Political Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal
I don't know if you heard but last week Ramona Africa spoke at Penn State University. She discussed the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a so-called political prisoner. If you're from Philadelphia you're probably familiar with these individuals. Africa was a member of the MOVE organization in Philadelphia, which is against all forms of government, and technology. Abu-Jamal was a radio journalist, a member of the Black Panther Party and of MOVE. He is a convicted cop killer and currently sits on death row.
Thomas Paine wrote, "It is an affront to treat falsehood with complacence." Yet this man has conned people into believing he was framed by the Philadelphia Police Department. Celebrities Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, The Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine lend they're support to Abu-Jamal. Colleges, such as Kent State, gave this murderer the honor of giving a commencement address to the graduating class.
In case you were interested in the facts, which many of his supports are not, here they are. In 1981, Mumia Abu-Jamal shot Officer Daniel Faulkner in the back and again between the eyes, during a routine traffic stop. How do I know this? Five eyewitnesses testified to it. His legally registered gun was found on the scene with five spent shells. The bullet retrieved from the slain officer's brain was traced to Abu-Jamal's gun. Numerous people including anti-death penalty activists sympathetic to his case heard him say, "I shot the mother *censored*er and I hope the mother *censored*er dies."
Do you believe he was framed? If you do I'll tell to another. How about this? In 1997, Pamela Jenkins claimed that witness Cynthia White recanted her entire testimony and outlined a plot to frame Abu-Jamal. Miraculously, this conversation took place four years after Cynthia White died.
To support him you must buy into a conspiracy theory involving hundreds of people from the Philadelphia Police Department, to the city and state legislature. Would you take the side of a convicted killer over men and women who risk their lives day after day to ensure our safety? These people protect us from the scum of the earth and to shoot one of them down is disgusting to me.
The forceful subjugation of a people has been a common stain on history; Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail was written during the cusp of the civil rights movement in the US on finding a good life above oppressive racism. Birmingham “is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known,” and King’s overall goal is to find equality for all people under this brutality (King). King states “I cannot sit idly… and not be concerned about what happens,” when people object to his means to garner attention and focus on his cause; justifying his search for the good life with “a law is just on its face and unjust in its application,” (King). Through King’s peaceful protest, he works to find his definition of good life in equality, where p...
After more than 28 years, amidst the controversy surrounding Mumia's guilty conviction and later receipt of the death penalty, there are those who are not convinced. Many Mumia supporter and some advocating for abolition of the death penalty believe corruption in the Philadelphia Police Department, coupled with a flawed judicial system, backed by racist judges, have lead to a conspiracy to commit murder on the part of the State. Abu-Jamal Mumia, a well known journalist and community activist from Philadelphia has been on death row since 1983 for the shooting death of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. Because of his political views and his former involvement with the Black Panther Party, Mumia has been viewed as a hero by some and a "menace to society" by others. At this point, guilty or not guilty is merely a rhetorical question that may never be answered. Many believe that Mumia is being set up as the “fall guy” for a "hit" ordered on Officer Faulkner by the "Mafia". On the other hand, there are those who believe that him is an insensitive, cold blooded "cop kil...
... his action could actually be really harmful for the society. Gitlow defended him as not guilty merely depends on the part of the context of the First Amendment of Constitution about U.S citizens’ freedom of speech. It is actually make a deliberate misinterpretation out of the context. Gitlow’s claims that he is innocent might because of his less awareness and misunderstanding of the laws. Or, he might believe that the faults of the Constitution would help him escape from the punishment. However, in my point of view, Gitlow fail to consider the primarily goal of the U.S Constitution that is to protect the best profit of its majority.
A man violently opposed to and deeply enraged by the injustice that is at the roots of the Africa...
During the period after the emancipation many African Americans are hoping for a better future with no one as their master but themselves, however, according to the documentary their dream is still crushed since even after liberation, as a result of the bad laws from the federal government their lives were filled with forced labor, torture and brutality, poverty and poor living conditions. All this is shown in film.
From the study, Michelle Alexander’s argument is true and correct that the mass incarcerations are just a representation of Jim Crow. The Jim Crow has just been redesigned as the blacks have continued to be mistreated and denied some of the rights and privileges that their counterparts enjoy. There is discernment against the African Americans towards different privileges which are essential to their lives. This discrimination is political as leaders steer operations that are aimed at racially discriminating people from particular groups of race.
In Malcom’s speech Malcom brings up a riot in New York City caused by police brutality. Malcom justifies the riots of his peers by saying in his speech “but they gave the impression of hoodlum’s vagrants and criminals, but this is wrong. The landlord is white, the merchant is white, and in fact the entire economy of the Black community is white.” Malcolm uses this ideology to justify the rioters breaking windows and causing trouble in their own community because they are not hurting themselves; however they are hurting the white population by destroying the white’s property. Since the time of the New York riots many other riots have occurred based on the same ideology, some of which have occurred within the last few years. In 2014 the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri sparked riots within the town of Ferguson and unrest throughout the nation. In this specific case it was found that the officer did not kill Brown based on race rather out of self-defense, regardless of the findings by the investigation the people of Ferguson continued to riot. In a more recent incident on April 18th 2015 in Baltimore the riots ensued because a man by the name of Freddie Gray was killed by police days earlier. In this instance the investigation found the killing to have been a murder; never the less, riots still ensued in Baltimore for multiple days protesting police
In a perfect world, we would not have racial tensions and we would all sing Kumbaya together, however, we do not live inside a perfect world. Racial injustice that relates to incarceration in the United States, specifically to those who are African-Americans, is a literal fabrication of our imperfect world and details the thinly veiled allegory of our social apartheid. According to author Glenn Loury, this aspect of our nation’s prison system is the most damaging to our African-American community, wherein said group are being racially profiled and “trapped in the dark vestiges of the ghetto” (Loury, 2008, 57). In his ethnography, Race, Incarceration, and American Values, Loury highlights these troubling trends concerning the dehumanization of African-Americans through our current sociopolitical landscape.
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For centuries, educated and talented women were restricted to household and motherhood. It was only after a century of dissatisfaction and turmoil that women got access to freedom and equality. In the early 1960’s, women of diverse backgrounds dedicated tremendous efforts to the political movements of the country, which includes the Civil Rights movement, anti-poverty, Black power and many others (Hayden & King, 1965). The Africa...
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