Carl Dix Speaks to the Youth On the Murder of Aiyana Jones

Everybody’s talking about crime - But who are the real criminals.

I was in Detroit for the funeral of Aiyana Jones. The police murdered this 7yr old girl, and then they treated her family like they were criminals, arresting her grandmother and making her father lay face down in his daughter’s blood. These pigs acted with wanton disregard for the lives of this Black family. A determined struggle for justice for Aiyana is needed in the face of this outrage.

The authorities in Detroit are blaming Aiyana’s family for the murder their pigs committed. They say the cop’s gun went off accidentally when her grandmother struggled with the cop. And they say Aiyana’s family put her in harm’s way by shielding the guy the cops were after.

Even if any of this were true, it wouldn’t justify what they did to Aiyana. They threw a grenade into a house they knew kids lived in, and they ran into the house guns drawn AND shooting. Are they saying it’s legitimate to kill children if they get between them and somebody they’re after? Are they saying they can be judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one?

Moreover, these pigs are lying. The guy the cops had the warrant for lived in the apt upstairs, over top of Aiyana’s home. The pigs ran into the wrong place and blew away a little girl. There’s a video of what happened that night. The lawyer for Aiyana’s family has seen the video, and he says it proves the cops are lying. The cops have the video and have refused to let it be shown. If that video backed up the cops’ story, it’d be all over the TV.

Now a lot of people are saying Aiyana’s murder was caused by the culture of crime and violence in Detroit – that because Black youth are killing each other, the cops have to operate like they do. The Detroit police chief said people concerned about what happened to Aiyana have to do more snitching to the cops. At Aiyana’s funeral, Rev Sharpton, who did the eulogy, said, “I’m going to start looking at the man in the mirror. We’ve all done something to contribute to this.” – referring to Aiyana’s death.

This is pure poison. It comes down to blaming the masses for the shit the system enforces on them. Look, I’m not naive. I know the youth are into some bad shit – gangs, crime and drugs; killing each other and preying on the people. But who’s responsible for all this? The capitalist system. The system has sucked the jobs out of the ghettos, moving them ½ way across the world where they can exploit people even more viciously. The system has created schools that are like prisons. Our youth have no legitimate way to survive and raise families. They face futures of prison, the military, or early graves. Even a mainstream economist has said crime is a rational choice for the youth, the best one they can make under the circumstances.

Anybody who wants to do something about crime and violence has to target what’s responsible for all this – the capitalist system.

Now, I want to speak to the youth, youth out there with their defiant attitudes and sagging pants, youth who are in gangs and involved in the underground economy trying to make it or earn some respect.

Look I know the system offers you no future. Unleashing pigs to beat you down, dragging you into court where no one is on your side, framing you up on BS charges and throwing you in jail even if you’ve done nothing wrong. I know they say your lives are worthless, and this has scarred you deeply, physically and emotionally. I know the impact that watching your families lose jobs and homes, seeing your fathers locked up or missing from your lives can have.

I get why you’re angry, why you don’t want to play by the system’s rules, why you’re impatient and want to fight. But answer me this – are you going to let this system, the very system that put you in this situation, keep on playing you? Are you going to keep swallowing and spitting back out their message, that you’re nothing but a criminal, an animal out to kill or be killed? Are you going to keep on being a tool for this system, doing dirty work that serves its interests, killing each other and preying on the people? Or joining their military to go off to do the same shit for them in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Or are you going to cast off what they say about you and prove them wrong. Are you going to rise above what this system has put on you, not by getting on your knees and praying to a non existent god. That won’t ease your conscience or stop the never ending nightmares you see happening around you every day.

What you gotta do is get out of the shit you’re into and get into the revolution. Refuse to become what the system is trying to make you into. Take the rage that burns within you, rage that is completely justified, and direct it where it needs to be. Become a fighter for the revolution, an emancipator of humanity. You have heart and a brain – use them to get into this revolution. Spread the message of this revolution, that things don’t have to be this way, that thru revolution we could end the way the police brutalize and even murder people, end the wars this system inflicts on the world, end the way the great majority of humanity is forced to endure poverty and misery while a handful live in obscene wealth. Grapple with the questions involved in making revolution and building a new society that could meet people’s needs and deal with the problems we face.

Use your rage to stand up against the outrages this system brings down on people here in the US and around the world. Like the cold blooded murder of Aiyana Jones and all the other people these pigs have murdered.

The days when the system can just keep on doing what it does to people here and all over the world, when people aren’t inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages, and to build up the strength to end this madness, those days must be gone, and they can be.

Make your life about something that really matters, not just for yourself and those around you, but for all of humanity. Do something to get rid of this system that has robbed you and all the people of this planet of lives worthy of human beings.

The choice is yours. Are you gonna continue to let this system play you, are you going to end up in an early grave or in prison or a mindless killer in their military? Or are you going to rise above it, getting with the revolution, waking other people up, shaking them out of their silence and passivity, helping jump off a new stage of revolution.

This system has no future for you. But the revolution certainly does.

Get with the revolution.