The following remarks were made October 9, at a New York press conference for the National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation.
Refuse & Resist! has been part of the October 22 Coalition against police brutality, repression, and the criminalization of a generation since it began five years ago. We've marched along side family members who lost loved ones to police murder, youth who are standing up against the police who harass and intimidate them, religious and community leaders who have seen too many stolen lives, and many others. This year the October 22 Coalition is needed more than ever before.
In the wake of the September 11 tragedy that scarred our city so deeply, in a moment that changed the world, millions of ordinary people from coast to coast jumped to help. At the same time, the US government seized on the opportunity to push repressive legislation and increase police powers to an unprecedented extent. Law enforcement may be given vastly greater powers to secretly search, wire tap, follow, and detain people in this country. If they get those powers, how they use them, and in whose interest is yet to be determined. It is actions like the national October 22 marched against police brutality and repression that will greatly affect the climate in which this new world unfolds.
And let's not forget that history did not begin on September 11, 2001. Since last October 22 the epidemic of police brutality has continued to intensify, including the outrageous murder of Timothy Thomas in Cincinnati, where the people of that city refused to sit quietly as yet another of their sons was stolen from them.
Around the country and beyond, as the growing movement against globalization spread across campuses and communities, and more and more youth took to the streets against global injustice, police repression soared to new heights. Just blocks away from the horrific events at the Pentagon, a wall was being build to keep protesters out of the nation's capital. Police infiltration and intimidation has become a sad fact of life for many protesters. And Mumia Abu-Jamal, the inspiring journalist, himself a victim of police brutality and repression, still sits on Pennsylvania's death row, nearly 20 years after his incarceration.
In this unique moment in our history, when every day brings earth shaking developments and greater uncertainty about where this country is heading, dissent is more important than ever. This October 22 we will celebrate that dissent and we will fight for it. Refuse & Resist! is working to carve out a space for those who resist the march towards war, who refuse to give up the civil liberties and freedoms we've fought so hard for, and who demand an end to racist attacks and anti-immigrant policies.
This October 22 Refuse & Resist! joins the parents who've lost loved ones to police brutality and murder -- who have been apowerful inspiration to us all -- in demanding an end to police brutality, repression and the criminalization of a generation!
[posted 10/27/01]
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