Arrest in Killing of Malcolm X's Grandson

2 Waiters Arrested in Killing of Malcolm X’s Grandson

Mario Guzm�N/European Pressphoto Agency

Rodolfo Fernando Rios Garza, a prosecutor, left, said he saw no evidence that Malcolm Shabazz’s attackers knew his background.

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

Published: May 13, 2013

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MEXICO CITY — The police here arrested two men on murder and robbery charges on Monday in the beating death last week ofMalcolm Shabazz, the grandson of Malcolm X, though many questions about the case remained unresolved.

Related

• Troubled Life in Malcolm X’s Shadow Comes to a Violent End(May 11, 2013)

• Grandson of Malcolm X Said to Have Died in Mexico (May 10, 2013)

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Xiomara Michel/The Shabazz Family, via Associated Press

Malcolm Shabazz

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Procuraduria General de Justica del Distrito Federal, via Associated Press

Manuel Alejandro Pérez de Jesús

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Procuraduria General de Justica del Distrito Federal, via Associated Press

David Hernández Cruz

The men taken into custody, David Hernández Cruz and Manuel Alejandro Pérez de Jesús, worked as waiters at the Palace Club, a downtown bar where Mr. Shabazz, 28, was beaten, in what the city prosecutor called a dispute over an excessive bill.

Two other bar employees who the authorities said participated in the beating, which left Mr. Shabazz with fatal skull, jaw and rib fractures, were being sought.

The body of Mr. Shabazz, who for years had wrestled with living in the shadow of his grandfather’s fame, was still at a city morgue on Monday while American consular officials worked to have it returned to the United States. A family spokeswoman said they would have no comment, and no funeral plans have been announced.

Mr. Shabazz arrived in Mexico City from Tijuana, the prosecutor, Rodolfo Fernando Rios Garza, said at a news conference. He went to the bar on Thursday with a man whom friends identified as Miguel Suárez, a Mexican labor activist whom Mr. Shabazz had befriended in the United States and who had been recently deported.

When the argument over the tab broke out around 3 a.m. as they prepared to leave, the two were separated by bar employees, but, for reasons the prosecutor said had not yet been determined, only Mr. Shabazz was beaten. A blunt object was used but no other details were given.

Mr. Shabazz’s companion was taken to another part of the bar and robbed but said he managed to escape and call for help.

The pair disputed a tab that came to around $1,200, Mr. Rios Garza said. Two young women had approached them on the street and invited them to the bar, but although Mexican newspapers have identified the bar as a known brothel, Mr. Rios Garza waved off questions regarding prostitution. Many of the bars in that rundown area charge customers for even a conversation with their female employees, according to Mexican news reports.

Mr. Shabazz consumed several drinks; a prosecutor’s office statement said he had a blood alcohol concentration more than three times the legal limit for driving in most American jurisdictions. But the prosecutor, while not offering details on how much liquor was consumed, said the bill was excessive and was part of the effort to rob Mr. Shabazz and his companion.

He said he found no evidence that race or any motive other than robbery was in play, and there was no indication that the attackers knew Mr. Shabazz came from a famous family.

The investigation, however, has had its stumbles.

There were security cameras in the bar, but after a search of the property two days after the attack, video recording equipment was missing and the cameras were turned toward the walls, the prosecutor’s statement said. It was unclear why the search was delayed, but justice reform advocates have long complained that Mexican investigators do not always move with the speed and forensic acumen of the police in the United States.

The police have interviewed Mr. Suárez, who could not be reached for comment.

Mr. Shabazz was 12 when he set a fire in Yonkers that killed his grandmother, Betty Shabazz. After serving prison time, he walked an erratic path away from his troubled youth.

He had gone to Mexico City with Mr. Suárez with plans to draw media attention to his deportation, Mr. Suárez said on Facebook.

Karla Zabludovsky contributed reporting from Mexico City, and Kia Gregory from New York.

Letter to Amiri Baraka re Black Arts Movement Conference at University of California, Merced, Feb. 2014

Dear Mr. Baraka,

The honorarium is small, but I hope to raise money so that we can offer more.  We would like the Conference to be free to the academic community and the general public.  I  was planning to charge, until a young African American female student told me that so many of her fellow students would welcome this opportunity, but didn't have the funds to pay a registration fee.  So much of the time, there is a price on knowledge so that people of color are blocked from their heritage, and history.  We are in Central California in one of the poorest communities in the United States.   By hosting this Conference, we will have an opportunity to bring people together to learn about a dynamic and empowering time in American history for African Americans.  I didn't learn about the Black Arts Movement until I was in college.  I have known Marvin for over 15 years, and did not know of his part in this point in history.  I have studied your work since I was in college.  I don't want young African Americans to wait until they go to college to learn of Amiri Baraka.  Your work should be in all high school curricula.  

