Live from Death Row
by Mumia Abu-jamal
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mumia Abu-jamalIntroduction: John Edgar Wideman
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1996-06-01
ISBN: 0380727668
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of Live from Death Row
Book Review: Faces, loving, warm and dark, rushing,, racing, roaring past
Summary: 5 Stars
In this collection of essays and columns, Mumia brings us backinto reality. It is necessary for our mental survival to remember thatthis world, and the US is part of it, even the acme of it, is a violent and brutal world. It is necessary to remember that some social or ethnic or cultural groups in any supposed democracy of the world is considered as inferior, dangerous, and hence and thus rejected into oblivion. It is necessary to remember that any group of men, wommen and children that is thus rejected into non-existence and invisibility (as Ralph Ellison would say) has the instinct to remind themselves to the consciousness of the rejectors, of the segregationists, of the apartheid-advocates. Hence it is necessary to remember that in the US a war is going on against the black community when they want to be equal, free and treated with justice. Mumia just does that and we are just a little bit saner and wiser after reading this book. The Afro-American community in the US, but some other groups too, are submitted to crack-war, just like Indians were submitted to liquor-war. By spreading this poison in the Black community, the US at large, responsible for the welfare of all their citizens, spread violence, gang wars and crime and thus justify repression. But the main victims of that repression are those who denounce this war gainst the Afro-American community. There is another dimension in this book, even if it is not dominant. The Blacks must take their own business, including security, into their own hands, and thus "militance" for the freedom, equality and security of the Black community has to increase to conquer those three objectives against the system. And Mumia finds fantastic roots in people like Eldridge Cleaver, Huey P. Newton, Malcolm X, MOVE, PUSH and many others. At the same time he is critical of Martin Luther King's limits (his non-violence that can never eradicate that kind of genocidal violence from within a society); Jesse Jackson's cult of appearances to be respected because the looks are right, the hair is combed, the clothes are clean, etc; all religion's hypocrisy when they replace fight for justice with prayers for justice, forgetting that Jesus was the first and foremost victim of injustice, of the death penalty, just like Moses and the enslaved jews, just like Daniel in the lions' pit, just like so many others. We must cast the seven scourges of Egypt onto the capitalistic world. One regret, one unsatisfied desire: women are unluckily more or less essentially absent from those essays. A name here and there, but nothing really consistant. I deem this male-dominance in the book is due to a very long sojourn in Death Row, only with men. Yes there are some women out there fighting their way, and their community's way through violence and injustice. An inspiring book that makes you feel so good. Have you ever been submitted to the famous body-cavity strip search? You then discover how our capitalistic societies want the underlayers of society to be and behave: bend over and open all your cavities. No obscenity implied, just reference to the obscenity of the system. The Jews, when arriving in Auschwitz were submitted to the very same treatment, before being poisoned and burnt (though burnt after their bodies had been used to make blankets from their hairs and soap from their fat). The ashes were then transformed into fertilizers. Humanity has always been ugly, but the hypocrisy of some rulers of our democratic world has no limits, not even the sky, and they seize both day and night to impose their rule or rules. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU Paris Universities IX and II
Summary of Live from Death Row
Once a prominent radio reporter, Mumia Abu-Jamal is now in a Pennsylvania prison awaiting his state-sactioned execution. In 1982 he was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner after a trial many have criticized as profoundly biased. Live From Death Row is a collection of his prison writings--an impassioned yet unflinching account of the brutalities and humiliations of prison life. It is also a scathing indictment of racism and political bias in the American judicial system that is certain to fuel the controversy surrounding the death penalty and freedom of speech.African-American & Black Books
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