JUSTICE FOR KIMANI "KIKI" GRAY! REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!
By Carl Dix | March 22, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Carl Dix at the Kimani Gray Protest, March 24, 2013
On March 9 in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, 2 undercover cops ran up on 16-year-old Kimani (Kiki) Gray and pumped 7 bullets into him, 3 into the back of his body. The authorities quickly called this “justifiable homicide,” spreading the police story that Kimani had a gun. Witnesses say there was no gun and that the NYPD, the same department that killed Shantel Davis, Tamar Robinson, Reynaldo Cuevas and Ramarley Graham in the past 13 months, had just murdered another young Black man.
In the days that followed, riot police swarmed the area, brutalizing people who gathered at vigils or tried to march in protest on the sidewalk. Dozens of people were arrested in this suppression of the right to protest this murder. Kimani’s parents applied for a permit to hold a protest march, supposedly a right guaranteed to all the people, and the police denied it! This is outrage piled upon outrage. The police state is in full effect—their cops can gun down your child and then refuse to allow you to protest what they did.
How long must we bury our children who were murdered by the cops? Everybody who has an ounce of justice and hatred for what the powers-that-be do to the people needs to be out there standing with people in East Flatbush who have police in their faces all the damn time. They were right to rebel. If they hadn’t stood up and said NO MORE to the murder of Kimani; the authorities would have gotten away with sweeping it under the rug. This is a fight for justice, and you need to come out and support it. NO MORE! You need to be out there Saturday morning, March 23, at his funeral. You need to come back on Sunday at 3 pm to the rally and march demanding JUSTICE FOR KIMANI, JAIL THE KILLER COPS and DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST ALL THOSE ARRESTED IN THE PROTESTS! If we don’t do this, we’ll be leaving those who experience and see their relatives and friends experience this brutality day-to-day to face all that the system brings down on them by themselves. But more, the fight for justice for Kimani is a struggle no one should stand aside from…joining this struggle is not only about justice for Kimani, but it is also about whether we will accept and tolerate oppression and brutality of vast numbers of people in this society or whether we will fight for another future.
Now some people who express “concern” for the situation in East Flatbush, people like Jumaane Williams and Reverend Monrose, have condemned “outsiders” who came in and riled up the youth. Let’s be REAL—what has riled up the youth are the actions of the police, when they murdered Kimani and then attacked the people as they gathered at the vigils and marched on the sidewalk. There are only two sides in this struggle—either you stand with the people against the repression they face or, whatever your intentions, you’re siding with those who carry out this repression. There are no outsiders in the struggle against oppression and injustice. But if you're trying to shut down or channel the struggle in ways that don't actually challenge the system that's responsible, you're on the wrong side.
We should live in a society and a world where those entrusted with public safety would sooner risk their own lives than injure or kill an innocent person. It’ll take Revolution—Nothing Less! to bring this kind of world into being and not only end police brutality and police murder but bring an end to all the other horrors enforced on people around the world. As just one example, this week marks the 10th anniversary of the war in Iraq, which has not only killed many thousands of people but brought suffering to hundreds of thousands, actually millions, more—and this is just one manifestation of what this system brings down on the people of the world. Kimani’s murder is another outrage in a seemingly never-ending chain of unspeakable brutality and oppression brought down on Black people since the 1st African was dragged to these shores in slave chains. This brutality is built into the very fabric of U.S. society, and it points to the need for revolution! Anyone who sees all the horrors this system enforces here and around the world and wonders what, if anything, could be done about this madness, needs to check out the film BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! It deals with the real possibility of ending the degradation and injustice of today’s world. (For info on this film, go to www.revcom.us)
The days when this system and its enforcers can do whatever they want to people, when people are not inspired and organized to stand up and resist their attacks and build up the strength to end them once and for all; those days must be ended, and they can be!
Saturday, March 23, 9:45 AM
Come out to the funeral service for Kimani at St Catherine of Genoa Church, 520 Linden Blvd.
Sunday, March 24, 3 PM
Rally and March called by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network (SMIN)—Gather at Church Ave and 55th Street (take #4 to Utica, then B46 bus to Church Avenue).
Carl Dix can be reached at (917) 868-6007 or via e mail at carldix@hotmail.com for interviews and commentary.
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