The October Surprise? -- "Reality TV" wins, yet again...

This administration continues to play e’erybody — and the MSM (fuck*n presstitute media) along with his base, have NO damned problem joining in the game, Fam. But just listen as Denzel shares Brother Malcom’s thoughts on this bullshit:

 

Come on now, Family (my sister-in-law gave me this shirt on my last visit to Minnesota cuz she knows me so well)!! This was a damned, publicity stunt (from the drive-by, waving to his base followers, to the 3-day release) — and they were all in on it. The little, Navy doctor, Conley at Walter Reed missed the damned memo, that’s why he had to go out and walk back that first bullshit he said! And our presstitute media’s been giving homeboy all the free press he needs for his damned re-election (Democrats are so f*ckin’ stupid). {SMMFH}

Unless and until I see some of them supposedly, ”exposed” folk are sick, near-death-sufferin’ and/or dyin’ — I’m not buyin’ ANY OF THIS BULLSHIT!

He staged it all, and because of that, more regular folk will die — and neither he, nor his motley crew will give a shit.

George Floyd Memorial a gut-wrenching confirmation of America's continuing Black genocide

My husband and I took a road trip to my oldest sister-in-law's house in Minnesota with our youngest son and his lady the last week of August.

Thinking about how badly I'd been needing to get away from it all, I shelved my traveling-during-COVID paranoia and agreed to the drive up for a surprise, early birthday party for my nephew on Saturday, 8/22.  Instead of getting away from it all -- I drove right into it.

Arriving on Friday evening, we unwound at a laid back, socially distanced, driveway-hang-out that night at my oldest niece's house with her little family of three, her younger sister, their mom and my other sister-in-law who'd flown in from New York for the party.  Unlike the 100-degree temperatures we'd been suffering in Texas, the weather was GREAT as we sat under the stars talking, laughing, drinking and catching up (not via Zoom for a change).  Because we were a part of the surprise, my nephew wasn't invited but, we'd been texting back-and-forth all evening about what he'd been doing in the community since George Floyd's murder (unbeknownst to him, I WAS in Minnesota).

Then, oddly, I got this text from him at 7:25 pm (which I read to everybody else).  He said, "Listening to Ranky Tanky and thinking of you.  Love you guys and miss you all so much.  Wish I had my family here with me. Fuck Covid!"  Then he uploaded Ranky Tanky's, "That's Alright" (Long story for later about our bond over Ranky Tanky!  Suffice it to say, he respects my Gullah heritage.).  We thought our surprise was blown!  I texted him back saying, "I feel exactly the same, Nephew.  Promise we'll make that happen one day soon!"       

On Saturday, per his wife's invitatiion, we had a mask-wearing, tables 6 feet apart, outside in the yard shindig that was fuck*n wonderful!!!   Minnesota being a swing state, we had some serious political and racial conversations under the tent.  I so appreciated that!

On Sunday, we spent a beautiful day at my youngest niece's house on a pontoon boat on the lake all day and finally, I felt all the tension I'd brought with me just drain away.

On Monday though, we went to the George Floyd Memorial -- and it felt like someone was squeezing my heart as we walked through the closed-off part of the neighborhood from the Cup Foods. This is what I saw first:

When we reached the end of the trail of names and I looked back, the stark visualization of the nationwide numbers of Black deaths felt like somebody had kicked me in the gut. My son put his arms around me and said, "Mom, it happened again." He told me about the Jacob Blake video in Kenosha, not far across the state line from where we were.  I'd slept so hard and peacefully the night before, I hadn't heard yet because I'd neither watched TV,  nor been online. He wanted to show it to me but -- I. JUST. COULDN'T.

Instead, I walked down to here, the "Say Their Names" Cemetery:

Standing in that makeshift cemetery with all those "headstones" listing the names again (but this time, along with their dates of birth and death, with their actual ages over the dash) -- I thought about Jacob Blake, his children in the car watching him get shot, and how George Floyd's very public death had neither stopped nor slowed the reign of terror in our communities by these sometimes-scared, oftentimes intentional, always-jumpy jackbooted thugs. I just started to shake my head and cry. 

I knew they'd quickly be "dirtying" him up, saying the cop was "in fear for his life," putting the cops involved on pretty much a paid vacation "pending investigation," despite the video.  I also knew they'd blame him for his own murder. And they've done it all, as usual.

