Speaking out

Malcolm X Grassroots Movement addresses race, law, gender issues

Neither the rain nor the small audience dampened the spirits of students who gathered last night in the HUB Ballroom to hear members of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement present the Critical Race and Feminism Theory workshop.

Commending the audience for taking the initiative to host and attend such workshops, Bayé Adofo, a member of the movement and an attorney, emphasized the lasting benefit that students derive from joining organizations such as Black Caucus, which sponsored the workshop.

"Joining places you at a level of responsibility that you won't get in other organizations," Adofo said. "You'll see how strong this organization has made you."

When speaking with the group, Karl Franklin, a member of the movement and a third-year student at Fordham University School of Law, said the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement defines itself by its six core principles: self determination, human rights, reparations for past wrongs against blacks, freedom of political prisoners and prisoners of war, an end to sexist oppression and an end to genocide.

Adofo and Franklin led the discussion based on these principles, focusing on ways of improving the condition of the black community.

Critical race and feminism theory offers the community a different perspective on current laws.

In reality, laws are created and implemented based on race, gender and class, Adofo said. Much of this bias is so prevalent that only abnormally blatant or extreme cases of bias are acknowledged, he said.

Blacks are routinely stopped by police for no reason other than their skin color so often that these instances have become accepted as commonplace, Adofo said. Anger and indignation are aroused only under extreme cases such as the Rodney King assault, he said.

Other examples of this bias are more subtle, Adofo said. For example, Mississippi passed a law in 1995 requiring voters to have photo identification. Like the poll taxes of America's past, Adofo said this legislation is biased against older blacks and poorer blacks, who have neither the need nor the money for a photo driver's license.

As a part of its dedication to the freeing of political prisoners, the movement is organizing Jericho March '98, a march to the White House demanding amnesty for political prisoners such as Mumia Abu-Jamal.

"If we don't demand that our political prisoners be freed, maybe these kinds of meetings will become illegal," Adofo said.

Members of the movement consider the black community a colonized nation which has the right to fight for its independence, Franklin said. Rejecting the label African-American, members embrace the term New Afrikan, he said. "(America) was built on our backs, but it was not built for us," Franklin said.