To the Courageous Youth Who Are Standing Up Against the Police Murder of Dakota Bright
December 9, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
We received this correspondence. Dakota Bright, 15-year-old Black youth, was killed by Chicago police on November 8 (see "Justice for Dakota Bright!!! Indict, Convict, Send the Killer Cop to Jail—The Whole Damn System is Guilty as Hell!!"):
There was a time in my life where I was eyeball deep in the streets and all the self destructive shit that went with that. Like many who grew up in the slums of Chicago, I was conditioned to think that the harassment and terrorization from the police was just part of the daily grind to get mine, or that someone down the block who is in the same oppressed situation as I am was my enemy.
It wasn’t until I was buried alive for many years in prison (the only real future this system has for millions of us) under some of the most harsh and brutal conditions that I began to question why things are the way they are in the world. In the midst of that questioning I happened to come across revolutionary literature that was being provided by a revolutionary leadership that would ultimately inspire me to "Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution."
As we wipe away the tears for Dakota Bright and the anger and outrage towards the police starts to bubble over, it’s important that we begin to lift our heads and broaden our vision to the fact that Things Do Not Have To Be This Way.
Why are the pigs allowed to come storming in our neighborhoods gunning down our people and youth? Whose interests are these pigs really "protecting and serving"?
"The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people. To enforce the relations of exploitation and oppression, the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation into which the system has cast people and is determined to keep people in. The law and order the police are about, with all of their brutality and murder, is the law and the order that enforces all this oppression and madness."
Bob Avakian
BAsics 1:24
Keep this in mind as we go forward…the rulers of this system would like nothing more than for us to forget about Dakota Bright and all the stolen lives before him and go back to killing one another. Our struggle and outrage is linked with the millions and millions across the globe.
From a former prisoner who is now dedicated to the emancipation of humanity
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