My nieces, along with their young children (one, a nine year-old girl and the other, an eight year-old boy), followed close behind me.  I heard the nine year-old ask her mom incredulously,  "Did all these people get killed by the police??"  Her mom said yes.  "And they ALL  had Black skin??" she asked.  Again, her mom said yes. As the kids went from headstone to headstone they stopped at the one for Aiyana Jones. The nine year-old said to her eight year old cousin, "Sal, she was only seven years old!"  My knees buckled and I bent over.  Sal's mom came up from behind me, tears streaming down her face and asked, "Are you alright Aunt Debi?" All I could do was shake my head no as we cried together. 

Adding insult to injury on Tuesday night, here comes 17 year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, open-carrying against Wisconsin law when the protests broke out -- killing two people an injuring one. I was enraged as I saw cops pretty much give him the Dylan Roof treatment as he walked toward them with his long gun slung over his shoulder and his hands up (I was living in Charleston when Roof murdered the Emanuel 9 on my oldest son's birthday in 2015). Only thing missing was an offer to get him a damned burger.

So much for trying to get away from it all. 

We cannot allow this to continue, Family. We've got to keep raising these issues by whatever means necessary and available.  Jacob Blake's sister said it way better and more succinctly than I ever could,  here:

Hoodwinked and bamboozled -- yet again Part 1 the ubiquitous thirst for "firsts" is just plain insanity!

I said I wasn't going to watch this shit but, I had to -- if I wanted to critique it.

The unquenchable thirst for a "first this," or "first that" doesn't always denote the accomplishment of some, one-of a kind superhuman feat -- it's merely power's permission to let one play too, and usually for their benefit.  Such is the scam known as the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination -- Exhibit A ("The Donald's" wedding):

http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/345560-clintons-attend-same-wedding-as-trump-daughter

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/07/tiffany-trump-parties-with-hillary-and-bill-clinton-jennifer-lopez-and-alex-rodriguez-at-hedge-fund-heiress-wedding/

"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." (emphasis mine)

Frederick Douglass, 1857

I'm sure those who "felt the Bern" thought they'd made a demand (and in some ways they did!).  The problem though, was they weren't paying attention to the machinations of  "power" which counted on the people's desire for yet another "first."  So -- here we go again!

I had a conversation about Bernie with my alabaster brother, Alex in Key West last year and he was definitely "feelin' the Bern," particularly once Trump proved to be a legitimate GOP candidate!  In support of my argument that this was all a scam to get Killary Hillary elected being perpetrated on the American people by the powers that be, I shared this piece, written by Bruce Dixon on  May 6, 2015 over at Black Agenda Report:  Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

“It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

Frederick Douglass

46:14 -- 46:24 click
49:49 -- 51:50 click



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Mr. Frederick Douglass said...

"What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" (in its entirety)

...Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too, great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory....

...Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can today take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! We wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery, the great sin and shame of America!  I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, "It is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, an denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look today, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is passed.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! Had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival....

...Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from "the Declaration of Independence," the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. — Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other.

The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. Ethiopia, shall stretch out her hand unto God.  In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:

God speed the year of jubilee

The wide world o'er!

When from their galling chains set free,

Th' oppress'd shall vilely bend the knee,

And wear the yoke of tyranny

Like brutes no more.

That year will come, and freedom's reign,

To man his plundered rights again

Restore.

God speed the day when human blood

Shall cease to flow!

In every clime be understood,

The claims of human brotherhood,

And each return for evil, good,

Not blow for blow;

That day will come all feuds to end,

And change into a faithful friend

Each foe.

God speed the hour, the glorious hour,

When none on earth

Shall exercise a lordly power,

Nor in a tyrant's presence cower;

But to all manhood's stature tower,

By equal birth!

That hour will come, to each, to all,

And from his Prison-house, to thrall

Go forth.

Until that year, day, hour, arrive,

With head, and heart, and hand I'll strive,

To break the rod, and rend the gyve,

The spoiler of his prey deprive -

So witness Heaven!

And never from my chosen post,

Whate'er the peril or the cost,

Be driven.

Mr. Frederick Douglass
July 5, 1852
Rochester New York

(All emphasis mine)

June 17 will NEVER be the same again for me…

My firstborn son turned 39 on June 17 and, given the egregious number of Black men and women who’ll never see another birthday due to the machinations of the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy — I’m glad he was able to.

As I do every year, I woke up and called him to sing “Happy Birthday.” And as has happened every year since June 17, 2015 — I was kicked in the chest by the realization that my annual, joyful-love celebration of his birth, would forever be linked with the painful deaths of the nine people Dylan Roof murdered in my home town at Mother Emanuel. I was there.

Joyful love and immense pain have always coexisted in the lives of Black folk since our unwilling, in-the-boat “immigration” to these alleged, United States of America (Sullivan’s Island is our Ellis Island).

