It is past time for all poor people to release themselves from the
deceptive strangulation of society, realize that society has failed
you, for to attempt to ignore this system of deception now is to deny
you the need to protest this failure later; the system has failed you
yesterday, failed you today and has created the conditions for failure
tomorrow....
John Africa, The Judges Letter
The May 13th, 1985 police-state bombing of the home and headquarters
of the MOVE Organization, which marked the government's massacre
of 11 MOVE men, women and children, sent shock waves around the world.
It also marked the second major assault by the state against the
naturalist revolutionaries of MOVE.
The first state assault came on August 8th, 1978, when hundreds of
heavily-armed cops stormed the old MOVE house in Powelton Village,
West Philadelphia.
What united the two assaults was the state's attempt to evict MOVE
people from their homes. In the case of Osage Avenue, politicians and
their media minions focused on the claimed discontent of neighbors to
justify their murderous massacre of MOVE people. To the average
reader, it no doubt appeared that politicians truly cared about
neighboring residents, whom the corporate media portrayed
sympathetically.
What a difference a decade or so makes. For 15 years later, after the
city's first Black mayor okayed the police bombing of their homes,
the 2nd Black mayor has ordered them to leave. Now, the same Osage
residents who saw their homes rebuilt on the ashes of mass murder, are
now threatened with mass evictions. The same Osage residents, who
called for the state to evict MOVE people, are not themselves evicted.
Indeed, the state now justifies this eviction on the basis of public
safety, as the homes that were rebuilt have been deemed unsafe.
Recently, the city got a court order to shut off heat to the Osage
residents, in an effort to force them out. In 1978, it was the city
which cut off heat, light and power to the old MOVE house.
What seems to actually motivate city hall is not so much public
safety, as it is public monies, for the city, which is acquiring the
land under the law of eminent domain, surely is interested in opening
up the land to a wealthier clientele.
What is motivating politicians in Philly, San Francisco, Chicago and
in cities all across the nation is gentrification: the selling of
ghetto areas off to speculators and yuppies. This also splits up and
scatters Black urban populations, forcing them to the outer
peripheries of big cities.
Once again, politicians-yes, even Black politicians-serve the
interests of those who are able to hire them; not those who vote for
them.
