From a young Latino man with a family member who was murdered by police:
"...every time I hear about a new case of the police killing somebody... it feels like my insides are burning"
March 31, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From a young Latino man who had a family member murdered by the police:
I don't do this for myself, I do this for other people. Every time I see a different case of police murder on the news it burns me inside. There's so many other cases you read about and there's never justice. I tell my family members I feel for Amadou Diallo, who held up his wallet and died; where do you leave Aiyana Stanley-Jones, a 7-year-old girl sleeping in her house in Detroit, Michigan. How do you justify that? And if there's justice, why did their family not receive justice? There's always an excuse, “Oh, Black against Black or Spanish against Spanish,” they don't give no excuse for cops who murder innocent people and get away with it. If Blacks kill Blacks they might go to jail, but if police kill someone they never go to jail. There's a big difference; how can you compare Black on Black crime to a police killing somebody?
It feels like I just drank gasoline every time I hear about a new case of the police killing somebody. Because it feels like my insides are burning, like my chest and my stomach are burning inside. I feel so much anger inside. I feel like, oh my god, what can I do about it? And you know, that's why I thank god I found the revolution. It's the only people who really back me up on how I feel. When I feel this way, you know what I do about it? I start making collages, putting together pictures and headlines and articles, and I get with people who understand me like people here. You know, because sometimes I got friends, family members who argue with me if they don't agree with my point. And I had a friend step and say, “Ah, you need to stop that.” and I told him, “What if I said, you believe in god, you need to stop that. Is that right? And you telling me that I have to stop my belief?” And you know, I constantly argue with them, family and friends, but you know what I do? I don't give up. I create collages and all that and I prove it to them because I have newspaper clippings where police are raping, murdering, and robbing – all kinds of crimes – I have newspaper clippings to prove it. So, it's not only me saying it out of my mouth, I have proof.
Learn moreYou know what, I want this movement to get back to the way it was back in October, September, before those two pigs [in New York City in December] got supposedly murdered. I want everybody to come out in the streets in massive numbers. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell everybody you could. Spread the word. We need to shut this shitty system down. Like, close bridges, even banks, Macy's, big corporate businesses like that. Let's shut everything down. No business as usual, because business as usual means the killing of Blacks and Latinos in America, that's part of their business in America, and I want all that to stop.
And I want us to come out there and prove to them it's not just a little portion like these so-called leaders say. They got the likes of Bill Bratton, Bill O'Reilly, and they talk about, oh, it's just a little portion of us out there and they call us the agitators and all that. But they are the ones murdering our people and everything. Are we supposed to keep accepting that? This country has been at war forever, for like 200 years, and the war is not only overseas, the war is over here with our own people and we gotta put a stop to that, because the system is not gonna do it.
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