AAAD Book Report on The Autobiography of Assata Shakur

The Autobiography of Assata Shakur:

A Comprehensive Critique on Government Secrecy

In my Religious Studies class, we are learning about public anxieties that are projected through supernatural beliefs. One of our most recent discussions has been around the topic of organ stealing rumors which form through anxieties around government secrecy. As easy as it is to regard much of what we learn in that class as only partial truths that speak more about societal fears than supernatural realities, it is not at all easy to stop thinking about the very real implications of the secrecy of our government. Reading books like Assata: An Autobiography only reinforces these fears as it unveils certain wrong-doings that were and are kept hidden from public knowledge. Assata Shakur’s autobiography was an exceptional story to read and covered many important topics from blackness, to womanhood, to revolution- however, what stood out most to me was the diligence in which the legitimacy of everything we know was questioned. Through this book one can see how significantly our perspectives are skewed by the images that are carefully revealed to us and by the information that is hidden.

Assata: An Autobiography is prefaced with a foreword written by Angela Davis, one of the most notable female leaders of the Black Panther Party. In this foreword, she wastes no time going into detail about the interference of the United States government which ultimately led to the imprisonment of Assata Shakur. Not only does she reference the activities of the FBI and their continuous attempts to convict Assata Shakur, but she also describes the role of the media in tainting the reputation of Shakur and her involvement with the Black Panther Party. One specific example Davis provides is of a publication done on February 12th, 1973 where the title read, “Target Blue” and was accompanied by the subtitle, “The Story Behind the Police Assassinations.” The article reportedly accused the Black Panther Party of murdering police and attempting to overthrow the U.S. government. Within this article, a picture of Assata Shakur was included with the statement, “Gunmen of the Black Liberation Army” looming overhead (Assata, XIV). This article, and many like it, was released months before Shakur’s murder trial, and after she had already been acquitted in several other trials due to faulty evidence or a lack there of. The significance of this is that it shows just how easily public perception can be manipulated in order to maintain the social order. The intentionality of it all is what is most sinister.

The last page of the foreword is dedicated to a chronological list of Assata Shakur’s numerous court trials. Of the 9 trials and charges associated with them, Shakur was only convicted in 1 (Assata, XIX), yet her perception in media was as “the mother hen who kept them (the Black Panther Party) together- kept them moving, kept them shooting” (Deputy Police Commissioner Daley, 1973). As we’ve learned in lecture, history is written by the winners- and black people haven’t been the winners in quite some time. The fact that the people in power also have control over the narrative which gets passed down to the less privileged majority is a scary reality to face, but it is reality nonetheless. Moreover, this occurrence is not unique as it is the strategy in which social order has been maintained throughout the world for millennia. When it it comes to the Black Panther Party and its affiliates, supporters, sympathizers, and influencers, the government had to take counter-revolutionary protocol due to the Party’s threat of educating the masses and thus toppling a major piece of the social order. Assata Shakur’s Autobiography illustrates this by sharing her life story and road to social reawakening to provide context for the many trials she faced before and after she assumed her positon as a radical freedom fighter.

Assata Shakur begins her story in the middle of an encounter with the police that leaves her shot, beaten, and eventually handcuffed to a hospital bed. The chapter, taking us through Shakur’s close encounter with death-by-law enforcement, ends with one of her many poems and smoothly transitions to the next chapter and the beginning of her life’s story. Throughout the book, Assata transitions in each new chapter between her most recent struggles as a wanted member of the Black Panther Party and her upbringing as JoAnne Deborah Byron, a “decent” child who grew up with her well-off, black grandparents in the South (Assata, 19). The way Shakur goes back and forth between the development of her trails and the development of her life as an activist is so meaningful because it displays a shared experience for many black people who’ve grown up in America (or “amerika” as Shakur calls it).

There comes a day in many U.S. born- blacks lives where they learn that what they know about U.S. history is not at all as it seems. There are several reactions that people can take after being exposed to a small glimpse of this reality. Some may ignore it and concede that they are too insignificant to chance the way that they’re viewed in society. There are some who participate in strategic acts of resistance, but are careful not to bring too much attention to their discontentment with the status quo. And then there are those, like Assata Shakur, who completely reevaluate what life has meant to them up to the point in which they discover that what they’ve been taught to believe, and have seldom questioned, are just forms of oppression that are self-reinforcing. At first, the transitions can seem a little jumpy by being formatted in this manner; but in the grand scheme of things, Shakur’s back story perfectly supports her radicalized reaction towards social injustice- as she was able to experience first-hand that she was right in fighting against the very system that would try to claim her life.

