3 dead + 1 who might not make it
4 young brothers shot today up the block
and the police come and 'secure' the area
does that make me feel safe?!
HELL NAW
4 YOUNG brothers shot today up the block
STOP "giving" us fucking police 'protection'
STOP "giving" us survelliance cameras
WE DEMAND food
WE DEMAND habitable shelter
WE DEMAND a decent education that prepares our YOUNG people to confront this bullshit called america
WE DEMAND columbia to stop spreading out into Harlem
WE DEMAND a halt in prison construction
WE DEMAND an end to police harassment and police brutality
WE DEMAND that our lives be worth more than some shit
WE DEMAND FREEDOM
4 YOUNG BROTHERS, SONS, NEPHEWS, FRIENDS BABIES, PEOPLE SHOT TODAY UP THE BLOCK, TRYING TO ROB A STORE
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31 comments:
It's moments like these, that reaffirm feelings of indignation. And at the same time moments in which theory and reflection becomes more than that, and begins to challenge our lack of action. The state of our people, requires for the people to engage in praxis, a balanced action and reflection in order for us to transform the world.
Our jobs as folks consciously aware of the burden our children must carry...is to create opportunities in which youth can reguide their resistance , into a type of resistance that demands justice. but that can only occur when our children are loved unconditionally.
[And i continue to rant...]
4 Young Brothers should have gotten a job. Instead of thinking they were going to get an easy score for big cash off an old man. Live by the gun, die by the gun...scumbags!
Joe America you must be the dumbest motherfucker to ever hit up this blog. Get a job where? When NYC is shedding jobs for Black and Brown folks at 4TIMES the rate it is for white workers. The city has an unemployment rate of 10percent over all, God knows the rate for Black and Brown communities and I'm sure it's probably approaching 40 percent for Black and Brown youth. If live by the gun die by the gun is the rule, then America, the hell that you seemingly proclaim as some wonderful land of opportunity, is in for a bloody demise. This country was built on theft, slavery, dispossession, oppression and sheer violence,all down the barrel of your proverbial gun. I'm not saying that it was good that they get the old man instead of him getting them... these young folks must clearly have been desperate to even attempt such a robbery in broad daylight... our realities as young people of color without economic resources are constrained and repressed by capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and all this shit you call america and that i call hell. so you scumbag take your dumb ass comments elsewhere and remember that your logic will some day apply to this raggedy fucked up country
Couple of notes - 1) if they robbed a store and were armed - being dead is a result of their dumb idea to participate in illegal activities 2) I dont give a crap what they are... brown, white, black, yellow.. get a job or goverment help like so many others are doing 3) if you hate America so much why dont you just get the hell out and stop blaming others for your "brothers" ignorant actions. I enjoy reading your blog but am so tired of the blame game.
and anonymous you're the second dumbest motherfucker to post on my blog... just look back to the last set of comments... you fools are soulless and i guess that's the problem... this country has no soul and if it did the conditions and structures that constrain the lives of the oppressed wouldn't be allowed to continue... get off my blog and leave me the fuck alone, if you want the dumb shit that you advocate, go check out fox news
ok - let's just blame others for our lack of motivation and decision to follow a road to the life a crime and them get upset when your sorry ass gets locked up, beat up or shot at, come on your a smart MF arent ya. Oh and if you dont want us reading you blog they why is it public??
I wasn't going to comment but I feel this can't go without a word or two. I feel you're right when you say that it's harder for blacks to get jobs and yes we have been oppressed. However, you've used a BAD example, the shooting, to promote your cause. A "young brother" should be taught to earn what he wants and not to steal it. We will never earn our place in society by stealing it! Your words are very influential JT because people respect you for your intellect and what you stand for but please make sure what you stand for is just. I pray for the families that lost the lives of your “young brothers,” but I pray that my young brothers learn from their greed and not walk the path of a thief. Contiue your fight but please continue it in a matter that first promotes good morals and principals before it blames others for having lose ones.
let's be real, nyc is the belly of a greedy beast... it's not a good idea to decontextualize what you are labeling these young men's greed from the larger immoral and greedy society, that in the first place denies poor people of color from the projects, even the most basic things. and i'm not saying that it was okay for them to try to rob this store, but individual decisions are much more complicated than just personal morality or the like... and i'll be damned if i'm going to say that oh well, they weren't moral, they don't fit my model of who is deserving and who isn't... that is an immoral stance... perhaps if we had relevant resistance in harlem, some of the tensions that poverty and white supremacy cause could be directed at the perpetrators (columbia university which is pressuring this community by buying up everything and evicting all the people, to name but one)
Anonymous: I agree with you 100%. Nicely said.
