Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?

by Mumia Abu-Jamal, J.D. Jackson (Narrator)

“[Mumia’s] writings are a wake-up call. He is a voice from our prophetic tradition, speaking to us here, now, lovingly, urgently.”—Cornel West

“He allows us to reflect upon the fact that transformational possibilities often emerge where we least expect them.”—Angela Y. Davis

In December 1981, Mumia Abu Jamal was shot and beaten into unconsciousness by Philadelphia police. He awoke to find himself shackled to a hospital bed, accused of killing a cop. He was convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that Amnesty International has denounced as failing to meet the minimum standards of judicial fairness.

In Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?, Mumia gives voice to the many people of color who have fallen to police bullets or racist abuse, and offers the post-Ferguson generation advice on how to address police abuse in the United States. This collection of his radio commentaries on the topic features an in-depth essay written especially for this book to examine the history of policing in America, with its origins in the white slave patrols of the antebellum South and an explicit mission to terrorize the country’s black population. Applying a personal, historical, and political lens, Mumia provides a righteously angry and calmly principled radical black perspective on how racist violence is tearing our country apart and what must be done to turn things around.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is author of many books, including Death Blossoms, Live from Death Row, All Things Censored, and Writing on the Wall.

Genres: Nonfiction, Race, Anti Racist, Politics, Social Justice, Essays, History

5 pages, Audiobook

First published June 12, 2017

About the author

American political activist and journalist

Reviews

[Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emmett Till
James Byrd Jr.
Carl Hardiman
Tyesha Miller
Dontae Dawson
Amadou Diallo
Malice Green
Abner Louima
Timothy DeWayne Thomas
Denise McNair
Addie Mae Collins
Carole Robertson
Cynthia Wesley
Michael Ellerbe
Sean Bell
Trent Benefield
Joseph Guzman
Ronnie L. White
Oscar Grant
Arthur McDuffie
Randy Heath
Trayvon Martin
Ramarley Graham
Michael Brown
Troy Anthony Davis
Eric Garner
Alan Blueford
Dontre Hamilton
Tamir Rice
Fred Hampton
Captain Mark Clark
Alton Sterling
Rekiah Boyd
Sandra Bland
Philando Castile
Walter Scott

All of these people, several of them children, were murdered in the last century for the crime of Being Black in America. 

The majority of these murders were committed by white police officers on unarmed women, children and men.

The worst thing about this list is that these are just a tiny fraction of those murdered because of the color of their skin.

Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? is a powerful collection of short essays proving that no, Black lives have never mattered in America (in case anyone should happen to not already know the answer to the eponymous question).

Author Mumia Abu-Jamal writes passionately, for he is writing for his life. He reminds us of the atrocities still committed in this country, day after day after day. Murder after murder after murder. 

He writes with great insight about racial injustice and systemic racism in this country. He reminds us that the victims he names are just a tiny percentage of those murdered because they were Black.
Black (and Brown) lives have never mattered.

The list of names beginning this review are names of those Abu-Jamal discusses in this book. Again, they are only a tiny fraction of those who have been murdered for the crime of Driving/Sleeping/Eating/Breathing While Black.

I highly recommend this book.  It's impossible to not be impacted by the power, intellect, and insight of Mumia Abu-Jamal's words.

"Until the system is changed, nothing is changed; we’ll just be out in the streets again chanting a different name."

It's long past time we do the work of dismantling racism in this country, in ourselves, in our courtrooms, in our police force, in our government. It's long past time we recognise that Black lives should and do matter.

[Kris (My Novelesque Life) · Rating 4 out of 5]

RATING: 4 STARS
2017; City Lights Publishers/Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
(Review Not on Blog)

While racism has always existed, the 2016 election of Trump has definitely put more of a spotlight on the issue. I live in British Columbia, and the effects of the US are felt here, and we also have our own problems. Abu-Jamal writes shorts essays, from the late 80s to present day, about the injustices that African Americans, blacks, face. I am passionate about this issue so I find literature around it great, but sometimes the writing style wasn't easy to read. (It felt kind of is scattered). I think this is a great book for everyone to read to start a dialogue on what is going on in the world, and the changes we can make. This book does not so much offer ideas but identify what is wrong.

***I received an eARC from EDELWEISS***

[dianne b. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mumia’s writing is so exquisite, his deep knowledge of history, law, and social justice combine with his ability to weave the truth and clarify in a way reminiscent of Malcolm X. I believe this is why, despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence, and the obvious racism and corruption of the Pennsylvania court system, he remains locked up. He would be too dangerous on the outside, speaking truth to power.

So we are allowed to read short pieces, hear the minute or two he is allowed, on prison telephones, and in these bits - well worth the time for anyone who wants to know how the USA works.

This book, published in 2017, contains essays written from June 1998 - Dec 2016. Some tell of an incident, an outrage, just another day in the life of the USA, another Black person killed by cops, another Black person deprived of liberty, justice, and freedom. Some teach how we got here (“Death Penalty Derives From Lynch Law”) some where we might go (“We Must Fight For More”).

