Prison Power by Lisa M. Corrigan

Author:Lisa M. Corrigan [Corrigan, Lisa M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics, History
ISBN: 9781496809100
Google: MdQ3DQAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 30003480
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Published: 2016-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

Targeting Radical Black Organizations

Certainly the authorizing discourses preceding Abu-Jamal’s essays in each book function as vernacular counternarratives hailing Abu-Jamal as a Black Power prison leader for a new generation of activists and oppositional activist readers. But Abu-Jamal’s own writings function as a second space for the creation of counternarratives that challenge the cop killer trope by challenging who can speak about crime and punishment. Describing his career as a journalist and his early affiliation with the Black Panther Party and his later association with the MOVE organization, Abu-Jamal’s comments provide context for his emergence as an oppositional reporter. For instance, he writes about the police brutality that he and his friends experienced as they agitated for a name change at his high school prior to his entrance into the BPP: “Well, my political life formally began with the Black Panther Party. I’ve been in a sense thankful to the Philadelphia police department for kicking and beating me into the Black Panther Party.”64 Abu-Jamal also talks about his time in the Ministry of Information before becoming a journalist after the BPP split. In explaining his calling to his craft, he writes that revolutionary journalism is a consciousness-raising tool:

When one reads the daily press or listens to what is broadcast on the regular “white” radio stations and TV stations, you will perceive a picture, a slanted picture, of Black life that reflects it in the most improper terms. When media journalism and propaganda is used to reflect a positive side of people, the side that resists oppression, the side of people’s inherent worth, no matter what their property or economy value, then that in itself is revolutionary, because this system tends to denigrate people who are poor. And most of the people on planet earth are poor.65

Abu-Jamal highlights the racial and class-consciousness that motivates his style of reporting, though gender is conspicuously absent. He writes, nevertheless, from the standpoint of a revolutionary, which influences his views about oppression in black communities. As a black (male) reporter in Philadelphia, Abu-Jamal provided a counternarrative that exposed how white stereotypes and fears frame white news to the detriment of poor people. Providing this oppositional standpoint complicates the narratives of “law and order” as they privilege dominant standpoints on race and “crime.” Abu-Jamal’s journalistic integrity is informed by a larger political context that acknowledges corruption and racism within the political and legal spheres. As a well-respected journalist committed to uncovering and reporting police brutality in Philadelphia, it is no wonder that Abu-Jamal became a target of the Civil Defense squads, COINTELPRO, and Frank Rizzo as he broadcasted pieces critical of the police for oppressing poor communities of color.66

Although Abu-Jamal was clearly targeted because of his affiliation with the BPP as a youth, he was also monitored and harassed because he was affiliated with John Africa’s cooperative social group MOVE. The police harassment and attempts at eradicating the communal, progressive MOVE organization began as early as 1974, but climaxed in 1978, when Rizzo confronted MOVE at their home in the Powelton Village section of west Philadelphia.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.