On the Police Murder of Kimani "Kiki" Gray:
This Is Genocide!
by Sunsara Taylor | March 21, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The police murder of Kimani "Kiki" Gray is not a random tragedy or an isolated incident.
It is the latest killing in what can only be described as a systematic genocide taking place against Black people that grinds on day after day across the entire country. This genocide takes place through the epidemic of police brutality and murder; through the penning of Black people in huge numbers into ghettos, with the worst housing, education, healthcare and almost no decent jobs; through mass incarceration at the highest rate of anywhere on the planet.
Think what it means that every Black mother has to fear for the life of her sons at the hands of the police.
Think what it means that "DWB" (Driving While Black) is a near guarantee of being pulled over by the police, and that even the most accomplished Black people still cannot escape criminalization and worse.
Think what it means that there are more Black men in prison today than there were Black men enslaved on the eve of the Civil War.
If all this were happening to any other people, or in any other part of the world, who could have trouble seeing this for what it is: a slow but systematic and steadily advancing genocide?
And who could excuse those who sat by and did nothing?
Even worse are those who use their public platforms to condemn the targets of this genocide, and the people who have stood with them, for expressing their righteous anger against all this.
It is essential that all those with a shred of humanity and conscience stand up against this latest outrage. This means being at Kimani's funeral on Saturday, March 23; at the protest called by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network on Sunday the 24th; and at future actions.
This also means confronting soberly the full scope of the horror this case concentrates and brings to life. The oppression of Black people—beginning in slavery, continuing with nearly 100 years of KKK lynch-mob terror, and currently manifest through the slow genocide of mass incarceration and police murder—is built into the foundations of this system.
A good place to start is with "The police, Black youth and what kind of a system is this?" a section from Revolution: Why It's Necessary, Why It's Possible, What It's All About, a major speech given by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Revolution is not an "outside agenda." Revolution is the ONLY SOLUTION to this system that day after day is stealing and crushing the lives of our youth. This revolution must be urgently fought for and taken up right now, both by those who bear the brunt of this genocide as well as by others who refuse to accept all this as "just the way things are."
***
Find the Revolution Club at Kimani Gray's funeral on Saturday, March 23 and then on Sunday the 24th at 3 pm at Church Ave and 55th Street (off the #4 to Utica, then B46 bus to Church Avenue).
If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.