Hip-hop activist Rosa Clemente spoke to students last Thursday night regarding the necessity of community organization against the prison-industrial complex and the police state.
“We’re still living under a system of white supremacy,” Clemente told a large group of students in the West Lounge. “Our communities are depending on us to get ourselves out of the position that we’re in now, the position of no economic power. If we don’t have economic power, we don’t have political power; but we do have people power.”
OCCM and the Binghamton Justice Project invited Clemente to speak on injustices against people of color.
Clemente began her activism as a college student. She has worked against SUNY tuition hikes and to fight racism at both SUNY Oneonta and SUNY Albany.
She is now a part of the Brooklyn Cop Watch program, and described her current views as an intense opposition to the police force.
“I started dealing with issues of police brutality; I was there when Amadou Diallo got shot. That moment became the turning point for me to understand the police and the prisons. In the Amadou Diallo Trial, the four officers were found not guilty and walked away. We are against the police because the police are against us.”
Clemente also described how the music genre of hip-hop is the unifying force for the suppressed.
“We need to get people to realize that our generation, the hip-hop generation, is about resistance. Hip-hop is a valuable tool of resistance; it can be used for good or bad. You won’t find it on MTV or BET and definitely not on Hot ’97. Everyone is using hip hop as a voice; as a voice of the voiceless, the voice of resistance.”
Clemente criticized many mainstream artists, such as 50 Cent, who she said do not represent “real hip-hop.”
“He’s not 18; he’s a 32-year-old man! He’s perpetuating violence. He knows that’s wrong. He needs to hold himself accountable on some level, but at the end of the day we need to hold ourselves accountable too. Who goes and watches his movies and buys his CDs?” Clemente said. “We need to stop looking at entertainers as leaders.”
She also hit on the recent disaster in New Orleans and what she considered to be the inadequate response of the government.
“The people in the south knew that Katrina could cause major damage, but they can’t do anything. Bush had taken away the funding. The levies were going to break; the Blacks and the Latinos knew this. What happened in New Orleans could have been prevented,” Clemente said.
To sum up, Clemente pointed out many of the problems with the U.S. government and American society.
“We live in a contradictory society where we don’t kill but we have a death penalty. We live in a contradictory society where we don’t kill but bomb Iraq with white phosphorous, and then lie about it and then get upset when we’re caught in our own lies,” said Clemente. “My goal is to help people of color present some sort of liberation for themselves.”
Clemente’s presentation had a strong impact on many of the students present.
“She made me want to go out and take a stand,” said junior Wajeeha Sindhu. “I didn’t realize how blatantly racist our government is, and how well they hide their mistakes from the public.”