Black students victims of racist dragnet at upstate N.Y. college

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The institutionalized racism of Ameri- questioning every white man every time can society was demonstrated once again somebody commits a crime" last month in the small college town of The Third World Association, which On Sept. 4, a 77-year old woman oppressed nationalities on campus, bas reported being attacked by a man attempt threatened to take legal action. The caming to burglarize her house. The woman pus administration eventually was forced received superficial stab wounds with a to issue a formal apology for its role in a Black man, and stated she was certain This incident is reminiscent, on a Based on this vague evidence, the state Stuart case in Boston a few years ago. In police and local sheriff's department put that case Stuart, who was white, killed out an alert for a "college-age" Black his wife and wounded bimself, then male with a cut hand or wrist, without claimed to police that a Black man had giving any further description. They then attacked them both. The Boston cops proceeded to initiate a full-scale campaign then instituted a virtual state of martial H. Karl Chandler, the senior state for several months before Stuart's hoax police investigator, was quoted in a local was discovered. Two Black men, Al paper as saying, "We've tried to examine Swanson and William Bennett, were the hands of all Black people in the com- almost railroaded by a police department munity". looking for a convenient suspect.

At State University of New York Col- Oneonta is just another example of lege at Oneonta, campus officials what any Black person in Boston, Southprovided police with a list of all Black Central Los Angeles, or Harlem could males enrolled at the college. The cops tell you: To the ruling class and its then conducted a dorm-by-dorm search in agents, Black people are the enemy and These actions provoked outrage among hostile territory. It also is another demonstudents at the college. Several demonstration of how Black control of their strations, one 500 strong, were held to own communities must be an essential protest the cops' violation of the civil part of their struggle against racism and rights of the Black students and the for self-determination.

(continued from page 20: “Rap music and the elections- Cop killers or killer cops?”)

and sung about an uprising like that one. Even more, it had announced a revolution.

"Marketing the revolution" was, from the beginning, the goal of the artistic activity of Public Enemy. This was recently revealed by the group's first producer, Bill Stephney. To guarantee that the revolution is televised before it erupts, is one of Public Enemy's explicit steps. Conscious of the dramatic lack of political leadership in the Black community, it wants to contribute to the development of many millions of Black militants. The group is also capable of developing some white militants, James Bernard affirms.

"Sister Souljah for president"

After the Los Angeles uprising, the U.S. ruling class took the message of rap seriously. And here we have the third cause, which the editors of The Source describe as the attempt to smash the hip-hop counterculture of Black and Hispanic youth, as well as, further down the line, white youth themselves.

Sister Souljah was little known as a rapper. A social worker in poor neighborhoods and a brilliant campus orator, she was recently discovered and promoted by Public Enemy. Chuck D-himself considered by some to be the Malcolm X of hip-hop culture—was persuaded that the culture also needed its Angela Davis.

The first album registered by Sister Souljah, "360 Degrees of Power," reveals a strong militant nationalist who implacably denounces white supremacy and imperialist domination of the Third World. At the same time, she preaches Black empowerment within the economic, cultural, and "West Coast gansta rap" has succeeded in enlarging his audience to white youth. That's the reason why in his latest album, made with the heavy-metal band Body Count, he performs hard rock.

And the fact that the audience for this album is largely white also explains the hysterical reaction of the police, members of Congress, and George Bush to the lyrics. Through the rap milieu, some white hard rock musiciansMetallica, Megadeth, and others expressed their solidarity with Ice-T.

In Lollapalooza, a travelling festival in 33 cities, Ice-T was made master of ceremonies. While announcing the groups, he took the time to shoot down those who wished to reduce artists and musicians to silence.

A former member of a gang in Los Angeles, Ice-T began his spectacular artistic career rapping about the gangs in the film "Colors" by Dennis Hopper. This film revealed to the public the reality of the "urban war" of the poor section of SouthCentral L.A.

Ice-T often used his rap to combat the gang war conducted by the Crips and the Bloods-and to make peace among them. It was necessary, he rapped, to end the suicide and to be conscious of the fact that a real common enemy existed that needed combatting-the police, FBI, and CIA, as well as the social-economic system that is a prison for human beings.

After the uprising, Ice-T expressed the hope to Rolling Stone that "Black people realize it's more a poverty-versus-money thing than a Black-white thing." He thought that "the shit would be on until we got to the White House." Oneonta in upstate New York knife. She identified her assailant only as the affair.

he had cut his hand during the attack. of harassment of local Blacks. search of their ill-defined suspect. racism underlying it. As one ot the students put it, "You don't see them represents Blacks and people of other smaller scale, of the infamous Charles law in the city's Black neighborhoods the cops are an army of occupation in