Terrorism is defined as the “systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective…. Although usually thought of as a means of destabilizing or overthrowing existing political institutions, terror also has been employed by governments against their own people to suppress dissent.” (Merriam-Webster online dictionary)
You are already aware that in contrast with most other “mass murderers,” the accused Boston Marathon bombers were triumphantly identified as Muslims and gleefully labeled as terrorists.
Now, for the first time in history, a woman–Assata Olugbala Shakur, whom the FBI calls by her former married name, Joanne Chesimard–has been put on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, with a $2 million bounty offered for her capture.
Does it surprise you to learn that Assata Olugbala Shakur is black?
Here, in brief, is her story. After graduating from City College of New York in 1973, Shakur became a member of the Black Panther Party and then the Black Liberation Army. She was arrested several times but was acquitted or had charges dropped before she was involved in an armed shootout with police on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973.
Based on some dubious and inconsistent testimony, she was found guilty of murder and imprisoned in several facilities, including Riker’s Island Correctional Institution for Women where she was kept in solitary confinement for nearly two years and Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey from which she escaped in 1979. She was granted asylum by Fidel Castro and has lived in Cuba ever since.
More details can be found in this article, but we recommend that you listen to Shakur tell her own story, and then decide who or what is the terrorist in her case.
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology