Statement on the Anniversary of the Vigilante Murder of Trayvon Martin

By Carl Dix, co-founder of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and representative of the Revolutionary Communist Party

Almost 60 years ago a Black teenager named Emmitt Till was lynched by white men in Money, Mississippi.  Last year, Trayvon Martin, another Black teenager, was murdered by George Zimmerman, a vigilante and a wannabe cop, who saw Trayvon’s Black skin and decided that he must be a criminal.  How long are we gonna have to put up with these kinds of racist outrages? Murders like this concentrate the way this country has criminalized Black and Latino youth, treating them as guilty until proven innocent, if they can survive to prove their innocence.  This is unacceptable.  It must stop, and it is up to us to stop it!

No one should want to live in a world where there’s a death sentence hanging over every Black and Latino youth.  This death sentence might, or might not, get carried out, but it’s always there. We must say NO MORE to living in a society and a world like this anymore.  We have to mean it when we say that, and we have to act to make our determination to end this kind of world.

That’s why the Stop Mass Incarceration Network issued a Call for people to wear hoodies and take to the streets on this day.  It’s why the slogan, “We Are All Still Trayvon!” is being raised today.  And it’s why we have to not only act today, but continue to express our rage at the vigilante murder of Trayvon and at the way the whole criminal “injustice” system of this country targets Blacks and Latinos.

Remember that the system has already “worked” once in this case.  It “worked” when the cops discovered Zimmerman standing over Trayvon’s dead body and let him walk away free.  The only reason Zimmerman faces a trial today is because Trayvon’s parents refused to silently accept their son’s murderer being set free, and people all across the country responded to their call for justice by taking their outrage to the streets.  This forced the system to re-arrest Zimmerman and put him on trial.  If we had failed to take to the streets today, and if we fail to continue expressing our determination to fight for justice in this case, that system will “work” again, in the way it always has, by letting the racist murderer walk away free again.  And they will continue to give green lights to killer cops and racist vigilantes who prey on our youth.

It is a basic truth that this kind of racist violence has happened since the very 1^st African was dragged to these shores in slave chains.  It’s built into the very fabric of this country, and it will take Revolution - Nothing Less to uproot it and all the other horrors—the brutality inflicted on women, the wars for empire, the long distance death rained down on people thru drone strikes and more—that this system enforces on humanity.  As a revolutionary communist, this is what I’m working to do—I’m spreading the need for, and possibility of, revolution everywhere and mobilizing people to fight the power and transform themselves and others, for revolution.  The key way I’m spreading revolution right now is thru promoting the premier of “BA Speaks: Revolution-Nothing Less!” which is a film of a recent talk by Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Everybody who hates the hell on earth this system enforces on humanity needs to check out this film because it breaks down why revolution is possible, the kind of world we could bring into being thru revolution, what those who see the need for revolution need to be doing today and more.

This is a critical time for people to act, from whatever perspective they feel compelled to resist this outrage.  Horrors like the vigilante murder of Trayvon jolt people into standing up and resisting the system’s attacks.  It is in times like these that people are more open to hearing about and acting on what is the source of all these horrors and what needs to be and can be done about them.  This part of why we needed to take to the streets and wear our hoodies today and why we need to continue standing up and saying NO MORE to the murder of Trayvon and to the way they criminalize our youth overall.

One year ago today, George Zimmerman stalked and murdered Trayvon Martin.  Today we are declaring, all across the country, that we refuse to accept this outrage in silence.  And that we will no longer accept all the outrages the criminal “injustice” system of this country enforces on people.  In this way, we are working toward the day when all these outrages—the police murder, the racial profiling, the horrific numbers of people warehoused in prisons and all the rest—are NO MORE.  Everyone who is disturbed by these outrages needs to join us.

WE ARE ALL STILL TRAYVON!