The Joe-Americas of our society can only be but scandalized by your words. That is how far their indignation will go... they will rant about it, will comment about you to his/her circle of friends as a lefty, america hating, angry black-men...until she/he is able to come out the winner of the argument.
Our indignation, however, is nourishment for the journey. It's the chalice that carries our peoples' blood from which we too must drink. The blood of the martyrs that is paving the way for us, from which flowers of resistance and conscience will flourish.
Just had a shooting behind my house yesterday morning...
and it may be the first of more shootings to come according to some of our sources.... how would you wake up the mind of the shooter... self-hate runs very deep inside these young-men...
no more martyrs!
hugo, poetically said, thanks
JT whines: "This country was built on theft, slavery, dispossession, oppression and sheer violence,all down the barrel of your proverbial gun."
There's no doubt such events took place. But did I do that? Did "Mr. Gus" the store owner do that? Do events of the past justify armed robbery? If so, how long does this right last? 50 years? Or some other specific period of time?
When does the injustice of the past give way to self-determination for the future and individual responsibility?
No shit, jobs are scarce. So you think that make armed robbery ok?
So you think these "4 young brothers" were desperate? Or were they thinking they were going to get an easy score of some big cash off a defenseless old man? If they were "desperate" does that make armed robbery and pistol-whipping the employee ok? If I feel "desperate" some day, does that mean it would be ok to start pistol-whipping you? Ever been robbed?
So, anyone who claims "oppressed" status should just get everything handed to them? Like the whole "reparations" movement? I think you must be, to use your own words, one of the "dumbest motherfuckers" to start a blog. You're all for getting everything just handed out like candy; never mind earning a living.
this is a fruitless debate... I believe in the fundamental humanity of even those who rob stores... you don't... so finito
Wrong again, JT. It's not a question of "fundamental humanity" - that's just a straw man argument; your attempt to change the subject when you're losing the debate.
It's a question of right or wrong; victimology vs. self-determination; and so on. Apparently you agree with me more than you disagree, since you're not able to engage on that level.
let's be completely lucid Joe America, nothing you have said is profound or moving or powerful... you've simply regurgitated the by now trite self help ideology that 'free market' ideologues since Jefferson have pushed as democracy... you should be ashamed that your words go so well with the dominant ideology of a world where over 1.5 billion people live in extreme poverty, more than half of those are women and children, in a country with more than 2 million people locked up at any given moment (60 percent for non-violent drug offenses, 70 percent of whom are people of color and let's be real poor people of color use drugs at lower rates than their white male COLLEGE STUDENT counterparts), in a world where profit always takes precedence over people, in a world where there are still slaves, in a country that imports millions of sex slaves every year, in a world where us based transnationals can go to mexico, snatch land from peasant farmers, and then blame them for following the capital into the US, in a world where Black skin can still get you killed, in a WORLD THAT LEFT THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE IN MISSISSIPPI AND LOUISIANA TO DIE BECAUSE THEY WERE 'TOO POOR AND DELINQUENT' TO LEAVE, and in a world where the polar ice caps are melting because ideologues like you continue to see consumerism for profit as more important than the world that we ALL have to inhabit... So no, joe america, i am not afraid to discuss any of these issues with you, or how wrong you are, i'm just saying it's a fruitless conversation... i would rather think about and help organize resistance among people who suffer than convince you, someone who lives obviously in a privileged position on both the national and global scales, that there is a need for revolutionary change. again, i bid you farewell
Ahh, JT, so full of yourself and your dogma; never actually thinking it through; and always eager to assign some non-relevant ideology to my opinion. Then you declare yourself as having had the last word, "finito," because you're so full of yourself and your pompous youthful opinions, son.
It's funny, but also a bit sad that you've put yourself in such a small box.
i grow tired of this worthless argument... you don't agree with me i get it... and frankly i don't care... as i said before, I'm more concerned with thinking about and actively participating in resistance than i could ever be with arguing with you about something you won't understand until the cat is out of the bag
and ps i'm not your son, so your paternalistic i'm older so i know more bs does't fly
I think JT makes a compelling point about the societal and structural pressures black and brown populations in the inner city deal with that make them more susceptible to commit crimes. Joe America's assumption here, and wrong in my opinion, is that these people choose to be this way. I would argue that a majority of the crimes committed by those in the inner city (robbery, drug selling, murder etc.) are committed by strong external or environmental pressures that somewhat force these populations to exhibit the traits discussed in these comments. If you have a family that needs food but there are no jobs available, no public resources, you have no transportation to and from a potential job, and in substandard housing, environmental pressures may and do force some individuals to exhibit these traits as survival mechanisms. A lot of these pressures are in fact due to a legacy and continuance of a racialized hierarchy, in which JT's comments of slavery, oppression, dispossession, etc., all were and still are used to keep power and economic capital in the hands of white populations.
