All Out For Kimani!

This Sunday, people of conscience from across the city will gather in East Flatbush, Brooklyn to show solidarity with the friends, family and community of Kimani “Kiki” Gray as they express their grief, voice their anger, and demand justice. Gray was killed on March 9th by the NYPD, the latest in a systemic pattern of police violence against black and brown communities across the United States. The officers who killed Gray have a documented history of abuse. In order to legitimize the killing, these officers claimed that Gray pointed a gun at them. Eyewitnesses to the killing contest this claim. Gray was shot seven times, three of which were in the back. According to witnesses, Gray was left lying on the ground pleading for his life–“please don’t let me die.”

<p> We call upon all Occupy networks and allies to participate in the Justice for Kimani event this Sunday as an intentional step to amplify this local community action, as well as the nation-wide movement against police violence, mass incarceration, and economic injustice. We stand with our allies who are organizing around Stop and Frisk, implementing Copwatch programs, conducting Know Your Rights trainings, and more. The crisis has been building, and the time is long overdue for people of all races, colors, and creeds to come together for racial justice. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

<p> We also recall the words of Malcolm X: “You can’t have capitalism without racism.” This analysis remains as true today as it was three generations ago, even as oppression has taken on new forms. Predatory debt, public austerity, emergency restructuring, climate crisis: the disasters of Wall Street hit black and brown people the hardest, magnifying the history of racism in the United States and undoing the progress made after the Civil Rights movement. In our urban zones of emergency, there is no justice, only law enforcement; no prosperity, only poverty; no future; only prisons. The harassment, incarceration, and killing of young people like Kimani Gray, Shantel Davis, Oscar Grant, Manuel Diaz, Sean Bell, Ramarley Graham, Trayvon Martin, Amadou Diallo, and countless others bring the depths of this collective racial trauma into horrific relief. We refuse not to look when the NYPD tells us “move along, there is nothing to see here.”

<p> Things have come to a head in East Flatbush: riot gear, horses, helicopters, barricades, mass arrests, intimidation, divide-and-conquer tactics. Bloomberg and the NYPD want to sow fear and enforce silence – especially among the young friends of Kimani who had the courage to take the streets and confront the police on the night of March 14th.

<p> The blood marking the streets of Flatbush, Bronx, Anaheim, Oakland, and beyond fuels a movement already in motion. The movement combines indignant rage with militant love. The actions in East Flatbush and other neighborhoods are sparking something big that strikes at the heart of the system.

<p> The affirmation of life, healing, and community is the true threat presented by the movement, as it charts a path from protest to reconstruction–the repayment of debts owed to communities for generations of stolen lives and incalculable sums of stolen wealth. Why are there plenty of resources for the Stop and Frisk patrols, while physical spaces in the neighborhood lie fallow that could be used as commons for the community?

<p> Looking to the legacies of Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Marcus Garvey, WEB Dubois, Martin Luther King, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, James and Grace Lee Boggs, and untold freedom fighters throughout history, our shared dream is the worst nightmare of the 1%: a People’s City liberated from the violence of the police and the violence of Wall Street alike.

<p> Justice for Kimani!

<p> Drop the Charges Against the Flatbush 45!

<p> Another World is Possible!