A Talk by Carl Dix: Taking the Bulls Eye Off the Backs of Our Young People

What’s at Stake in the Fight for Justice for Trayvon Martin

February 24, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 The following is from an interview Revolution did with Carl Dix:

Some people say, we protested the murder of Trayvon Martin a year ago, but now we should wait and see what happens in the courts; or that protests will “get in the way of the courts working” and could actually work against Zimmerman getting convicted. There are also some who say the fix is already in, so there’s nothing you can do about it. Could you speak to this?

Carl Dix: It’s actually very important for people to get that it was their standing up and saying “not this time”—that this is the only reason Zimmerman even faces charges. And now, whether or not the case goes forward could really well be determined by whether the authorities still feel like that rage is there—that this rage could be coming at them and could further expose the system for the rotten, no good thing that it is, if Zimmerman goes free. And then a big question is posed for various figures in the the ruling class. Is it worse for the system to convict this racist, or is it worse to let him go? What will actually undermine the system the most? Because when you talk about the courts in this country, you’re not talking about some neutral institution that operates according to the laws of what’s right and wrong. You’re talking about an institution that is part and parcel of maintaining the exploitative and oppressive setup. And in this country the role that the courts have played as part of that, a lot of it is targeting of Blacks and Latinos and especially the youth because that is the section of society that the powers-that-be hate and fear. The ruling class remembers the 1960s and the way in which Black youth were at the forefront of standing up against the mistreatement of Black people. And the powers-that-be remember the powerful dynamic between the struggle of Black people and other struggles, like the struggle to end the Vietnam War and the fight against women’s oppression, and a broad revolutionary movement that encompassed not only Black people, but people of various nationalities, many different backgrounds, that rocked this system back on its heels. And the powers-that-be understand that the conditions this system is enforcing on tens of millions of people in the inner cities across this country, and even beyond the inner cities, are as bad, if not worse than the conditions that were forced on people in the 1960s. And the powers-that-be are moving to head off any kind of uprisings in relation to that through a program of criminalization of Black and Latino youth in large numbers—the warehousing in prisons, the disproportionate ways that the police harass, jack up, brutalize and even murder Black and Latino people, especially the youth. All of this is all part of conscious policies adopted that I like to refer to as a counter-insurgency being unleashed before the insurgency can break out and in order to prevent anything along the lines of an insurgency from breaking out. That’s how the authorities are looking at that.

So it’s important that people understand their role in relation to all that and whether they are going to stand up and say no more to that and not just in relation to a particular outrage but seeing that this is part and parcel of the way that the system comes at whole groupings of people, whole generations of people. And a lot of that comes down to what role do the revolutionaries play, what role do the people who see the need for revolution play? And that underscores the importance of taking the approach of “Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution”; helping people to see the source of not only this problem they’re up against, but that it is the same as the problems that are being enforced on humanity, not only in this country, but throughout the  world and that the solution to that is making revolution and getting rid of the capitalist-imperialist system once and for all. And particularly right now, focusing that up a lot around the premiere of this film, BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! because it is a way to introduce people to the leadership that we have for this revolution. So that’s kind of how I see that question of the role that people’s activities play and need to continue to play and that people need to themselves understand. But that also needs to be done in the context of where this comes from and what’s needed to be done to get rid of it.

Feb 26, 2013--WE ARE ALL STILL TRAYVON! A Call from Carl Dix

TAKE YOUR RAGE TO THE STREETS -- WEAR YOUR HOODIE, AND SPREAD THE WORD!




February 26 is one year since the vigilante murder of Trayvon Martin—one year since George Zimmerman saw Trayvon, a 17-year-old wearing a hoodie, and decided this Black youth "…must be up to no good." One year since Zimmerman followed Trayvon and gunned him down. One year since the Sanford, Florida, cops walked Zimmerman into and out of the police station letting him go free, citing Florida's racist "Stand Your Ground" law. Only after powerful outpourings of protest spread all across the country was Zimmerman re-arrested and charged for his crime.

