N-1-B-34a \u2013 34b<\/p>\n
Dec. 11, 1977<\/p>\n
FOR CHRIS\u2019 SAKE<\/p>\n
We still don’t know why the hell you went down
\nBut I doubt now if it makes that much difference.<\/p>\n
You were created by the System;
\nYou were destroyed by the System.
\nYour anger, your rebellion,
\nThe dope and dealing,
\nThe hustles, street fights, the bars<\/p>\n
Your intensity
\nYour desire for justice<\/p>\n
What can we say of that?
\nHow can we understand it?
\nYou recognized in Jim Jones a Man of Justice
\nBut you couldn’t keep out of trouble.
\nYou were full of an uncontrollable anger, system-bred;<\/p>\n
A tough man
\nA man of violence
\nAnti-hero
\nBlack man
\nWhose fury, explosiveness, and misdirection
\nWas created by oppression;
\nA man of the streets
\nA man of the ghetto
\nA young man, genius thwarted
\nBy drugs and outrage.
\nA child of Amerikkka that has failed its children;
\nA betrayed manchild seeking for justice.<\/p>\n
And in terms of black people who will not, never not ever compromise with the System that has brutalized, enslaved, condemned, and exploited them, the System that has been shot into our veins with filthy needles,
\nThere is no justice without a god damn rifle barrel of vengeance!<\/p>\n
We forgive you, Chris
\nFor your violence. It was
\nUnderstandable, practically
\nHonorable. Who could condemn you for being mad?<\/p>\n
You never sold out to the System.
\nYou fought it with the meager, horribly inadequate weapons
\nThey put at your disposal
\nWeapons that were ironic tools of
\nSelf-destruction! planted in your powerful hands
\nAnd the hands of millions of our brothers and sisters around the world
\nBy your enemies!
\n(They are our enemies, too, Chris)
\nEnemies of the People!<\/p>\n
We forgive you, Comrade Chris,
\nWe forgive you for all your rebellion, your
\nCrazynigger rebellion, your anger
\nThat broke through the dam of your better judgment.
\nWe honor your clear outrage that kept you hating the system
\nJust as we honor you for recognizing in the Leader, who
\nYou only imperfectly followed (like the rest of us) \u2013
\nThe Father-Liberator who could heal the terminal wounds
\nMade by Amerikkka’s long, twisted knives of death.<\/p>\n
You died in the ghetto, the ghetto
\nthat you never could change to find your way out of
\nThe ghetto that has claimed the best of our black manhood
\nThe poisonous Auschwitz of urban America,<\/p>\n
Blotched all over the land like a blight,
\nA pestilence of liquor stores, squalid churches,
\nThe stinking refuse of a dream that began in a nightmare.<\/p>\n
You had the ghetto in your blood
\nThe streets in your bones.<\/p>\n
You know your Leader loved you, Chris, even though you were
\nA man who couldn’t sustain the structure of revolution,
\nHe loved you through your madness because
\nHe knew that the White Man made you mad<\/u>.<\/p>\n
He loved you
\nThough he told you that
\nYour privates, frustrated ghetto-guerrilla war
\nAgainst the system
\nWas a revolution of mere anarchy.
\nYet you knew your Dad,
\nYou love the People’s Liberator
\nThe only way you knew how,
\nAnd we honor you for recognizing him,
\nfor the way you were sweet and kind to senior citizens
\nFor your gleaming, manipulative little-boy wonderful smile;
\nYou are our brother.<\/p>\n
The turbulent, violence long night of your life is now over.
\nYou have finally found
\nAn enviable peace.
\nBut the outrage that you couldn’t contain, couldn’t restrain \u2013
\nThat outrage
\nIs smoldering still in our hearts, black brother,
\nAs it smolders in the streets of San Francisco,
\nIn the alleys of Soweto
\nWherever the seeds of revolution are being sown
\nBy the oppressor.<\/p>\n
We are grateful tonight that we have,
\nAs our Leader, Chris, and yours,
\nThe One who can temper that monstrous outrage, who can
\nChannel it, directed, heighten it, gather and refine it,
\nInto the Pure Flame of REVOLUTION.<\/p>\n
Let our anger been touched by the refining fire of JIM JONES.
\nAnd let us, in reflecting on the death of a terminal man
\nWho was born into violence, and who was stalked by it,
\nAnd swallowed up by it,
\nRedeem our own outrage.<\/p>\n
And let us be rededicated, as revolutionaries
\nUnder our Leader, our Protector
\nOur Champion, our Liberator \u2013 JIM JONES<\/p>\n
Dick Tropp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
N-1-B-34a \u2013 34b Dec. 11, 1977 FOR CHRIS\u2019 SAKE We still don’t know why the hell you went down But I doubt now if it makes that much difference. You were created by the System; You were destroyed by the System. Your anger, your rebellion, The dope and dealing, The hustles, street fights, the bars […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":88393,"menu_order":9,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-113884","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/113884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/113884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113885,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/113884\/revisions\/113885"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/88393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}