In this case, Joe America states these people are exhibiting low self control because they make the selfish decision to commit these crimes. I do not think that is a well developed statement because a lot of times these people act in the perceived best way they know how to provide for themselves and their loved ones in the absence of social and legally acceptable opportunities. I believe, however, in the more affluent areas and suburbs, Joe America's comments effectively describes people's behaviors, as there are few environmental pressures to act in this manner.
But at some point we have to say enough is enough despite the historical context in which people may be susceptible to commit such crimes. I think we have to teach our young people not only to be dissatisfied with what we do not have, but also to seize the opportunities we have. Wyclef Jean said that he came here from Haiti without money or knowing how to speak English. But he used what opportunities were afforded to him--the ability to go to public libraries, and free public education most noticeably--and made the best of them. A lot of it goes back to the concept of instant vs. delayed gratification. We have to learn how to delay our gratification. I understand shit of black folks are in jail for some Rockefeller law type stuff, but at some point we have to become more self reliant and not expect this government who time and time again has shown us that it doesn't give a damn about black people to do anything to help us out.
In that regard we do have a choice whether we decide to fall in the system readily willing to take another nigga from the concrete jungle into the system, or are we going to use what opportunity we have and make the best of it. It’s a paradigm shift we have to make.
So much of our (black) efforts go into damning the system and government for its capitalistic ways, but I think we would be much better off if some of that time would be spent teaching black and brown populations about how to seize the opportunities we have available to us now. We can work to increase access for all, but at some point niggas got to be willing to take advantage of them. The fact of the matter is most black and brown populations can't move away from America, and with its capitalistic system there will be winners and losers. We need to make sure we ain't the losers.
www.medicalschoolstandout.blogspot.com
B.Free I appreciate your comments, but I have to disagree with the idea that if people just seize the "available opportunities" everything will be okay. I'm concerned with the world's majority... and let's be real, if every Black and brown person and poor white person today decided that they wanted to go to college or something, where would they all go... this society is fundamentally built on dispossession... someone must be dispossessed for others to have possessions (intra and international in scope) and that dispossession continues to follow historical mechanisms by which poor people of color are those disproportionately dispossessed (within the us and globally). And read the article also on my blog about the complete disintegration of the Black middle class... capitalist political economy has no space for people of color who were middle class before this recession, it sure as hell doesn't have space for poor people to move up, despite ideology of self-help which says if we all just work hard it will be okay... it's utter bull shit. Wyclef commented on making it from Haiti... that's great... many Caribbean peoples and Africans and Latinos who come to the US, have better health, academic performance, more wealth etc. than their American born counterparts, for the first generation that is... but sociological and anthropological research show that within two generations they are as bad off in every key indicator (health, wealth, income, educational attainment, etc.) as their American born counterparts... that means that there is something wholly acidic about America for people of color. B.Free , you're right we do need a paradigm shift, but it's focus shouldn't be on poor people of color. if our aim is to change individual or even community behavior, we've already missed the boat... this society is fundamentally flawed in structure... and organizing the people most oppressed and repressed by this society (nationally and internationally) is the only way to actually change any of these problems we are discussing
Aww, JT, it's cute when you act all self-righteous and proclaim the imminent arrival the Revolution That Will Change Everything.
In the meantime, you just blame hundreds of years of institutionalized racism for everything; an endless chorus of victimology.
Funny, Barack didn't play it like that, and he's up in the White House.
But in your world-view, it's all a zero-sum game, where someone getting ahead means someone else being pushed behind. News flash: it ain't necessarily so.
But hey, go ahead blaming "the Man" for your failures; keep talking up the pipe dream of "revolution;" and by all means, keep celebrating "young brothers" that think it's ok to rob and pistol-whip as they please. I'm sure you have a promising career as the next Al Sharpton. (Maybe you can get the GOP to fund your presidential campaign like Al did.)