THIS ANNIVERSARY MUST BE MARKED BY POWERFUL OUTPOURINGS ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY! The Stop Mass Incarceration Network has called for everyone who hates the way Black and Latino youth are treated as less than human to take their outrage to the streets in cities and towns across the country at 4 pm on February 26.

Carl Dix on "Django Unchained"
Revolution Books NYC, Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Django Unchained has generated a lot of controversy. Spike Lee has called for a boycott of the film. Others have trashed it for portraying Black people as clowns, for its violence and for the many times the N-word is heard. These folk think this movie is terrible.

Carl Dix says Django Unchained is a fine movie, one that people need to see! The brutal enslavement of Black people was a key part of the foundation for all the wealth and power of America. The horrible reality of slavery in this country is something that has been hidden from view. This movie brings that horrible reality to light, without trying to justify it or prettify it.

Carl Dix discusses this movie; its significance; what it has to do with the criminalization, discrimination and inequality Black people confront today.

Stop-and-Frisk Freedom Fighters Sentenced on Monday 01/07/2013 0 Comments November 19. 2011, Carl Dix, in red jacket, and stop-and-frisk freedom fighters march to notorious 103rd Precinct in Queens to protest. by Carl Dix The judge who handed down the sentences in the Queens’ Stop & Frisk case got personal.  I got a $250 fine, 5 days court observation and $120 court costs.  Morgan Rhodewalt got the fine, 5 days community service and court costs.  Jamel Mims got 5 days community service and court costs.  And Bob Parsons got court costs.  1st off, we shoulda gotten off with time served—no fines and no community service.  Stop & Frisk is wrong, and we were right to protest it! In handing down these sentences, the judge said, ‘The jury saw thru Dix’s arrogance, and Rhodewalt’s false statements.’  Of course, the jury hadn’t said any of this.  The judge was really spitting his own venom at us, and he followed that up by giving Morgan and me extra punishment. Why did the judge say I was arrogant?  Because he feels it was arrogant of me to decide Stop & Frisk was racist, illegal and illegitimate and to call on people to join a campaign of civil disobedience to stop it!  And to come into his court and say that what we did was the right thing to do.  He probably thought my statement before sentencing was also “arrogant.”  I noted that “Ray Kelly told 3 Black legislators he wanted every Black and Latino youth to be afraid they might be stopped & frisked every morning when they leave their house.”  I added, “This was wrong, and we were right to stand up and say NO MORE to this outrage.” Morgan’s “false statement” was about his complaint to the Civilian Complaint Review Board over the police having tightened his handcuffs so tight he lost use of his thumbs for several weeks.  Before the trial, the prosecution argued, unsuccessfully, that this complaint amounted to a confession of guilt in this case.  But the jury never saw this statement, so it’s ludicrous to say they saw thru his false statements.  (There’s something to learn from this.  The complaint to the CCRB didn’t in any way deter cops from making handcuffs too tight on people they arrest, but it did serve to give the government an added way to target the defense in this charged political case.) There’s another wrinkle to the judge sentencing me to court observation.  He said he did this in consideration of my physical condition.  Rev. Steven Phelps, the Senior Minister at the Riverside Church had offered that we could do any community service we were sentenced to could be done thru ministries at their church.  If the only issue was coming up with community service that fit my physical condition, the Riverside Church’s offer would’ve fit the bill.  The judge was essentially saying that he was going to take this arrogant Black man and make him sit in his court room, under his thumb, and maybe teach him some humility. That won’t happen!  Stop & Frisk is still wrong.  Mass Incarceration is still racist and illegitimate.  It is right to stand up and say NO MORE to this slow genocide strangling inner city Black and Latino communities across the country!  Watching this judge operate in court for a week won’t change any of that.

Discussion of  Django Unchained with Carl Dix

January 9, Wednesday, 7pm at Revolution Books, 

146 W. 26th Street, New York

The movie, "Django Unchained," has generated controversy. Many have called it terrible because of its violence and use of the N-word and because it 'portrays Black people as buffoons.' Carl Dix says this movie, with its depiction of the horrors of slavery and of violence wielded against those who enforced those horrors, is fine. Come out to Revolution Books for the discussion Carl will lead about this film.     

