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Q&A: Melina Abdullah
By Naomi McSwain
Contributing Writer
LOS ANGELES – Black Lives Matter-LA co-founder Melina Abdullah was a teenager on a date in Oakland when police pulled the couple over, dragged them out of the car and proceeded to grope Abdullah while her boyfriend could only stand by helplessly.
“My breasts. My behind. Between my legs. All of it,” recalled Abdullah, now 52.
Described as one of the worst experiences she’s ever had, the incident is among various conditions Abdullah says helped drive her passion to fight for justice and improve “interlocking” systems of policing, healthcare, economics and more.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Wave, Abdullah recalled that long ago incident, dissecting its statement about systemic police abuse in America and how such sanctioned police misconduct led to the April 29,1992 acquittal of four LAPD police officers in the beating of motorist Rodney King, igniting six days of civil unrest in Los Angeles.
A professor of Pan-African Studies at Cal State Los Angeles, Abdullah also reflected on the formation of Black Lives Matter – after a jury acquitted Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, FL – and how the group’s priorities have changed in recent years to address more than one issue.
NM: Where were you when L.A.’s civil unrest broke out on April 29, 1992?
MA: I was in D.C. I think I might have been a sophomore at Howard University.
NM: What was your reaction when you heard the verdicts?
MA: I was like everybody else – appalled. I was very young so didn’t quite know what to make of things. But almost immediately upon hearing the verdicts was word of the uprising. That’s what resonated with me most was the uprising.
I was with one of my girlfriends who was also a student organizer with me, and we felt like this is a revolution. The revolution. It’s popping off. We had all kinds of conversations about, should we do something in DC? We had conversations about, well, maybe we won’t have to pay our rent anymore.
It was kind of an analysis like, rent was too high, tuition was too high. And if this is a revolution, even though this is about police brutality, everything has to change, including our ability to pay our tuition and pay our rent.
NM: What was your response?
MA: Nothing but cheering folks on on television. Nothing beyond that. I didn’t go to L.A.
NM: Any protests in D.C. over the verdicts?
MA: Not that I know of. It was before the age of social media so there totally could have been something happening [in D.C.] that I just wasn’t tapped into.
NM: The LAPD acquittals one year after Rodney King’s beating triggered the unrest in Los Angeles. What was it about Trayvon Martin’s murder that triggered BLM’s formation?
MA: Do you know I’ve never been asked that question in parallel to Rodney King? As you’re asking it I’m thinking there are parallels.
What we were taught with Rodney King is that cops are going to get every protection of the system, right? That Black lives mean nothing when police steal them. Zimmerman wasn’t a cop and he’s not even really white, his mother is Peruvian, even though he identified as white.
It’s the same parallel but it wasn’t just the murder of Trayvon Martin that sent us into an uproar, right? We had hope that the system would provide some semblance of justice by convicting George Zimmerman.
So when he was acquitted, now you’re really talking Dred Scott decision because Zimmerman’s not an agent of the state. And so the system is saying anybody can steal Black life and instead of criminalizing [the perpetrators], we’re going to actually criminalize the victim and act as if he was deserving of his own death.
NM: Are there socio-economic conditions other than the acquittals that contributed to the unrest?
MA: For people in my generation, we’ve always known and experienced police as being an absolutely brutal force. And what we witnessed on video with the beating with what Rodney King experienced was the norm. It wasn’t an anomaly, right? It was the way in which police treated Black people every single day.
And of course, the extent of the beating was one that was really, really brutal. And we all knew people who had been beaten that brutally, right? We’d all experienced some kind of abuse at the hands of police.
I think for many of us, what we felt is once this is exposed to the world, is there going to be some change? And I think there might have been some degree of hope that what some people call the criminal system of injustice would respond and protect Black life and say, ‘No. They don’t get to do that.’
What we saw is a criminal system of injustice of what it actually is, which is a body that intentionally and deliberately puts targets on the backs of Black people and enables that abuse.
NM: L.A.’s civil unrest started after the LAPD acquittals in 1992, not after the officers beat Rodney King in 1991. Why do you think that was?
MA: I guess the video, in a sense, felt like almost validation. We never had video and so to have the video was brand new for us, right? There had never been a time like this. Now there’s hard evidence. We can prove that what we’re saying is true. There was hope that the system would respond with justice.
