ON OPPRESSION
Allah says: ... 'tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter'... Quran' 2:191
Eric Garner was choked to death by a member of the NYPD and captured on video on July 17th 2014. No Charges were brought against the police officer. On Aug. 1, a New York City medical examiner determined that the cause of death in the Garner case was “homicide,” specifically the neck compressions from Officer Pantaleo’s chokehold and “the compression of [Garner’s] chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police,” (Time Magazine)
We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes
Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons
Is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers' sons
from Ella's Song by bernice reagon: sweet honey & the rock
In a 1913 pamphlet entitled, "Justice for the Negro: How Can He Get It," the I.W.W. ( Industrial Workers of the World ) pointed out: Two lynchings in a week -one every three or four days -that is the rate at which the people in this 'land of the free and home of the brave' have been killing colored men and women for the past thirty years…put to death with every kind of torture that human fiends can invent.''
Note: According to Historian and Author Thai Jones, from his book MORE POWERFUL THAN DYNAMITE, he quotes Booker T. Washington, in speaking about the 51 lynchings of Black men and women that occurred in 1913, “This is the smallest number in any year since these grim records have been kept.”
These crimes against black and poor people are committed by a nurtured mind-set that does not recognize our humanity. To struggle against this mind-set is the righteous role of the Blackamerican Muslim