This summer, I will teach Theatre and Social Responsibility at UC Merced.  One of the required books is the anthology Black Fire.  I had an undergraduate come up to me saying that we are never taught this type of literature.  Both Ishmael Reed and  Marvin X have very kindly agreed to speak to my students.  I am so blessed.  Ishmael will be a part of the conference in February.  I feel so happy to be able to teach students about African American history and literature.  When I was working on my Master's in Playwrighting at San Francisco State in the 70s, your work, and the work of Lorraine Hansberry were the only two playwrights of color that we studied.  I had no idea about Marvin X, or other playwrights of color because the works that were studied were given to us by older white men.  I am so lucky to have a better understanding of African American Theatre.  One of the reasons for that is because of playwrights like you, Marvin, and black voices that I have finally become smart enough to go out and find, rather than waiting for someone to hand me my drama.

We would truly be honored to have you speak at our Conference.  Although, we are a small campus, the majority of our students are of color, and the African American study body is large, except on the graduate level.  It would be a gift to so many black men and women, and people of all races to understand the importance of your work, and the work of Marvin X.

Thank you.

Peace,

Kim McMillon

 

Black Art Showing: Foad Satterfield, Reception May 10

New York Writers Union Newsletter

Between the Lines - May 2013 Monthly Newsletter of the New York Chapter of the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981) (212) 254-0279 ext. 7 www.nwuny.org info@nwuny.org In This Issue Later, Louis Making Freelance Writing Work Welcome New Steering Committee Members and Delegates Local NWU Events On the Front Lines Members' Announcements Monthly Open Mic Event New Members & Anniversaries New Chapter Initiatives A Note from the Editor   Remember Louis Reyes Rivera on May 19.  Click image to listen to one of his well-known readings. Pen Pressure: Later, Louis  Written by Lora Rene' Tucker, NWU NY Chapter Steering Committee Member (Pen Pressure is BTL's regular column about the best practices for activist writing. Guest columnists are welcome. Email info@nwuny.org if interested. -- Editor)    To show how our distinguished former chair Louis Reyes Rivera still influences the work and movement of the New York Chapter, BTL will include a tribute piece about him from an NWU member every May to mark Louis's birth date on May 19. -- Editor    The month of May tends to be an important month for me.  My father's birthday was May 3rd, mine is May 8th, and my mother's May 13th (a house of bulls, that's a story!). When I was twelve, my mother told me I was due on the 18th or 19th of May. Now I do not play "the numbers," but the number 19 became one of those "special" digits.  By the age of 18, I knew that Malcolm X was born on the 19th, but little did I know 32 years later, I would meet a man who gave me a deeper reverence for the 19th of May.    Louis Reyes Rivera would shun me for putting him on a pedestal, but he deserves it.  He deserves to be placed on a pinnacle; he was a mighty poet, teacher and man.  He is my hero - he saved me from my self- doubt and told me I am a writer.  And facing the world, like a warrior riding a mighty "Waterman," he fought the battles so that I could write.    I remember being at the Harlem Book Fair a couple of summers ago when there was a tribute to him at the Thurgood Marshall Academy.     (Click HERE to continue reading.)

Assata Shakur, the Most Wanted Black Liberation Fighter

Assata Shakur has been placed on the 'Most Wanted Terrorists' list, but the move has raised many eyebrows [AP]