From the Desk of Carl Dix

MAKE 2013 A YEAR OF RISING RESISTANCE TO THE HORRORS OF THIS SYSTEM!

Sisters and Brothers,

I spent 2012 deeply involved in building resistance to mass incarceration.  Along with other Stop “Stop-and-Frisk” Freedom Fighters, I faced several trials for having stood up in 2011 to say no to that racist, illegitimate policy of the NYPD.   In waging a legal-political defense, we successfully turned the tables on the authorities and put Stop-and-Frisk on trial inside and outside the courtrooms, and beat back their attempts to put us in jail for standing up and fighting back.   

Along with Cornel West, I issued the Call to “Blow the Whistle on Stop-and-Frisk” on September 13, 2012.  In NYC alone, more than 5,000 whistles were distributed, giving people who the cops sweat non stop a way they could enlist in the resistance to police abuse and the way the whole criminal "injustice" system comes down on them

I did all this as part of building a movement for revolution, a movement that has set its sights on leading millions of people in doing all that’s necessary to get rid of this capitalist system and all the horrors it inflicts on humanity — the wars for empire; the pillaging of whole countries; the brutality and sexual slavery enforced on women in many different parts of the world, including in the U.S.; the ravaging of the environment and more.

This kind of revolution is possible.  In Bob Avakian, the leader of the RCP, we have the leadership we need to make revolution.  And the new approach to revolution and communism he developed by studying the many great achievements and the errors and shortcomings of the revolutions in the Soviet Union and China make it possible to go farther and do better the next time revolution is made and power is in the hands of the people.  And the RCP has a strategy for making revolution in a country like this:  It’s spreading revolution everywhere" and “Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution!”

Look, I know a lot of people argue that the thing to do in 2012 was to make sure Obama got re-elected.  And those same people now say the thing to do is to hold his feet to the fire to get him accountable to the people who voted for him.  Doing this paralyzes and immobilizes people who should be out there building resistance to the crimes against the people Obama presided over and will continue to preside over.

At Obama's campaign rallies, the cry "Four More Years" rang out.   Four more years of what?  ...Of drone missiles rained down on Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries destroying whole villages and killing thousands of innocent people?  ...Of Obama reviewing a kill list and deciding who gets assassinated on his say so every week?  ...Of Obama instituting policies like his assertion that the president can kill US citizens if he determines they are enemy combatants?  On these and other fronts Obama is worse than Bush!  Working to keep him in the White House, and trying to make him accountable to the people who voted for him keeps the system that breaks the bodies and crushes the spirits of millions and millions of people around the world in effect.  Doing this is worse than useless.

But there is something worthwhile you can and must be a part of.  

Join me in making 2013 a year of rising resistance, a year that thousands -- and even millions -- stand up to say police murder, racial profiling, torture like conditions in prison—all this shit—must end.  The slogan -- Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide -- expresses the reality for tens of millions of people in the U.S.  We must make 2013 a year of breaking that silence.  I urge you to be a part of making this happen because it will make a difference: for the youth treated like criminals and seen as guilty until proven innocent, if they can survive to prove their innocence; for those warehoused in prison; for those discriminated against after they’ve served their sentences; and for all their loved ones.

There are practical ways you could be part of breaking that silence.  

1. Join the Stop Mass Incarceration Network in its Bear Witness Project (click here).

2. Bring me to your campus or your area to speak on the horrors of mass incarceration and what to do about them.  Contact me directly at comradecarl@hotmail.com.

3. Set up an interview so I can get into the media about what’s being done to fight mass incarceration.  Contact me via the SMIN at stopmassincarceration@gmail.com, or directly at comradecarl@hotmail.com.

