THE (IN)JUSTICE SYSTEM PODCAST

 

 

THE (IN)JUSTICE PODCAST A two part Podcast

Statistically, the police kill black people seven times more likely than lynch mobs did, they are spreading terrorism. For the communities around the country “protect and serve,” a mission written on the to subjugate and oppress instead. As the Black Panther party strongly demanded in their ten-point program, quote” we want an immediate end to police brutality and the murder of black people” there needs to be a restorative repair in the system that evidently continuously oppresses and subjugates rather than protects and serves and there has to be justice for all of the murders committed by the police, the police can no longer value property over the lives of people.

 

There is a reason why specifically black children are taught how to act in situations of police encounters, that does not result in their unjust murder, and that ends in them becoming part of the high statistic of police brutality rates all over the country.

According to the Washington Post, in the United States, the police have murdered 979 people just this year alone, black people have been 28% of those killed by police in 2020 while they are only 13% of the population. There have only been 14 days in 2020, where the police have not killed someone. Black people are 3x more likely to be killed than white people. In addition, there is no accountability of the killings committed by the police from 2013-2020 and many of these cases have not resulted in the officers being charged with the murders they were responsible for. 

 

On the previous episode of the (In)Justice podcast I spoke with a public defender on the topic of the prison industrial complex, a system of which is commonly overlooked in terms of what is actually happening in these prisons. This episode is about the ones who have enforced that system and continuously oppress the black community to ensure that system is upheld. The prison industrial complex is a mechanism that converts public tax money into profits for private corporations which is an essential element of the capitalistic greed deeply rooted in the country.  The prison industrial complex is slavery redesigned and private prisons resemble that of modern day plantations, The shackles that once binded the enslaved now are replaced by prison bars. Assata Shakur once said in her autobiography that “people get used to anything. the less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.” This episode features the co-founder of “In Solidarity” and she is very active in her community, when asked what brought her on a path of activism, Cheyenne Jones responded with an answer that is holds a lot of truth and strength to it  : “I dont think I knew that I was on a path of activism, per say. I think I just realized that there’s a lot of injustice happening and I felt that from when I was young, and I just, kind of, continued doing what I thought was right.”

These killings are often called modern day lynching because of the fact that all of these killings that were done by the people who are supposed to protect and serve targeted these innocent people solely based on the color of their skin and these killings were clearly driven and fueled by hate and racism. 

When you compare the murder of Emmett Till that of the case of Tamir Rice, there will be similarities that show that the issue has been rooted in the country that has not changed and that the past not just the past, rather, it finds a way to exist in the present.

During the protests that happened following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, police were firing rubber bullets into crowds of peaceful protesters and tear gassing them while escorting dangerous and obvious white supremacist groups who were there with the intent of hurting those who were protesting and I think that names like rubber bullets and tear gas are often misleading and purposely so, they are named that to sound less intimidating than they actually are. The bullets they fired varied from the size of my hand to the size of a football even, the bullets have a metal core and a study published in 2017, states that 3% of people who are shot with them die, these weapons are military grade and are supposed to be used in a way that the bullet is shot at the ground so it can bounce off from the floor and hit the target that the person is intending to hit, to slow down the speed of which and moves and minimize damage, but the police were firing these bullets point blank into crowds of innocents who were protesting police brutality and what do the police do? They brutalize even more people. In addition to that, tear gas is a weapon used in warfare, exposure to too much of it, can result in blindness, respiratory failure and, in severe cases, death. Yet again, they tossed this into crowds and received no accountability for their actions

There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal and if you have a voice and a platform, you should use it. Protest, sign petitions and especially educate yourselves on the issues on hand of the injustices happening to those who are silenced by the media or by the people who kill their loved ones and continue to get away with it because of the immunity and protection that comes with the badges they wear. 

Signing petitions helps but you should take the time to learn about the issue that the petition is centered around and use any platform you have to spread awareness and let that issue be known and heard. For people in the Cambridge area who don’t know how to get information on attending protests or which ones to attend,  recommended organizations are groups such as mass action against police brutality otherwise known as the maapb, the Greater Boston Marxists. and also PSL, otherwise known as party for socialism & liberation. Remember that a wall is just a wall and it can be broken down, there has been a mental barrier placed on many people who have been fed misinformation by media outlets showing lies about protests and protesters. Activism is a response to the pain and heinous damage done to our communities. As well as repression, oppression and injustice that is struck down on our communities too, revolution is in our hands, without justice, there will be no peace.