Category Archives: Youth Work/ Hip-Hop for Justice

Drop the Charges Against Dedan Waciuri

As is usually the case after mass protest, when people are no longer in the streets, government and law enforcement gear up to punish those who participated in the resistance. They want to send a message to hundreds of thousands across the country that they will not tolerate challenges to their authority and murderous behavior. In cities and towns across the country, local authorities are reviewing video and news reports hoping to single out leaders of the nationwide uprisings in the wake of the George Floyd murder by the Minneapolis Police Department on May 25.

Continue reading

BWFJ Statement on Charlotte Uprising

BLACK WORKERS FOR JUSTICE STATEMENT ON ROLE OF POLICE & Call for GENERAL STRIKE…BLACK SOLIDARITY DAY

charlotte-uprising-update-suspect-protester-death9-23-16It is time for something different. According to the Charlotte Observer, the killing of Keith Lamont Scott makes the sixth in Charlotte and with Terence Crutcher, makes the 163rd killing of a Black person in the U.S. in 2016 by law enforcement or sanctioned extra-legal forces .

On the one hand, the Black (and Brown) Community is told that the problem is bad community relations, inadequate training by police to be more “sensitive”, bad equipment and that its a “few bad apples”. On the other,there is righteous outrage as yet another Black man woman father mother sister daughter son cousin is snuffed out; shot down in the street. And the youth escalate the pushback — pushing back against institution, symbolic or otherwise, of the exploitation, oppression or occupation of our community. Then, the sanctioned -so-called leaders are trotted out to “call for calm,” sensitivity training and body cameras for the police. Then another Black person gets shot down in the street, and the scenario starts all over again. Continue reading