I read this book slowly. The non-random violence in the US makes my old heart hurt. But even as I live far away now, in a much more peaceful, sane place, it is clear that the States are a one-trick-pony. It’s a nation of bullies. Wars. Mass shootings. Out of control police. These are symptoms of a disease particular to the USA (and, apparently our offspring Israel). A decaying nation that excels in nothing but war and weaponry. No “belt and road” to offer the rest of the world, the US can only threaten military action. It’s all we got. If a country says they’d rather align with, say, China for help with their infrastructure, or Russia for fuel? Well, darn it, the USA won’t help with those, but we might bomb you! As the US hacks away at itself from inside: fascist wackos versus hypocritical corporate Democrats - the rest of the world looks around and the choice seems simple. But within? A culture of war has been bred. Solution? Slaughter. Inside and out: me Hammer, you Nail.

The 2006 murder of Sean Bell and several of his friends who were having a bachelor’s party in a neighborhood club. None of them had guns, or phones, or anything threatening at all A pack of undercover white cops decided to start shooting, the analogy is clear:

“Like the madmen who launched a preemptive war on the unsubstantiated claim of weapons of mass destruction, undercover cops launched an urban preemptive war on unarmed Black men, reportedly based on unsubstantiated suspicions. Fifty shots fired. Homicide, and serious injury.

In America, Blackness is sufficient threat to warrant that whites use lethal force.”

The last 20+ pages are a fascinating essay (To Protect and Serve Whom?) on The Police in the States, and how they came to be what they are today. The role of police in instigating violence in cities, the corruption deep within police forces.

In detail we learn of their glorious beginning as slave patrols. British soldiers from Barbados were needed to keep Africans in complete subjugation. This was their only job. They were known as “militia tenants” from 1696 -1702.

“When the British enslavers spread from Barbados to what is today South Carolina, they brought with them more than the people they damned to a life of forced labor. They brought with them an armed system of enslavement, and perpetual surveillance, a feature of all Southern slavery, but one particularly intense there so as to protect the minority whites from the massive enslaved Black population that outnumbered them from the earliest years. By 1860, the eve of the US Civil War, South Carolina’s population was 704,000 persons. Of that number, the Black population was 412,320, approximately 60 percent of the state total.
…
Armed white supremacists, not Scotland Yard’s Sherlock Holmes types, were the true Founding Fathers of America’s police system; and fear of Blacks and Native Americans drove whites to add the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Police, like slave owners, were given legal and customary immunity from anything done to Africans, whether enslaved or free.”

And they still have it.


This last essay can be read / downloaded here:
https://www.scribd.com/document/46413...

[Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

To say this is a review is a bit of a half-truth. I am reviewing this book, but I also want to take the time to express my own thoughts on injustices in America. I’m speaking on these issues as a white person and I want to amplify the voices and opinions of black people, not speak over them. If there’s anything in here I shouldn’t be saying, please let me know.

Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? is an incredibly powerful collection of journal entries and essays, written by Mumia Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal was shot and beaten severely by police and when he awoke, was accused with killing a police officer. He was sentenced with the death penalty, and though he’s no longer on death row, he faces life without parole. Abu-Jamal and his followers believe in his innocence and believe that Abu-Jamal was charged with this crime because he’s a former member of the Black Panthers and a supporter of MOVE. I highly recommend looking at freemumia.com to learn more about Mumia Abu-Jamal. His background makes this book all that more powerful.

I saw this books when I was in the San Francisco bookstore, City Lights Bookstore – which is the same bookstore that published this book. I saw it when I walked in and was struck by the title. The Black Lives Matter movement is a hot topic right now, and to have such a provocative question in white stark against a black background certainly grabbed my attention. I flipped through it and then set it down. I kept being drawn back to the book though during my time in the bookstore, and I decided I had to buy it. I’m so glad I did.

Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? is incredibly intense, important, and powerful. I wish everyone would read this book, but I know some people are too stuck in their prejudices to even be affected by the injustices Abu-Jamal addresses. People deny the cruel history of America all the time, chalking it up to liberal bullshit. I know some people would see this and believe it’s a black man being biased and a cop-hater. But it’s not that. Yeah, maybe Mumia has a “bias” point of view, but can you blame him? He’s a black man in America. He’s seen injustices.

The journal entries follow Mumia Abu-Jamal’s thoughts over the past couple decades. Most of the entries and essays are short, which make them even more powerful. Through his entries, you can see how horrifically history has repeated itself. 20 years ago, black people were targeted and discriminated against just as they are today.

I think that’s what a lot of people don’t understand – the violence we see on the news toward black people isn’t being “made about race.” The issues have always been about race. Prejudice toward black people exists today because it’s the foundation of America. Black people in America started out as slaves and weren’t even considered people. The first American police were used to keep slaves in line. When slavery was emancipated, sharecropping began. It was a way to continue slavery legally. Slaves weren’t given rights when they were freed. They were systematically prevented from making money and getting an education. To this day, that system exists. Gentrification ensures that Black and Latino people remain in impoverished neighborhoods and slums. Those poor neighborhoods don’t get proper funding for education. Young black people are targeted by police – who still try to keep them on the bottom as they did during times of slavery – and given harsher sentences than white counterparts. And then they’re sent into the modern day slavery system: prison. It’s legal to make prisoners work for little to no money.

I don’t think this disclaimer should even be necessary – it’s like saying ‘not all men’ – but obviously not all cops are awful. When you look at American history, though, it’s clear that police corruption is ingrained in our history and culture. It’s systematic oppression. It’s nothing new.

Mumia Abu-Jamal discusses much of this and more in his writing. He taught me new things about Black history, as well as refreshed things I hadn’t thought about in a while. He forces his readers to consider and face the problems in America. He addresses the history and the systematic oppression.

