Re: more on NYC

["bob brown" <vacirca@xxxxxxxxx>]

i agree, and would add that a lot more brothers in the struggle need to step
up and help their sisters and comrades stop male violence against women in
their community ,  we male comrades could do a lot more than we currently do
to reach out to young men in our communities an educate them to anti-sexist
values. Left men in general seems to me, by failing to make antisexist mass
work more of a priority leave the whole issue of male violence against women
open to cooptation by the state, to say nothing of leaving women  to fight
male violence alone. there was a men's march against male violence against
women this weekend in DC 45!!!! 45!!!! men showed up to march! we can do
better than this comrades................... bob brown
--
"solidarity means sharing the same risks" - Che
( la solidarita significa correre gli stessi rischi)

----------
>From: bon moun <sherrynstan@xxxxxxx>
>To: M-Fem@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: more on NYC
>Date: Sat, Jun 24, 2000, 9:53 PM
>

> Hypocrisy over Central Park attacks
> Since when do the NYPD & Giuliani care about women?
> By Rebeca Toledo
> New York
>
> The alarming June 11 attacks on over 45 women by groups of young men in New
> York's Central Park have become a win-win situation for the New York Police
> Department, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's administration and the whole racist
> and sexist system.
>
> First, they whipped up a racist backlash against the historic National
> Puerto Rican Day Parade that took place earlier the same day. And then,
> they got to pretend that they care about violence against women.
>
> Since when does the NYPD care about women? On June 11, women reported that
> the police stood by and watched as they were being attacked. And can Mayor
> Rudolph Giuliani claim to care about violence against women? Isn't throwing
> women and children off welfare and into the dire poverty called "workfare"
> violence against women?
>
> So why did the cops and the mayor and the media play such a role in
> bringing the June 11 attacks to public attention? They used what happened
> in an attempt to discredit and undermine the political significance of this
> year's Puerto Rican Day Parade, which took place before the attacks on the
> women.
>
> This year's parade was dedicated to Vieques and Don Pedro Albizu Campos,
> leader of the modern independence movement in Puerto Rico. It was an
> overwhelming show of support for the struggle in Vieques.
>
> The 2-million-strong parade did indeed become the largest demonstration to
> date against the U.S. Navy's continued use of the small island for target
> practice.
>
> The crowd cheered wildly at a huge statue of Don Pedro. They chanted
> non-stop, "Vieques si, Marina, no." Signs calling for "Peace for Vieques"
> and "U.S. Navy out" lined the parade route.
>
> During the Puerto Rican Day Parade and afterward, the cops and the system
> showed their true colors. There were 4,000 cops out to patrol the parade.
> That's 10 percent of the entire city force.
>
> The day before, the route along Fifth Avenue was literally boarded up.
> Crowd control during the parade was so tight, as in other years, that
> spectators could hardly move.
>
> Parade-goers were herded into a 45-block area along Fifth Avenue. People
> were forcibly kept from moving east or west of the avenue.
>
> This year, the parade was cut short because of lobbying against loud music
> by affluent Fifth Avenue residents.
>
> The parade's anti-U.S.-imperialism spirit is of great concern to the ruling
> class here.
>
> So it shouldn't come as a surprise that the city government was given a
> green light to discredit the parade.
>
> Although the cops did nothing to stop the attacks on women while they were
> happening, afterward they launched a massive dragnet to round up young
> Latino and African American men--regardless of whether the men were involved.
>
> What is needed
>
> The anti-women attitudes instilled in all boys by the ruling class and its
> media must be combated.
>
> Nationally, one out of every four women will be the victim of rape or
> attempted rape in her lifetime. And when one of these women's cases makes
> it to court, a slap on the wrist is often all the court gives the offenders.
>
> Take the gruesome 1989 case of white male athletes from a high school in
> Glen Ridge, N.J., who gang raped and tortured a female classmate who was
> mildly retarded. They penetrated her with a broomstick and a baseball bat.
>
> There were no immediate front-page mug shots of the athletes with $12,000
> rewards offered by the police. There were no outcries from town officials
> calling for their arrest.
>
> No. It was months before anything was even done in this affluent suburb.
> And the result was that the ringleaders were convicted of first-degree
> sexual assault, but the judge gave them less than two years in jail.
>
> This is the true nature of the cops and the bourgeois state. They are not
> here to protect women or parade-goers. In fact, it's the exact opposite.
> The cops are here to repress and oppress women, people of color and
> workers. They are here to protect the ruling class's private property and
> keep things status quo.
>
> So it's unfortunate to hear some community leaders calling for cooperation
> with the NYPD in rounding up young Latino and African American men. Women's
> groups are rightfully outraged by police inaction during the attacks. But
> to call on the police to take violence against women seriously by taking
> more action in the communities is not the answer.
>
> Abner Louima didn't need any more police action. Amadou Diallo certainly
> couldn't have cooperated more. Patrick Dorismond was trying to be
> law-abiding. Yet they all suffered death or torture at the hands of the NYPD.
>
> What is needed in this situation is community control. Oppressed
> communities should chart their own destinies.
>
> These young brothers did violate women and show total disrespect for them.
> Puerto Rican and Latina women should be the ones to set them straight.
> Latina women should hold hearings to let it be known that violence against
> women will not be tolerated.
>
> That's how they do it in socialist Cuba. The people's tribunals, based in
> the communities, are an integral part of Cuba's justice system. They hold
> hearings to rule on offenses and penalties. Whether the punishment is
> re-education or something else, it is the people themselves who decide.
>
> This is what is needed. Latinas have to let it be known that we don't want
> or need the cops and the courts to interfere and that women in general
> cannot rely on the capitalist cops and courts for justice.
>
> - END -
>
>
> "If insurrection is an art, its main content is to know how to give the
> struggle the form appropriate to the political situation."
>
>    -Vo Nguyen Giap
>
>
>
> "Rather than seeking comparabilities in statistical terms among what are
> all too often superficial features of different situations, comparabilities
> must be sought at the level of determinate mechanisms, at the level of
> processes that are generally hidden from easy view."
>
>    -Eleanor Burke Leacock
>
>
>
> "Every day one has to struggle that this love to a living humanity
> transform itself into concrete acts, in acts that serve as examples, as
> motivation."
>
>    -Ernesto "Che" Guevara
>