Sis Marpessa Kupendua, MOVE Supporter
MOVE is the most committed family of revolutionaries I have ever known because they uphold that all forms of life be free of repression and all forms of terrorism. They are also the victims of one of the most vicious and diabolical media campaigns ever waged against an organization.
The malicious portrayals of MOVE by the Philadelphia media as subhuman and violent are insidious and very well documented. Kitty Caparella, among many others, wrote despicable lies about MOVE on a daily basis from 1977 through the August 8, 1978 police siege on their home and continued sporadically through the May 13, 1985 bombing. MOVE was repeatedly mischaracterized as a 'cult" that was 'brainwashed' into behaving in a programmed manner, insane and devoid of logic. The virus of hate within these pre-packaged talking points sped zinging across the wires to be repeated as a mantra in every media outlet. These messages proclaimed that it was MOVE who were responsible for the attacks upon their own selves by police who invaded their own property! Clever wordplay changed the ‘bombing of MOVE’ to ‘the MOVE Bombing’ and continues to be referred to as such to this day.
This is the power of the press, which distorts reality to suit its own hellacious purposes, even unto the murders of innocent babies. As the flames raged on May 13, 1985, there was BREAKING NEWS – breathless reports that there were male MOVE members seen fleeing the burning house and escaping down the alley, so you betta watch out! A dangerous MOVE (boogie)man might just get ya! Many dreadlocked Black men in Philly and surrounding areas were either laying low or chopping off their hair while the panicked public had visions of these burning, running men that the media had dropped into through their heads. It will never be known how many Black men suffered as the murderous lynch mob rained down terror on MOVE that terrible ‘Mother’s’ day.
News reports focused less on the murder victims and more on the neighbors who had lost their homes. Human interest stories abounded, such as the neighbor who lost his jazz record collection and all those good-hearted Philadelphians who donated records to him. Glossy pamphlets appeared on the Septa train featuring an elderly couple from the neighborhood selling fire insurance because "You just never know what might happen!” (for real!).
The sci-fi invasion of the brain-snatchers caused far too many to unwittingly ingest and repeat this shitstem's sick media propaganda without blinking.
It's outrageous that this city had no problem sacrificing 61 homes in its zeal to murder MOVE people, but we all know that material possessions are not more valuable than people's lives, right! Since we also know that that it's truly HEINOUS that 11 men, women and children were murdered on that day, we have to conclude that they are not equal! Far too often the media blurs the conversation to simply state, "the MOVE bombing and destruction of 61 homes." Who was responsible for the bombing? Where is the mention of the stolen lives? Who, then, are the true brainwash victims?
Although the cellphone video evidence in the police murder of 22 years young Oscar Grant was able to at least garner an unprecedented trial for one of the killer cops who murdered him in San Francisco on New Years Day, 2009, the violent siege on MOVE in 1978 as well as the massacre of MOVE people in 1985 were both captured on news cameras and shown worldwide with no arrests of ANY of the perpetrators. MOVE people are also still being denied the right to bring their people home from the bowels of this shitstem after 32 LONG YEARS of wrongful incarceration!
We can and must double, triple and quadruple the creation of our own independent media, many of us have the gifts and talents to do so right from our home computers, blogs, cameras, etc., to build videos, organize events, speak-outs, demonstrations, and we better take advantage of this technology while we still have it! Did you know that at one point when the movement to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal was at its height in the mid 90's, Mumia was refused a simple pencil and paper? This man in a cell within a cell on death row, clinking and clanking with shackles and chains, became a frightening prospect when armed with a writing utensil! If he can do it in there, we can do more, we MUST and WILL do more!
Produce and deliver information to your communities and talk with people on a regular basis to give them a different conversation than that which they’re used to hearing. We've got to be on it as hard and as consistently as mainstream media and put out correct information to rebut their every attack. Those who are already doing independent media through newspapers, radio shows and other means depend on us to subscribe to and advertise in their newspapers and we must support their fundraisers for all forms of RESISTANCE media, they need us and we need them! We must also support our truth-telling journalists when they come under attack as without them we are left at the mercy of mainstream media. And we already know what that’s like, right? Ask MOVE.
Let the lessons of MOVE not be lost upon us, they are excellent teachers and have always stressed the importance of putting out information as a regular and consistent activity.
When there is information that must get out, people must know where to get it, and it must be there for them. As the MOVE organization says, THE POWER OF TRUTH IS FINAL! The ONLY way to defeat a lie is through the truth!
And if we don't fight
if we don't resist
if we don't organize and unify and
get the power to control our own lives
Then we will wear
the exaggerated look of captivity
the stylized look of submission
the bizarre look of suicide
the dehumanized look of fear
and the decomposed look of repression
forever and ever and ever
And there it is
(From "There it Is" by Jayne Cortez)
Never forget 1985! Now is the time to free the MOVE 9!
Friday May 13, Join the MOVE organization to watch “MOVE: A Confrontation” to understand the unjust incarceration of the MOVE 9 and how the battle for their release leads to the bombing of MOVE in 1985.
L-13 Gladfelter Hall, Temple University
1115 W. Berks Street, Philadelphia 6-9 pm
Saturday May 14, join us for a rally Broad & Chestnut sts, Philadelphia 12-3 pm
