J'ACCUSSE. I Accuse.

An Open Letter to the World Regarding the Worldwide Police Killings of
Unarmed People:

As I wrote this letter, I had difficulty breathing, I cried, and then
I wiped my eyes and I pulled my self together to try to sound
coherent, to write clearly and civilized... civilized.. so surreal...
about the police officers shooting and killing Oscar Grant, a
completely unarmed, handcuffed Black man who was down on the ground
while other police officers held him down...and the entire event was
captured on not one, but several different videos that i just saw, so
there is no mistake of the events. At least two of the videos are now
here:
http://aworldbeyondcapitalism.org/onlinevideo.htm or here
http://www.peacecommunities.org/onlinevideo.htm.

After much thought, I then realized I wanted to not only write this
open letter but also to organize an international non-violent writers
movement to encourage you, the reader, to write an open letter. So I
did a little research. For those unaware, as I was unaware, J'accuse
("I accuse") was one of the most famous open letters in history
written about the Dreyfus Affair. The Dreyfus Affair was a political
scandal which divided France from the 1890s to the early 1900s. It
involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred
Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Jewish background who was
wrongly sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's island. Two years
later, in 1896, the real criminal was identified: French Army Major
Esterhazy. The Open Letter was published on January 13, 1898, on the
front cover of the newspaper L'Aurore by the influential writer Émile
Zola. Most of the work of exposing the errors in Dreyfus's conviction
was done by Dreyfus's brother Mathieu, a Jewish journalist and
anarchist Bernard Lazare, who first used the word J'accuse in a
different publication and two others who included a French army
officer and the Vice president of the French Senate.

The letter was addressed to the President of France and accused the
government of antisemitism. The ramifications of the open letter
continued for many years; among other things it prompted legislation
such as a 1905 law separating church and state; on the 100th
anniversary of Zola's article, France's Roman Catholic daily paper, La
Croix, apologized for its antisemitic editorials during the Dreyfus
Affair. As Zola was a leading French thinker, his letter formed a
major turning-point in the affair. Zola was brought to trial for
criminal libel on June 9, 1899, and was convicted, sentenced, and
removed from the Legion of Honor. Zola fled to England. After his
brief and unhappy residence in London, from October 1898 to June 1899,
he was allowed to return in time to see the French government fall. As
a direct result of the Open Letter, In 1906, Dreyfus was completely
exonerated by the Supreme Court

Writing open letters and telling the truth to those in power takes
courage, and has the power to change the entire world, even though
much like most of you reading this, I am not an influential writer
like Émile Zola. I am a severely disabled, financially disadvantaged,
Black feminist living on the West coast who happily writes with lots
of typos and a blatant disregard for the grammatical rules of the
Colonized English language. I woke up this morning, did some work for
the Freeschool Community, then logged in to a wonderful online,
Progressive community called Peace Communities, a beta project of the
Mutualist project, and I read a news article on a RSS feed about a
Black Man being killed by Police Officers while other police officers
held him down. I then watched the video and what I saw was far more
chilling than watching Rodney King being beat by Police Officers, in
which Rodney King was fortunate to live through his hellish ordeal.

I considered Rodney King "lucky", because I used to live in Portland,
Oregon, where three unarmed African-Americans were actually killed...
by Portland Police within 25 months; Byron Hammick in 2002, Kendra
James in May 2003 and James Jahar Perez shortly afterwards. James
Philip Chasse, Jr. was not African-American, but he was part of a
marginalized community due to his mentally challenged condition, and
was yet another unarmed person who was literally beaten (not shot) to
death and killed by Portland Police officers in September 2006. Many
of you will never know what it feels like to be an African-American,
financially disadvantaged, disabled person and walk the streets of a
city knowing at any time you might be the next unarmed African-
American male to be killed by Police. Its like the Black man's lottery
that none of us wants to win. The only way that we, people from all
backgrounds win in this crisis is join together to solve this crisis
that divides us and speak out together. That is why I made a point to
describe in detail how there were members of the writers community,
anarchist community, members of the military and members of the Senate
who all worked together to find justice in the Dreyfus Affair in order
to have the Open letter published.

You see, it is not just a West Coast America issue, not just a race
issue, more importantly, it is an issue about our failed systems that
allows police to carry guns in our community. We not must not let
gender, age, race, mental or physical disability, class or region
divide on us these issues.

Long ago, I researched every aspect of the Amadou Bailo Diallo
killing, in which an unarmed Black man was killed in a barrage of 41
bullets fired by Police officers, and yet I still can't makes sense of
it and I still can only remember. But I told myself it couldn't get
worse than that. After all, the police said it looked like Diallo drew
a gun, but it turned out he pulled out his wallet to show them the
Photo ID because they requested to see it even as their guns were
drawn. Whenever police harass me with racial profiling and ask me for
ID, I move slowly, carefully and remember Diallo.
< http://www.dsame.com/remember.pdf >

And then on November 27th, 2006 Sean Bell, an unarmed New Yorker was
killed just hours before his wedding. I thought to myself, surely it
couldn't get worse that...it'll get better. The police said they
thought a fellow police office yelled 'Gun' but it was just a mistake.

But it is not just an American issue of social class of our failed
system. On Saturday December 6th at around 10pm, two Greek policemen
were in patrol in a central street and according to press reports, two
Special Guards (a special category of the Greek police personnel,
originally meant for guard duties on public property) had been engaged
in a verbal argument with a small group of teenagers in a main street
of Exarchia square, in the center of Athens. They had a verbal
argument with some young people who were there. During the argument,
one of the cops pulled his gun and shot 15-year-old

Alexandros Grigoropoulos (Greek: Αλέξανδρος Γρηγορόπουλος). The victim
was moved to a Hospital to be found dead. As is typical in shootings
of unarmed people, the police issues press releases trying to describe
the boy to the public as a trouble maker but his family, his private
school and many others released press releases to say otherwise. Riots
broke out across Greece and the world from the event. The police
always cite mistakes being made.

