By Ethel Long-Scott
The murder of unarmed Oscar Grant by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer was not just another killing of a young black man by a white cop. Many saw it that way after a jury convicted the cop of involuntary manslaughter, the lightest sentence short of acquittal. But this time it’s different because more than race is involved.
Oscar Grant’s Uncle, Cephus Johnson, spoke for victims of police murder everywhere immediately after the verdict.
“We knew from the beginning that we was at war with the system,” he said “We as a family have been slapped in the face by this system that has denied us the right to true justice. We truly do not blame the jury, but we blame the system. The jury was denied evidence that will not allow them to see the true person that committed the murder.”
This time it’s different because the system is different. Oscar Grant’s murder is not just another racial killing. It’s a killing committed in the name of a state that is determined to protect the property and profits of the privileged corporate classes at all costs.
What makes the system different? In the United States today, corporations are pulling out all the stops to make sure that government puts corporate needs first, way ahead of the needs of working people. We see this all around us, from the Supreme Court’s trashing of political campaign contribution limits to the refusal by state legislatures to raise corporate taxes to avoid chilling cuts to public services. Local governments give tax breaks to developers at the same time they cry about having to cut funds for schools, parks, and infrastructure.
Governments are so eager to turn their backs on workers and suck up to corporations that corporations and the state are virtually merged. The World War II dictator of Italy, Benito Mussolini, an ally of Nazi Germany, declared that this merger is what fascism is all about. The police “serve and protect” the new corporate elite, the 1% of the population who own 70% of everything. As jobs disappear, employers cut salaries and benefits, public school budgets are slashed, and safety net programs are killed, maintaining public order at all costs becomes a key corporate concern.
The police recognize that the youth who can no longer count on a future are the enemy of this wealthy corporate class. Young people in California face a system that spends more on prisons than it does on higher education. They see the gentrification of cities insuring that they have no jobs and few prospects. They understand that when Oscar Grant was shot in the back as he lay unarmed and helpless on a rapid transit station platform on New Year’s Eve, 2009, it could have been me, it could have been anyone.
Their understanding showed in how they organized for demonstrations in the wake of the verdict. The crowds in Oakland were multi-racial and multi-cultural. The youth reached out to their elders, encouraging them to come, in part to protect the youth from the police, who had made a big advance show of force with training exercises for possible trouble.
The understanding of the youth also showed in HipHop Culture, the most popular form of protest music in world history. Rappers like Boots Riley of The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club, F.A.B., Zion I, J. Stalin, Beeda Weeda, BRWN BFLO, Rebel Diaz, and far more, all recorded songs or spoke publicly denouncing the shooting.
And the rulers are not yet through with the Oscar Grant case. Sentencing of Johannes Mehserle, the officer who testified that he mistakenly pulled his gun when he meant to pull his taser, has been postponed until November at his defense team’s request. That gives them time to convince the judge to give him the benefit of the doubt, furthering the injustice.
Going forward our job is to fight for class rights, in our protests and in our study, to secure justice and help people understand why this time it’s different.
Justice for Oscar Grant
Oakand, California youth protesting
the Oscar Grant verdict
PHOTO/Youth Radio
CHA Evicts Cabrini Families By Any Means Necessary
By Joe Peery
CHICAGO — Soon after the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) gave 30-day eviction notices to the families left in 1230 N. Larrabee, a federal judge put an indefinite moratorium on the evictions. The CHA then descended upon the building with trucks on June 29 and 30 and forcibly removed residents out in violation of the judge’s order. Many feel this was done to avoid any further unfavorable rulings in that CHA was supposed to be in court the next daybefore that same judge.
180-day notices have now been given to the three remaining highrise buildings, 1230 N Burling, 364 W. Oak and 365 W. Oak. The question is, “What’s to stop CHA from doing the same thing in these buildings that they did at 1230 N Larrabee?” At the July 1 court hearing, the judge warned CHA never to do this again. However, without any punishment, does such a warning mean anything? Certainly, any tenant who defied a court order would be jailed or fined, and immediately thrown on the street.
A case in point is that of a grandmother who lives in the row houses. She neither defied a court order nor did anything to get evicted. But that didn’t stop the CHA and H.J. Russell from trying to do just that.
The following are excerpts from an interview with Betty Martin, affectionately known as Miss Betty. She is a grandmother of, as she puts it, “so many I lost count.” She has lived in the row houses for 20 years.
