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Indybay Feature

Defend the Rights of the African Community & Vigil for Lovelle Mixon

Date:
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Time:
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Event Type:
Vigil/Ritual
Organizer/Author:
Bakari Olatunji
Email:
Phone:
510-569-9620
Location Details:
Gather at Uhuru House, 7911 MacArthur Blvd, Oakland
6:30 March to Eastmont Town Center
Rally & Return to the Uhuru House

March and Candlelight Vigil to uphold the resistance of the African community and to remember the victims of the failed policy of police containment.

26 year old Lovelle Mixon, according to news reports, shot and killed four Oakland police officers before they ended his life. He was a victim of the colonial policies of a system in which he could look forward to being shot by the police or spending the majority of his life in prison.

Just like the resistance of Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser, enslaved Africans once vilified and today considered heroes, African people in Oakland have a right to struggle against this government-imposed terror. Like the missiles launched from Gaza and the Iraqi resistance forces, African people will rightfully fight to free themselves against oppression in every form.

We call on the citizens of Oakland to unite with the demands raised by the Uhuru Movement for genuine economic development to the African working class community, for reparations for the families of victims of police violence, for a community controlled police review board with subpoena powers and for an immediate end to these failed public policies of police containment which have brought so much suffering to the African community for so long.

We call on Oakland citizens to join us in rejecting the knee-jerk criminalization of the oppressed African community by the city and state governments, and in recognizing that in order to go forward as a city we must unite in the quest for economic and social justice for the African community.


Come out to a march and vigil to to stand against the brutal, long-standing, publicly-supported policies of police containment of the Oakland Police Department and to unite as a city in the quest for economic and social justice for the African community.
Added to the calendar on Mon, Mar 23, 2009 11:23PM

Comments (Hide Comments)
by D
have you all lost your collective minds?

this man was a plague on his own community, a danger to his own race, the worst kind of betrayer.

he put his little sister's life is danger by opening fire on a SWAT team in her apartment. he has been connected to rapes and murders. he didn't care who got hurt- neighbors, friends, family, when he started shooting. if his sister had been killed I would be attending a vigil for her, for justice, for an innocent destroyed by another hellbent selfish thug.

stop making martyrs out of lowlifes and start celebrating positive influences in the community. THAT is how you affect change. that is how you show and earn respect. that is how you equalize the world around you.

putting this killer (not just of police!) on a pedestal will destroy all the advances you have worked so hard to gain. think about it.
by East Oakland
You may want to rethink using Mixon as your posterboy:

"Cop-killer was suspected of raping 12-year-old"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/24/BAPP16M2CH.DTL
by Oakland Resident
I wouldn't walk with your group for all the money in the world. You've lost all of your credibility on this one. You want to march to support a CHILD RAPIST and MURDERER???? You folks are nothing but sociopaths. I'm an Oakland resident who believes in equality, and I look at this little "event" of yours as pathetic!
by Mike


This is outrageous and disgusting. You make me sick.
by js
Please do not support this "vigil". Support positive acts and justice for the black community, but a "vigil" for a cop-killer is plainly WRONG. Supporting this just cause will cause resentment around the city and community. It will also make calls for justice when needed to seem illegitimate by supporting the cause of Mixon. Support OPD, support the Black/White/Mexican/Asian community, stop violence whether OPD or citizen, but PLEASE pray for Mixon to rot in hell!
by Guru G
A child raping murderer is not worthy of being commemorated. Doing so is dishonorable to all those he's made to suffer, including his own family. How about protecting the women and children of the community first!
by that guy
you can blame 'the man' for mixon's poor lot in life. you can justify the murder of four cops. i don't agree with it but i can at least see where you're coming from however warped it is.

he's now the prime suspect in the rape of a 12 year old child and you want to hold a vigil for him? sick, just fucking sick. sicker than he was for snatching a child off the street and violating her.
by Us
If the police and white bourgeoisie were serious about "healing the community" they would include Mixon in there pleas, not just recite the names of the police officers.

The media has been reporting all kinds of unconfirmed allegations about Lavelle--details the public is in no position to prove or disprove--relying solely on police reports. The corporate media has not corroborated police reports before disseminating them. The media needs to also report on the police officers' histories, specifically on how many officer-involved shootings they were a part of.