With Oscar Grant, there was no mistake of someone thinking they
'heard' the word 'gun' from fellow officers as with Sean Bell. With
Oscar Grant, there was no mistakes of someone thinking they even 'saw'
a gun as police claimed with Diallo and police have said in countless
other unarmed incidents when unarmed people are killed by
police....because Oscar Grant was handcuffed and face down. I saw a
police stand above a man who was handcuffed and pull out his gun and
shoot the man.

I know it is not about social class because when I first saw the video
with Oscar Grant after being in Awe for many hours and talking with my
friend about it for a long time, I went to do an Internet search for
it to learn more and I found another story involving a young Black
Texas man who was shot in his own driveway by a white police officer.

Wikipedia states the following: "Bobby Tolan was a reserve outfielder
during his years with the Cardinals, with whom he won a World Series
title in 1967... and batted second behind Pete Rose in the Reds
lineup. Bobby Tolan is married to Marian Trahan and they have a son
Robert (Robbie) Tolan who plays professional baseball in the
Washington Nationals organization. On December 31, 2008, Robbie was
shot by a Bellaire, Texas policeman. Robbie Tolan was unarmed and
driving his own vehicle. The bullet lodged in (Robbie) Tolan's liver;
the injury may have ended his professional baseball career. An
investigation into the shooting is on-going." I researched further and
learned that according to Robbie Tolan's family members, Robbie Tolan
and his cousin were returning to Tolan's home in the primarily white
Houston suburb of Bellaire in the early hours of December 31, when
they were approached by officers who suspected the SUV they had just
gotten out of was stolen. Tolan's parents, the owners of the SUV, came
out of the house to explain everything to the police. An altercation
occurred and Robbie's mother was slammed against the garage door by an
officer. According to Tolan's uncle, "Her son was on his back at the
time, and he raised up and asked, 'What are you doing to my mom?' and
the officer shot him -- while he was on the ground." Tolan's uncle,
Eddie Tolan, was a sprinter who won two Gold Medals in the 1932 Summer
Olympics.

Many people would like to tell you it is a race issue or a social
class issue or some other issue. We not must not let gender, age,
race, mental/physical disability, class, region, sexual orientation or
any other characteristic divide on us the need to solve this crisis of
armed police in our communities.

Perhaps I have had a lack of desire to get completely and thoroughly
involved because paying rent, paying for food, paying for healthcare,
trying to find a way to get two worsening, agonizing, excruciatingly
painful cavities removed with a special, expensive surgery needed with
no dental coverage because the AK arthritis in my neck doesn't permit
my mouth to open wide enough for standard tooth repair... and simply
existing is a full time job for me and it seems to gets harder
everyday. Many of you face the same exact hurdles and much worse, I
know. But today my excuses and reasons end. Today, I send out this
open letter to encourage everyone to write an open letter about
unarmed people who are being killed by police officers. Blog about it,
send out emails, website post it, hand write it with sloppy
handwriting in crayons and post it everywhere any way that you can. It
doesn't even need to cost you money, just a few moments of your time.
Because with the Oscar Grant killing I must accuse myself just as I
accuse the world... of being too quiet, because I must admit that the
cop killings of unarmed people, all over the world, is getting much,
much worse everyday and as we see Peak Oil and the worldwide economy
collapse we must realize it will get far worse if we remain silent.

I have been wondering what those of us who are poor or physically
challenged or struggling just to exist could do to help solve this
crisis. After much thought I am writing to you because I (representing
no organization or entity) am encouraging an international non-violent
writing movement to begin immediately called J'ACCUSSE (I accuse) that
I hope spreads all over the world. You can participate in this event
from anywhere in the world and all that you have to do to participate
is one simple thing, just one simple thing: Tell someone how you feel
about any unarmed person being shot by police anywhere in the world in
an Open Letter. You can choose to write about one of these people I
have mentioned or sadly, you may know someone who was unarmed and was
shot by police. You can circulate my open letter, which is copyleft,
or shorten it, or you can feel free to write your own open letter...
even if the entire open letter is only four words:"J'ACCUSSE (I
accuse)". Write your thoughts in a open letter and share it with at
least one person..even if its only four words. Thats all I'm asking.
Is that too much? You think it won't make a difference, but it will.
It has made a difference to me just writing this open letter and
opening my heart and sharing this with you now even as tears pour down
my face. I haven't cried this hard in over 10 years and typically
admitting to crying would feel like a weakness but today it feels like
a strength.

I was born in Philadelphia and I have been a victim of crime many
times and had a muggers gun put to my head but there will always be
crime.  The police have bullet proof vests, tasers, pepper-spray,
rubber bullets, dogs, riot gear, batons, and a few dozen other kinds
of unethical forms of weapons and some that are even against the
Geneva Convention at their disposal so why must they carry guns to
continue killing unarmed people? Even if you hand write "J'ACCUSSE (I
accuse)" with sloppy handwriting in crayon and post it in one place it
will make a difference because you will let yourself and others know
that you will not remain silent about police killing unarmed people
anywhere in the world and you will let people know that the system of
armed police in our communities needs to end.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that
matter." Martin Luther King (1929 – 1968)

It is time to start working on a new way of life for people worldwide.

J'ACCUSSE. I Accuse.

I love you all,

Love for the people,

-T. Love

~ alt.gathering.rainbow ~