Summer is coming on strong in Detroit. We’ve had good weather, lots of free concerts, and young people hanging out together all over the Motor City. But already it’s become real obvious that the mood is tense. Things are not completely together and there are a lot of contradictions.
Too many of our brothers and sisters are being busted on bullshit charges and, in general, the harassment seems to have greatly increased.
Our culture is growing stronger and our numbers have increased. Yet, in the high schools, on the campuses, at the concerts, or in the parks, pigs are not content to let us be. We have got to have room to move.
Schools and colleges have just ended and in looking back a great many of us are wondering why we went at all, and many may never go back again. Narrow, dull classes, twisted history, and phony patriotism can hardly be considered relevant or worthwhile. Small wonder that sixty kids, all graduating seniors in Oak Park High, burned an “American Creed” plaque sent to them by a local State Representative.
Their action expressed their disgust, frustration and anxiety with a system that has become increasingly alien to them. Even if young people struggle their way through the maze of tracking, channeling, regimentation, lies, boredom, and discipline, little awaits them upon graduation except more of the same. Yeah. More of the same, but in different buildings with names like U of M or Ford Motor Company.
When 400 graduating students in East Detroit wanted to celebrate the event, they were attacked and beaten into the streets of their own residential community by rampaging riot pigs. The entire incident was irrational and brutal. All that was achieved is that 400 young people realized that the pigs see them as enemies who are to be clubbed into submission.
A lot of us lately are learning the police potential for brutality and misuse of power. A lot of us lately are learning that we have no power within a system that denies young people every basic human right. The pigs and the teachers and the politicians have misjudged us. We will not give up that easily. We are watching, experiencing, and learning in direct ways what this country is all about; things that were never, never taught in school.
So the summer is here and we all could really dig hanging out. We’ve got weed and wine and good people. But, you can’t always get what you want. If you don’t believe that, check out what went down a couple of weekends ago out at Cass Lake. Check out what went down at the Cincinnati Rock Festival. Dig the stories on this page about those scenes. That photograph on the front cover is not Viet Nam: it’s Cass Lake.
Not only is our culture attacked by honko Amerika and young people blamed for “social unrest,” but amongst ourselves we are also being quietly attacked. We are being used and exploited by “hippy capitalists” who move among us smiling and ego tripping. Culture vultures and mod promoters are pimps and hustlers who take our ideals and our struggles for freedom and twist them into dollar signs.
Mike Quatro and Russ Gibb are Pigs. They promoted the Cincinnati Rock Festival and caused the riot. They paid the Cincinnati Police Department $18,000 to bust kids. Dig that! They produced a cheap half-assed concert, ripped off their bread, and then let the pigs in to bust heads. They understand and relate to our culture about as much as Henry Ford does.
We will be used, harassed, clubbed and exploited only as long as we continue to allow it. In Black communities in this country those people have learned to move against white capitalists who rob Black people in ghetto stores and take the money out of the community and into the suburbs.
They have also begun to develop ways of defending themselves from harassment and brutality. If the Quatros and the Gibbs stay around; if scenes like Cass Lake, Cincinnati, and East Detroit continue, we will have to follow the Black community’s example.
Though many of the young people who relate to our culture do not consider themselves revolutionaries, the way it comes down makes it true anyway. The system sees us as a threat because our life-style tells them that we are aware that their world is a wasteland. Those schools and training programs are only busy work. We do not contribute to the industrial mass production machinery and can only get in the way. The more young people who are digging on human values, freedom, grass, and music, the greater the threat becomes. Yes, dig it, we are not just social drop-outs, we are enemies of the state. Our life style makes it true. They cannot let us be and continue to function.
As the social reality makes the set become more and more heavy, the cultural and generational gap grows so large that even the best liberal programs fall apart. The State Department cannot put on a good rock concert. In desperation and failure, the liberal front is dropped and the system will expose its true nature. Hard force, repression, and crude power take the place of phony sympathy. “I don’t mean to frighten you, but I think they intend to kill us all.” The vitality of our life style will draw out the worst in the system.
Our only purpose, in the eyes of the pig, is to prepare ourselves to serve the honkie empire. When Black Americans refuse to serve the system, they become enemies. The Vietnamese are enemies of Amerika because they refuse to submit. Viet Nam, Cuba, Latin America, and the Black community here are all our brothers and sisters in struggle.
This is true if, and only if, we indeed are a people—a nation. And if we believe that our culture is valid, then we must be prepared to defend it. We must come together as a community. We must be prepared to defend and maintain that community. Within that community our politics are reinforced and our life style stays alive and moving. What was really hip about the Cass Lake, the Oak Park, and even the East Detroit action was that youth were willing to make a stand against the aggressors. Our resistance at this point is not yet strong, but we are learning new methods.
So the summer is here, but the word is out. We had best be prepared to be together. The bureaucrats and the pigs have declared a war on youth. Learn strategic ways to fight the struggle. Fight back; join communes; live the struggle. Stand close with your brothers and sisters. The parks, the concerts, the drive-ins, the beaches are all potential scenes for confrontation. Be beautiful. Be strong.