In a recent blog posted on her website, Alice Walker ruminates on the continued harassment and persecution of Assata Shakur.

From drone strikes, to Guantanamo, to the ever-increasing gap between the rich and the poor; Walker laments our society’s  “ever accelerating tolerance  for cruelty.”

But for Walker, nothing is more senselessly cruel than the fact that “our big, muscular, macho country would go after so tiny a woman as Assata who is given sanctuary in a country smaller than many of our states.”

I believe Assata Shakur to be a good and decent, a kind and compassionate person.  Physically she is beautiful, and her spirit is also.  She appears to hold the respect, love and friendship of all the people who surround her.  Like Marilyn Buck they have risked much for her freedom, and appear to believe her version of the story as I do.

That she did not wish to live as an imprisoned creature and a slave is understood.

What to do?  Since we are not, in fact, helpless.

I call on the Ancestors
by whose blood
and DNA
we exist
to accompany us
as always
through this lengthening
sorrow.

Read more at  Alice Walker’s Website

 

If you choose to stand in solidarity with Assata Shakur, then it is imperative that you educate others on her struggle.

Click here to learn how you can host or attend an ASSATA TEACH-IN!