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letra de intro - resist and exist

(author’s note: this introduction features a series of clips of interviews taken from the 1993 documentary “passin’ it on” about the imprisonment of black panther leader dhoruba bin wahad by the united states of america. if you are interested in watching along and connecting the speakers with their quotations, i will include the names and timestamps of these interviews in the section headers.)

[speaker 1: tanaquil jones (07:07)]
i have a very clear understanding, and firsthand understanding of police brutality, from my own experience with it, where police used to just come into our house, you know, ten police cars outside, you know, and drag my father down six flights of stairs by his hair and beating him all the way down

[speaker 2: jamal joseph (06:33)]
when you got arrested, um, getting beat up was, like, standard operational procedure. you expected that as part of the process

[speaker 3 unnamed (06:46)]
…picked him up with one hand and threw him against the gate. boy, i know they got [?] he slapped him on the head, took his black jack, hit him in the chest with it. guy was pitiful

[speaker 4: robert daley (06:58)]
cops would tell me about this slap jack that certain cops had, uh, where you could, you know, turn a man’s brains to jelly and it wouldn’t leave a mark

[speaker 5: dhoruba bin wahad (04:53)]
the police taught me what america was basically all about, on a very gut level. … i learned about, um, this by having my, um, uh, b-tt whipped in the bas-m-nt of the 41st precinct, or beat up in the back of a squad car, or slapped around in the hallway whenever the police decided to stop us, because they just didn’t like the way we walked, or they didn’t like the way that we looked

[speaker 6: dhoruba bin wahad (07:40)]
this environment enabled us to resist all types of physical, and psychological, and emotional abuse and come out strong. and some of us came out strong in very negative ways. and some of us came out strong just as working people. and some of us came out strong as revolutionaries

[speaker 7: jamal joseph (31:50)]
…the sense of paranoia within the organization itself. many, many sleepless nights. many nights waiting for the police to come, waiting for the office to be raided, waiting to be taken back to jail, or to be k!lled. there was a clear sense that we could no longer go on like this, and so that, in order to continue our work, we would have to go into hiding, we would have to go underground. when they went underground, they continued to do political work. they started to engage in a program to demonstrate to people in the community what needed to be done to take the struggle to a higher level. and specifically, there were people who formed collectors to get drugs out of the community and to actively begin to raid dope houses and to take dope off the streets

[speaker 8: dhoruba bin wahad (43:40)]
human beings need each other in order to grow, in order to develop, in order to be whole. and to put iron and steel between you and other human beings is the ultimate form of torture
[speaker 9: jamal joseph (43:56)]
when people who are political go to prison, they do harder time, uh, because the prison authorities has it out for them. the same fear that the government has of you on the street is increased in prison. um, on the street, you’re not wanted because you can organize your community. and in prison, you’re, uh, hated and feared because you can organize your fellow prisoners. so you’re beaten, you’re harassed, your mail is lost, your mail is torn up. when your family comes to see you, they’re turned away, they’re harassed. there’s a combination of physical and psychological harassment in an effort to break you

[speaker 10: dhoruba bin wahad (51:01)]
i came to you from the ghettos of the south bronx and harlem, via the prison system of the united states. i came to you to tell you this: that if you do not purge yourself of white skin privilege and fight the state that tries to enshrine it, it will destroy you as a human being

[speaker 11: dhoruba bin wahad (53:27)]
the human spirit is the essence of all just laws. and when the spirit and the heart is corrupt, then the laws and the implementation become corrupt. and the only way we can change the society and the laws that constrain us today and that oppress other people because of their s-xual orientation or the color of their skin or the fact that they’re male or the fact that they’re female or the fact that they’re latino or the fact that they’re homeless or the fact that they have no money, the only way we can change that is we have to take a position

[speaker 12: dhoruba bin wahad (52:26)]
i came to give you an address from the political prisoners held captive in the dungeons of the united states. they do not want me to give you this address because they do not want our south african brothers to know that there are black political prisoners here in the united states. … on behalf of my brothers in prison, on behalf of the puerto rican nationalistas, on behalf of the native american political prisoners, and on behalf of the white american political prisoners, i say to you, brother, we love you and we will not give up the fight, we will not give up the fight, we will not give up the fight, we will not give up the fight!

- resist and exist

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