I heard about the murders that June 17 night on the evening news and almost simultaneously, a call to assemble downtown the next day via text, email and social media immediately went out from my friend, the late Black Lives Matter Charleston activist, Muhiyidin D’baha. We all responded. Arriving at the church and met with the yellow, “Police line do not cross” tape designating a crime scene, my heart just broke — so much so, I’ve not been able to write about it until now.

I remember a CNN reporter sticking a microphone in my face, asking me what I thought about the violence that had been visited upon Mother Emanuel. I told him, “White violence has long been visited upon the neighborhood surrounding the church via gentrification — these deaths are just the culmination of all the efforts to bleach the neighborhood, ridding it of all the Black folk whose lives were inextricably linked to it” (needless to say, that quote was never used). Say their damned names today!:

Cynthia Hurd
Susie Jackson
Ethel Lance
DePayne Middleton Doctor
Clementa Pinckney
Tywanza Sanders
Daniel L. Simmons, Sr.
Sharonda Singleton
Myra Thompson

After I’d moved back home in 2014 because I was homesick after nearly 30 years of moving around with the Navy, the husband and I bought a house in North Charleston because we couldn’t afford to buy downtown where I was born (confirming Mr. James Baldwin’s, “Urban renewal is Negro removal”).

Less than a year after that, Muhiyidin and I began collaborating on Black liberation after the murder of Walter Scott. Remembering our Rivers Avenue, Starbucks meetings where we discussed a Citizen’s Review Board (CRB) for the North Charleston police department (because I’d fought and won that battle before in Key West — and no, Starbucks never f*cked with us whenever we met, and no, the CRB never happened while I was still there), I knew this new generation of Black folk had decided they would NOT be shouldering that “Black Man’s Burden” for another damned day. And let me just say — I was then, and continue to be, so damned proud of them!!

October 16, 2015 was our Rivers High School class reunion. It was at once beautiful and painful, because I had a conversation with Tyrone, the father of Tywanza Sanders. After hugging and holding for what seemed like forever, I leaned back and watched the tears roll down his face as we talked about what had happened at Mother Emanuel four months earlier. I was split wide open, Family. I asked his permission to write about what we’d talked about but he said he couldn’t give it right then for a variety of reasons — I understood.

On Tuesday, February 6, 2018 (I moved back to the “belly of the beast” in 2017 when my first grandchild was born), my cousin, a videographer at one of the local TV stations in Charleston, called me — she wanted me to know that my friend, Muhiyidin, had been shot in New Orleans and had died. He was just 32 (at the time, my oldest son was 36 and my youngest son was 33). He was, and forever will be to me — a passionate and often f*ckin’ exasperating, WARRIOR for Black folk. As I scrolled through our text messages in my phone, and re-read our shared emails — I cried like a damned baby.

I’m tired, Fam — so damned tired of white folks’ fear of retribution leading to the continuation of Black death. Our young folk have the answers and I support them 100% — you should too…

And we're STILL not listening...

I listen to his speeches, I look a his images -- and I STILL can't believe, he was only 39 years old when they murdered him!!!

Fourth of July: “Put Away the Flags” Remembering Howard Zinn on July 4th

From Global Research on July 4, 2019:

This article was first published by The Progressive and Global Research in July 2010

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism — that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder — one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking — cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on — have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours — huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction — what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves.

Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.

That self-deception started early.

When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession.”

Iraq, An Appeal to the American People

When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men, women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: “It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day.”

On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our “Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence.” After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: “We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country.”

It was always supposedly for benign purposes that our country went to war.

We invaded Cuba in 1898 to liberate the Cubans, and went to war in the Philippines shortly after, as President McKinley put it, “to civilize and Christianize” the Filipino people.

As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: “The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness.”

We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture.

Yet they are victims, too, of our government’s lies.

How many times have we heard President Bush tell the troops that if they die, if they return without arms or legs, or blinded, it is for “liberty,” for “democracy”?

One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail in 2004 that God speaks through him.

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.

We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

Howard Zinn, a World War II bombardier, was the author of the best-selling “A People’s History of the United States” (Perennial Classics, 2003, latest edition). This piece was distributed by the Progressive Media Project in 2006.

Howard Zinn died on January 7 2010. Please read Matthew Rothschild’s “Thank you, Howard Zinn,” for more about his legacy.