NM: Why do you think rioting broke out after the LAPD acquittals?
MA: Because the system gave us no semblance of justice. It confirmed that this system does not see us as human beings. It’s almost like the Dred Scott decision, that we don’t have any rights that white people are bound to respect. And if the system’s not going to see us as human, if the system’s not going to give us any kind of justice, we’re going to figure out ways of getting justice ourselves.
And so that’s for me what the uprising was about. About saying if you won’t give it to us we’re going to rise up and get some semblance of justice for ourselves.
NM: How can burning businesses down and beating people in the street get Black people justice?
MA: I think we need to think about the importance of rage. Rage isn’t always strategic. But rage plays a huge part in the justice struggle, and I think that there was some recognition of this. This is why Black store owners put signs out that said ‘Black-owned’ and why, for the most part, those stores were not touched.
NM: So the strategy came after the rage?
MA: Right. It’s not the strategy that’s leading first. Although, there was maybe some undefined strategy that might not have been completely fleshed out. But there had to be some strategic thinking and thought, right? Some thought put into, well, we’re not going to burn or loot our Black-owned shops, right?
But I think that the rage also wasn’t confined only to the perpetrators who beat Rodney King. It was the system of policing. It was all of LAPD, but also all of the things that are connected with LAPD, right? I’m not saying that it was completely thought out and that we built a plan and mobilized around that plan. But I think that there was some degree of cognizance around that.
NM: Have you ever experienced or witnessed police abuse?
MA: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely more than once. I don’t even know how many times I’ve witnessed it.
NM: Can you give me one story?
MA: There was a time I was out with this boy named Randy. And we had gone to the movies and got pulled over. We expected to get pulled over because he drove a nice car. Normally, what they would do is mostly try to humiliate the boys in front of the girls. This time… they pulled Randy out the car. They sat him on the curb and were in his face and doing all kinds of things to him.
But then they pulled me out [of] the car. And these were male officers, and they physically searched me and groped me. And Randy was sitting on the curb watching helplessly as they groped my body. That was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had.
Then I remember getting to my father’s house and my father yelling at me for being late because it lasted a really long time. And he was yelling at me for missing curfew, and I said to him, ‘Well, we couldn’t help it. They were really bad this time.’
And I told him, and I remember my Dad going, ‘Wait. What?’ and being completely thrown off because it happened so often, right? We were pulled over every single time. I thought it was normal. And my father had to say, ‘Wait, they’re not supposed to do that.’
And I guess even though my body knew and my spirit knew that it was an injustice, to hear my father say, ‘No. They’re not supposed to do that,’ that was the first time I realized that what we were experiencing was a form of dehumanization that really harkens back to slavery, right?
They sexually violated me in front of a boy in order to both humiliate him but also like saying that I had no ownership over my own body.
NM: They were groping your breasts or what?
MA: All of it. My breasts. My behind. Between my legs. All of it.
NM: So how did the incident end?
MA: They let us go. And we were relieved. We were relieved to be let go.
NM: Because?
MA: Because it could have been that they took Randy, right? It could have been that they took me. And we knew that. So we were relieved to be let go.
NM: Have Black Lives Matter priorities changed since your beginning?
MA: Our understanding has grown as we engage. When we birthed Black Lives Matter, the first thing that we said at our first intentional meeting a couple days after Zimmerman was acquitted was that we have to build a movement, not a moment. Yes, we struggle for justice for Trayvon Martin but it’s bigger than Trayvon Martin. This is a systemic issue.
I think as we’ve grown, we’ve recognized how every system is interlocking. It’s a system of policing that descends from slave catching, which is absolutely irredeemable, right?
People often say, ‘Why don’t you just sit down and talk to the police?’ We have to remember that the safest communities are the communities with the most resources, not the most police. We understood that from the beginning and grew in that understanding.
Where we’re also getting to now is that the violence that is most extreme at the hands of police also can be felt in the healthcare system [and] the economic system. We have to change everything. We have to… transform the way healthcare works. Which means that healthcare means mental health. Healthcare means making sure people have healthy food. Healthcare means enough time off from work.
