my peoples,

i want to share some reflections about an experience i had wednesday night...

as i was leaving work at youth in focus and walking a few blocks to my car in downtown oakland, i saw a shadow cast over me, and a young man turned toward me, pointing a gun at me and telling me firmly, "give me the bag." as he tried to pull on my bag, i turned away from him and plead with him that he didn't really want to do this. perhaps he was persuaded by my determination to not give up my backpack and instead try to reason with him, or maybe it was because cars were coming alongside us on 17th street, or perhaps because he knew that he couldn't really pull the trigger for some unknown contents in a backpack -- but, after a quick scuffle, he decided to walk away for some reason, speaking something to the wall.

now, i did make the mistake of talking on the phone with my hood on, so i wasn't as on guard as i usually am and couldn't see him coming up from behind me, but that really isn't the point. and the point is not that i was working too late, finishing up an agenda for a youth workshop i was facilitating the next day. the point is that we live in a world where capitalism, poverty, and racism make all of us unsafe no matter what we do, where many young men of color are driven underground to survive, where isolation creates the conditions for people to no longer respect each other's dignity. the point is that this young man was much less willing to shoot me than most cops are willing to shoot people of color, for no reason. the point is not that we should live in fear and buy more things to create the illusion of securing our personal safety. the point is that we all have to continue working for justice in our communities, to continue working with young people and respecting them, and to continue to struggle against capitalism and to fight like hell for our own humanity in a society that is imploding.

even as the gun was pointed toward my body, i searched this young man's face for his own humanity, and i knew he didn't really want to harm me. he wanted to scare me into giving up my backpack, but there was no cruelty in his voice or in his body, only hopelessness, and perhaps a little fear. in that moment, the piece of metal that was in front of me became just a piece of metal to me, and then there was just two people, standing on a deserted street, living the consequences of a city where the u.s. government's cointelpro squashes a people's natural right to self-determination, a city where politicians fight petty fights and children watch them, a city where schools don't teach us our true histories or give us the skills to heal our communities, a city where state outsiders run the school district and and close down schools that young people are willing to fight for, a city where highways were built to carry suburban white flighters over the ashes of once-thriving black business districts, a city over-run by san francisco overflow who drive up housing prices making it desperate for residents to live here any longer, a city where the media lazily reports on the day-by-day police blotter and rarely digs in deep to the heart-wrenching issues that we are facing in our communities.

one thing this experience compels me to do is to tell my loved ones that, hypothetically, if i ever go down from this kind of violence, i don't want the prison system to be any kind of "solution" or create any kind of illusion of justice. i don't want another young person, or another person of color, or another poor person to sit in a cell for the rest of their lives, as if adultism, racism, and classism have nothing to do with the choices people are forced to make, while security corporations are profiting billions of dollars off of our fear, while corporate executives break the law and destroy people's right to a dignified life and rarely are held accountable for their legitimated violence, while the u.s. government rains bombs on families in third world countries and refuses to stand trial. i don't want more money to go to more police and fancy surveillance equipment, but to truly support youth programs and community organizations that fight for racial and economic justice, groups that do the hard daily work of weaving people together, transforming consciousness, and fighting for hope where there is none. and i don't want anyone to be too sad, because i have made my peace with the fact that i am implicated in unjust systems until i can help to destroy them.

sigue luchando, siempre.

love,
lailan