STAND UP OR STAND DOWN: The Webolution Will Not Be Televised

by @BluePillar44

On Wednesday April 29, while exercising my “rights” as press, my coverage of the NYC Freddie Gray Rally resulted in me being accosted/kidnapped/illegally detained by the para military occupying force that you refer to as the NYPD.  I was doing nothing more than documenting their Gestapo tactics, in this case which were telling peaceful protesters that they no longer had the right to exercise their right to free assembly and freedom of speech. The parallels are staggering, check this out, as a result of the work that the gunman from Baltimore put in December resulting in the death of two cops in Brooklyn, there has been a reconstruction of the statues/ordinances/codes that pertain to how people in this city are “allowed” to protest.

Protest, in it’s essence should not be about consent, first and foremost. What is the point of making your words heard and your action felt, if you are being told what the acceptable decibel is that your pitch can be heard at, or what is the acceptable motion that the herd can be herded in? While the majority of people in this city sip tea and point fingers, De Blasio‘s powers have been usurped by a villainous treasonous para military organization who are doing the bidding of their task masters who have declared war on your basic liberties, and this diatribe is for those who still think that they are “citizens” of a democratic society.

When basic liberties are usurped and non violent civil disobedience is met with the force reserved for full scale escalations, then NO ONE is safe. Safety is an illusion when your fellow man is denied the basic rights of existence, and one of the paramount tenets of existence is your ability to be heard, on your own terms.

For those of us who know that NYC is a municipality, a corporation, deriving from municipium, a Latin word that “derives from the Latin social contract “municipium”, meaning duty holders, referring to the Latin communities that supplied Rome with troops in exchange for their own incorporation into the Roman state (granting Roman citizenship to the inhabitants) SOURCE: Wikipedia, we KNOW that none of these codes, ordinances, or statutes are lawfully binding and this in fact is not a Democratic society or even Government in the sense of how we collectively identify the word.

Please refer to last Friday’s KTLRADIO show we did called “The People vs Ferguson, Inc.” where we laid out in detail how these corporations are using the “people” for personal profit while usurping folks basic inalienable rights. There is no other glaring exposure of this practice at our disposal, than the Fed’s report on Ferguson.

To say that we live in a “police” state is an understatement, that is not getting to the underlying politics that really define what this monstrosity of a corporation has become. The corporate security force you call the “police” are the patsies, people from amongst the citizenry who have been deputized with the allure of access to the prize of privilege, made to feel they’re “different” than the rest of us. They use the same psychology by deputizing these entertainers with access and privilege to ALL THINGS ROMAN to make them feel superior to the very people they say the “represent” for. Elitism is a disease that erodes society, and especially at a time like this. Some of these niggas should be held on charges of TREASON and dealt with accordingly.

So back to yesterday’s events. As I showed up to the event I ran into my good friend Acilegna ​and we commenced to chop it up about the chain of events that have transpired this past week. I was kinda bored to hear the same rhetoric I hear at these events every time I show up so as I move thru the crowd to the other side I run into my man Samson from BET and he is doing live interviews. I am still waiting on my camera man so I start taking pics and video on my phone of the protests and I find a pocket of protesters that consist mainly of youth, the majority of which were women. These women were super energetic and I was in admiration of their fearless attitudes towards what they were STANDING in belief on. I don’t have to agree with every process of protest to respect it. I have attended enough marches and rallies to know that standing in unison with people who think and feel like you do is more therapeutic than doing nothing and wrestling with conflicting sentiments on your own. That kind of sh*t mushrooms into what we have here today, online webolutionaries who think killing the keyboard is actually tantamount to drawing blood, or putting your foot in the turbulent sea of change.

The current of change requires energy output and I am disillusioned by card carrying members of the so-call conscious community who refuse to be counted amongst those who are expressive of their discontent. We are supposed to be the intellectuals which means the onus for planning and executing falls in our laps. What’s the use of high melanin thought if we are not coming up with the new thought paradigms, the futuristic strategies? No, this community has become a rest haven for scared negroes and elitist, who interchangeably change clothe and share in those distinctions. Scared of conflict, scared of contact, scared to live on the fringes, that’s who these niggas are. Just watch them, I have seen NARE one of them at any of these events let alone something they have devised on their own that is meaningful in any way that represents change. I have never seen them feed anyone for free, clothe anyone for free or house anyone for free.

