Which way forward for the Black Left? The path leads in the same direction it always has: agitation, organization, and confrontation with Power. Cynthia McKinney chose a Harlem church to announce formation of DIGNITY, to bring the Black body politic back from its current comatose state. “Dignity is attempting to show real change is possible” – if people fight for it. “We want to organize networks so that we can relay information quickly to a large number of people.”
By Editors of Black Agenda Report
Former congresswoman (D-GA) and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney addressed a packed house at St. Mary’s Church, in Harlem, on Sunday, May 31. Also sharing the podium were Glen Ford and Margaret Kimberley, of Black Agenda Report, Nellie Bailey, Harlem Tenants Council, Prof. Anthony Monteiro, of the African American Studies Department, Temple University, and writer/activist Mae Jackson. The event was titled, “Which Way Forward for the Black Left?”
”We agreed to found an action organization and to call it Dignity.”
Thank you all for being here.
On Thursday, General Taguba spoke to journalists and said that the photos currently being withheld by President Obama show rape. On Friday, he went even further and said that he saw video of U.S. soldiers raping and sodomizing detainees. From the first batch of photos that were released, we know that detainees were also murdered. In your name and mine.
But some of us here in the U.S. are not shocked or surprised that this kind of behavior could occur. For those of us who have our eyes open, the gritty streets of America are filled with the experience of unarmed black and brown men being beaten, raped, sodomized, and even murdered by terroristic agents of the state.
We remember the Black Panther Party, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Kwame Touré. We remember George Jackson, Soledad and Attica. We remember the American Indian Movement, the Puerto Rican Independistas, the Chicano Movement, and we remember the FBI. We know about Area A in Chicago and we’ve heard the San Francisco 8 recount for us their experiences of torture at the hands of law enforcement. We’ve heard them tell how 30 years later, the very same people who tortured them showed up on their doorsteps to re-arrest them for crimes they did not commit.
So when General Taguba verifies that torture, rape, and murder were used by U.S. service men and women, we cannot be surprised.
When we see Dick Cheney say that torture worked, we in this audience, are not surprised.
The gritty streets of America are filled with the experience of unarmed black and brown men being beaten, raped, sodomized, and even murdered by terroristic agents of the state.”
When we hear that Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown who allowed the San Francisco 8 prosecution to move forward is rumored to want to be the Governor of California, and expects our votes to win, we are not surprised.
Black Agenda Report for more