After reading Abu-Jamal’s writing, I really want to learn more about the Black Panthers. In history classes they’re taught to be the antagonizers of history, but really they protected black folks. When I read about Abu-Jamal’s accounts of the Black Panthers, I realized I was taught to fear the group. Abu-Jamal has remedied that, but I want to learn more.

I went away from this book in awe. It was emotional and impactful and I couldn’t think of anything else. I really want everyone to read this and to understand the history of prejudice in America.

Check out my blog for more reviews, book photography, tags, and more!

[Andre(Read-A-Lot) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well the title of the book is the question that is being presented to readers and after reading through this collection of short essays, ruminations and meditations all dealing with the results of police brutality or state-sanctioned racist acts, the answer is indisputable, a capital NO. Mumia is clear eyed on these pages and takes no prisoners. "United States history is a study in denial, for much of what is taught as history in the schools of the nation bears little relationship to the lives lived by millions of men, women and children on the land we now call America."

Many of the commentaries may ring familiar, Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and others. But there are some cases that he speaks of that have flown under the radar. The common denominator throughout is the callousness that these victims and their families have received from their government.The essays are not only contemporary, but Mumia also put the reality of racist violence in history clearly in his scope.

Page after page the reading of unnecessary killings certainly makes the book question almost laughable.

"It has taken a while to reach this conclusion, but upon reflection, it is inescapable. Why, after over half a century of Black voting, and the election of more Black political leaders than at any time since Reconstruction are the lives, fortunes, prospects, and hopes of Black people so grim?"

Mumia closes the book with an extended essay that was originally published as a pamphlet and has been updated for this book release, titled "To Protect And Serve Whom? Given everything the reader will have absorbed prior, this question is highly legitimate. In this concluding essay he talks about the emergence of movements, the opposing of movements, failure of Black politicians and what's next. What will become abundantly clear as one peruses these pages, is just how entrenched the status quo is that allows for such horrific outcomes with police encounters that far too often and with increasingly regularity leave men, women and children dead. As Mumia writes,

"When the state permits its servants to take the life of living, breathing, growing, wondrous children, it ceases to have a reason to exist in the world. It has failed utterly." Clearly it will take the masses of good change-oriented people to address this failure. Thanks to Consortium Books and Edelweiss for an advanced ebook. The book is available for sale now.

[Bek (MoonyReadsByStarlight) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mumia Abu-Jamal pointedly weaves together the past with what is his present in this this is a compellation of essays from 1998 to 2017 on police brutality. There is so much important insight throughout many of these. More than that, there is so much. He recalls so many names -- and this isn't close to a complete list by any means. While I would love a detailed history of the instances he discusses, I think that his style of essay and choice to put out from such a broad span of time (nearly two decades) works very well. While this is obviously emotional to read, the way that he writes and the length of the essays made this relatively quick to get through.

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays written from the late ’90’s to the present, Abu-Jamal catalogues and tries to give faces to the long list of Black men and women who have died at the hands of police brutality. We all know the names Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, and Trayvon Martin but Abu-Jamal reminds us that these are only the names that the media deems fit to report on for its weekly news cycle until it’s time to move on.
What becomes horrifically clear here is just how systemic this brutality is in our police forces and society. My only regret is that these essays are very short and do not allow us to really get in depth on who these men and women truly were. Thankfully, there is a wonderful bibliography here for further reading as well. Overall, a powerful , if not all too short read.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In South Carolina, “the entire white male population was compelled to support institutional white supremacy over blacks, and faced enlistment.” Lest we think this was only a Southern thing, “In 1790, New York led all Atlantic states in the number of enslaved people held, with some 21,000 people there forced to live in bondage.” “Of all the jurisdictions in America – indeed, in the whole, wide world – Pennsylvania ranked first in the life incarcerations of juveniles. First.” “If Strauder was the ‘law’ why did it need reiteration in Batson?” In 1880, Strauder v. West Virginia rules guarantees for a non-discriminatory trial. But the 1986 Batson v. Kentucky almost a century later is almost the same thing. So why does the decision have to be made twice? From this perspective “Batson is still not the law” because the “law” is what is allowed every day across America. “Scholar Kenneth O Reilly writes that the job of the FBI was, in large part, to stifle Black unity.” “When men fear, they are halfway to hate; for we hate that which evokes fear in us.” “Until systems change, until cops are equally accountable to the same laws as everyone else, talk about ‘restoring trust’ is just that: talk.”

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A damning portrayal of police brutality in America over the last half century. Every once in awhile something hits me over the head and I wonder why I never made that connection before, and in the final chapter of this book Abu-Jamal makes the connection between the earliest slave control "militias" in the British East Indies, to to the slave patrols of the American colonies, to the Second Amendment on the US constitution, to the rise of police departments in late 19th century urban centers. Why had I never made this connection? Context. I have never been the object of police facilitated social control and i grew up in contexts where the Second Amendment was always portrayed as a guaranteed right of the people so that a tyrannical central government couldn't control a free people. However when the right to keep and bear arms to ensure a militia is compared to the actual use of militias to control slave movements and slave uprisings a whole new potential understanding of the racial bias of the US Constitution is laid bare.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. The addendum at the end pulled the entire book together. Obviously since it is a book compiled of letters written over the years, it gets redundant towards the last third of the book. However, I really did enjoy looking up several historical moments and cultural references that I had missed back in high school when politics/social justice wasn't on my radar yet. Would highly recommend, but only after you read Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me. (Maybe even read this before BTWAM for historical context, since Coates' uses more convoluted language and Abu-Jamal is much more accessible language-wise).

