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Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on Pennsylvania’s death row since 1982 for the alleged murder of a policeman. Photos by The Associated Press.
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People of Color Unite Behind Mumia
By Brian Kluepfel
Special to AsianWeek
The Mumia Abu-Jamal case served as a rallying point for a weekend conference in Berkeley concerning diminishing civil liberties in the post-Sept. 11 United States. Jamal, an African American civil rights activist and journalist, has been on Pennsylvania’s death row since 1982 for the alleged murder of a policeman, yet many questions remain about the credibility of evidence against him. Co-sponsored by the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (MFM) and the UC Berkeley Department of Ethnic Studies and Institute for the Study of Social Change, the conference drew over 350 attendees.
Keynote speaker Professor Ling-Chi Wang, chair of Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies department, reminded the audience that although Abu-Jamal is African American, all people of color are at risk of racial profiling. Wang was at the vanguard of the professors who protested the jailing of Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee — the Chinese American professor who was accused of spying, and exonerated only after spending time in jail.
MFM spokesperson Jeff Mackler said, “I have been working with Dr. Wang for many years. He has always helped with all efforts to open dialogue where issues of race and social equality are concerned.”
Mackler spoke of the need for all persons of color to remain vigilant in John Ashcroft’s America. “The United States has the largest amount of people on death row in the world, and the largest percentage of people in prison,” he said. “The majority of those are people of color. This is a reflection that the United States remains a society where ethnicity and race are factors that are used to discriminate and deny equal rights.”
“I think the case of Wen Ho Lee is typical,” said Mackler. “The government tends to look askance at any Chinese scholar, even though some have been in this country for generations.”
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Professor Ling-Chi Wang.
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Mackler notes that Professor Wang was instrumental in organizing academic resistance to Los Alamos National Laboratory, through both Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education and the Society of Professional Scientists and Engineers.
A reminder at the conference that unity among races has always been necessary was the presence of Richard Aoki, one of the charter members of the Black Panther movement. Aoki, born in the Japanese internment camps of World War II, was prominent in the group which grew out of the Oakland ghetto in the late 1960s, eventually serving as one of the Panthers’ six Field Marshals.
“That’s one of the biggest secrets of the last 50 years,” said “The Yellow Panther,” who attended David Hilliard’s workshop on racism and repression. Also in attendance was Yuri Kochiyama, a close associate of the late Malcolm X.
Speaking at the conference was Los Angeles attorney Michael Yamamoto, who filed an “amicus” (friend of the court) brief this March in support of Abu-Jamal on behalf of unions from around the world, including groups from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Kiev, Ukraine. Yamamoto, who has served as president of both California Attorneys for Criminal Justice and the Japanese American Bar Association of Greater Los Angeles, argues that Abu-Jamal is innocent based upon an independent review of the evidence.
The conference served notice that any group is ripe for target by the American justice system. “Right now, over 3,000 people are being held just because of their Islamic background — just based on ethnicity,” said Mackler. As the Bush Administration rewrites the Constitution on a daily basis, Mackler’s words were a grim reminder that 50 years down the road from Manzanar, things really haven’t changed that much.
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