4. Contribute money!  Your contributions can play a crucial role in making 2013 a year of rising resistance.   You could contribute to both my efforts and to the SMIN:

(a) You can contribute to help me focus all my efforts on spreading revolution and building resistance.  Make a check or money order to Carl Dix to P.O. Box 941 Knickerbocker Station, New York NY 10002-0900.

(b) You can make a tax-deductible contribution to the SMIN.  You can do this by going online to make a contribution, or send checks and money orders to the Alliance for Global Justice (with a notation to “Stop Mass Incarceration”), and then send them to The Stop Mass Incarceration Network, P.O. Box 941 Knickerbocker Station, New York, New York 10002-0900.  

Revolutionary Greetings,

           Carl Dix

Office of Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, P.O. Box 941 Knickerbocker Station, New York NY 10002-0900 * 866-841-9139 x2670 * blog:  comradecarl.blogspot.com *  facebook: carl.dix * youtube: CarlDix1 * twitter: @Carl_Dix

“A slow genocide that could easily become a fast one”

December 23, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

“More than 2.4 million people are warehoused in prisons across the country. In 2009, more than 55 percent of those in prison were Black or Latino. Most of the prisoners are men, but there are more than 200,000 women in prison. And the rate of increase for women in prison has been almost double that of men since 1985. In these prisons, people are subjected to conditions that amount to torture. In California alone, there are tens of thousands of prisoners held in segregation units called special housing units or SHUs. People get put in these units arbitrarily, often just at the whim of a guard or an administrator. There is no way for a prisoner to challenge being put into one of these units. Once you end up in one of these units, just about the only way you can get out is by snitching on some other prisoner. When you are in there you are denied visitors. I mean, at times, they don’t even let your lawyer come to see you or give you a call. And they deny people human contact for weeks or months at a time. And this is something that international law calls torture, holding people in that kind of condition.

“These conditions were so bad that this is why 6,600 prisoners in California went on hunger strike in July 2011, followed by a second wave of hunger strikes with 12,000 prisoners participating in September 2011. I mean, people were willing to starve themselves, putting their lives on the line to demonstrate their refusal to continue to put up with these horrendous conditions. And as I said earlier, one of them recently died.

“Then you’ve got the millions and millions more people who are on parole and probation. They’ve already served their sentences, yet they remain under the control of the criminal injustice system. They aren’t allowed to vote; they’re discriminated against when looking for a job; they’re barred from public housing; they’re denied access to government loans.

“All of this, the 2.4 million people in prison, the youth for whom going in and out of prison has become a rite of passage, the former prisoners who are forced to wear badges of shame and dishonor after they’ve already been punished by the authorities, the loved ones and friends of all these people whose hearts are incarcerated with them. This amounts to millions and millions of people living their lives enmeshed in the criminal injustice system in this country. And it comes down to a slow genocide that could easily become a fast one targeting Black people.”

—Carl Dix, speaking at Riverside Church, 
February 18, 2012

The slow genocide Carl Dix talks about continues to grind on, breaking the bodies and crushing the spirits of many of the tens of millions of people whose lives are enmeshed in the web of the criminal injustice system. The horrors this means for so many in this society provides potential to unleash millions to stand up and resist.

To tap into this potential, the Stop Mass Incarceration Network (SMIN) is dedicating February, which is Black History Month, to bearing witness to the injustice of mass incarceration and all its consequences. The month will begin with a week of Bearing Witness and Manifesting Resistance to mass incarceration, and SMIN plans to use the Call to Bear Witness to transform the resistance to these injustices into more of a nationwide movement.

SMIN will continue the fight to see to it that none of the STOP “Stop & Frisk” freedom fighters do any jail time, and it will turn the system’s legal attacks on the people who stood up against stop-and-frisk into opportunities to put that racist illegitimate policy on trial. In particular, SMIN will rally people to beat back the government’s prejudicial prosecutions of Noche Diaz.