[Becca Pirie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Please read this book.

[Joshua Glasgow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished the audiobook with 22 minutes to spare until it would be returned to the library. I’m rating it four stars provisionally. I still need to read through the ebook copy I also have checked out to save some of the most potent passages, and maybe reading that will help me better focus my thoughts on this one. It was good, I think—solid, but likely not my favorite in this genre. Will hopefully write a fuller review later. Idk when.

[Isabel Reyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

exquisite prose. i would read an updated essay collection of his if it followed the wake of trumps second election

[Annie Windholz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an American journalist and former Black Panther Party member currently serving a life sentence in a Pennsylvania prison. In 1982 Abu-Jamal was sentenced to prison for the death of a police officer was on death row for almost 20 years before his prison sentence was commuted in 2001 to life without parole. In Have Black Lives Ever Mattered, a collection of Abu-Jamal's writings from 1998 to present,  Abu-Jamal presents readers with an alternative version of history "not written by the victor, but by one who has seen and sensed what was happening on the other side of the prison wall, who seeks to convey those impressions with truth."

Putting recent history into context with the entire history of colonized white America laying the foundations for current inequality. Abu-Jamal makes clear that this current repression of Black people is nothing new, and is but a continuation of the same ideas that must be overturned.

"But where once whites killed and terrorized from beneath a KKK hood, now they now did so openly from behind a little badge. And while it may seem like a leap to associate the historical white terrorism of the South with the impunity with which police kill in Black communities today, it is really not so great of a leap because both demonstrate a purpose of containment, repression, and the diminution of Black hope, Black aspirations and Black life," Abu-Jamal writes.
Abu-Jamal writes that "instead of [prisons] being a financial burden, leasing incarcerated Blacks to businesses was a way local government actually turned a profit." In addition, the police force is merely a part of this prison industrial complex to suppress Black lives: 

"Police terrorism goes back generations, and it ain't about "rotten apples" or "broken windows." It's about blocking movements for freedom, and protecting a system of racist repression."
Hate crimes, all white juries, "colorblindness," legalized police violence, FBI surveillance, the death penalty, white terrorists, : Abu-Jamal presents us with a concise recent history of race in America- and implores us to be outraged.

"For when men fear, they are halfway to hate; for we hate that which evokes fear in us. And... we are loathe to admit our fears. It makes us angry, for it seems unmanly. A sexist view, perhaps, but there it is." Abu Jamal writes about police interactions with black men. 
Abu-Jamal asks us not only to be outraged about the current state of the world, but to rise up and do something about it. He asks us to continue to learn and fight for equality as he writes about the events in Ferguson, Missouri:  

"Movements are a lot like volcanoes, which appear dormant, or sleeping... until one day, usually a day none had foreseen, they erupt... that's what movements do, and what they are. If hot enough, they can change everything. Everything. But political, media and state forces don't want change; they want continuity, for therein lies both their profits and their power, and who wants to lose either of those things?"

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name after name... This nonfiction book uses the pattern of injustice to demonstrate that no, in the eyes of the United States legal system, Black lives have never mattered.
It also offers ideas about to how to change that.

[Hillary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Abu-Jamal's arguments all but make themselves. That's why it's frustrating when he presents those arguments in such a simplistic, one-sided way. It's not necessary, nor would I imagine it convinces a skeptic. I found it distasteful that he likened the media's and Donald Trump's treatment of the Central Park Five to the brutal, near-fatal rape and beating of the victim. He also fails to mention that the teens had committed violence against other citizens that same night (that the crime for which they were falsely accused was committed). Nevertheless, they, like the others he discusses, are still victims of a system that isn't just broken but one that never worked from the beginning.

[David Lucander · Rating 2 out of 5]

At 200 small pages (much less because of typesetting) this is a nice fast read that is great for busy people. I really preferred "When they Call You a Terrorist" as a BLM book, but Mumia is always a sharply insightful. The general thesis of this book is that law enforcement (cops, courts, corrections) are an arm of racist oppression. Some readers might find this a little conspiratorial, but I can totally see where he's coming from. Most of the pieces are really short and could be more developed. I liked Live from Death Row and Death Blossoms a whole lot more.

[Carol Tilley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just read it.

[Jim Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best thing I've read this year.

This is a short and brutal and heartbreaking book, a commentary on and condemnation of the ongoing, unpunished killings of Black people (for the most part, young Black men).

We all know the stories, we all see the headlines, we know this stuff happens. But we're told over and over again that it's a misunderstanding, an honest mistake, or, at the worst, one "bad apple." The notion that there's some systemic problem here leads to outraged denials, media mockery, accusations of anti-Americanism.

Then you get a book like this, and you see all the names together, marching along in one brief essay after another, and the scope of what is happening becomes so obvious, so impossible to deny.

1. Tamir Rice, 12 years old, shot and killed by Officer Timothy Loehman in Cleveland. Tamir was sitting in a playground with a toy gun. Loehman shot him almost immediately after arriving on the scene. No charges filed. The 14 year old sister who tried to go to her brother was tackled and cuffed.

2. Rekiah Boyd, shot and killed by Officer Dante Servic (0ff duty) when he fired into the group she was with. The group was "loud." No weapons on the scene. Servin was charged with "involuntary manslaughter," judge cleared him with a directed verdict.

