On the NYPD's 5 millionth "stop and frisk"
March 21, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
A Question:
If any country on earth—pick one—had its armed enforcers swarm on people simply walking down the street, stop them, search them, often threaten, insult, and humiliate them…
And if the rulers of this country persisted in this policy, even though stopping people and searching them without any probable cause, and without any indication they are breaking a law, blatantly violated its own constitution…
And if the ruling powers of this country had their police do this, despite the fact that 90 percent of the time, even under their own repressive laws, the victims of this "stop and frisk" policy violated no law…
And if the people singled out to be stopped, humiliated, threatened and sometimes worse—brutalized and killed—were nationalities who had historically been viciously exploited by the rulers of this country—even been literally enslaved for over 200 years…
And if victims of stop-and-frisk were stigmatized, criminalized, and set on track to end up in prison…
And if the rulers of this particular country did this 5 MILLION TIMES IN A SINGLE CITY…
You would say: That is an illegitimate regime, one with no right to rule.
So… what does that tell you about the rulers of the USA?
It is up to us: to wake up…to shake off the ways they put on us, the ways they have us thinking so they can keep us down and trapped in the same old rat-race…to rise up, as conscious Emancipators of Humanity. The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people, here and all over the world…when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness…those days must be GONE. And they CAN be.
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