The United States of America was founded on racism  and does not practice the values that it preaches. Writers are writing that. Racism infects all of us. Preachers are preaching and confessing that. Bearing witness.

The city of Chicago spent $20 million defending John Burge and his cohort; Burge is the police officer responsible for the torture of over 100 African-Americans between the years of 1972 and 1991. That’s nineteen years. Twenty-three years later, the United Nations Committee Against Torture has “called on the U.S. Government to provide redress to the Burge torture survivors”. The Ordinance seeking Reparations for the Chicago Torture Survivors is gaining the support of more alderpeople today as a result of on-the-ground and social media action publicizing this atrocity. This is one example of a shift in consciousness and intent that is occurring throughout the nation, being led by grassroots organizations. This movement, like the Occupy movement before it, is an incarnation of direct democracy. While direct democracy tactics may have limits on the national stage, we are witnessing a groundswell of activity that intends to challenge those limits.

Speaking of her time with the Black Panther Party, Assata Shakur has said: “Criticism and self-criticism were not encouraged.” Let me note that she left the party for this reason; however, I bring out the quote to apply it to mainstream America, not the Black Panthers. In America, despite our rhetoric of freedom of speech, individualism, and justice, criticism and self-criticism are not cultural values. This needs to change.

In the climate of state-sanctioned torture, the United States government has branded Assata Shakur a terrorist. And in the face of that, black youth are proudly wearing hoodies proclaiming ASSATA TAUGHT ME. There will be various interpretations of this choice of clothing. It appears to me an act of courage against overwhelming forces. Inside a nation where Assata Shakur has noted, “It was obvious I didn’t have one chance in a million of receiving any kind of justice” due to the color of her skin and the history of terror directed at people with that color of skin, and due to the biases of the legal system; in a nation which was founded and endures on white supremacy, these young activists are standing up, proclaiming themselves ready to “get free”, and not backing down. America owes them an immense debt for that.

But we don’t need to be running up any more moral debts in America. We are beyond morally bankrupt, and it is beyond time for those of us with white privilege and moral conscience to act as well. As Deray McKesson has stated, “Everybody has a role to play in the fight for social justice.”