For example, we know already that Sergeant Pat Gonzales, the fifth police officer shot but not seriously injured by Mixon, fired and killed Gary King Jr. (age 20), Joshua Russell (age 19), and made a quadriplegic of Ameir Rollins (age 17). How many officer-involved shootings had the now deceased officers been engaged in? Importantly, all of the officers resided in Bay Area suburbs, not in Oakland. Why has this important context that would shed light on not only the Mixon situation, but the broader tensions with OPD, not been reported?
by WLS
Thanks to "Us" for reminding me why that name was familiar! That is really important to point out. Where was the outcry, apology and justice for Gary King Jr. and the other two?

Check out the Uhuru Solidarity Movement blog. Warning: the comments are pretty hideous.
http://uhurusolidarityoakland.blogspot.com/
by says who
Says the OPD, that's who.

If they had this rock-solid evidence, then why didn't they arrest him yet. Why was there not even a warrant for his arrest on this rock-solid rape evidence? Is it OPD policy that when then have 100% proof of who committed a crime they do nothing? Oh, and they considered him a "suspect" in a murder, again *they* say, but oh, they just didn't have enough evidence, they say. Man, have they been pouring it on the last few days demonizing this guy as much as possible. Tomorrow we'll hear that he ate babies for breakfast and loved Hitler.

The media eats it all up and forgets to ask questions about proof of all of these allegations coming from the cops. They just report it as if he was already convicted. Neither do they ask about investigations into the cops role in all of this. OPD isn't so forthcoming on that info, but every day they have more hearsay to spread about Mixon to keep the story totally in his direction.
by hassan
black people have been and cotinue to be victims of manifestations of white supremacy,police brutality,racial profiling,lynching incarceration,economic terrorism,chemical dumping,tuskegee 626 type experiments,drugging and dumbing down our children , and adults to make them easy to manage as slaves and chattel,fight back by any means necessary or possible! this is not a movie ,a tea party, this is genocide,and we must fight for our very survival ,our lives and the lives of our women and children . fight for self-determination and the right to live in peace and dignity on god's earth.
by East Okland
Still whining that the government is racist when the president of the united states (the highest position in the country) and the mayor of Oakland are both black.

If you want to see what real police corruption looks like you should travel outside of the U.S. In Mexico I have been robbed by the police at gunpoint twice. In one case I had to go to the bank to get more money to pay a ransom while they held my co-worker hostage. In India I watched the police beat down a homeless guy with a baton for five minutes because he was panhandling in the wrong spot. But the Oakland PD are so mean!--hardly.

And you can't accept that a black man in your own community raped all those girls. If it wasn't Mixon it was someone else in the neighborhood--it's not some white guy driving down from the hills. Why do you keep apologizing for the people doing this shit on our streets.

The guy had an AK-47 stashed in the closet--he was a bad dude. Enough said.
by Oakland Resident
If there is any hope for dialogue it needs to start with people from Mixon's community (friends, family, & neighbors) acknowledging his actions as inexcusable.
Even if all the claims about inequalities, police racisim, and a broken prison system are true (most are), nobody will give any consideration to another point of view that supports murder and rape as a way to combat these things.
The next black man pulled over in East Oakland should remember to thank Mixon for the itchy trigger finger they are about to face.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
by tom platner
What could possibly motivate you to honor someone who has terrorized your own people and community? Monster was preying on your neighbors and children, raping little girls. Put this on his tombstone: "Here lies Monster Mixon, murderer, rapist, convicted felon"
by Denny Smith
Uhuru has really brought discredit to itself with this vigil for Lovelle Mixon. I have always looked to Uhuru for political leadership but what I see here is thoughtless exploitation of an appalling crime to gain political points.

And it backfired. Progressive people I know are disgusted. The "vigil" hauled out ossified platitudes from the 70s that don't address the current realities of white or black folks. Of course America is still a racist place and of course we should be demanding change. But only books and ballots, not guns, will do that.

Oppression does not magically ennoble all people. Lovelle Mixon was not a freedom fighter. No one in his own community has described him as a hero. However degrading were the circumstances of Mixon's life, he had no right to murder anyone. It solved nothing. Give us a break, Uhuru--and start making sense!
by Peace
I can understand the outrage over Oscar Grant. That was a heart-breaking tragedy and the right thing is happening with the individual who killed him being put on trial. But Mixon?? Seriously?? The guy was a rapist murderer! His only resistance was towards any common human decency. I hope there is a special place in Hell for people like him and all the others in our Oakland community who are preying on our children, killing each other, and keeping us all down with the horrible plague of drugs and gangs here.
It's time to stand up in solidarity to those that are GOOD! Those citizens of any color that choose to build our community rather then destroy must come together. There is a new US VERSUS THEM! Time to stand up and fight for LOVE!
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves."
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