This in rView with ala
hakur, a member o/IM BliJck Lib­
eration: Army and victim in the
196()' of an armed police attack, is
now iivin in exile' Cuba.
This interview w condu eel by
Kenneth nodgras and transcribed
by Cheryl LaBash. Both Detroi r
visited Cuba in May, 1992 as pari of
the Vencenmra Bri ad The Bri­
ga was founded in 1959 to fo r
friendship and understanding b -
twe Cubans and Americans and
organizes regular trips to th island
nation.
Continu d from I •• t w k
I'm not there to that day-to-
day kind of racism that you're there
to see. But I do agree that th overt
part of raci m i more overt and
more frequent raci t attac ,more
frequent cro burning, more fre­
quent ... tho e are stat tics. Willie
Horton doesn't say nigger, Willie
, Horton means raci m. It' j t un­
dercover, it se the tone.
The U.S. faces erious trouble. I
looked at the be t ellers list a few
years ago and there were all 'Truly
Tasteles Joke, Truly Offensive
Joke . Somehow I got a hold of it
and they were all raci t joke .
That's what it meant. It was on the
b t eller lis t. The propaganda ma­
chinery in the United States has be­
come more sophisticated as big
busin ss buy up more and more
inde ndent publishing houses and
they become property of conglom­
era,t�s. You have all these people
w rtti ng novel . The novels have
very reactionary thing. Tell a ri­
diculous story. It can be done under
the guise of romance, horror nov-
1 love novel - you nam it­
but there is alway political line.
People are paid thousand of dol­
lars to write books the holocaust
never happened etc. etc.
The situation and the level of
technology is scary.
It takes an awful lot of nerve to
ta�e someone's known enemy, a
traitor, for example. You take a trai­
tor to a people and ay thi is a
repre entative of your people who I
choose to represent you on the high­
est court in th nation. That takes a
lot of nerve.
ach our
nd
th t
•
And th n get factions to upport
a man who is a stated traitor to his
people because he i the only thin
hred of hope who hangs there dan­
gling. That's deep. That' worse
than a slap in the face; add insult
to injury. Then you smear a little
degradation on top of it and you
look at Clarence Thomas. You got
Uncle Thomas in a worse, more
dangerou context. And you re­
member when the Dred Scott deci­
sion exi ted and you have Clarence
Thorn ,a Black man who make
a di enting opinion in a case where
a Black-man, hand cuff d behind
lu back, being beaten, and a guard
says don't have too much fun.
Clarence Thomas wriPes a di ent­
ing opinion against ht right to ue
based on cruel and unu ual puni h­
ment. Based on the fact that the
Supreme Court cannot addre all
the ills of the ociety. That' deep.
So I mean it' a ociety where
tri knology has reach d ne of i
highest form .
Propaganda ha twi t d people
minds to th point where you know,
you don't know what ide to up­
port. People are r ally confused -­
the r ality i 0 d cp people ju t
don't want to e It. Th Y ay, let
Q:What about t youth?
A: I think that we have youth
that' alienated. Alien t d in a
po i�ive ense, they have every rea-
on 10 the world to be lienated in
th cont xt or the U .. government.
And alienated in a negative ense
because people are alienated from
each other. We're raid to look at
each oth r. We're afraid to touch
each other. We're afraid to mile at
each other. We're in a po ition
wh r we're alienated from each
other. We have to learn what we
hould and hould not be alienated
from.
other people and 0 ppreci te ot r
P pie. I think th t' import nt.
I think that the other thing I thhik
it' important to y to youn peo­
ple i th t it' not y nd it' not
oing to be morrow. One of the
mi k th t e m e think­
ing that it w going to be tomor-
row, nd that it w going to be
y. ut that this' proce and
while you're on thi earth ou e
a choice of how you liv ow all
the problems of the earth re DOt
going to be olved during our Ufe­
time. The only thing we can do to
give the gifts that we can give. De­
velop ourselves in the way that we
can develop ourselv , and to try
with a very erious frame of mind
to live up to the dutie that history
asks of us.
We can't be expected to go be­
yond our time. We can be expected
to contribute to making thi a better
place. I think that when we live that
way, then we learn that it fun. It'
good and you feel good about your­
self and you feel od about the
people that you are dealing with
and the kind of people you deal with
every day get better- Your Ufe
ge better. That to me, Is the defin­
ing of richness. It's a proce s,
When you ta e it as a process and
you take it in the sense that you can
win the battle. You can't win
o
�r
m
narrower ideas than I have now of
what hould be studied. Because I
think that when you are becoming a
person you ha e to learn all differ­
ent kinds of aspects of life.
Assata Shakur (facing camera) talk with American visitor to Cuba I t M (fth
aYe ,.. oto by K nneth Snodgra 8)
AM I think that one of the things
in the 6 's we knew verywell what
w were fighting ag.ainst. We were
not 0 clear on all of the a' pects of
what we were fighting for. I think
th� arne thing is true today. But I
think that in order to age effective
struggle, I think that it's not just
enough to talk about socialism, or
change the economic order. It' not
just enough to talk about revolu­
lionary struggle, although that's
part of it.
We have to Change, but I think
that more and more humanism has '
to be developed. More and more,
we have to see that having a sense
of community, that building a way
of outreach, making human con­
tact bettering human relationship
i another very important aspect or
struggle. And I think that too often
revol utionary struggle have di­
mini hed the importance or human-
i m, of interchanging between
?uman being. The importance of,
If I can touch you if I can hold you,
you feel better and I feel better and
we both make this world a little bit
more bearable. I think that tho e are
the kinds of eelings are part and
parcel of our revolutionary strug-
Ie.
