Mumia Abu-Jamal, at about 4 am on 9 December 1981, killed 25-year-old Philadelphia policeman Daniel Faulkner. Faulkner had pulled over Mumia’s younger brother, William Cook, for driving down the wrong way of a one-way street; after a struggle began between the two, Mumia, a former journalist then driving a cab to support himself, was parked across the street. Mumia ran up and shot in the back from a distance of approximately 19 inches. Faulkner fell, but got a shot off, hitting Mumia in the chest. While Faulkner lied on the ground, Mumia stood over him and shot him in the face from approximately 12 inches away, killing Faulkner (and widowing his wife, Maureen). Mumia was arrested at the scene with the murder weapon, which was registered to him, at his feet. Several eyewitnesses saw some or all of the murder, and three identified him without doubt. Five other witnesses later claimed that Mumia confessed to them, including one of his own supporters. Ballistics matched the bullet in Faulkner’s brain to Mumia’s revolver. Six months after the murder, a jury including 2 blacks found him guilty and gave him the death penalty. Over a dozen justices have refused to overturn the verdict. In December 2001, twenty years after his crime, U.S. District Court Judge William Yohn ruled that he was entitled to a new sentencing hearing based on a legal technicality.

This made him a celebrity, granted him the opportunity to be labeled an “activist,” and made him a cause célèbre. He is routinely called a "political prisoner," as if he was arrested in the Stalinist Soviet Union for his politcal views and not because he'd just gunned down a cop. Many claim, with little evidence, that he was framed by racist cops. Many also use him to oppose the death penalty, although the many poor blacks who really have gotten railroaded (typically due to their poverty and not their race) go unattended and don't have millions of dollars of activist money to argue for decades over legal technicalities. “Free Mumia” is the message, not “Commute Mumia’s Sentence to Life.” Mumia might more accurately be used for a campaign to restrict firearms, as the murder weapon was a cheap revolver purchased legally in 1979.

Independent of any facts, Mumia has come to symbolize radical social justice. Mumia’s image, with signature dreadlocks, is featured on numerous T-shirts. He is the subject of repeated lucrative charity events, in America and abroad, to raise money for his defense (almost $400,000 at one event alone). The web is filled with international sites protesting his imprisonment. Toni Morrison, Cornel West, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Gloria Steinem, Susan Sarandon, Roger Ebert, Spike Lee, Norman Mailer, Paul Newman, Rage Against the Machine, and the Beastie Boys have all publicly supported his cause. He was the commencement speaker, through the magic of videotape, at both Evergreen State College and Antioch College (the two most liberal universities in the nation, the latter of which I attended as a young liberal just out of high school). Although he complains about censorship, from death row he has authored two books and regular columns, none of which address his own case.

Most who adopt the “Free Mumia” tag simply do so because they link it to social justice and are far more likely to hear the conspiracy theories about him than any facts of the case. But “Free Mumia” is a useful tag because it offers an immediate indicator of the craziness of those adopting it, and an examination of their other views readily confirms this. Any look at the crowd of a “Free Mumia” rally, full of the stupidest conglomeration of irreconcilable political messages (“Support People’s Revolutions” and “Support Homosexual Rights”) and unshaven armpits pretended to be revolutionary messages, immediately indicates this -- that is, if the open calls to kill cops don’t. “Free Mumia” should be read “Do Not Trust Me or Any of My Claims,” and as a liberal I applaud people pretending at my political persuasion for being so kind as to wear such a tag.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT

If you haven't read Apollonian Bacchanalia #49 and #51, my essays on the present war, go back and read them. It's absolutely crutial.

If this column were weekly -- and it's not -- this would mark a year's worth of columns.

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