I can only speak from experience by knowing that I have fed people for free, with both tangible food and ethereal food we call INFORMATION (brain food) I have clothed people for free, boxes of designer shit mind you, and I have created situations for people to make housing accommodating, while holding on to some of my most ambitious dreams of creating community of housing for those who want to live amongst like minds. Not for comparison purposes, but from personal introspect am I sharing this with you to say when I have come to the conclusion that our people, who clothe themselves in the cloth of change are FULL OF SHIT, I say so from the authority of knowing what CHANGE agents look like.

The winds of rhetoric can only float the sails of CHANGE but so far, until the turbulence of CHANGE says different. We are living in those times, and the gig is up. The babies need protection, the women need security, the world needs leadership in the form of demonstration, how ever you so feel fit. Complacency and excuses will no longer work.

So as I am taking the temperature of yesterday’s demonstration I notice a contingency of people moving towards 17th street, and occupying the open streets as well as spilling onto the sidewalks. Now earlier the NYPD was supposedly handing out leaflets warning against this form of “normal” protest, and they also employed a recorded speaker unit to project this “warning” to the protesters. I can only assume from the defiance of this “order” that the people, the protesters were openly contesting the wishes of the NYPD.

I walked along the sidewalk because I was on the phone talking to my media partner, and giving him the latest location I would be in. I merged into the street after I hung up to document what was taking place, as a reporter is expected to do. The next chain of events went down with lightning speed. In my left eye I noticed a gigantic Red, Black & Green flag being flown, but I was somewhat thrown because the person waving it was presumably Caucasian. In the same instance, with the same eye I noticed two older Caucasian women with a “BLACK LIVES MATTER” banner.

In front of me I notice some sistas carrying banners and advancing to the front line, where there appeared to be a phalanx of officers, in riot gear blocking the street off. In a blip of the eye, there was a commotion that resulted in a bunch of protesters backing up and then running back towards where I was. I stepped aside and had a flash back to two days prior, when I was at a funeral in Brooklyn, and shots started ringing off, the people started dispersing the same way, like the running of the Bulls. Not to get trampled or back peddle and drop, I stepped aside, let the crowd pass, then moved towards the commotion to make sure our sistas were alright. What I had came upon once I broke the plain of visible site was the NYPD wrestling some protesters to the ground and tying them up like cattle, with the ziploc strips. Before I can respond or react, a cop in white shirt, a captain looked me in my eyes and told his flunkies, “GET HIM!” In a matter of seconds I was descended upon by a small contingency of blood thirsty blue shirts, who were grabbing for any limb they can get a hand on. Immediately i tensed up and brought my arms close in, almost locking them. I had a flashback to the Summer of ’07 when i did battle with the NYPD in Harlem under similar circumstances. Just like in ’07 they were unable to pry my arms lose from the lock I had put them in. I was squeezing while they were pulling and then my jewelry started to pop off. They tried stepping on my rings and I pushed them aside, ducked down and picked them up, while still tugging 6 or 7 cops on my locked arms. 

The white shirt was pleading, “let us put these strips on you, don’t resist, give us your arms.” My response was, “what am I being locked up for?” I don’t remember if they answered or not, what i do remember is the struggle that ensued to subdue me. We all fell to the ground, like we did in Harlem in 2007. The only difference this time around was that I wasn’t in an illegal/lethal choke hold but I am always amazed at how weak they feel when we do battle. All the steroids, all the cockiness, all the posturing, all of it becomes null and void when they come up against someone they can’t control through fear. I had my rings tightly gripped in my hands, when one cop screamed, “He has a knife in his hand” and I noticed not only was he telling this to his gang of thugs, but he was saying it loud enough that the people who were filming the incident could pick it up on camera. In a split second I had to make sense of where I was and what was taking place. This is when logic kicks in. Lightning fast logic…I am thinking, now how can this play out? Am I suppose to throw six cops off my back, and make a run for it through Union Square? Is he saying I have a knife to justify them tazering/shooting or stomping my head into the pavement? Again, not out of fear, but simply logic I had a decision to make. Once again, I found myself in a predicament where I am embarrassing the supposed toughest regime on the face of the planet with sheer strength and determination, with nothing to win in the long run. The only points scored is the point being made to self, so when that wears off then what? This is a very uncomfortable feeling, to have to consent to being kidnapped but being stern enough in your faith that you know you can NEVER be in a losing position, irregardless of what it looks like to the outside world. I just had one of my closest brushes with death on Monday, and if nothing else, it reminded me of how fragile life is. So I opened my hand and let go of the rings. They threw the zips on and marched me off. When I looked over to the cop on my left, on his lapel I saw in shimmering silver, the two numbers…forty four. This “officer” from the 44th precinct, located in the Bronx, Badge #18464, was summoned all the way downtown to play into my ongoing narrative of destiny, that I call the LAW OF 44. At that point, I knew everything was in the hands of the Most High, and I was in for a life lesson.

