Jericho Rant!

By Marpessa Kupendua <nattyreb@IX.NETCOM.COM>, 24 February 1998

I am consistently running into when promoting Jericho ’98. I am gonna try real hard to make this short. First of all, I think we (ALL of us, not just folks working on Jericho) need to help promote this mobilization by putting Jericho posters on signs, just like folks do when running for political office, and strongly encourage folks to put them out in front of their front yards, businesses, temples, churches, etc. so that we do not have to hear the excuse come March 27 that folks did not support it because they did not know about it.

I CANNOT understand why more folks are not organizing around Jericho that are supposed to be down for the cause of advancing black people, people find every reason under the sun to not support this effort. And it needs to be shouted from the ROOFTOPS that this effort is not about any individual or personality conflict, it is not about whatever disagreements you have with the way this thing is being organized and the disagreements with the focus of the March, it is about the PP/POW’s that we are all supposed to be about freeing from jail. Anything beyond that is just an EXCUSE. I have had untold numbers of people tell me that they can’t even put a flyer in their store because it is too political. THAT’s bullshit and we all know it. But when these cultural activists who are always running around with sweet-smelling oil, incense, ankhs and everything else that is supposed to represent US, a culture of STRENGTH, of SURVIVAL, calling the names of our ancestors who we pay homage to, cannot get behind Jericho, then I have a SERIOUS problem with our cultural/religious activists and historians, and I am about to BLOW UP on all of those type of excuses for inactivity. God/Allah/Jah or nobody else ain’t trying to watch us running down verses, etc., all the time, those verses/teachings are SUPPOSED to be catalysts towards us advancing the cause of justice, to teach us to make the conditions of our people BETTER.

• DO NOT DARE to walk around in your fine Afrikan clothing talking about the ancestors, speaking African dialects, making libation, without working on some level to free our living ancestors in struggle, those who continue to sacrifice every day just to survive, those who we are trying to keep from becoming dead ancestors without tasting life beyond those walls!! Or don’t they COUNT?
• DO NOT dare to sit up talking about figures in black history, Harriet Tubman, etc., remember Sis. Harriet was the reason that many of our ancestors ever got out of slavery and how did she do that? By putting a gun to their heads and forcing them to do so, so why is it so acceptable to talk about Harriet Tubman but NOT acceptable to talk about our heroes and sheroes slowly rotting away in prison?
• DO NOT dare to let the names of Fred Hampton, Assata Shakur, or anyone else come out of your lips with your so-called love and admiration for them, running all your knowledge about the BPP and other formations, without recognizing that if it wasn’t for political prisoners in jail right now, the enemies of our people would have felt very free to not feel so threatened into action on the demands of the so-called civil rights movements, and we can’t even get past the hocus pocus of mainstream media to recognize that even those initiatives are slowly dwindling away and need to be FOUGHT FOR again. (duh, sorry, gotta watch motown/oprah’s movie tonite) Assata would still be a political prisoner today if our folks were as non-caring as they are today, care to make a bet on whether or not she would be liberated at all if we had our folks who are out here today to depend on to get that particular job done? My bet would be that she would STILL BE SITTING IN PRISON, because we can’t even give 100% to building and supporting a mobilization on behalf of her comrade, Sundiata Acoli, and all of the other BPP/BLA PP/POWS! Not even a donation, not even a phone call, not even an e-mail, not even anything? Please.
• DO NOT wear the screwface about whites being involved in this mobilization, YES, we need to do all black organizing but when we come together on behalf of our PP/POW’s, we don’t have the luxury of carrying around those lofty principles in this particular effort, we talking about folks LIVES who we are supposed to be supporting by any means necessary! We need to RECOGNIZE that people across the board got people in these gulags and that we better be trying to get everybody and their grandpa involved in the Jericho movement. NO excuse is a good enough excuse to not be involved on whatever level you can be involved, NOT ONE. Call into talk radio, do letters to the editor, do announcements wherever somebody has a vacant microphone, announce it during your religious services, distribute flyers next time you go to the Mom and Pop store, what’s the big deal? Talk about elitism, talk about snobbishness, this is the *epitome of turning your backs on your people when they are counting on you to come through for them the most!

Yeah, I’m ranting, every black-oriented list I get mail from is talking about everything but organizing for Jericho, other than announcing events that I doubt that even half of the subscribers to these lists attend. If we are not serious about making a UNIFIED loud noise about our PP/POW’s then we NEED to stop fronting about giving a damn about any of them, we need to NOT be talking about Mumia or Sekou or geronimo and appearing to be so down because you have a little bit of information but ain’t doing a damn thing with it! When will we run out of EXCUSES for not able to commit the slightest scintilla of energy and effort on behalf of our freedom fighters who have been COUNTING on us for 30+ years to get our shit together on their behalf. What must they think of us? What must WE think of us?

BUILD AND SUPPORT JERICHO ’98!!

Sis. Marpessa