The book reads like a suspenseful story and a defense case simultaneously. Much of Assata Shakur’s experiences- especially in the chapters where she is describing her most recent encounters with the Judicial System- are split between story-line and factual evidence. I believe the reason for this is that Assata Shakur, along with black people all across the World, is in constant struggle against ignorance- which works tirelessly to reinforces negative images of black people. The only way to combat this is to educate, which Shakur spends most of her book doing on either the realities of the governments ploy against the Black Panther Party or their deliberate interference with what society perceives as U.S. history. One of the most notable chapters of the book for me was Chapter 12, where Shakur guides us through her intellectual reawakening that occurred after she decided to attend college. During the time that she was enrolled in Manhattan Community College, the Black organizations on campus were pushing for more Black studies and cultural awareness (Assata, 173). Through becoming involved with these groups, Shakur instantly begins her transformation towards self-realization- making radical adjustments like cutting out her perm after realizing that “fried, straightened” hair was just another way that black women were submitting to European beauty standards. Following some more college interactions, Shakur becomes immersed within the communities of educated, radical blacks, by joining fraternal organizations like the Golden Drums (Assata, 175). What made these people radical is not that they endorsed violence, but that they were cognizant of the influences of the power structure which used physical and intellectual oppression to maintain the social order.

Shakur’s Transformation at this point in the book is significant because of its relatability. Many black people within my age group and older remember what it felt like the first time they read a book, watched a film, or went to a meeting in which Blackness was described outside of the confines of a white-washed history book. And when one reads further into our history from holistic sources, they are revealed a number of other well kept secrets that are conveniently hidden from common knowledge in a successful attempt to manipulate public perception. The usually abrupt transition from unknowingly conforming to an oppressive society to becoming conscious of how the power-structure has polluted the majority’s views on themselves and others can be upsetting, to say the least. However, this newly felt presence of impassioned rage is what breeds revolutionaries, and Assata Shakur attempts to ignite this passion through the different educational portions of her autobiography.

As mentioned, Shakur spends the 12th Chapter of her book giving as much significant information about the history of our country as she can fit. The arguments she makes against half-truths and even some outright lies that have been strategically taught to U.S. citizens from the time they can read a book is complimented and justified by the manipulation of information displayed throughout her court trials. If you can get someone to understand that Abraham Lincoln, “The Great Emancipator”, was not only unconcerned about the welfare of enslaved blacks but also assumed them to be too inferior to integrate into American society (Assata, 179), then you can get them to reason that this same government which teaches falsified information would intentionally frame a group or person who sought to bring these foundational truths to light. To believe that the government has abused its power by censoring images that question its legitimacy is to suggest the illegitimacy of the government as a whole.

Assata: An Autobiography puts into a story the experiences of a revolutionary and their struggles against an oppressive government. History has shown us, from the French to the Russians, to the Americans (both North and South), that governments’ best defense against people upsetting the power-structure is through violence or counterintelligence. The images which are circulated daily are fed to us intentionally to maintain the illusion that inequalities are not intentional and that role of our government is always legitimate one. However, as we can see through the autobiography of Assata Shakur, and our lessons in lecture with similar narratives of government interference with Black liberation leaders/movements, this is not at all the case. The question then becomes, what is the significance of having this knowledge as a common American citizen with little power to circulate the truth through public consciousness? I personally believe this is the question of the ages and that the best you can do is to educate, as Assata Shakur diligently took her time in doing with her autobiography. It must also be understood that bringing these truths to light does not come without consequences- as even today, Shakur is forced to live in exile in Cuba as an escaped prisoner of the America Judicial System and a documented terrorist (currently still on America's top 10 Most Wanted list). Nevertheless, if the denial of important information was not crucial to the sustainability of the power structure, the education of the masses would not have such strong opposition in such sinister, calculated ways. This only reinforces the importance of this information becoming known.

Sources:

Shakur, Assata. Assata: An Autobiography. Chicago, Ill.: L. Hill Books, 2001. Print.