I refused to get in the awaiting van until I knew where my belongings were. The #44 cop told me he had put everything in my book bag and he even put my phone in my pocket, like I told him to. Then they attempted to take a pic of me and the officer before placing me in the back of the van, to which I refused. They ended up with a pic of the top of my hoodie then they marched me up to the open van, which had already swallowed 10 detainees. There was a young brother on the ground to the right of the back wheel of the van screaming in excruciating pain. The Gestapo was just stepping over him and ignoring him, as he was screaming bloody murder. The zip ties get tighter and tighter the more you move and by this time they were cutting into my wrists. They strap me in the back of the van and the irony hits me, that we are here protesting the death of our brother in Baltimore, that had he been afforded the same decency and strapped in we probably wouldn’t be mobilized here letting our disgust be known.

As I looked around the van I started seeing a diverse display of faces.  Pale faces, melanated faces, brothers of “latin” descent, all in together now. The young brother to my left, with the Jordans and the African medallion asks me, “don’t you be in Harlem?” I answered, “yeah, what’s up?” He says, “I’m here because of you.” I’m like, “what you mean by that young bruh?” He says, “I look at all your videos and wanted to be on the front line, not at home in my hood. I want to be active.” I had to hold back a tear. I’m like, “well we both in here together, young bruh.” It hit me in my chest like a ton of bricks once I registered the responsibility factor at play here. The fact that our words move people, the youth in particular to become socially responsible and present, but when it comes to roll call there ain’t too many of us no where to be found. This is unacceptable.  Now the young brother to my right, worked his way out of the zips and frees his hands up. He asks me if there was anything I needed him to do for me, because I was in extreme pain from my zips digging in.  I told him go in my pocket and get my phone out.  I called Majesty and his phone went to voice mail, and then I called my twin, Red Pill to let him know what just happened. Red answers and once he hears me out, he tells me he is on the very same block I am stationed in the van on. He says spirit told him to come down to the rally and he ended up on that block by chance. I tell him to be on guard, I might need him for something. He affirms. Before I put the phone away, I told the young boy to take a pic, I would need it for this blog that I already knew I was gonna write. Then, about an hour after being stationery we start pulling off and everyone is offering their take on where they were taking us. The bumpy ride, the sharp turns made it very clear how dangerous a ride this can be in the back of one of these wagons, if you are not strapped in and have ample use of your legs to break the slide.

A hour in we arrive to Central Bookings and they corral us in the holding pens, big enough to roughly fit about 200 bodies.

They start the process of processing their “catch.” Central Bookings is now outfitted like a command center, with white shirts and higher ups everywhere taking stock of the captured stock. I stand on my square and refuse their overtures even though they have my wallet and secure an ID from 2012 I keep on my person, for emergencies. Now we’re all in the pens together and combined with the dudes that were there prior to our arrival it’s about 30 of us, initially. We start dialoging about the day’s events and politics, and race relations. I find out that we have trust fund kids, lawyers, law students, blue collar workers, artists, a vendor, and professional protesters in there, which made for some interesting convo. The young whites were adamant about being present at these rallies to stand in unison with the voiceless, who they deem the “blacks” whose lives “matter.” They state boldly that without their presence, and without their adoption of this narrative, they claim it would be drowned out by media silence. In so many words, these stories only become news worthy once “whites” are being kidnapped by Gestapo forces openly in front of foreign press in the streets of New York. They say these images make the movement go viral because the world wouldn’t really respond if it were just melananted faces getting hauled off. They use SELMA and similar movements as historical examples of how media was coaxed to carry stories they would normally ignore. Some of them vow their allegiance to this “movement” and sitting in the can overnight is looked upon as a necessary sacrifice, a badge on their lapel, the more the merrier.