An important call for unity among different groups of prisoners (“California Prisoners Call for Peace Between Different Nationalities in Prisons and Jails,” Revolution, October 7, 2012) has been issued by prisoners in California. The call is spreading across the country behind the walls and even reaching outside the prisons. It needs to be spread even further.

2012 Police Attacks on Black and Latino Youth Multiply

This Shit Must End!! 
And WE Must End It!!

by Carl Dix | December 23, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

As 2012 draws to a close, rage builds over the murder of Jordan Davis, a Black youth in Florida who was gunned down by a white man named Michael Dunn. Dunn was angered by Jordan and his friends playing their music too loud, and says he fired eight shots at them because he saw a shotgun, a gun that has yet to be found, in their car. Think about this—a white man says he felt in fear for his life after he confronted Black youth playing loud music, and this is seen as possible justification for murdering one of them. They might as well declare open season on Black youth in “Stand Your Ground” Florida.

This brings to mind the racist murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman—who considered a Black youth in a hoodie automatically “suspicious.” Add to these unofficial murders the police murders of Ramarley Graham in NYC; Manuel Diaz and Joel Acevedo in Anaheim, California; the authorities in Jonesboro, Arkansas, calling it a suicide when Chavis Carter was found dead of a bullet to the head in the back seat of a cop car while double handcuffed, and many more outrages that were perpetrated in 2012.

COPS AND VIGILANTES STEALING THE LIVES OF OUR CHILDREN MUST NOT BE TOLERATED! IT MUST BE ENDED!

This is part of the whole way the criminal “injustice” system is unleashed to assault Black and Latino people today. Add to these official and unofficial murders the more than 2.2 million people warehoused in prisons across the country, 60 percent of them Black or Latino. Add to all that the 400,000 immigrants held in detention centers in the course of a year. And stop-and-frisk in NYC, gang injunctions in California and other places, and other forms of racial profiling that make Black and Latino youth a criminalized generation, guilty until proven innocent, if they can survive to prove their innocence. And how former prisoners are subjected to open discrimination even after they’ve served their sentences.

ALL THIS TOO MUST NOT BE TOLERATED! IT TOO MUST BE ENDED!

All this adds up to millions of Black and Latino youth facing lives going into and out of prison as a rite of passage. In addition to the two million-plus people in prison, there are five million former prisoners who are reduced to the status of second-class citizens by the discrimination they face. When you consider the loved ones of all these people, you get a picture of tens of millions of people living their lives enmeshed in the web of the criminal “injustice” system. This is why I’ve called out mass incarceration as being a slow genocide that could easily become a fast one.

This represents a continuation in different form of the whole history of vicious oppression of Black people since the 1st Africans were dragged to these shores in slave chains.

As Bob Avakian has put it:

“This system, in this country, in the whole history of its treatment of Black people, what has it been?

First, Slavery … Then, Jim Crow—segregation and Ku Klux Klan terror … And now, The New Jim Crow—police brutality and murder, wholesale criminalization and mass incarceration, and legalized discrimination yet again.

That’s it for this system:

Three strikes and you’re out!”

Avakian is right on time here. We need a revolution to end once and for all the brutal, vicious oppression of Black people and other oppressed nationalities, and the 1001 other horrors this system inflicts on humanity—the violence and degradation enforced on women all over the world, the wars for empire, the ravaging of the environment. A revolution that brings into being a totally different society where power is in the hands of the people, led by their communist vanguard, and where radically different economic, social and political relations are in effect.

And right now what’s needed is resistance. Everybody needs to be a part of fighting this. If you have an ounce of concern for what’s being brought down on tens of millions of people in society, YOU HAVE TO JOIN THIS FIGHT.

I mean, how can anyone stand aside when millions of youth are destined for futures of oppression and oblivion even before they are born? We need determined mass resistance—to the police brutality and police murder, to the torture-like conditions in prison, to racial profiling, to the whole slow genocide of mass incarceration.