People’s Tribune: You won your case July 14. What happened?
Betty Martin: Ms. Hinton, the main manager came and brought me an eviction letter on November 20, 2009.
PT: Was she the one trying to put you out?
BM: She’s trying to put everyone out. No one likes her. When she comes through here, she always brings people with her. She’s scared to walk around by herself. Someone needs to start a petition and get her out of here.
PT: Why were they evicting you?
BM: Someone used my address. When the police caught him, he must have told them he was visiting me, but he wasn’t. We don’t even associate with him. He’s my neighbor’s son, across the street.
PT: Is this part of the ‘One Strike’ policy of CHA where if someone visiting you is arrested, that alone can get you evicted?
BM: Right, right. First they were trying to say he was here...visiting here. He was never here. The whole time he was on Cleveland Street. He’s getting himself out of trouble, his Mom out of trouble, because he used my address instead of his Mom’s address. So I got a lawyer.
PT: Did the police ever come here and investigate?
BM: Nobody came, no police, nobody.
PT: Why did the case take so long?
BM: Because of the CHA lawyers. They acted like they were the ones who didn’t want to drop the case. They wanted to see if he had I.D. with my address on it. They were looking for anything to prove he was here. Miss Hinton told me, if I come to court, all I have to do is say I ain’t gonna let him in here no more. How I’m gonna say that and he was never in my house? Then the crooked CHA lawyer told my lawyer they’ll drop the case if I go on probation. They done lost their senses. PT: What lesson would you like people to get from your case?
BM: It’s not just the CHA or the police. Someimes your neighbor is the problem.
PT: What’s the solution?
BM: People come together.
CHICAGO — Soon after the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) gave 30-day eviction notices to the families left in 1230 N. Larrabee, a federal judge put an indefinite moratorium on the evictions. The CHA then descended upon the building with trucks on June 29 and 30 and forcibly removed residents out in violation of the judge’s order. Many feel this was done to avoid any further unfavorable rulings in that CHA was supposed to be in court the next daybefore that same judge.
180-day notices have now been given to the three remaining highrise buildings, 1230 N Burling, 364 W. Oak and 365 W. Oak. The question is, “What’s to stop CHA from doing the same thing in these buildings that they did at 1230 N Larrabee?” At the July 1 court hearing, the judge warned CHA never to do this again. However, without any punishment, does such a warning mean anything? Certainly, any tenant who defied a court order would be jailed or fined, and immediately thrown on the street.
A case in point is that of a grandmother who lives in the row houses. She neither defied a court order nor did anything to get evicted. But that didn’t stop the CHA and H.J. Russell from trying to do just that.
The following are excerpts from an interview with Betty Martin, affectionately known as Miss Betty. She is a grandmother of, as she puts it, “so many I lost count.” She has lived in the row houses for 20 years.
People’s Tribune: You won your case July 14. What happened?
Betty Martin: Ms. Hinton, the main manager came and brought me an eviction letter on November 20, 2009.
PT: Was she the one trying to put you out?
BM: She’s trying to put everyone out. No one likes her. When she comes through here, she always brings people with her. She’s scared to walk around by herself. Someone needs to start a petition and get her out of here.
PT: Why were they evicting you?
BM: Someone used my address. When the police caught him, he must have told them he was visiting me, but he wasn’t. We don’t even associate with him. He’s my neighbor’s son, across the street.
PT: Is this part of the ‘One Strike’ policy of CHA where if someone visiting you is arrested, that alone can get you evicted?
BM: Right, right. First they were trying to say he was here...visiting here. He was never here. The whole time he was on Cleveland Street. He’s getting himself out of trouble, his Mom out of trouble, because he used my address instead of his Mom’s address. So I got a lawyer.
PT: Did the police ever come here and investigate?
BM: Nobody came, no police, nobody.
PT: Why did the case take so long?
BM: Because of the CHA lawyers. They acted like they were the ones who didn’t want to drop the case. They wanted to see if he had I.D. with my address on it. They were looking for anything to prove he was here. Miss Hinton told me, if I come to court, all I have to do is say I ain’t gonna let him in here no more. How I’m gonna say that and he was never in my house? Then the crooked CHA lawyer told my lawyer they’ll drop the case if I go on probation. They done lost their senses. PT: What lesson would you like people to get from your case?
BM: It’s not just the CHA or the police. Someimes your neighbor is the problem.
PT: What’s the solution?
BM: People come together.
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