JUSTICE FOR TRAYVON!    STOP TORTURE IN PRISON

Big things are up in the world.  Millions of people have poured into the streets of Turkey, Brazil, and Egypt, seemingly out of nowhere, fighting long years of oppression and brutality. The oppressive normalcy which many accepted as unchangeable has been shattered.  What seemed impossible, yesterday, seems very possible, today.

Right now, the eyes of millions, here and around the world, are focused on a courtroom in Sanford, Florida, where George Zimmerman, the racist vigilante that murdered Trayvon Martin in cold blood is on trial.  Will they only see Zimmerman’s defense, aided by the media, dragging Trayvon’s reputation thru the mud to justify his murder and let his murderer walk free again?  Or will they see people like us raising our voices to say, “We Are All Trayvon” and demand justice for him?

This really matters.  We cannot allow them to get away with okaying this modern day lynching and putting a target on the backs of young Black and Latino men, further criminalizing and demonizing a whole generation.  What is at stake is whether or not a developing program of genocide will be given a green light.  To even get Zimmerman put on trial took tens of thousands in the streets demonstrating, marching and rallying.  We cannot wait for the verdict.  We must act NOW!  What you do, now, can make a big difference in many more being mobilized to refuse to accept the murder of Trayvon and the acquittal of George Zimmerman.

On July 8, prisoners in California will go on hunger strike, putting their lives on the line, to demand an end to the systematic torture they face on a daily basis through long-term solitary confinement.  2.3 million people are in prison in the U.S.  80,000 prisoners are held in solitary confinement in conditions that are torture under international law.  The US regularly condemns other countries for jailing, brutalizing and torturing their citizens. The reality is that the U.S. has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners!  More Black people are in prison, jail, on parole, or probation than there were slaves on the eve of the Civil War. 

The hunger strikers are demanding to be treated like human beings and asserting their humanity.  We must stand with them and find our own humanity.  The torture of solitary confinement must stop, now!  If many, many more don’t stand with the prisoners, the government will isolate them and crush their hunger strike.  This will deliver a message that there is nothing people can do about the horrors enforced on them.  On the other hand, if many are brought to stand with the prisoners, we can open the eyes of millions here and around the world, that, yes, right here in the United States, people are being regularly tortured as a matter of policy.  And we will have a real chance of ending this barbaric outrage.

The Supreme Court has gutted voting rights protection for millions of Black and Latino people, accelerating the increasing disenfranchisement of Black people.  They have taken aim at affirmative action.   A New Jim Crow is being forcefully asserted. 

We must act, now, not later.  What you do can make a big difference in many more being mobilized to stop these outrages.

What you can do:

1)   Spread the web site of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network on social media. http://www.stopmassincarceration.net/  Go to it for the latest updates, statement, actions and plans

2)   Plan a vigil when the Zimmerman case goes to the jury and a rally/demonstration/march when the verdict comes down, no matter what it is.  See http://www.stopmassincarceration.net/

3)   Sign, download and spread the “EMERGENCY CALL! JOIN US IN STOPPING TORTURE IN U.S. PRISONS!” and donate to publish it in The Los Angeles Times.  Emergency Call.pdf

4)   Spread the “June 20 Statement From Pelican Bay Short Corridor Collective” announcing the hunger strike.       http://www.stopmassincarceration.net/content/june-20-statement-peli...

5 )   Table, flyer, rally, demonstrate, and march to support the prisoner hunger strike and the end of solitary confinement, and demand Justice for Trayvon Martin.

6)      Watch and spread “Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide. Act to STOP It Now!” with Cornel West & Carl Dix           http://vimeo.com/66874458