3. Tyesah Miller, shot 12 times by cops (23 shots fired, 4 to the head). She had passed out in a car, in an apparent diabetic coma. Police were trying to "help" her but fired when she came to in the process. No charges. Cops were fired, but got back pay.

4. Sean Bell, killed by a group of officers on the morning of his wedding. A plainclothes officer had approached the car outside a bar while holding a gun, and cops opened fire when Bell and his two friends (both injured) tried to get away. No charges.

5. Michael Ellerbe, 12 years old, is shot in the back by two police officers as he flees a stolen vehicle. The shooting is called "justified."

6. Kathryn Johnston, a 90 year old woman killed by three plainclothes police officers in Atlanta, 2006, after they entered her home (they had the wrong place!) on a no-knock warrant. After firing 39 shots, they planted marijuana in the home as a cover up. They were later charged, convicted and sentenced to 5, 10 and 15 years; 5, 10 and 15 years for killing a 90 year old woman and planting drugs in her home!

7. Timothy Thomas, 19 years old, shot and killed as he ran away from cops who tried to arrest him for a number of minor traffic violations (not wearing a seat belt, driving without a license). Unarmed.

8. Dontae Dawson, 19 years old, shot through the eye while he sat in his car by Officer Christopher DiPasquale (who had a history of physical abuse, false arrest, and harassment). Dawson, though under the influence, was unarmed. The shooting was called "justified."

9. Amadou Diallo, 23. 4 officers fired more than 40 shots, killing Amadou as he stood on his front step holding his wallet. He "looked like" a rape suspect. All four officers acquitted.

10. Walter Scott, murdered by Officer Michael Slager, who had pulled him over for a broken tail light. When Walter (who owed child support) tried to flee the scene, Slager shot him, then planted a taser on the body, claimed it was self-defense. In a rare turn, video footage led to a second-degree murder conviction. We know what the outcome would have been had the whole thing not been recorded.

11. Philando Castille, 32 years old, shot and killed by an officer during a routine traffic stop as Philando's girlfriend and her 4 year old child sat watching in horror. The officer asked Philando to give him his ID. When he reached for the ID, the cop killed him because he was frightened. 7 shots at close range, 2 through the heart. The officer was acquitted of all charges, in spite of a good portion of the incident being recorded by the girlfriend.

12. Alton Sterling, shot 6 times by cops while being pinned to the ground. He had been selling CDs on the street, and had a weapon that he bought to protect himself after others in the area had been robbed. No charges filed.

13. Carl Hardiman, shot by cops while holding a cell phone, because it looked like a gun and they were afraid. He survived. No charges filed.

14. Alan Blueford, 18 years old, killed after being chased by cops (why would anyone run from such a friendly bunch?). The cops initially stated that Blueford shot at them, but later admitted that one of the cops had accidentally shot himself in the foot before opening fire on the teenager. No charges.

15. Eric Garner, choked to death in Staten Island by Officer Daniel Pantaleo for the crime of selling loose cigarettes on the street. The incident was filmed, with Eric clearly crying out that he was dying, couldn't breathe (which prompted other cops to later make and wear "I Can Breathe" shirts in mockery of his death). Pantaleo, with a history of abuse of Black suspects, faced no charges. Eric was left on the street for 7 minutes, receiving no medical aide, while the cops waited for an ambulance to come.

16. Michael Brown, 18, killed in Ferguson by Officer Darren Wilson. Unarmed. No charges. The response to protesters who gathered after his death? Cops with armored vehicles, assault rifles, etc, forcing them to disperse.

And the list goes on and on and on.

137 shots fired into a car that backfired, killing Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams (it sounded like a gun and scared them!) No charges.

And Sandra Bland.

And Rodney King.

And Shep McDaniel.

And Abner Louima, arrested by New York City cops, then tortured, beaten, and sexually assaulted with broomsticks.

And Nadia Foster.

Cops tackling a teenage Black girl at a pool party, throwing her to the ground because neighbor's complained.

Officer Ben Fields beating a female high school student because she wouldn't get out of her seat.

Chappel Hill's "Operation Hammer," when the LAPD blocked off entire neighborhoods, let no Black residents leave, detained hundreds, arrested dozens, and ended filing charges against almost no one.

Stop-and-Frisk, the beloved tactic of pseudo-Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, wherein thousands of young Black men were harassed daily for walking in their own neighborhoods.

And on and on and on and on and on.

"The system isn't broken.
It's rotten."

"Police are stationed in Black neighborhoods," Mumia writes, "but not to 'serve and protect' Black people or their property.

"They are there to control Black mobility, and to discipline Blacks in an attempt to minimize any threat that could be posed to whit wealth and sense of security."

Hard to argue against that.

Whatever the intentions of well-meaning cops on an individual basis, there's a systemic issue here; the police force is there to "protect and serve" the interests of the powerful, to maintain the status quo from which the powerful will continue to benefit. Any benefits to the rest of us are secondary, incidental.

In order to maintain that status quo, in order to keep everyone in their allotted place, "Black children are killed so that white cops can feel safe."

"What's next?" Mumia asks. "Killing pregnant women who are suspected of creating more Black boys?"

Brutal, wonderful read.

[Ashley Holloman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of mini essays is useful and well written. From the perspective of someone working in education, this would be an excellent text to work with students on, splitting up the essays into different lessons to read and discover together, opening conversations about racial injustice. It includes thought-provoking questions that help readers consider their blindness in a very direct way, citing examples of horrific deaths that media covered, but also several that are not known by the general public.

