T-Dubb-O’s brand of activism is what many communities need
His statement at the end must be listened to
I am not into rap or hip-hop. I love Salsa, Reggae, Pop, and R&B. It stands to reason why I am not aware of many of the hip-hop stars let alone hip-hop stars in the underground that are really popular not only in America but throughout the world.
Then I saw T-Dubb-O on Ed Schultz MSNBC show. He recounted a story many of us are aware of detailing his encounter with the police in St. Louis Missouri. As he told his story I saw a dedicated political rapper, activist, and intellect all wrapped up in a very young man.
I made arrangements to interview him on my show Politics Done Right. Even though he was in Washington DC at the White House meeting the President on the same day, he kept his promise and did the interview with me.
Ed Schultz brought T-Dubb-O to his show once more. He wanted to discuss the impact of the release of Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department report on the Ferguson police.
When Ed Schultz asked whether he felt vindicated by the report his answer was prescient.
The only issue I have with it is that it took the DOJ to come in to say this is what’s going on when we live in this community. We are citizens of this community or this city. And we have been telling the world this is what we go through. This is how our life is. And we were discredited. We were accused of lies, being liars. We were stalked and threatened on Twitter saying that that’s not how America is. You guys are lying. But as soon as the DOJ make a report saying everything these guys have been saying since August is completely true. And now it is just like wow. It’s a shock factor.
Ed then asked about the community moving with confidence following the report. T-Dubb-O snapped back telling Schultz what would have really given the community confidence in the system.
I mean confidence in what? They just basically told us what we go through on a daily basis. They just showed us our life in a glimpse on a piece of paper. Confidence is us getting an indictment. Indict George Zimmerman. Indict Darren Wilson. Indict one of these countless other police officers or vigilantes that’s out here taking Black and Brown life whenever they feel the need to. That would give us some confidence.
What did he say is next?
We continue to do what we’ve been doing. We fight. We studied the report. Because America is caught up on statistics and numbers. You know our statistics and numbers. You are an expert. You know what is going on out here. So we studied the report, both of them. So whenever they want to argue and debate, we know all the facts that thy put out there.
When asked what should be done about the Ferguson police department, T-Dubb-O did not simply state they needed to be disbanded. He explained the fraud on the citizens presented by the structure of policing in the area.
I think they need to disband. First and foremost the chief needs to step down and the Ferguson police department needs to disband. It is a small municipality. Why are there ninety one different municipalities in Saint Louis County? If we have Saint Louis county police, St, Louis police need to oversee different counties. That is why it is so corrupt because you have so many different governments. It could be three hundred citizens in this little town. You got a mayor you’ve got to pay. You have got a police chief and you have got a police force of forty to fifty officers for three hundred citizens. So they have to find a way to scheme up with this money and take care of this budget. So they are going out and using traffic stops and predator policing to make up 30 or 40 percent of their yearly budget. And they are taking it from the people. And they are not taking it away from people that look like you. They are taking from people who look like me who already cannot afford to feed themselves.
When asked if minorities were specifically targeted for ‘coercive wealth extraction’ (my inference), T-Dubb-O had the numbers.
Of course look at the DOJ’s statistics. Black people were pulled over and arrested more. However White people that were pulled over and arrested were found with drugs and paraphernalia more. So why are we targeted more.
When asked what has to be done to progressively move forward, T-Dubb-O had an answer that every activist from urban areas, rural areas, Appalachia, and other regions that are systematically left behind should heed.
We have to save our own community. For so long we fought to be in a house that doesn’t want us there, into a system that is designed to keep us in this position. And that’s the reason we are in this position now. And everybody says well just be patient. Use the vote.
We need to file legislation. We are still trying to get into a house that doesn’t want us. We need to focus on our community. What we are doing here in St. Louis is we are working on programmatic responses. We have different fights.
We are starting with the youth. We have a tech program where we are teaching disadvantage youth and impoverished youth, how to code, build websites. We do books and breakfast every last Saturday of the month where we feed them and politically educate them. We are working on an IOD program to work on career advancement. In my city where I come from on the side where I come from, it is impossible for a young boy to say that he wants to be an astronaut. And we make that possible. We are going to try to make that possible.
You say we need the vote? We have registered over 6,000 people in Ferguson to vote. We are using that information in our own database to create our own political party to push our own candidates. We are trying to make the reform happen that we want to see so we don’t have to worry about our children being gunned down in the middle of the street. And they have the opportunity to dream just like everybody else in this country.
This young man has the potential to do great things. He has the intellect to research and understand the numbers. He understands the economics of oppression. He understands the economics of stereotyping. Most importantly he has the credibility within and without his community that can make him and other activists like him the missing link, the bridge to really bring many communities out of their seemingly permanent state of oppressive failure.
T-Dubb-O is a grassroots activist that must be watched and mimicked. One hopes the national faux-activist class will learn and build on the work he does.