A Message from Carl Dix on February 26

February 26, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us Sisters and Brothers, What we are doing today is critically important. The refusal of the system to convict Michael Dunn for the murder of Jordan Davis, on top of the exoneration of George Zimmerman, the vigilante murderer of Trayvon Martin, amounted to Amerikkka telling us, once again, that Black people have no rights that whites are bound to respect. It was critical that this be responded to powerfully. Gathering at the seats of power and influence in cities across the country, rocking our hoodies, holding targets and raising our fists in silent determination, we are declaring that we will not accept our youth being targeted in this way. We are saying NO MORE to Black and Latino youth being treated like criminals, guilty until proven innocent, if they can survive to prove their innocence. This is unacceptable. It is illegitimate. It must be stopped, and we are acting to stop it! And things don’t end with today’s action. We are just getting started. There needs to be a movement of determined resistance to the criminalization of our youth, to the warehousing of people in prison, to mass incarceration overall and all its consequences. We need to go from the hundreds who are acting today to thousands acting soon, to ultimately mobilizing a movement of millions of people saying no more to the slow genocide the criminal “injustice” system in this country enforces on Black and Brown people. There is a lot of potential for doing this. Tens of millions of people in this country are living lives enmeshed in the criminal “injustice” system. People are suffering, and people are seething with rage. They want to know why these horrors keep happening and are looking for ways to resist. And it is up to US to give people a vision of what we can accomplish by resisting these horrors and saying NO MORE. And it is up to us to give them a way to participate that can organize and give direction to that seething anger, and to inspire and challenge them to act to END this. We are committed to building this movement of millions, and we have a vision to make a leap toward doing that thru a Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration in October, 2014. We envision a month of nationwide rallies and demonstrations, major concerts, symposiums and panels, well known people speaking out, people wearing armbands and ribbons, and more. A month that can change the way millions of people in this society look at mass incarceration. Cornel West and I have developed a basic vision for October, but we can’t figure all this out alone. There is a whole lot to do to flesh out that vision, to give it life and to make it real. We need people to enlist in this effort now; to join and be a part of hammering out a vision for a Month of Resistance that can change everything around mass incarceration. We need all kinds of people to be part of developing the plans for building up to an October that can have this kind of impact. We need to be reaching out to students in colleges and high schools, activating them now so that they are primed to act in the fall. We need to raise the funds needed to make this month one that has the power to impact all of society. Cornel West and I are calling for a strategizing meeting in New York City to launch this effort on April 3rd and 4th. Hold the dates. Details will be announced. Hoodies Up! Targets Up! Fists Up! Time’s Up! We’re standing Up! No More Murders of Black Youth! We Are All Trayvon Martin; We Are All Jordan Davis— The Whole Damn System Is Guilty! Carl Dix, c/o Stop Mass Incarceration Network P.O. Box 941 Knickerbocker Station, New York, New York 10002 carldix@hotmail.com * @carl_dix * www.facebook.com/carl.dix * 646-571-8504