[Jackson Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mumia’s story is one of the most indicting cases against the terrorism of police anti-blackness. This book is a series of insightful meditations and reflections of liberation with regard to the Black Lives Matter Movement. It’s is one of the most powerful testimonies on the state of lockdown America, the new Jim Crow, and Police brutality.

[Danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

how many more?

[marie-ange · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a fantasticcccccc writer mumia abu-jamal is. there are so many details from this book that left me stuck in disbelief and basically made me sick to my stomach. but everything in this book is just the reality for so many black individuals – not just in america, but around the world. extremely informative for me especially on the basis of the FBI. very thought provoking and informative book

[Lynna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw this at a bookstore and right away wanted to pick it up. My first thought was: What a title! Of course, if you live in the US, you'd know right away that the question is rhetorical. The answer is "no." It doesn't seem to be the case in the US since its origin up until now. The reminders of this are ever present in the way African Americans are treated in this country.

I don't know much about the civil rights history, and on the most part I keep my nose out of the news cycle, so I learned a lot while reading this. However, I think this book is written more for people who are in the know than for people like me. It is a collection of opinion pieces written over the years by Abu-Jamal. Some of it might be repetitive, but I think that only reflects the reality of Black America.

The atrocities faced today by Black Americans are nothing new. The sad thing about it is that they repeat and repeat without any repercussions on the offenders, be it an individual or the system to which they belong. While seeing some of the events that are mentioned in this book unfold realtime on the news, I (and I'm sure other Americans who are not directly affected) start the feel apathetic. This is not the case for Abu-Jamal whose anger at the injustices never dies down. It reminds me of how today that kind of anger, that anger that lasts, is what is creating change in the political landscape.

[Colin Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? appears, not surprisingly, as a rhetorical statement on the systematic abuse people of color have and continue to suffer at the hands of a predominantly white ruling class. However, after reading Abu-Jamal's book, the question feels less rhetorical because the answer is simple: no. By Abu-Jamal's estimation, anyone in a position of power who does not use that power and influence to affect change is implicated in the rather real answer to this seemingly rhetorical question.

For example, his diagnosis of the University of Oklahoma's failure to use the Sigma Alpha Epsilon scandal as a "teachable moment" speaks to the idea that swift punishment laced with tough talk is not enough. Before I proceed, it is perhaps necessary to explain the particulars of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon scandal. In early 2015, a video surfaced showing ASE members performing an abhorrent racial song that referenced lynching, used racially insensitive language, and implied that students of color would never receive admittance to the fraternity. In response, OU expelled several students and suspended the ASE chapter at OU. As a rejoinder to the particulars of OU's punishment, Abu-Jamal writes:

The University of Oklahoma, founded in 1890, could have used this as, well, a teaching moment, about the way racism moves from one generation to the next, and how closed systems in groups perpetuate harm against their fellow Americans.

The university, while disclaiming the racism, could've used its history department to teach the roots of such social injustice in American--and Oklahoman--history. If it has an African American studies program, it could've been a time to shine, by providing a study program for members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

But, first and foremost, it could've defended the First Amendment principle of freedom of speech, and used the light of reason to flush out the power of racist hatred.

Instead, a 19-year-old is marked, perhaps for life, with the brand of racism, for being drunk, stupid, and mean. After the shock wears off, bitterness will fill his soul.

Colleges and universities, of all places, can't jump the gun for PR reasons. They must use opportunities to teach, to enlighten, to broaden consciousness for all students.

Even those--especially those--who love to sing about hanging n***ers. (157)

Here, Abu-Jamal suggests that harsh punitive measures exist as nothing more than rhetorical cover designed to protect the modern university from the worst of all possible outcomes: low enrollment numbers. Like Abu-Jamal, I cannot help but think the humanities has a significant role to play in shaping the moral and ethical aptitude of its students. Regrettably, OU's history department was not afforded that opportunity because the modern university, thanks in no small part to the capitalist injunction to maximize profit and productivity, has become synonymous with the workplace itself. The university has lost the indispensable imperative to correct and by extension shape its students, especially when they behave like bigoted idiots. Instead, they are treated as if they are in the workforce, which not only cripples the university as a site for necessary ethical and moral inquiry, but it also distorts students' perceptions of what the university should be.

I acknowledge the precariousness of this argumentative position. I have, in effect, just argued that racists and bigots, especially in the situation I described above, deserve patience and leniency. But I offered such a lengthy quote to show that Abu-Jamal believes so too. The abuses that people of color experience can be ferreted out and corrected. According to Abu-Jamal, racists and bigots cannot be ignored because that does not solve the problem. The lines of discourse must be open, and the university is a perfect place to do so.

Abu-Jamal's Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? is a scathing critique of power structures in America that disproportionately benefit a select class of individuals along, more often than not, unambiguously racial lines. But as his essay on ASE suggests, race is not always a determining factor: class and economics are, and until we transcend capitalism and the ruling class that profits the most from its most objectifying tendencies, black lives will continue not to matter.

[Frank Jude · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?, published by City Lights in 2017, is a collection of short – mostly one to two page -- essays from June 14, 1998 through to the closing 24-page essay on the police entitled “To Protect and Serve Whom?” from September 2015 with a short update addendum added February 2017. As such, it serves as a kind of time capsule/time line that shows, to a very sad and tragic extent, how the more things change the more they stay the same. I am reminded however, also, of the quote from Niels Bohr: “A profound truth is a statement whose opposite is also a profound truth” because there really has been change as public intellectual John McWhorter often reminds us.