The original source of this article is The Progressive

Copyright © Howard Zinn, The Progressive, 2019

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BlackCommentator.com Cover Story -- Thanksgiving: The National Day of Mourning Text of 1970 speech by Wampsutta An Aquinnah Wampanoag Elder

When Frank James (1923 - February 20, 2001), known to the Wampanoag people as Wampsutta, was invited to speak by the Commonwealth of Massachusettsat the 1970 annual Thanksgiving feast at Plymouth. When the text of Mr. James’ speech, a powerful statement of anger at the history of oppression of the Native people of America, became known before the event, the Commonwealth "disinvited" him. Wampsutta was not prepared to have his speech revised by the Pilgrims. He left the dinner and the ceremonies and went to the hill near the statue of the Massasoit, who as the leader of the Wampanoags when the Pilgrims landed in their territory. There overlooking Plymouth Harbor, he looked at the replica of the Mayflower. It was there that he gave his speech that was to be given to the Pilgrims and their guests. There eight or ten Indians and their supporters listened in indignation as Frank talked of the takeover of the Wampanoag tradition, culture, religion, and land.

That silencing of a strong and honest Native voice led to the convening of the National Day of Mourning. The following is the text of 1970 speech by Wampsutta, an Aquinnah Wampanoag elder and Native American activist:

I speak to you as a man -- a Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict parental direction ("You must succeed - your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod community!"). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from these two social and economic diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully overcome, and to some extent we have earned the respect of our community. We are Indians first - but we are termed "good citizens." Sometimes we are arrogant but only because society has pressured us to be so.

It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you - celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.

Even before the Pilgrims landed it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them as slaves for 220 shillings apiece. The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod for four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors and stolen their corn and beans. Mourt's Relation describes a searching party of sixteen men. Mourt goes on to say that this party took as much of the Indians' winter provisions as they were able to carry.

Massasoit, the great Sachem of the Wampanoag, knew these facts, yet he and his People welcomed and befriended the settlers of the Plymouth Plantation. Perhaps he did this because his Tribe had been depleted by an epidemic. Or his knowledge of the harsh oncoming winter was the reason for his peaceful acceptance of these acts. This action by Massasoit was perhaps our biggest mistake. We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.

Although the Puritans were harsh to members of their own society, the Indian was pressed between stone slabs and hanged as quickly as any other "witch."What happened in those short 50 years? What has happened in the last 300 years? History gives us facts and there were atrocities; there were broken promises - and most of these centered around land ownership. Among ourselves we understood that there were boundaries, but never before had we had to deal with fences and stone walls. But the white man had a need to prove his worth by the amount of land that he owned. Only ten years later, when the Puritans came, they treated the Wampanoag with even less kindness in converting the souls of the so-called "savages." Although the Puritans were harsh to members of their own society, the Indian was pressed between stone slabs and hanged as quickly as any other "witch."

And so down through the years there is record after record of Indian lands taken and, in token, reservations set up for him upon which to live. The Indian, having been stripped of his power, could only stand by and watch while the white man took his land and used it for his personal gain. This the Indian could not understand; for to him, land was survival, to farm, to hunt, to be enjoyed. It was not to be abused. We see incident after incident, where the white man sought to tame the "savage" and convert him to the Christian ways of life. The early Pilgrim settlers led the Indian to believe that if he did not behave, they would dig up the ground and unleash the great epidemic again.

The white man used the Indian's nautical skills and abilities. They let him be only a seaman -- but never a captain. Time and time again, in the white man's society, we Indians have been termed "low man on the totem pole."

Has the Wampanoag really disappeared? There is still an aura of mystery. We know there was an epidemic that took many Indian lives - some Wampanoags moved west and joined the Cherokee and Cheyenne. They were forced to move. Some even went north to Canada! Many Wampanoag put aside their Indian heritage and accepted the white man's way for their own survival. There are some Wampanoag who do not wish it known they are Indian for social or economic reasons.

What happened to those Wampanoags who chose to remain and live among the early settlers? What kind of existence did they live as "civilized" people? True, living was not as complex as life today, but they dealt with the confusion and the change. Honesty, trust, concern, pride, and politics wove themselves in and out of their [the Wampanoags'] daily living. Hence, he was termed crafty, cunning, rapacious, and dirty.

History wants us to believe that the Indian was a savage, illiterate, uncivilized animal. A history that was written by an organized, disciplined people, to expose us as an unorganized and undisciplined entity. Two distinctly different cultures met. One thought they must control life; the other believed life was to be enjoyed, because nature decreed it. Let us remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white man. The Indian feels pain, gets hurt, and becomes defensive, has dreams, bears tragedy and failure, suffers from loneliness, needs to cry as well as laugh. He, too, is often misunderstood.

