’s the legacy our campaign to Stop “Stop & Frisk” stands on the shoulders of, and those prosecutors are the current day version of those who put 1960’s freedom fighters in jail, and worse.
We’re one week into this trial. The trial is recessed till Monday,(now probably Thursday 11/1) and we have a chance to make the fact that 4 people who protested that racist, immoral policy are facing time in prison a major story in NYC and beyond. On Monday, the prosecution will put on its major witness and show the video of the protest at the 103rd precinct. The next day, a couple of the defendants will testify. In strategizing over these next few days, we should remember the impact our protests had last year. Think about the youth who faced being harassed, disrespected and worse by police every day, who drew hope and inspiration from what we did. The people who didn’t face being stopped and frisked themselves, but who were horrified to learn that people faced this treatment because of the color of their skin and felt it was wrong. We need to figure out how to tap into all this.
Bloomberg and Kelly are doubling down on Stop & Frisk, defending it in the face of continuing exposure, mounting resistance and disagreements among the powers thqat be over whether and how to continue that policy, with elected officials and the NY Times expressing concern that the controversy over this policy is feeding broader discontent in society. We need to reach out to the people who are disgusted by Stop & Frisk with a simple message. “If you don’t like Stop & Frisk, then you need to have the backs of the people who stood up against it and are facing time in jail for that righteous stand.”
How do we do that? One way would be for some of us to come out to the next day of the trial when a press conference and rally is planned, and for all of us to reach out to our networks and encourage everyone we can reach to come out in support of these defendants. We all have various platforms we could use in doing that. Some of us could get this story into various media. (Jamel and I are available for interviews if you’d like to have a defendant involved in the story, altho’ it’d be fine for you all to be the person interviewed.) There are different audiences we all could speak to about the trial. There are other ways we could generate support for this trial. We should use all of the platforms available to us to the max.
Here are crucial things people could do to manifest their support:
- Come out to the trial (whenever the court opens - see stopmassincarceration.org for updates)
- Add your name to the resolution calling for dropping the charges. www.stopmassincarceration.org/resolution.html;
- Get the story of this trial into the media;
- Spread the word on it via e mail, twitter, Facebook, etc;
- Contribute money and support the fundraiser on Oct 30th to help meet the mounting expenses of fighting this important legal battle.
Carl Dix
[email protected]
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