Through one essay after another, Abu-Jamal writes about the travesty of what passes for “justice” for too many in America… and especially as meted out to Black bodies. The over-arching theme that emanates from this collection is the barbarity and racism of the police. It seems the statistics show that a disproportionate number of Blacks are killed by the police though numerically more Whites are killed by the police. Is this indicative of bias? McWhorter would remind us that by focusing merely on the perceived racism of the police, we may ignore equally important realities such as the fact that Blacks make up a disproportionate segment of the poor and the poor statistically engage in more criminality and thus are also more likely to run up against the police. Abu-Jamal rightly focuses on race, but he also does mention class as a factor and I think if we were to become more class-focused we might be able to unite the poor and underclass in a united bloc against the status-quo and address the dysfunction of policing across the board. It’s an historical fact that the power elite, as a strategy to maintain their wealth and status, and threatened by poor Whites and Blacks forming a united front, fostered racist notions to divide and conquer.

Reading some of the older essays, in light of recent events, can be truly disheartening. I felt myself falling into an angry despair that what he wrote over 20-years ago is still all too relevant and timely. And then someone like McWhorter reminds me that he and people like him, part of the Black upper-middle class hardly could have existed before the Civil Rights Movement of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Which brings us to the closing essay of this book where Abu-Jamal exhorts those of us sick and fed up with the brutality of the police to create as strong a movement.

He begins by asking: “What makes a movement a Movement?” And then he goes on to investigate what social forces must come together to make it cohere. He says that since the success of the Civil Rights Movement, “the state has worked hard to counter the influence and memory of movements as soon as possible” and thus abort them before they, “like a new-born thing” can “stand in the world… able to drop, rise on unsteady legs, breathe deeply, and then run its course.” He reminds us that the U.S. government pressured Dr. Martin Luther King to kill himself, to sow discord in his marriage, and how the F.B.I. under the racist J. Edgar Hoover operated the Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) against what it perceived as “enemies of the State” which included King, of whom the Assistant Director of the F.B.I. said: “We regard Martin Luther King as the most dangerous…Negro leader in the country.”

What is necessary is to understand, Abu-Jamal says, that we can only expect from the State “militant opposition to any social force that seeks to make it more open, democratic, and accountable, and that threatens to increase public control over public resources, institutions, and affairs. If you begin a social movement and fail to understand this historical reality, you will march into a buzz saw that will leave you in pieces.”

An irony exists in that the State needs social movements to push it to the next stage of development; every moment of progress in human rights had to be fought against the State! If a social movement can project its ideas and spread them throughout the populace then they begin to define the particular time and what is and is not in the common good. But again, as he says with powerful conviction: “History shows us that social movements can transform society, but they do not go uncontested, for the status quo of the state abhors change. The state always sees change as a challenge, and it utilizes its vast power to counteract any such change. Now, Martin Luther King is seen as “a national hero who is honored with a national holiday and a towering granite statue of his likeness on the Mall of the nation’s capital” but we must remember what the state tried to do to him when he was doing what he is revered for now! “If the state could do what it did against a mild-mannered minister such as Martin Luther King, what can it do to you? Answer: Whatever it wants to”.

This is the context we need to hold in mind when we address the brutality of the police, “the employed servants of the state, and as such the instruments of state policy.” The state is those currently in power, thus the police serve the oligarchy and we must not make any mistake about it! That is why we see the police used to beat down those who speak out and protest; those who seek to organize labor, those who speak out in the defense of the oppressed. We see what we have been witnessing under Trump: literal criminality involving violence abuse and trampling upon basic constitutional freedoms and human rights. We saw it when Trump ordered his goons to disperse a peaceful group of protesters so he could pose with his Bible and we are seeing it now when the State sics members of the Federal police upon the protesters in Portland, despite the local government’s pleas to have them withdraw.

In light of the then recent killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, Abu-Jamal speaks of those who are now “deeply questioning the structures of policing that were previously less visible, beyond reproach, and unquestioned.” Abu-Jamal quotes from Breaking Rank, the book written by retired police chief, Norm Stamper:

“Simply put, white cops are afraid of black men…. The African-American community knows this. Hell, most whites know it. Yet, even though it’s a central, if not the defining ingredient in the makup of police racism, white cops won’t admit it to themselves, or to others”.

As for “the more things change the more they stay the same”, in the penultimate section of this concluding essay, there is a section titled “Reforms? Or Revolutionary Changes?” and five years after these words were written, and after many more deaths, we see the same response Abu-Jamal criticized back then – and not withholding his criticism of Black politicians who act in their own self-interest rather than in the interest of the downtrodden – as “anemic and pathetic, considering the gravity of the grievances raised by the people. In a nutshell, the proposed solutions offered by local and national (primarily Black) leaders includes the following:
- Body cameras for cops,
- Civilian review boards of police violence,
- Opening of grand jury records.

They solve nothing and they change nothing!”

Already, in 1980, Dr. Huey P. Newton, Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party wrote several articles proposing how policing could be transformed. And while all might not agree with all the proposals, many are now being talked about in various locals calling for defunding of the police. Overall, Newton called for a service-oriented approach as opposed to the ever-increasing (along with the bloated budgets) militaristic and authoritarian approach that currently dominates American policing.