The white man in the presence of the Indian is still mystified by his uncanny ability to make him feel uncomfortable. This may be the image the white man has created of the Indian; his "savageness" has boomeranged and isn't a mystery; it is fear; fear of the Indian's temperament!

Even before the Pilgrims landed it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them as slaves for 220 shillings apiece.High on a hill, overlooking the famed Plymouth Rock, stands the statue of our great Sachem, Massasoit. Massasoit has stood there many years in silence. We the descendants of this great Sachem have been a silent people. The necessity of making a living in this materialistic society of the white man caused us to be silent. Today, I and many of my people are choosing to face the truth. We ARE Indians!

Although time has drained our culture, and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the lands of Massachusetts. We may be fragmented, we may be confused. Many years have passed since we have been a people together. Our lands were invaded. We fought as hard to keep our land as you the whites did to take our land away from us. We were conquered, we became the American prisoners of war in many cases, and wards of the United States Government, until only recently.

Our spirit refuses to die. Yesterday we walked the woodland paths and sandy trails. Today we must walk the macadam highways and roads. We are uniting We're standing not in our wigwams but in your concrete tent. We stand tall and proud, and before too many moons pass we'll right the wrongs we have allowed to happen to us.

We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on our knees. What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America, a more Indian America, where men and nature once again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and brotherhood prevail.

You the white man are celebrating an anniversary. We the Wampanoags will help you celebrate in the concept of a beginning. It was the beginning of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 years later it is a beginning of a new determination for the original American: the American Indian.

There are some factors concerning the Wampanoags and other Indians across this vast nation. We now have 350 years of experience living amongst the white man. We can now speak his language. We can now think as a white man thinks. We can now compete with him for the top jobs. We're being heard; we are now being listened to. The important point is that along with these necessities of everyday living, we still have the spirit, we still have the unique culture, we still have the will and, most important of all, the determination to remain as Indians. We are determined, and our presence here this evening is living testimony that this is only the beginning of the American Indian, particularly the Wampanoag, to regain the position in this country that is rightfully ours.

Related:
- The Legacy of Thanksgiving, and a Heritage of Lies
- National Day of Mourning Reflects on Thanksgiving’s Horrific, Bloody History

This young man is gonna show Ted Cruz the damned door -- and I'm certainly gonna help him!

I left the Democrats and became an Independent when the Changeling ran, and was elected the first time.

Researching the Changeling's tenure as the senator from Illinois after his 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, told me all I needed to know about this lying, "deus ex machina" tool for white neo-liberals to secure the Black vote in particular, and the minority vote in general.

I learned a lot about the bullshit we've been fed and believed about politics in 2004. I learned that politicians are all liars in one way or another. I learned that you can't believe all, if any, of what they say until you see what the hell they do!!!

That said, I'm cautiously optimistic about Beto -- so much so, that I'll do whatever the f*ck I can to make sure he beats the hayell outta Ted Cruz in Texas during this 2018 mid-terms.

Listen to him family. Then watch what he does when he wins (cuz I'm sure he will!):





Do check out his comments on NFL players kneeling in the sidebar as well...

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- Does Beto O’Rourke Stand a Chance Against Ted Cruz?

Living while Black in "the land of the free and the home of the brave"...{SMDH}

Yes, Family -- "This IS America"...

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- #DrivingWhileBlackWithLeavesOnTheWindshield: Kansas Man Detained For Having ‘Vegetation’ on Window

50 years ago today and, like Dr. King -- they're STILL gunning us down..."The Giant Triplets of Racism, Extreme Materialism and Militarism" -- when will we hear?

Related:
- Against False Conflation: JFK, MLK, and the Triple Evils
- One Night on the Mountaintop
- The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr
- On The 50th Anniversary Of MLK’s Death, Remember That The FBI Are Pure Scum
- Gun Control, White Paranoia, and the Death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

In deepest appreciation and continued resistance...

Family, I challenge you  to disprove anything Dr. King shared in this video -- in 1964! -- particularly given this:

Related:
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- Durbin Confirms Trump’s ‘Hate-Filled, Vile and Racist’ Talk
- White House Won’t Deny Trump’s Slur About Haiti, African Nations

Spirit called Chavez, and now Fidel -- who will rise against the imperialism of the West now? Rest in power, Sir

Fidel Castro Ruz, Aug. 13, 1926 -- November 25, 2016:



No, I've never been to Cuba (but I do want to go).  However,  I've loved the spirit of Fidel Castro (and others like him) for as long as I've been woke.  I wonder -- would Miami Cubans have been happier if they'd lived under the Batista regime all these years instead of under Fidel?  Fidel said, "History will absolve me."  I agree with him.

