JUSTICE OR ELSE

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan will hold a Justice or Else rally at the nation’s capital on October 10, the 20th anniversary of his Million Man March

Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam’s hatemongering leader, will hold a rally at the nation’s capital on October 10, the 20th anniversary of his Million Man March. Recent and past police killings of blacks are a key inspiration for the march. Farrakhan has named the rally ‘Justice or Else’. An organizing rally was held Saturday outside Mosque 11 in Boston.

It should be noted that the organizing rally was well attended by members of Black Lives Matter.

According to the Bay State Banner, “Justice or Else organizers decry police brutality and killings of unarmed blacks, disproportionate levels of minorities in jail, the treatment of Hispanic and Latino immigrants in America, an education system that does not sufficiently serve minority youth, injustices against Native Americans, and poverty and unemployment.”

Mass imprisonment, school-to-prison, lost history, police brutality and economic action are among the subjects which will be covered during the rally. Justice or else will call for government to create widespread reforms or face the ‘or else’ of economic and political pressure.

Here is the Banner’s report on three of those subjects:

Mass imprisonment

Black men represent a disproportionally high segment of the prison population, while increasingly high percentages of black women are entering the criminal justice system.

“If you are not inspired and motivated to pursue change, it [mass incarceration] is going to destroy us, ultimately wiping us out. What’s happening in the United States of America’s penal system is inhumane,” said Reverend J. George M. Walters-Sleyon, one of the rally speakers.

Walters-Sleyon said these mass incarcerations break down and impoverish communities.

“Black families are in jeopardy right now. Mothers are being taken away from their homes. Fathers are being taken away from their homes,” said Lanise Frazier of Black Lives Matter. Frazier is a case manager for black and Latino youth involved with the criminal justice system.

“Today black incarceration is defining black lives,” she said.

Incarceration imposes a lasting quality of life burden as criminal records follow the released, said Walters-Sleyon. These records prevent them from opportunities such as securing loans for business or home ownership and thus from economic, political and social mobility, he said

“These people are a development of an economic underclass in America. … They are locked in a marginalized, impoverished condition.”

School-to-prison

The Justice or Else movement protests the “school-to-prison pipeline” — their term for practices in the public school system that put minority children on the path to incarceration. Across the nation, black students are suspended and expelled from public schools at a much higher rate compared to their peers.

“When they’re expelled frompublic schools where do they go? Into the criminal justice system,” said Walters-Sleyon.

An entire generation is at risk, he said.

Police brutality

Recent and past police killings of blacks are a key inspiration for the march.

“We’re going to tell the government that we love our children the same way white folks love their children, and we will not allow any racist confederate crack-head police officer to control and harass and gun down an innocent black boy that hasn’t had time to reach his potential,” said [NOI student minister] Nuri Muhammad.

Justice or Else, like Al Sharpton’s “No justice, No Peace” slogan, is a provocative term, and while the rally organizers claim the ‘or else’ refers to economic and political pressure, it is an open invitation for those blacks so inclined, to resort to violence.

Farrakhan is one of America’s most prominent hatemongers and has been referred to as the "Black Hitler". He is well known for spewing out a steady stream of hatred against whites and particularly against Jews. While his Million Man March created a shitload of publicity, it accomplished little if anything. I predict the same for Justice or Else. Blacks failed to generate any economic and political pressure 20 years ago and they won’t do it now.

However, one thing Farrakhan’s rally will accomplish is to further divide us.