Good Morning Everybody!
This morning I want to brag a little bit, not to pat myself on the back, but to make a larger point.
On Tuesday, the City of Boston elected Rachael Rollins to be their next District Attorney. She’ll be the first woman, and the first African American ever to serve in this position. In fact, she will be the first Black woman to ever be elected as District Attorney in the entire state of Massachusetts.
And my team and I worked our butts off to help her win – not just because she’s a brilliant Black woman, but because she committed from Day 1 to revolutionizing the justice system from the inside out.
Our volunteers knocked on over 16,000 doors in Boston. We made 42,668 phone calls. We sent 202,482 text messages. Our ads were seen 1,020,936 times.
And on the morning of the campaign, several experts told me to prepare for us to come in a close second place.
We won by 16%. It was a blowout. It wasn’t even close.
I said all of that to say this: When we organize, we win. Notice I didn’t just say when we vote, we win. Of course we need to vote, but we did more than vote in Boston, we intelligently chose the most revolutionary candidate among a crowded field of 5 Democrats. We beat the establishment. And we organized thousands of voters in every way we knew how.
When we organize, which includes voting, we win. And what we just did in Boston, you can do all over the country. In fact, I’m asking you do it. What we just did in Boston, I can probably only do about 10-15 times a year, but this country has nearly 20,000 towns and cities and counties. You are going to have to organize in your hometown. And let me be clear –we never really had more than 15-20 volunteers at any one time in Boston. And most of the time it was 4-5 of us doing the work. But I want you to understand that 4-5 incredibly committed people can change the world together.
Now let me switch gears for a moment. I want to give you a quick update on an outrageous story that is developing in Baton Rouge and we will close with an update on Colin Kaepernick.
Last month in Baton Rouge a 21 year old brother named Raheem Howard was arrested for 1st Degree Attempted murder on a police officer. You can go to jail for life for that. Police claimed that Raheem had a gun and shot at a local cop. When he was arrested, a local journalist filmed Raheem begging people to believe that police had made a huge mistake and that he had absolutely nothing to do with any such thing.
Well, local prosecutors, who are known to be as racist as they come, just dropped the charges after admitting that they found no gun, no bullet, no gun powder residue on Raheem’s hands, no witnesses who said he fired a gun, nothing.
And the cop who claimed Raheem shot at him turned his body camera off right before the entire incident. In fact, police did find one bullet – and one bullet alone – and it was fired by the cop. We believe this cop wrongly fired his gun at Raheem, and to justify it, completely concocted a story about Raheem having a gun, which he didn’t, and Raheem shooting at him, which he didn’t. And we’ve uncovered some evidence which clearly proves the cop is lying. I’m going to update you more on this case next week.
I want to close by giving an update on Nike’s ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick. As you may have seen, Nike has now placed billboards with Colin’s face on it all over the country, including right here in New York, and has released a video ad as well.
Yesterday it was also revealed that later tonight, during the first NFL game of the season, Nike bought airtime to show the commercial.
Now listen to me. Nike is a business. Their goal is to sell shoes and make money, but what they have done here is highly political. Every report says not only did they not tell the NFL they were doing this, but that the NFL is highly pissed. They have a sponsorship deal with Nike and Nike is now standing behind the man who is actively suing them for illegally colluding together to effectively ban him from the league.
People can say all they want about Nike’s labor practices – I don’t disagree with you – but this statement of support behind Colin – in prime time – right as the NFL season begins – is pretty damn amazing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I’m not going to watch the games to even see these ads live with my own eyes, but I’m proud of Nike for taking a stand here when it really matters most.
I’ve gotta run everybody!
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Shaun King: A Major Win For A Wrongly Accused Man In Baton Rouge was originally published on blackamericaweb.com