You can't just say, m h the
y tern. Fin, it must go. The mili­
tary i horrible, repre ion is horri- .
Ie -ab utely. But at the same
time, we . ve to build our free
p ces. We have to build our free
vibration. We have to get that eye
contact together. We have to (de­
velop) a certain kind of humani tic
proce • tea hour i te nd broth­
ers that we didn't come from nca
over .. a long period of time. I don't
know if I've answered the que tion.
Q: Can you say something to
youth about the 60's and 70's and
what has to happen in the 90's.
nyon
who tnln
h yc nfind
nowl dge
in one book,
on author,
one a�1? ct _:_
i barking up
the wrong
Ii • 01
'thin you h
n dto
tuay. '
A: I would ay to study every­
jhing. People - wh n I was young
d alin with my e p rience I had
And I think it' important to
know the hi tory of Africa, the peo­
ple in Africa, the people in the
United States; to understand world
hi tory, to understand different as­
pects of culture, literature, art.
I think it's important for people
to develop moral and ethical sys­
tems of our own or thought and I
think that in order to do that you
have to reach out and study a lot of
things, whether its philosophy,
whether it's the bible, whether it's
the Koran - whatever. .
Because human knowledge is
dispersed and you can't find it in
one book. Anyone who thinks they
can find knowledge in' one book,
one author, one aspect is barking up
the wrong tree. So I think that youth
need to study.
1 think that truggle is also a
�reat teacher. That through prac­
tice, you learn a great deal and you
&row. I think that to love, you learn
and you grow. That may ound irn­
pte minded, butI think that living
in a ociety that doe n't have peo­
ple as a priority it i very difficult
for people to develop their human
capacity. And 1 think that we're in
a ociety that brainw he people
nto dealing with love in superficial
image. You know, the woman
leaning on the pep i cola bottle, or
t?e �olls Royce all of .these nega­
tive Image by the ociety, by the
propaganda machine about I ve,
abouthuman relationships.
I think that part of what youth
need to be about is learning how to
love on different level and on lev­
el that are not superficial that have
to do wi�h being able to deal with
everything, but you can't lose
everything either. When you play
the game you have to win some­
times and you have to win some
battles and that's important. So
those are the basic kinds of thing I
would say to young people. I'm
" ou'v
got to fe I
unity ... That
come
through
practice,
through how
you 'relate to
your family,
how you
re/at 'to your
n ighb rs.
ure 've forgotten half 0 -what.I
maybe I hould say, but that's what
occurs t me now.
Q: y is it so important to
upport your comrades while they
are still' in prison? What form
hould that support tah?
A: Well, you no I think that
now you re tal in bout ome­
thing that' clo e my h art, h v­
ing been a political pri on rt having
j t uffered 0 acutely. Havin to
com to grip with the f t th t we
have political pri oners who ve
been in pri on tWenty-one, twenty
years, twenty two ye and our
people don't know about them. We
have people, you kno .
I upport the Irish political pris­
oner, Joe DOherty. It w amazing
for me to d cover that he had the
support of- I don't know how
many- congr men, the Cardi­
nal in New York, Mayor Dinki . I
think thi is incredible. Because
this man come from Ireland. Thi
movement for liberation i consid­
ered legitimate. David Dinkin
called Lolita Lebron and orne of
the other Puerto Rican political
prisoners - referred to them as­
s ins. And now he is upporting
Joe Doherty. That's incredible con­
tradiction. It is almost if he were
,aying that third world people do
not have a right to liberation. It'
almo t like, I don't know how many
congre men are supporters of this
Irish man, And 1 support him too. I
thin that his struggle is valid. I
think that northern Ireland i being
colonialized. I support him, I think
that' right. But have we been so
brainwashed as a people that we are
incapable of supporting our own
political prisoners and we are inca­
pable of demanding that our repre­
sentatives .in Congress and our
religious leaders and our whatever
support our political pri oners. I
think that th d that w done
to our movemen y COINTElr
PRO will never ever be discovered
in its full extent.
T h only thing
wecandol to
give the gl
thet w. cen
gi� . Develop
. ours I� In
th � ythatw
end � lop
au" I� , nd
to try with
Vi ry rlou
f� m fmlnd
to 11'/1 up 0 th
d � th
hl tory of
u.
The kind of COINTELPRO with
a different name is in existence
now. We don't know what's
hqppening, but we know it's worse
than anything J. Edgar Hoover ever
dreamed of. So it's important to put
our truggle in a political context.
If our struggle is a political strug- '
gle, if w� are oppre sed people,
then we Will be targeted by the gov­
ernment. That's obvious. We have
to learn that. People are still under
the kind of brainwashing that 'they ,
must have done something" the
kind of ignorance about wha� the
United State government is capa­
ble of doing, and a kind of denial of
our own rights to self-determina­
tion to liberation. I think that the
more we understand the reality of
our ituation, the reality of the role
of the U.S. government in the op­
pression of third world movements,
the more we will understand how
important it is for. us to truggle
around political pri oners and for
u not to accept the premi e of the
government.
, For example, in the case of the
ew York activist accused of kill­
ing a policeman, he had to prove
that he w framed and the govern­
m�nt i till trying to put him in
p� on even after he w illegally in
pn on for 19 years. The burden of
proof hould not be on th ccused.