The book ends with a bracing reminder written only 12 days into Trump’s “presidency”, that the arguments made two years earlier during Obama’s presidency have only become ever more important, but that we should not forget that Obama “chided Black Lives Matter activists for their ‘loud shouting’ and tried to shuffle them into voting booths to support one of the co-architects of the biggest mass incarceration boom in U.S. history: Hilary Clinton.” The commutation of thousands of sentences was an example of episodic change, not the systemic transformation we need. Perhaps, he suggests, they – and by implication all those who wish to resist racism – should have yelled louder. We can do so now…

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this after reading Brian Stephenson's "Just Mercy;..." - Abu-Jamal has compiled a sobering, short book of racial injustice to many minorities, but especially to our darker skinned brothers and sisters.

While I had not thought of the ongoing lack of parity in relation to the Europeans' treatment of native Americans, how very true those comments are, even going back to the Spanish explorers' treatment of the Aztec, Inca, and other native civilizations.

The author depicts well the cases and causes behind the "Black Lives Matter" movement , and argues for a complete change of policy.

(As a black person)..."You are him (Oscar Grant III) -- because you know in the pit of your stomach that it could've been you, and the same thing could've happened.
You know this. And what's worse is this: you pay for this (police overreaction, and violence) every time you vote for politicians who sell out in a heartbeat. You pay for your killers to kill you, in the name of a bogus, twisted law, and then pay for the State that defends them. Something is terribly wrong here, and it's the system itself. Until the system is changed, nothing is changed; we'll just be out in the streets again chanting a different name."

On page 198, the author provides his solution: it includes disbanding existing police departments, and forming a "Citizen's Peace Force (CPR) to serve the local needs of the community." Those so serving would be selected "per council districts, starting (part-time -- at age 15 for two-year terms; those chosen would be trained, but also educated in areas of urban problem solving." These ideas echo the writings of Dr. Huey P. Newton from the 1960s.

The book is a tough one for whites to read, but ought to be on summer reading lists. Madame Justice has been wearing a heavy, dark blindfold regarding the constitutional rights of blacks in America.

[Bob Barker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most white people spew the same line every single time a black person is gunned down by a cop: he should’ve complied. Cops on video murdering black people are constantly acquitted even when filmed on video. You’d think it was a hobby or a new sport.

Most people will dismiss this book because the author Mumia Abu-Jamal, is a black man serving life in prison for the murder of a white police officer in the 80s. His case is a completely separate discussion but I’ll say this: if you read about it you’ll know he was framed.

As a white male working in an inner city as an educator, my district is predominantly black. My building is almost all black as are most of my coworkers. Every day I look at my students and I am confronted with the realization that they have strike one against them just for waking out the front door. If they were caught walking around in the neighborhood I reside in, odds are they would be arrested because of the color of their skin. As the title suggests “Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?” The answer is unfortunately “no.” Over and over again Mr. Abu-Jamal writes about incident after incident involving a white police officer who murders an unarmed black man (and in some cases a child). Time after time the cops avoid jail time thanks in no small part to predominately white juries.

The book is upsetting to read but it’s a must read. In a country that was built on the backs of slaves, who went to war to continue owning them as property, who invented new laws to keep them from equality even after being granted their so called freedom, the answer to the book’s title question is “no” and I fear it will continue to be for a long time.

[Hamza Abdullah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emotional read...The letter from Trayvon Martin's mother to Mike Brown's mother encapsulates the message of the book and the struggle...


"Mother to Mother...Son to Son...Injustice to Injustice...Black Lives Matter? Not Yet..."


Sheesh

God willing, we can all come together to listen, understand, heal and grow. This is not a figment of someone's imagination, this is our reality. Human life is not being cherished or honored as it should be, simply because of the color of one's skin. It's disgusting to continue to perpetuate the myth of equal justice and fair treatment. There needs to be reform, training, education and investigations. There are bad apples in the bunch of police officers and they're ruining the reputation and position of authority.

The keyword for me in the book was "impunity." Because time after time, case after case, officers were committing unjustifiable acts and not being held accountable. I'm not saying me or anyone else wouldn't act in the same manner but if me or anyone else did act in that way, we would go to jail. That should also be the case for a police officer. This is not an attack on police officers, it is an observation that they are not being held to the same law and standards as other law abiding citizens.

I recommend this book to all. Open it with an open mind and heart and please help move the conversation forward but also be an agent of change. Read more, explore more and learn more.

I'm not into spoilers so forgive me for quoting the letter. Please let me know what you think. Peace and be blessed.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that could be continually updated with new entries, considering the endless murder of Black People in America by the White Supremacist Government and the White Supremacist Police Forces.
Yes, this book has made me kinda angry. I'm also reading James Baldwin's "The Cross of Redemption", which could be written even now, as the problems Baldwin rails against have not been remedied, merely worsened but are more well-cloaked (well-hooded, maybe?).
America is a racist country, built on lies, expanded by the ownership and destruction of Black People, and sustained by the White Supremacists who continue to hold power at all levels.
Jamal is a true warrior and this book is a powerful statement that answers its titular question with a resounding No. NO. and NO!
We need a revolution in this country, and I'm not talking about electing Bernie Sanders for president. Black People are (barely) living, (barely) breathing examples of how awful White America was, is, and will continue to be until White Supremacy dies and those that espouse it die along with it.
Read this book and accept most of your life has supported White Supremacy in the USofA. If you disagree, ask yourself this: Would YOU want to be Black in America (or anywhere)?