And all the systems are interlocking because if you’re saying people shouldn’t have to work two-three jobs to pay their rent, then now you’re saying you have to change the economic structure. And then if you recognize you have to change your economic structure, then you’re also realizing that when workers rise up against owners, that who protects the owner is the police.
I think that’s kind of how we’re growing and evolving as Black Lives Matter.
NM: What do you recommend other than these interlocking systems?
MA: Well, I think you have to start with what are the fundamental needs and rights of communities, right? So you have to start with housing everybody. You have to start with making sure there’s enough food for everybody.
And then going beyond just existence and saying, ‘Well, how do people live fulfilled lives, right? Are there arts programs?’ We have a chant in Black Lives Matter, that goes, ‘We keep us safe. Who keeps us safe? We keep us safe.’ I think building community really is what keeps communities safe.
And so that’s what it looks like to me. In my safe community I don’t imagine anybody walking around with a badge and a gun. Not at all. Not at all.
NM: There’s been times when your life was reportedly in danger, but you continue. Why?
MA: Because it’s the only assurance I have that the world will be safe for my kids and everybody else’s. If the police are allowed to exist the way that they do, then all of our lives are constantly under threat.
There’s no such thing as flying below the radar or hoping to survive. The only answer, I think, to creating safety is to transform the way that we do public safety.
NM: People generally think that BLM does not work with traditional civil rights groups like the NAACP. Is that true?
MA: It differs chapter by chapter, but we have worked together over the last five years, especially. With Darrell Goode, the L.A. regional director, and James Thomas, president of the San Fernando Valley chapter, we’ve been on a lot of lines together and I really appreciate it.
A lot of people have the impression that Black Lives Matter doesn’t do anything with these what they call ‘good Negroes’ but that’s not entirely true. It depends. As long as they’re not harmful to the community, we work with them. And, you know, I have very cordial relationships with even most of the national leaders of these organizations.
NM: Do you collaborate with Community Build, founded in response to the 1992 unrest in Los Angeles?
MA: Yeah, I work with them now. Brenda Shockley used to be the director of Community Build. I think now she’s a deputy mayor. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I worked for an organization called LA Youth at Work. And so we worked with her and Community Build to get jobs for young people.
When we did our anniversary event we worked with Community Build to make sure there was enough space for especially the families who came in. A big part of ‘Defund the Police’ is to free up those dollars so that we can fund community safety strategies. And Community Build has been one of the organizations that we’ve advocated for receiving resources because of the work that they do to build community safety teams.
NM: Can Black people be satisfied?
MA: Not as long as we’re not free. Why should we be satisfied when we’re not free? I hope we don’t become satisfied, especially now in the face of fascism and racism. Everybody doesn’t understand that fascism requires racism. And so, no, we should not be satisfied until we are free in every possible way.
When we think about not just the inequality, but the inequity and the fundamental unfairness under which we live, Black people should not be satisfied until every single vestige of oppression is dust.
NM: Can that happen?
MA: It can absolutely happen. We have to remember that the systems that we’re struggling to tackle haven’t always been there. There was a world without police. There have been worlds and there are communities now that don’t have cages that they lock people up in.
NM: What is BLM’s priority today?
MA: Somebody said that we can’t focus on a single issue because we’re not single-issue people, right? Even though people recognize Black Lives Matter as fighting against police brutality, that’s not all we do.
Police protected George Zimmerman. Police have protected white supremacists who dare to steal Black life. And that’s why I think a big focus of ours has been policing. But that’s not to neglect every other form of injustice.
NM: What is some practical advice for people wanting to make improvements in their communities?
MA: So I say we have three things: we have our voice, we have our body, and we have our resources. Voice means don’t be quiet. They expect Black Lives Matter to say, ‘No. We shouldn’t have racist principals at school.’ They expect us to say that because we’re those Black radicals, right? But when the NAACP also says that, that means something different.
People should also [use] their bodies, and that means show up. Don’t wait for a personal invitation. If you see a flyer posted online or if you see someone experiencing injustice, show up. If you don’t have dollars, think about what else you have. Printing flyers costs a lot of money. So if you don’t have dollars but you have access to a copy machine, we need that. If you own a restaurant you can donate the food.
So voice, body, and resources. And even if it’s not Black Lives Matter, join some organization because it’s going to take organizing in order to get us out of where we find ourselves right now.
