Mumia Abu-jamal's Radio Essays

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She has been gone for almost a century, and still her name is on millions of lips; her memory sacred among those who love freedom. Her parents named her Araminta, the daughter of Black slaves in the Tidewater area of Maryland, perhaps in 1820 (or 1821 -- no one is sure). As a baby, the slaves shortened her fancy name into the nickname, "Minty." History remembers her by her married name: Harriet Tubman, freedom fighter. She began on the road to freedom as a child, for she wasn't even 10 years old when she ran away from cruel slaveowners, people who used naked violence against babies and children to force them to do their will. Harriet was a tender 5 years old, when she was forced to take care of a white baby, to keep house, to work day and night for others. She was all of 7 years old when she got caught eating some sugar, food that only white people were allowed to eat. Threatened with a beating, the girl fled, and running so fast that her little legs gave out, she fell into a hog slopping sow.

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Have you ever thought (but were afraid to admit) that there really wasn't such a thing as a 'war on terror?' Well, worry no more. England's top prosecutor has set the record straight. Britain's director of public prosecutions, Ken McDonald, gave a speech in late January to the nation's Criminal Bar Association. In words that few U.S. figures of such stature could ever muster, McDonald told the assembly: "On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'." McDonald, who heads the Crown Prosecution Service, warned of the "fear-driven and inappropriate response" of the nation's political and legal community, which could threaten the fairness of trials and due process of law. McDonald added: "The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by the infringement."* How utterly refreshing! Leav

A woman is stopped for a traffic violation. She tearfully explains that she is pregnant, she is bleeding, and she begs -- at least a dozen times -- to be taken to the hospital. She might as well have been talking to the wall. The cops either ignore her, or make light of her plight. They respond, when they bother to do so, with replies like, "What do you want us to do about it?" She was jailed -- and not taken to a hospital despite her pleas. Several days later, upon her release, she gives birth to a premature baby, who breathes precisely for one minute -- and dies. When I heard this story, I thought of the motto, 'protect and serve' -- and wondered, 'protect who?' -- 'serve who?' A young pregnant woman, bleeding -- begging -- and it means nothing. Less than nothing. One of the cops, a female, replied, "How is that my problem?" Will these cops, who saw a pregnant woman suffering -- bleeding! -- ever face reckless endangerment charges? Nope. Were they fired? Nope. Will they be? I

A lifetime ago, when the British rock band, the Beatles were at the top of the charts, and before cable TV and the reign of computers, anti-war activists sang a haunting chorus as they demonstrated by the tens of thousands at the Pentagon: "All we are saying, is give peace a chance." Decades later, and there is still war (albeit in another place, and for another 'cause'), and demonstrations seem far less potent than times past. American imperialism, unshackled by the prospect of a true global rival, now fairly bellows in the face of its own unpopularity (in the voice of its acolytes, like George W. Bush): "Give war a chance." The Iraq invasion and occupation has been an admitted disaster, and those who called for it the loudest are deserting that sinking ship like rats on a wharf. The US imperial president, flirting with disapproval numbers that rivals Nixon's at the height of the Watergate scandal, is overwhelming only in his irrelevance, and perhaps his inability to convince anybody to believe hi