I worry about the Changeling's supposed, opening-up toward Cuba (embargo totally done?  Nah!), because it seems to me, Cuba will go back to the mob-run, Sinatra days with capitalism running rampant under Orange-hair.  And then, there's Assata...

Related:
- Fidel Castro Ruz. His Legacy Will Live Forever
- Fidel Castro Defies US Imperialism Even in Death
- Fidel Castro: A Giant Has Passed
- Venceremos! The Legacy of Fidel Castro
- Cuba’s Fidel Castro, who defied U.S. for 50 years, has died
- Reaction to the death of Fidel Castro
- A Tyrant is Dead’ — Congress Reacts to the Death of Fidel Castro

The White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy showed their ass -- and got it handed to them tonight...

Not only did Trump supporters continue their fear-based, asinine behavior tonight -- the media (Yeah, John King, I'm talking to you!), blamed the protestors for what happened -- like Trump's ongoing rhetoric didn't have a damned thing to do with fanning the flames!

Lawd ha' mercy! This shit is gettin' thicker and thicker ain't it? Where, or how will it end? Is there a REAL revolution going on? Or does "Feelin' the Bern" only offer up more of the same shit, different day (Hillary's an equal opportunity shyster, so I didn't include her in my question)?? You decide.


Related:
- Donald Trump, Chicago, and the Lessons of 1968
- The Fearful and the Frustrated
- Reality TV

"Black Lives Matter, A Year After Ferguson"

Marking the anniversary of Michael Brown’s death at the hand of a Ferguson, Mo., police officer, Professor john a. powell discusses how to create a society in which black lives really do matter in this video from AJ Plus. {h/t Roisin Davis @Truthdig}

Ain't a damned thing holy going on in the "Holy City" for Black folk

"...to be a Negro in this country, and to be relatively conscious -- is to be in a rage almost all the time."

James Baldwin

And rage is exactly what I felt as I scrolled through my Blog List late Tuesday night and came upon this headline at the PINAC site:  South Carolina Cop Arrested for Murder After Video Shows Him Shooting Man in Back.  I clicked on the link and when I got to the second paragraph, I was horrified to find -- this had happened in my own hometown (depending on traffic, a mere 10-15 minutes from where I now live)!

Scrolling through to the end as I sat on the couch with the husband in Florida (my plans to go back to The Gambia this Spring having been sidelined by the IRS, I drove down to see him just to recharge after nearly a year in South Carolina), I said, "Man, look at this shit!!!"  He inched closer, and with our mouths agape, we both watched this:



I counted each report of the firearm to myself as Walter Scott ran away from his murderer.  I could not believe I was seeing this -- on video.  Heart racing and body shaking, I unleashed a trail of epithets (too numerous and w-a-ay too vulgar to repeat here, I assure you).  The husband joined in with his own WTFs, as he snaked his arm around me, pulling me into him.  Though I wished I was home to be a part of whatever had to come after this killing, I was glad I was wrapped up "in the temple of my familiar."

He slowly dozed off, but I couldn't sleep.

As I felt his breathing slow (interspersed with a snort here and there indicating the beginning of a snore-fest), thoughts about the homesickness that had drawn me back to Charleston nearly a year ago by mutual agreement, coupled with the June 20 murder of Denzel Curnell by one of those "Blacks in Blue" less than a month after I'd moved in (particularly those "three missing minutes" from the surveillance tape finally released by the Charleston PD) kept pestering me. I went searching for the initial accounts of what had happened, starting with The Post and Courier, the local  paper of record, and found this: Man shot and killed by North Charleston police officer after traffic stop; SLED investigating:

SLED spokesman Thom Berry confirmed that SLED agents interviewed witnesses and gathered evidence at the scene.“We are investigating the shooting incident itself,” Berry said. “That is the normal protocol whenever there is an officer-involved shooting. ... Once we complete that portion of the investigation, the agents will write up the case file and present it to the 9th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, and someone from that office will determine whether charges should be filed in connection with the shooting.”

James Johnson, president of the local chapter of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, alluded to the officer-involved deaths in Missouri and New York that spurred the “black lives matter” movement when he spoke with reporters at the scene of the violence. He urged the North Charleston community to wait for the conclusion of SLED’s investigation before protesting in the wake of the death.

“I don’t want this to become another Ferguson,” he said, referring to the Aug. 9, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

Three things in the piece worried me immediately: SLED, Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson and Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network -- neither of the three worked out for the Curnell family.

