Where the Fuck are the Liberals??

This morning the State of California executed Tookie. He was murdered by the state to avenge his involvement in the founding of the Crips and alleged killings while a Crip member. All appeals were denied because Tookie wouldn’t admit to his alleged crimes. Crimes, he says he didn’t commit.
If only he would have admitted to something he didn’t do he would have been considered to have redeemed himself. His community work over many years to prevent children from joining gangs while all the time imprisoned didn’t qualify as redemption. His children’s books condemning gangs didn’t make for redemption.
The man who made the final denial in a five page statement is a man whose family had ties with Nazis during World War II. He was afforded redemption.
The same man stood upon the platform with a President who has callously allowed the use of napalm, white phosphorous, depleted uranium and torture.
The same man illegally used steroids to win competitions that brought his name to the forefront but he condemns poor black and Hispanics using crack as criminals. He admits groping women against their will but still gets redemption by being elected.
George Bush and Arnold talked about justice and freedom during the election. They talked about a better America and democracy. When it came down to it though, that’s all it was …talk.
You have a mass murderer and his fascist, steroid freak, governor friend talking about justice and failed redemption as a reason to uphold executions of black men, brown men and retarded men.
You have the religious right spouting off about the sanctity of life and the right to life for the unborn but they don’t care a black man will be killed by the state.
We have pious and disgusting people who don’t mind killing off a bunch of Iraqis, gooks, camel jockeys or niggers. Pious people who haven’t a clue what a young black man or woman faces every day if they are poor and live in the wrong part of town.
We have pious people who talk about sanctity of life but don’t speak out about brown brothers and sisters being used for slave labor. Instead they complain about “wetbacks” taking jobs from Americans.
They haven’t a clue the people they complain about have an ancestry dating back to the indigenous peoples of America.
We have pious people talking about respect for life but they have stolen the lands of the true natives of North America and venerate the man, Columbus, who started the genocide of entire tribes and cultures.
Then we have a peace movement telling us how much they want to support the communities of color but fail to show up time and time again when those communities ask for support.
Last evening was such a time. When a call went out to the peace and justice community to come to oppose the execution of a black man and to cry out in outrage about the continued abuses of police in Denver and Aurora against men and women of color, the peace and justice community failed to put up.
How many of them knew of Tookie Williams is unknown. Apparently they didn’t feel his execution this morning at 1:25 a.m. was something worthy of opposing in person last evening at 3-6pm. They didn’t feel his influence from the cell on young brothers and sisters to stay out of gangs was redemption enough to bother, apparently. They didn’t feel his work to bring a truce from the violence between gangs was important enough to stand in the dark and cold to oppose the state murdering him, apparently.
But then if they had shown up last night they would have heard stuff like the “mother fucking cops” and the “fucking stooge press”. They would have heard angry black men calling out the leaders of the communities claiming to be the friends of black men and people of color.
They would have heard Professor Ward Churchill talking about Fred Hampton and his work in the Black Panthers. They would have heard about the breakfast programs and the job programs founded by Fred and the Panthers.
They would have seen Ward wearing the same button of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War that I wear. They would have heard him challenge the mainstream press to prove their ethnicity.
The peace and justice folks would have heard Ward telling the press they should be fucking ashamed of themselves for the propaganda and lies they write to stay journalists.
They would have heard Earl Armstrong speak of the beating his brother suffered for going out late at night and making the mistake of encountering the Denver Police. A beating Walter Gerash said was the worst he’d ever seen in relationship to the alleged offense and the supposed use of force the cops said they used.
Earl could have told them of his great concern the white community doesn’t care his brother was savaged by police in another of a countless number of beatings and shootings by police in this metropolitan area. He could have told them of his brother’s mental illness sure to be worsened by the beating he took.
The peace and justice community could have heard from a young black man subdued by police with a tazer because he was erroneously said to have stolen a salad at a Chuckie Cheese restaurant. They could have listened to young black men tell of the daily harassment they must endure in the neighborhoods of marginalized people here in Denver.
They could have heard an activist lawyer tell us Denver was like the “deep South” where she had previously lived.
They could have seen all the children called up to the front to symbolize the next generation of oppressed by the cops and by the systems of our society. They could have joined us in a circle of prayer asking for peace and justice for Tookie and all those who face oppression and suffering.
I’ll just repeat some of an email I wrote in frustration to a friend of mine after the rally last evening;

I’m in the process of writing a piece right now about the protest last night and the subsequent murder of Tookie by the Nazi governor.
One of the main themes has to be where the fuck was these fucking liberals who claim to want diversity? Where were all the white folks who say they want people of color but can’t say black and can’t show up when black men are being shot in the streets or beat near death by the fucking cops they tell you are only doing their job?
Protect and serve seems to have become the oxymoron of the ages. Better they should have Beat down and keep down on the sides of their cars.
Yeah, these are the cops we want to collaborate with in civil disobedience.

Where were the leaders of this organization to stand up for the concepts being talked about? Everybody is afraid to radicalize because it means confrontation of the truth. And the fucking truth is ugly.
My first sentence in my piece should read the Terminator should have put on his sheet and had Tookie hung from the tree outside his office while he had Maria put on Billie Holliday singing Strange Fruit.
Hell, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at the figures of the inmate population of this nation to see the obvious. The new slavery and plantation is the American forensic system. Something Ward Churchill eloquently mentioned last evening. But where are these peace and justice people to stand beside Earl, Shareef, Ward and Larry?
Oh that’s right these are angry black men who don’t give a fuck about their language. In fact they relish using the words so reprehensible and foul to the alleged movement.
No, no…..can’t have loud and angry in the mix of protesting outrageous acts of truly obscene people like Arnold and George.

I just kept thinking last night about the Catholic Church, so fucking pious about embryonic right to life and always talking about redemption of our souls, missing in action when it came to an execution of a black man who has redeemed himself.
There can only be one reason the Church and all who call for right to life are missing. Uppity blacks are a danger to the status quo. Just like Fred Hampton and countless other powerful men who sought to bring communities of those oppressed together, Tookie and the loud and angry present a threat.

It seems similar to my experience in Louisiana at a motel I stayed at. Two crackers were talking the vilest racist shit about the folks crammed into the Super Dome after Katrina. Oh, they didn’t use the word nigger but they may as well have done so. There I was at the breakfast buffet silently listening to their shit and they thought because I was white I was one of them. It didn’t occur to them I felt they were sick fuckers.
I probably should have said something but didn’t have the courage to do it. That’s part of my own racism because I grew up with a racist father. I loved him but I couldn’t endure him when he would speak to race. I argued incessantly with him about it and never got him to change. He infected me with it in those subtle ways that I see come out on occasions like that motel scene.


These are my words in anger but it’s time to speak in anger and it’s time to tell those who oppress they are mother fuckers who need to change now!!

Terry Leichner
Vietnam Veterans Against the War