Our resistance has to be taken to a much higher level in 2013. To a level that can beat back the horrors that are being inflicted on so many people, that can reverse the trajectory of brutality and criminalization this society has been on for so long. Resistance that can capture the imagination of people broadly, that can open the eyes of those who are kept in the dark about all what’s being done in their names and let those who bear the brunt of all this know they’re not alone, that when they stand up and fight back, others will stand with them. YOU HAVE TO BE A PART OF FORGING THIS MUCH NEEDED RESISTANCE!

We in the Revolutionary Communist Party are going to be right in the thick of building this resistance, mobilizing masses to Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution! From whatever perspective you come at all this, you need to join in taking on these horrors.

Stand with the prisoners who have put their lives on the line to fight the torturous conditions they face in prisons across the country. Spread the impact of the Call for unity that has been issued by prisoners in the segregation units in California.

Stand up and say NO MORE to police murder and police brutality, to racial profiling and to discrimination against former prisoners.

Join in and help forge a massive struggle to stop mass incarceration.

The slogan, Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide, expresses the reality faced by millions of people in U.S. society.

2013 must be a year of breaking that silence!

Send us your comments.

From the Desk of Carl Dix

November 16, 2012

Credit: Black Bird Press News & Review

Friends,

I want to make sure you all know that we won a victory yesterday in court in Queens. Four Stop-and-Frisk Freedom Fighters, myself, Jamel Mims, Morgan Rhodewalt and Bob Parsons, were found not guilty on 2 counts of Obstructing Governmental Administration (OGA, a misdemeanor carrying a penalty of a year in prison.) for the Stop “Stop-and-Frisk” protest at the 103^rd police precinct in Queens on November 19, 2011.  We were found guilty of disorderly conduct (Dis Con, a violation which carries a maximum penalty of 15 days) for that protest.  (Sentencing in this case is scheduled for January 7, 2013.)

To be clear, we did nothing wrong at that protest. We should’ve been found not guilty on all charges. The 20 people arrested last November 19^th were standing up and saying NO MORE to the racist, illegitimate NYPD policy of Stop-and-Frisk under which almost 2000 people, 85% of them Black or Latino and almost all of them completely innocent, are subjected to harassment, disrespect and worse every day. Putting us on trial facing charges that could’ve put us in jail for a year was part of the way NY authorities have doubled down on Stop-and-Frisk in the face of rising opposition.  They wanted to convict and jail us to deliver a message to everyone else that, if you stand up and resist injustice, you’ll be severely punished.  But they weren’t able to deliver that message.

This battle is far from over.  Nine more defendants are facing charges of OGA and Dis Con for the November 19^th protest, and 13 defendants, including me, face trial for protesting Stop-and-Frisk in Brooklyn.  Noche Diaz, a defendant in both these cases, also faces trials in Manhattan and the Bronx for getting arrested while observing the police brutalizing people.  Stop-and-Frisk, the injustice we set out to end, remains in effect, and as we said very loudly at our protests, “We Won’t Stop Till We Stop ‘Stop-and-Frisk.’” And all of this is part of taking on racially targeted mass incarceration.

We should take note of our victory and redouble efforts to carry forward this fight to a successful conclusion.  There are a few key things we need to focus on in doing this:

• Support the December 6^th “Evening to Support of the Stop-and-Frisk Freedom Fighters and Raise the Roof for their Legal Expenses.”  Spread the word on it, buy tickets, line up participants and refreshments, etc.  For information go to www.stopmassincarceration.org.
• Spread the word on the remaining trials the Stop-and-Frisk Freedom Fighters face.  Winning these cases is part of fighting to Stop “Stop-and-Frisk.”  Help get these trials covered in the media, get it out on lists you’re on, spread it on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• Sign the Resolution calling for dropping the charges on the Stop-and-Frisk Freedom Fighters, ending the prejudicial prosecution of Noche Diaz and immediately ending Stop-and-Frisk.  Go to www.stopmassincarceration.org/resolution-en.html.

Revolutionary Greetings,

Carl Dix