Then I followed the link in the PINAC post to another Post and Courier piece: Day after officer’s arrest, video of shooting death sparks protests, more action:

Ed Bryant, president of the North Charleston chapter of the NAACP, said communication between neighborhood leaders and police commanders had improved since Chief Jon Zumalt left the department in early 2013. But the community’s relationship with the department’s rank-and-file members was still strained, he said.

“There has been a good conversation at the top,” Bryant said. “But nothing has changed at the bottom level.”

Gov. Nikki Haley said in a statement late Tuesday that the shooting “is not acceptable” and not indicative of how most officers in the state act.

“This is a sad time for everyone in South Carolina,” she said. “I urge everyone to work together to help our community heal.”

Why do I get the "Massa, we's sick" feeling from the NAACP guy?  Does he honestly believe the problem is solely "at the bottom level?"  And, given Haley's low people in high places performance during the Baby Veronica, child-trafficking-is-good-for-white-folk case, her statement is ludicrous on its face. She obviously could care less about "community healing" -- although, given her use of $9,355.96 of SC taxpayer money to dispatch two deputies and a SLED agent to Oklahoma, she does know a little about how officers in the state act.

And a little further in, we (not unexpectedly, at least to me) we find this:

Two people filed complaints against Slager during his time with the force, including one man who said the policeman shot him with a Taser for no reason in September 2013. Internal investigators exonerated the officer of any wrongdoing, though the suspect in that case was never arrested.

According to this:  "Documents released by the force show there was one complaint in January 2015 involving failure to file a police report was sustained — though it was unclear what disciplinary action Slager faced, if any...Slager was cleared of another complaint regarding use of force. In that case, a man alleged Slager had used his Taser for no reason and slammed him to the ground in September 2013.  The officer was exonerated upon investigation, documents from the North Charleston Police Department show."

See, this is why I believe in Citizens Review Boards -- because  Internal Affairs is nothing but the fox guarding the henhouse!!  The police get to police the police with no real accountability to the citizens they supposedly serve.

Pastor Thomas Dixon, a community activist, said that he is concerned about outsiders coming into the community to incite violence. He said the outcry of anger so often ends up “tearing down our communities,” and emotions should be diverted to something more constructive than violence.

“Good people get caught up with crazy people,” he said. “The smart reaction is to just gather and peacefully let your voice be heard without any foolishness or craziness.” (emphasis mine)

Careful there Pastor, your words eerily echo those used against Dr. King and the SCLC during both the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Selma -- and I'm sure you recall what he had to say to his fellow clergyman like you about that in his, "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."  Read it at your leisure, however,  here's a little bit of it to chew on:

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds. (emphasis mine)

Unlike Pastor Dixon, I proudly and humbly thank the younguns in the struggle today for their  fire this time -- would that plenty more "outsiders," who really get the soul-crushing inhumanity that has, and continues to happen in Charleston, show up in solidarity as they have all over these alleged United States. Until they do, please listen to my beautiful, young sister, Ms. Lauryn Hill explain the plethora of reasons for those "outcries of anger" with her, Black Rage (sketch) below:



Now comes the Mayor's press conference:



There are many point-by-point thoughts I could make about this press conference, but I won't, because I'm tired and it just feels like, "Y'all just need to shut the hell up.  We've fired him, charged him with murder -- what else do you want?!"

But I will say this, all I see it as, is an opportunity for both the mayor as well as the Chief to totally shut down the Black Lives Matter activists -- as if this problem has not been, and still is, an ongoing, far-reaching, INSTITUTIONALIZED and SYSTEMIC one!!  Well, this Salon piece totally debunks that idea, offering a mere smidgen of what's been going on in Charleston just over the last 15 years!  Please do check it out, Family.

However, it seems Mr. Scott's family was relieved at the mayor's announcement.  But I don't think they've bought it all hook, line and sinker -- and they shouldn't. Take a listen:



I didn't know why, but Bobby Blue Bland's song's been playing non-stop in my head since I started writing this post.  Now I know -- I needed to dedicate it to the Scott family, with my sincerest condolences for the brutal, senseless loss, forced upon them by a white supremacist officer in a racist system.  I hope all of you can find some semblance of peace:



Family, in the words of the late, great Fannie Lou Hamer, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired" -- aren't you?