"Don't believe everything you hear. Real eyes realise real lies."-Tupac Shakur Assata Shakur is now a Muslim. Well, she didn't actually convert to Islam. But in the eyes of the United States government where "terrorism" and threats to the state have become synonymous with Islam and Muslims, the recent placement of Assata Shakur on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorist List", has for all intents and purposes, made her one. While her being named to the list shocked many, is it really that surprising, especially when one considers how the "war on terror" has been used as a logic of control to systematically target, undermine and destroy any challenge to the domestic and global realms of US power? Welcome to the Terrordome Recently while in New York, I was on a panel at the Riverside Church that explored the links between the "war on crime" and the "war on terror". I joined an incredible group of mostly black and Muslim activists, individuals (including Yusef Salaam, one of the "Central Park Five"), and family members of individuals who have been persecuted and incarcerated due to the policies of these proxy "wars". As I discussed on the panel, it's no coincidence that the figure of the "black criminal" and the "Muslim terrorist" both emerged in US political culture in the early 1970s due to the neurotic fears of Black Power domestically, and the threats to an expanding US imperial footprint in Muslim countries abroad. For the individuals and family members who have been deeply scarred by these violent state policies, their powerful testimonies of life on the frontlines made plain to all of us there the deep connections that exist between the "war on crime" and the "war on terror", between the "black criminal" and the "Muslim terrorist". Take the logic of "crime" for example. Cle Shaheed Sloan's 2005 documentary Bastards of the Party and Mike Davis' book City of Quartz suggest that the criminalisation of blackness in the late 1960s and early 70s was in essence a counter-insurgency strategy against black communities in the shadow of Black Power, as the "war on crime" (and "war on drugs") became an extension of the dirty wars waged byCOINTELPRO that sought to prevent the future emergence of the exact kinds of political activities that Assata Shakur and others were involved in. As scholars such as Michelle Alexander and Khalil Gibran Muhammad have noted, once the US state defined particular activities as "crime", it then sought to crack down and control it. As the fears of the "black criminal" were stoked, the political will was generated in mainstream America to pass repressive laws that normalised "crime" and linked it almost exclusively to blackness, making all black people suspicious, and leading to state-sanctioned racial profiling, the creation of an urban police state, and the explosion of a massive prison archipelago that Michelle Alexander has called "the new Jim Crow". The "war on terror" has used the face of the "Muslim terrorist" to narrow the scope of dissent, expand state control, and prevent the creation of alternatives to exploitation and war. Similarly in the "war on terror", the US has named particular acts as "terrorism", delegitimising them and generating the political will through fear to normalise the figure of the "terrorist", making Muslim-looking people, and even Muslim countries themselves, suspects under deep suspicion in their struggles for self-determination. As a result, the need for state security created broad "anti-terrorism" measures that expanded state power, making Muslim countries subject to invasions, sanctions, bombs, and drones, and making Muslim bodies subject to indefinite detention, torture, surveillance and targeted murder, as Muslims got marked as people who don't have the right to have rights. While the system of mass incarceration used the face of the "black criminal" to legitimise itself and disproportionately target black men and women, the tentacles of incarceration soon expanded to include Latinos and other poor people in its orbit. Similarly, the "war on terror" has used the face of the "Muslim terrorist" to narrow the scope of dissent, expand state control, and prevent the creation of alternatives to exploitation and war. But while the Muslim has been the face of this, the logic of "terror" is now being used to target other countries and also black and brown communities domestically, as the fluid category of the "terrorist" continues to morph. Organised confusion While many were shocked that Assata would be placed on the "Most Wanted Terrorist List", some argued that not only is she innocent of the charges against her, but that what she was struggling for as a black revolutionary could not possibly make her a "terrorist". But this begs the question: who is a "terrorist"? And what does he do that would make him one? Would he by chance have a beard? Wear flowing garb? Be a Muslim? By all credible accounts, Assata is not guilty of killing Officer Forester in 1973. But the focus by many on her innocence as the reason why she is not a "terrorist" misses the point completely. Because whether she's innocent or not, the labelling of her as a "terrorist" has more to do with her political beliefs and the liberation struggles that she was a part of. In fact, it's those very beliefs and activities that led to her (and others) being targeted under the FBI's COINTELPRO, persecuted, put on trial, convicted and then forced to ultimately flee the country and live in exile in Cuba. For the US state, when it comes to labelling a "terrorist", innocence or guilt are simply irrelevant details. For her supporters and those on the Left who deny that she's a "terrorist", we have to understand that to the US government that's exactly what she is. But instead of denying it, it's high time that we instead challenge the prevailing logic of "terrorism", refuse to normalise it, and recognise it for what it is: not only a political label used to discredit and undermine struggles for self-determination, but also a legal frame that then gives the state the sanction and power to narrow the scope of dissent and violently crackdown and arrest, incarcerate, torture, bomb, drone, invade, and even assassinate those deemed threats to state interests. But if her allies continue to accept "terrorism" as the ruling paradigm, and make the false and fatal distinction between the struggles of black radicals like Assata from the struggles of Third World peoples fighting for dignity against racist, imperial power in places such as Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, then these supporters are not only misunderstanding and undermining the internationalist legacy of Assata Shakur and the Black Panther Party (who supported the Palestinians and other Third World struggles), but they are also ironically reinvigorating the very same violent state forces that she and the Black Power movement struggled to eliminate. No coincidences, only consequences More than just targeting Assata, the FBI and the Obama Administration have essentially labelled the Black Power movement as "terrorists". But in trying to rewrite and destroy that past, the labelling of Assata as a "terrorist" is also an attack and warning to those who are organising today against the very same forces that Assata was over 40 years ago: police brutality, militarism, imperial war, economic exploitation, and racist state practices that continue to perpetuate black suffering and the decimation of the Global South. And if that wasn't chilling enough, in calling her a "terrorist" and Cuba a "state sponsor of terror", could a drone attack on Assata be that far-fetched? Could the official state policy of targeted assassinations - a policy that ironically mimics the targeted killing by COINTELPRO of Fred Hampton, Bunchy Carter and others - and that now murders Muslims who are deemed threats to US and Israeli interests be in the offing for her? And what about those artists and activists who have supported her and other Cuban solidarity activists: are they not now subject to the "material support for terrorism" law that has imprisoned so many and also severely curtailed the work of Muslim charities seeking to help those in Kashmir, Palestine, Pakistan and elsewhere? If there is a silver lining in this, its that for those black, Latino, Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities who are involved in political work that is now or soon will be lumped into the category of "terrorist", this is an opportunity for us to use our collective exclusion as suspect communities and deepen our links and points of solidarity to vigorously fight the violent forces that target us in a different ways. Despite the mainstream Muslim, black, Latino and South Asian communities who have assumed the logic of "anti-terrorism" and have tied their fates to successes of white supremacy and US empire, the internationalist legacies we have inherited from Malcolm X, Assata Shakur and others within Black radical movements endures. It's seen in the black, Latino, South Asian and Arab organisers in New York and Los Angeles doing work around the NYPD "Stop and Frisk" programme and the "Stop LAPD Spying" campaigns; it's present in the work of artists and activists struggling for migrant justice around the US-Mexico border. It's also evidence in the beautiful work of Angela Davis, Alice Walker, Robin Kelley, Cynthia McKinney and others who recently travelled to Palestine and have spoken out against Zionism and US empire, and in favour of Palestinian self-determination; and it's also born witness in the collective statement of solidarity signed by many black activists and scholars in 2012 called "African Americans for Justice in the Middle East & North Africa". These are exactly the kinds of internationalist political positions that Malcolm X and later Black Power advocates like Assata Shakur took, as they understood the urgent need for global solidarity, seeing the racist links, for example, between the NYPD programme of "Stop and Frisk" and the Bush Doctrine of "Pre-emptive War", between Pelican Bay and Guantanamo Bay, and between Abner Louima and Abu Ghraib. For to not question how the logic of "terrorism" is now being used to silence black and Third World voices is to undermine the very movements that Assata (and so many others) have so valiantly sacrificed their lives and livelihoods for. Let's remember that yesterday it was Nelson Mandela who the United States labelled a "terrorist", and today it's a Palestinian, an Afghan and now Assata. Tomorrow it could be a labour organiser, a student activist, a teacher, or maybe even you. Sohail Daulatzai is the author of Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom Beyond America and is co-editor of Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas' Illmatic. He has written liner notes to the 2012 release of the 20th Anniversary release of Rage Against the Machine's self-titled debut album. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies and the Program in African American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Follow him on Twitter: @SohailDaulatzai You can follow the editor on Twitter: @nyktweets The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

