Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 02:41:52 -0500
Subject: M-NEWS: MUZZLING A MILLION: Mumia on U.S. media & the Million Woman March


Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 09:37:19 -0800 (PST)
From: dbriars-AT-world.std.com

Subject: MUZZLING A MILLION
Date: 11/20/97
From:  (Mumia-AT-aol.com)

                          MUZZLING A MILLION
                          by Mumia Abu-Jamal

     Column Written 11/11/1997 1997 Mumia Abu-Jamal---All Rights Reserved

                  De nigger woman is de mule uh de world
                  to fur as Ah can see.  Ah been prayin'
                  fuh it tuh be different wid you.
                          Zora Neale Hurston
                          Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

Let me ask you a quick question: What is the difference between the Million
Man
March and the Million Woman March?

What is the difference between the Million Woman March and the Promise
Keeper's
gathering?

Of these three events, which was denied wall-to wall live coverage?

Of them all, which was truly a March, and which garnered the largest
contingent
of people?

Of course, I've asked more than one question.

However, they serve to illustrate to us how the largest mass march in American
history, larger than the celebrated Million Man March, and the
Promise-Keepers'
event, got minimized in the electric eyes of the media, by denial of its live
presence, and by  outrageous undercounting attributed to the anonymous 'police
source', which claimed 300,000 attendees at its height (later figures were 1.5
to 2 million women!)

When one considers the vast, enormous difference between the initial and the
subsequent numbers (between 1.2 million and 1.7 million women were 'missed'!)
provided by cops it appears they went to great lengths to discount the
magnificence of the MWM.

The march itself, and the white, majoritarian, corporate media's schizophrenic
response to it, reflected the powerful determination of grassroots black
women,
and resistance to their success.

The media, itself one of the most racially exclusive of American institutions,
criticized and spat on the effort from its very inception why then wouldn't it
try to silence and minimize these black voices?

Despite the media's denigration of the March organizers (not well-known), its
speakers (not from "recognized" [which means "approved"] groups), or its
organizing efforts (unorthodox, poorly-planned, etc.), it proved some
important
things.  Among them, the organizers don't have to be "well-known" to work
well,
that speakers don't have to come from "approved" groups to attract admiring
audiences, and what is "unorthodox" may be successful.

The success of the March proved the white, majoritarian media was not only
wrong, but irrelevant, as black women utilized both old-fashioned
(word-of-mouth) and new-fangled (internet) methods of communication to make it
happen.

They proved that women could bypass the established media to get their word
out, and generate an unprecedented response.  They proved that people like
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, so reviled by the establishment and post-apartheid
press, is loved and revered  by millions of African women on this side of the
Atlantic, and others, like Tynetta Muhammad, Congresswoman Maxine Waters,
Ramona & Pam Africa, Julia Wright, and Ava Muhammad had something to say that
they wanted to hear.  They proved that millions of black women, Christians,
Muslims, Yorubas, Hebrew Israelites, Rastafarians, etc., of various political,
economic, and class states, could unite in the face of state and societal
repression, as one body.

That they prevailed is remarkable, but that they had to do so in the face of
white press hostility and resistance, a press that millions of black women
consume daily, borders on the criminal.

To boycott the media that assaults your very presence seems only sane.

MAJ 1997

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