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Black like who? | page 1, 2
"I suspect that, on a national survey, probably 10 percent or fewer would
be aware of him," Bositis says. "I tend to doubt that there'd be a
groundswell of support for him. Why him? There are many better examples --
[Abner] Louima, [Amadou] Diallo, Rodney King even." Those blacks who are aware of Mumia have long exhibited ambivalence
toward his cause. Mumia is a working (if unconventional) journalist and
a past president of the National Association of Black Journalists
(NABJ) chapter in Philadelphia, yet the NABJ "takes no position" on his
case. (Individual black publications have published Mumia's work, however,
and some have called for his release or retrial.) Those black leftists and nationalists who support Mumia know that they need
to win the hearts and minds of average black people over to his cause.
Angela Davis, for example, bemoans the lack of involvement of black
ministers in the battle. "I am going to challenge the clergy in
Philadelphia to join the push to stop the execution of Mumia," Davis told
the Village Voice recently. The Rev. Al Sharpton, interviewed in the same article, agreed, "These ministers have
the political clout to let [Pennsylvania] governor Ridge and others know that
they would not allow them to do this. This cannot be seen just as 'a
left-wing movement' -- there must be across-the-board resistance. I am
going to tell them that if they do not stand with me to stop the execution,
the blood of Mumia Abu-Jamal will be on their hands." Most black folk might just disagree with that conclusion. Instead,
they may believe Mumia has only himself to blame for his predicament and
that the campaign to save him really is just a left-wing movement of the
type they long ago rejected. Besides his involvement with the Panthers, Mumia was such an ardent
supporter of MOVE -- the radical black nationalist movement that was
eventually firebombed by the city -- that it cost
him his perch in journalism and sent him instead into the driver's seat
of a cab to support his three children. In truth, Mumia is the kind of angry black man that many blacks
instinctively reject. He scares most black people, just as he scares most
whites. This makes sense: Blacks have for so long been on the receiving end of
black violence and crime that they are sick of it, and are deeply skeptical
of any calls for racial solidarity on behalf of convicted murderers like
Mumia. According to Bositis, when black respondents are asked about
drug penalties, they overwhelmingly favor harsh penalties.
Furthermore, a huge majority -- 75 percent -- support mandatory
"three strikes" laws that put repeat offenders in prison for life. But blacks' reality is a complicated one, because they live in a world
bounded by residual racism on the one hand and black-on-black crime on the
other. Sixty-nine percent believe that racial profiling "usually" happens, for
example, and 44 percent say they have been stopped "for no
apparent reason" while driving. (Many refer to it as a case of "DWB" -- driving while black.) Fifty-six percent say police brutality and harassment are still serious problems where they live. Yet New York City blacks widely supported a white man, Bernard Goetz, when
he shot fleeing black thugs in the back. In the crack- and gun-ridden
1980s, no one suffered more than black people; one result of this is that they have no trouble sending violent blacks to their just rewards. In the Mumia case, his supporters understand that black community
involvement is the missing link in their argument that he was targeted
because of his race and his politics; they are working strenuously to
galvanize blacks in the battle to save Mumia's life. His lawyers speak at
black churches; Rev. Sharpton harangues his fellow ministers; grass-roots
activists try to activate the grass roots. But if Mumia himself really wants to gain the sympathy and support of
regular blacks, he might want to cut his hair, change his name back to
Wesley and join the prison gospel choir. Blacks know racism, and
they know it's become ever more subtle, and therefore ever more difficult to prove. But they also know they can't let racism drive them around the bend and deprive them of their ability to think clearly. They are instinctively suspicious of a man who's found wounded and woozy with an empty gun and the body of another human being nearby in a seedy part of town at 4 a.m. Especially when that man is a "wild-eyed radical" with whom they have nothing, except race, in common. That's why, even though the usual suspects are making the usual claims on
behalf of "black Americans" in the Mumia case, actual black Americans are
by and large sitting this one out.
Next: Part 2 -- Should Mumia get a new trial?
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