JT and Bfree - get over yourselves... There are jobs but our young youths are not interested in hard labor. They all want to easy way out of pistol whipping, drug dealing and pimping... Go ahead and keep blaming the "man" hope it gets you somewhere.
never in a million years did i imagine that this post would elicit so many comments... i don't understand why you all would continue to post to this blog "A SPACE FOR BLACK RAGE" if you are not of the mind that even what you all have termed "hustlers, pimps and thugs" are human, deserving human compassion... but i suppose i have set my expectations too high for a people who continue to buy into the cult of up by the boot straps ideology in a land of oppression, poverty, social control, white racism, rape, consumerism and death
ugggggh, none of these trolls really presents a cogent argument. they just provide what appear to be moral imperatives that are abstracted from the world that the rest of us live in, the one where people are exploited daily by individual and structural means.
this bullshit of 'taking opportunities' or 'earning what you deserve rather than stealing' is really irrelevant. as long as folks believe that they can work their way up from the bottom based on anecdotal, and at best lottery-type stories, then we're forced to accept that tomorrow might be 'my day.'
as jt has pointed to, the significance of this story are the conditions that facilitated a need to pursue extra-legal means for capital accumulation. joe america, no person in their right mind would blame augusto for slavery or jim crow; but focusing on him as the sole victim of the situation is exactly how the system operates. i don't know that armed robbery is exactly an open rebellion, but your moral repulsion to robbery exhibits how you categorize what types of murder and theft are acceptable. the genocide of redlining and gentrification and privatization of public services have demolished communities and exorcised their populations. can i get a post-mortem indictment of ronald reagan!?
why is the self-defense of theft any less plausible than Gus' self-defense by shotgun?
There you go again, JT, acting like George Bush with your "with me or against me" rhetoric that automatically assumes that everyone who doesn't agree with you must think exactly the opposite; and your pathetic attempts to ascribe various hard-right ideologies to me without any empirical basis.
I recognize that your mental limitations prevent you from seeing more than two sides to the argument; and that your feverish need to construct straw man arguments is the best you can do.
You persist in declaring that I don't see any "humanity" in the robbers. Wrong. Of course they're human; and of course, when they're willing to threaten the lives of others, they must be prepared for the same fate. It doesn't happen often, but it did happen this time.
Now just a word of advice: your inability to construct actual sentences and excessive reliance on the use of the ellipsis is the sign of a weak writer. If you ever want to develop an "A" game you'll need to do a lot better.
joe america, you're really starting to become a part of my daily life... and a particularly entertaining part, I must add. comparing me to bush is a new one, lol. i've been called a jacobin, a neo-luddite, and a fool, but never a bush... why i should call george up and see if he'll give me some of his fucking money... yes i do lump 'liberal' white people and their colored brethren, who (trans-temporally) have told poor people and people of color to hold on and hold out, with their more right wing cousins. i don't think that qualifies me for thinking in black and white terms, as you have accused. I see and appreciate plenty of diversity for people who care for poor people and people of color. i'm no pan-africanist but i'm not knocking people who see that as a means to the liberation of poor people and people of color... and the list could go on...you seem to think that i advocate the violence of the robbery. all i have ever said is that this is a jacked up situation that sucks for all involved and it's not a simple as a good and a bad or a smart and a dumb decision... which oddly enough seems to be your take and is oddly enough very black and white and very uncomplicated for someone who professes to teach me everything from common sense to writing skills (p.s. this is a blog fool, not a formal letter to a senator, and in the end who gives a damn if it was. your hang-ups on "standard-english" are classic.) so yes, i have mentally cataloged you with the people organizing a fascist uprising and bush and the whole ilk, because your moderate, patronizing, take it slow, and care only about the 'worthy' bullshit, is equally responsible for the pressures that are causing places like Harlem to boil over. and i hope you enjoyed my non-standard english prose. good day
"Enjoyed?" Nope. Just another weak attempt on your part, although I was amused by your back-pedaling. Keep it up, you might get somewhere yet.
back pedaling, never... you CLEARLY don't know me, lol. my indignation will be vindicated by time... none of this bull shit, amerikkka or capitalism or white supremacy is timeless or stable or guaranteed... so salute your stars and stripes... AND GOOD NIGHT, GO TO BED and leave my blog alone, lol, or try reading the other pieces that are longer than a short poem... argue with some of those pieces, please, the conversation is leaving you behind
The "other pieces" like the ones you ripped off from Barbara Ehrenreich?
Yeah, you back-pedaled, in between putting out some weak pseudo-Marxism and victimologist nonsense.
So tell me now, do you actually work for a living, or do you commit armed robberies like your heroes, the 4 young brothers?
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