Over 600,000 people have been stopped and frisked by NYPD, and the city made over 50,000s non-violent marijuana arrests. On the national level it’s no better if you’re Black, man or woman
[Occupy Harlem]
On Saturday, April 21, from 1PM to 2PM hundreds of demonstrators will join Occupy Harlem on 124th Street and 5th Avenue. The assembly will then march throughout Central Harlem protesting racist killings, stop-and-frisk, and racial profiling.
The march ends at 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Blvd with a rally from 3 to 6 PM. The theme of the protest: “Build A United Front Against Racist Violence,” highlights the killing of 17 year Trayvon Martin in Stanford, Florida by “Stand Your Ground” self style vigilante George Zimmerman.
After a firestorm of national protest Zimmerman was eventually charged with second degree murder that carries a maximum of life imprisonment. Released on a low bond of only $150,00 despite prosecutor’s request for $1 million bail Zimmerman issued a self-serving apology to Trayvon Martin’s family that came 50 days after he shot the unarmed teenager. Zimmerman’s alleged contrition makes palatable public appeals for financial support especially from the far right.
The Martin case is only the tip of the iceberg. Across the U.S. unarmed Black men, women and youth are killed, brutalized and harassed on a daily basis without redress or a modicum of expose from corporate media. In New York City, the center of international finance capital, the New York Police Dept. (NYPD) operates inside a systemic culture of brutality and violence with a wanton disregard for human life.
This “Blue Wall” of death deliberately targets people of color, especially Black and Latino youth. The executions of unarmed Ramarley Graham in the Bronx, and unarmed former marine Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. in White Plains adds to a long list of racist killings by NYPD going back to the 1973 police killing of 10 years old Clifford Glover – shot twice in the back by a plainclothes cop; the 1984 police murder of 66 year old Eleanor Bumpurs – blasted twice & killed by a 12 gauge shotgun; African immigrant Amadou Diallo killed in a hail of 41 shots in 1999, all fired by white police officers, all of whom were acquitted.
Over 600,000 people have been stopped and frisked by NYPD, and the city made over 50,000s non-violent marijuana arrests. On the national level it’s no better if you’re Black, man or woman. In Chicago unarmed 22 year old Rekia Boyd shot in the head by intoxicated off duty cop.
Occupy Harlem supports a national campaign that calls for: (1) a national database that documents the killings of Black people by police, security guards and self-appointed peacekeepers, and (2) for President Obama to create and institute a “National Plan of Action for Racial Justice” to fulfill the governments obligations under the Convention to Eliminate all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) by creating a permanent Inter-Agency Working Group to implement all of the aforementioned demands to protect Black and other historically oppressed groups from racial discrimination, targeted violence, and summary executions.
Contact: Nellie Hester Bailey [email protected]