There are members of the LGBT community in the holding pens as well, and instead of speaking solely of their plight for Gay Rights, which is cleverly cloaked in the “Black Lives Matter” movement, whether people know it or not, they speak of global struggle. One dude in particular, just got back from Palestine, and spoke with authority about guerrilla warfare and offers some of the most poignant discourse on political strategy I have heard the entire night. I can’t overstate how “conscious” “intellectual” and also “determined” most of these dudes sounded, and the passion they spoke with when it came to fighting the “powers that be.” I had never been exposed to this, so I had to take it all in from the peripheral. I interjected in bursts when I felt my thoughts were needed to shift the convo in the desired direction, but I did more observing and listening than anything else.

More bodies kept trickling in as the night grew older, and before we knew it we were at a head count of 80 plus. We had seen them bring in about roughly 25-30 women as well, whom they would march around the corner from our holding pens. By this time the pens had become a rendezvous spot for guys that knew one another from previous protests, and some that knew one another from their respective circles. There was a level of camaraderie amongst these band of misfits that I haven’t witnessed since I was in the streets of NY, running around with the midnight marauders, or maybe the early, early days of the conscious community, when people had nothing to lose, everything to gain.

The atmosphere in there was, “you do to one you do to all,” “we are all in this together to the last man falls.” Now, mind you, we are talking about men who may take wood up their backs, but have more balls to show when it comes to standing tall and expressing the virtues of brotherhood then these communities that I frequent with the mega-masculine men who seem to try so hard to prove their manhood to one another, yet seeming to forget that the struggle is about protecting the women and the children, not posturing and posing for the nigga checking you out, scanning you for your manhood indicator. That shit is inherently suspect, especially when the only way to gauge a man’s heart (his true definition) is on the battlefield.

Around 3:00 a.m. they start calling names and cracking the gate. I was probably the third name to be called and I bounced out of there diddy boppin, bidding farewell to the band of misfits, knowing that with some of them, our paths will cross again. I won’t doubt for one moment, that amongst me is some of the next wave of leaders slowly budding to the surface. The irony cannot be lost on me as well, that while brothers from the “community” hide behind closed doors and try to control the flow of info at the expense of the needy, to a small contingency held hostage by the greedy, openly gay dudes are on national TV lambasting hosts like Wolf Blitzer with the same information, in front of millions, and now in so many ways, THEY have become the new face of conscious dialogue. They took the narrative and ran with it, by front lining instead of back room planning. Oh, the irony.

At the end of the day, if you are seriously about change, you should only want people around you who want the same. The thing is you have to define what that CHANGE looks like to you, first. I have NO desire to entertain a paradigm with webolutionaries who think logging in hours online equates to effective CHANGE when shit is in tatters in the real world, the world of tangibility where real people dwell. So STAND UP and be counted, or STAND DOWN and be mounted. It is obvious from my observations that the NYPD is in an early stage implementation of larger wider expansive agenda that will be rolling out the remainder of this year, with the anticipation that the unrest we see blanketing many parts of this country will be making its way up the turnpike and visiting us here. The tally at the end of the night was 143 innocent people kidnapped off the streets of this metropolis, we call New York.

With this punk ass DAT I got, now I have the opportunity to put together a bullet proof “defense” and put some of this jurisprudence to work that I have learned as of lately, and have been espousing to others. I am beyond confident that not only mine, but all of those felonious “cases” will be tossed, but even more importantly its time to challenge the system from the top down. Time to pick apart these ordinances they have implemented under the cover of night. So, keep in mind that they are now telling you uncivil disobedience, like what we saw in Baltimore, won’t be tolerated, and they are telling you that civil disobedience, like we saw in New York this past week won’t be tolerated, so obviously the only place they want you protesting and sounding off is online, where they can archive your digital activity and create a profile assessing your threat level. Real f*ckin clever if you as me. Question now is, how many sheep are gonna march to the drummers beat? Or how many are gonna remix it like Diddy and run the city? The choice is yours….

To Be Continued…