MALCOLM SHABAZZ, GRANDSON OF MALCOLM X, KILLED IN TIJUANA, MEXICO

We are heartbroken to announce the U.S. Embassy has just confirmed that Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of Malcolm X, was killed early Thursday morning, May 9, 2013. He died from injuries sustained after he was thrown off a building as he was being robbed in Tijuana. Surely we are from Allah and to Him we return.

Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of legendary human rights leader, El Hajj Malik el Shabazz, (Malcolm X), has died today, reports the Amsterdam News.

RELATED: NewsOne ReIssue: Malcolm X’s Grandson Breaks Silence!

He was thrown off of a building during a robbery, and, according to conflicting reports, he was shot.

RELATED: Malcolm X’s Grandson Reported Arrested En Route To Iran

The Amsterdam News has learned, and the U.S. Embasy has confirmed, that Malcolm Shabazz – son of Malcolm X, was killed on early Thursday morning, May 9, 2013. He died from injuries sustained after he was thrown off a building as he was being robbed in Tijuana. “I’m confirming, per US Embassy, on behalf of family, the tragic death of Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of Malcolm X.Statement frm family 2 come,” wrote close friend of the Shabazz family Terrie M. Williams on twitter.

Early reports said he was shot and information is still coming in. Malcolm Shabazz is survived by his three year old daughter, Ilyasah, his mother, Qubilah, and his closest aunt Ilyasah among others. Malcolm Shabazz pled guilty and was found guilty of manslaughter and arson and was sentenced to 18 months in Juvenile detention. His stay was extended and he was released four years later. Years later he told the Amsterdam News that he had not set the fire.

Malcolm Shabazz was in the process of writing two books, at least one of which was a manuscript, and he was attending John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.