Sanford’s son (continued)

"It was never the practice or the policy of the group that I was charged with being a member of in the trials, the UFF, it was never the practice to specifically target police officers. If you got one that’s trying to kill you, you got to defend yourself, but that’s a tough defense to win on because of people like you’re saying who are on the jury. They tend to believe cops even though they do what we call testi-lying. They lie while they testify. It’s a real common practice in New York City. I also think that, people that take the position of, ‘Oh, I could support these people if not for this,’ those same people don’t seem to show the same concern for all those people . . . I mean, you can go to New York, you can go to LA, you can go to Chicago, you can go to New Orleans, and you’re going to see time and time again who the police kill. Unarmed citizens. Or look at the 41 shots in New York. They killed that African immigrant, shot 41 times."

"Abner Louima," I said, confusing the name of another police victim from the same era with Amadou Diallo, the young immigrant shot 41 times by NYC police, but Levasseur had it straight.

"Abner Louima, the police tortured him. Abner Louima was the Haitian man sodomized in a police station. The Rodney King beating. These things, they’re the exception in the sense that there’s been some kind of video or witness or something that prevented a full-blown cover up. But take New York as an example; it’s just far too common that the police kill people and the people that they kill are primarily black and brown. Or poor whites, and it’s just documented. It’s there. I don’t understand why the people that you’re talking about will get so upset about a policeman who was killed in a shootout in which my comrade says he just defended himself, but yet they’ll pick up the newspaper and they’ll see these cops killing people, but they don’t get upset about that. What makes black and brown life less valuable? What makes a poor person’s life less valuable? What makes some homeless person or mentally ill person’s life less valuable?

"Some of the UFF communiqués that came out specifically cited the police killings in New York. One example was Michael Stewart, who was a graffiti artist who was choked to death."

I told Levasseur that I’m on the left end of the political spectrum, and I’ve given a lot of lip service to lots of the things he felt passionately about, but I’ve never done anything except pontificate and vote Democratic. I wondered how that made him feel. Did he see the millions of people like me as part of the problem, or as an untapped resource?

"People tend to be apolitical in this society. It hasn’t always been that way, but that’s the way the corporate media groom people, it’s the way the educational institutions bring people up, it’s the way that religious institutions try to spin people. We live in a society that prioritizes consumerism, and individualism in the sense of me first. I got to get mine. For someone that grows up in that kind of environment, some pretty fundamental changes need to take place within their own head and in their heart before they’re going to step into the world of activism where you’re more than opposition, and not part of the two-party system. I think that someone like you is an untapped resource because you have a particular skill. Whenever I’ve done community organizing, the idea is to get people involved, to get them to contribute, so that from what you build comes a sense of empowerment, of what can be accomplished by people working together. From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs, and writing, since communication is such a essential part of political activism, anybody who can speak well, write well, use their artistic talents well, there is always something for that person to do."

Who are some political prisoners that more people should be aware of?

"The first one I always start with is Mumia Abu Jamal because he’s on death row in Pennsylvania, and currently, I believe that he’s the only political prisoner on death row, and because he’s facing execution, we always cite his case as the most important. Another is Leonard Peltier, the Native American prisoner, who is in his third decade of prison for offenses that he did not commit. Because of his age and the length of time he’s been in prison, and because Native Americans in this country have been so thoroughly repressed and exploited, his is another case that people should be aware of."

He also cited the people he called his comrades: Thomas Manning, Richard Williams, Pam Buck, and David Gilbert, as well as the Puerto Rican Independistas, the Black Panthers, or members of the Black Liberation Army who are still in jail, or people like Jeff Luers, whom the government calls an eco-terrorist, but whom Levasseur calls the next generation of activist.

"There’s no shortage of people who are obviously political prisoners in this country. We have literature on all of these prisoners, and as we get out and around and start to have some events, the focus will be on political prisoners. Books by and about political prisoners, as well as pamphlets and leaflets will be available. I mean, you can’t do anything about a problem if you aren’t aware the problem exists. You have to bring the fact that they exist to people’s attention, along with their names and the particulars of their cases. Then you need to make your case as to why they should be supported, why they should be freed."

Thinking about Leonard Peltier popped an aside into my head, and I told Levasseur how much it bothered me that the teams at our high school were still called the Sanford Redskins.

He totally agreed, but added, "The fact was, that when I played for the Sanford Redskins, that thought never really entered my mind. I think that it will probably get changed eventually, but someone is going to have to press it, and they’re going to have to sustain that pressure until the change is made. The big target is the Washington Redskins. One day, I hope, every non-white Washington player is going to refuse to take the field until that name and logo are changed."

That’ll be the day, I said, because I know Sanford.

"Yeah," Levasseur said, "they call it a tradition. They don’t understand the history." He knows Sanford, too.

He doesn’t blame people for being slow to react and grasp the larger problems that he has dedicated his life to opposing. "It’s a very unpleasant, horrific reality that a lot of people don’t want to face up to, the criminal acts of their own government and the corporate elite in this country."

Does he still have hope? He had a look in his eye that reminded me of the ant in the song that has high hopes of moving the rubber tree plant, and said, "I’m cautiously optimistic. I’d rather see the glass as half full than half empty. If anything will make someone a cynic, prison will. I see that as a good thing to avoid in prison, and I don’t think that I succumbed to it. A political activist can’t be tainted by cynicism, or motivated by a guilty conscience."

Rick Wormwood can be reached at rickwormwood@excite.com