Related:
- Media Were Already Running With Police Fantasy When Video Exploded It
- Bystander who filmed Walter Scott shooting: officer 'made a bad decision'
- Walter Scott Shooting: Councilman Says Support 'Hard-Working' Officer
- Walter Scott: protesters demand justice – and an end to police discrimination
- South Carolina police officer who shot fleeing black man 'looked like he was trying to kill a deer in the woods'
- GoFundMe rejects campaign to support officer in fatal N. Charleston shooting
- Walter Scott: Another Senseless Killing Of A Black By Police

50th anniversary of the "Sound of Music"

A quick post for now (just because I'm tired of hearing about the wondrousness of it all today).  My sister, seven years older than me and eight years older than my brother, took us to see the "Sound of Music" here in Charleston when it debuted at the Riviera Theatre.  We had to sit upstairs, in the balcony -- cuz that's where the "Coloreds" had to sit.  I'm 58 years old now, and seems I'll never forget, nor "get over" that memory.  It's important I never do...

"Strange Fruit" -- still just as low-hanging as we ever were

UPDATE: Take a listen as Mychal Denzel Smith from The Nation and former NYPD detective Graham Witherspoon talk some REAL truth to power on Democracy Now:

~#~

Family, Ms. Holiday is singing my heart's song tonight.  Not only is my heart past breaking, it is broken.  From Michael Brown's murderer not being indicted, to 12 year-old, Tamir Rice being murdered by a cop already deemed unfit, to now -- Eric Garner's murderer NOT being indicted (even with a video) -- it has been a soul-murdering week.

I am numbed by the grand jury's verdict in the Eric Garner case -- and enraged.

"Lynchings offer evidence of how defenseless blacks were,  for the defining characteristic of a lynching is that the murder takes place in public, so everyone knows who did it, yet the crime goes unpunished." (emphasis mine)

Lies My Teacher Told Me -- James Loewen

And we are still defenseless it seems.  Here's "A list of unarmed Blacks killed by police" to which we should pay attention.  Family, if you've not ever visited Abagond's blog, please do -- you'll learn a lot of shit!  If nothing else, it should get your minds clicking about the relevancy of Loewen's quote above.  "In public" and "unpunished" -- that's how they roll, because we continue to let them.

I linked to the video of Eric Garner's murder in my 12/01/14 post about the Michael Brown grand jury's, bullshit non-indictment, but I'm posting it now -- because, unless you're a white supremacist, or a "respectability politics" apologist,  there's no way one can look at it and not believe this cop should not have gone to jail:



And after they choked him to death -- they did nothing (WARNING:  You're viewing Mr. Garner's, already dead body in the video below):



Around the 3:20 click, you hear one of the cops ask, "Did anybody call an ambulance?"  Never mind NONE of those charged "to protect and serve," even attempted to perform CPR (Hey, Twitter-verse:  CLEARLY -- Black lives don't matter!).    At the 4:00 click, they're talking to him like he's faking (or covering their asses):  "Sir, EMS is here, answer their questions, Okay?" (so damned respectful -- after they'd all jumped the big, scary Black man and Pantoleo choked him to death, No?).  Then, at the 4:03 click we hear one of them saying, "He can't breathe."  I'm with Mr. Garner's wife -- at WHAT video was the grand jury looking???  Maybe that's why the prosecutors gave all the other officers involved, immunity before testifying.

And what kind of EMS personnel can Black folk expect to respond in NYC, or anywhere in this country for that matter (cute white ones with nice jewelry, it seems)???  From the 4:03 click to the 4:27 click, she's checking for a pulse, and then -- like the officers covering their asses, she talks to him!  "Sir, it's EMS.  C'mon, we're here to help alright.  We're here to help you (inaudible) alright?"  She gave up after that, and by the 5:15 click, Blacks and Browns in Blue standing around should've been ashamed of their damned selves.

By the 5:59 click, they all knew he was dead, trying to get him up on the stretcher.  "Strange Fruit -- Reloaded."

At the 6:35 click, you hear one of them ask, "Why nobody's doing CPR?"  And white bread in the aviator, "I'm a cop" glasses answers, "Because he's breathing (I'm sure he was one of them that got immunity).

Yes, Brother "Sylon R," -- "That's what the f*ck they do."  I'm tired of being low-hanging fruit, Family.  I've raised two sons who look like me -- and I fear for their lives everyday.

The Medical Examiner ruled Eric Garner's death a "HOMICIDE."  Chokeholds have been banned from the NYPD SOP -- and still, this grand jury let this cop evade indictment.  They, and the grand jury in Ferguson, have literally given cops a license to murder us (as if they needed one).

Screw milk dud-head, Charles Barkley, et al!  When will WE  get, that the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy will never make any bones about erasing us after having used us TO BUILD THIS DAMNED COUNTRY???

My beloved ancestor, Mr. James Baldwin addresses it here for me...



Related:
- The Not So Strange Fruit of Racial Murder
- The System That Failed Eric Garner and Michael Brown Cannot Be Reformed
- When the System Provides No Remedies to Torture, You Must Overthrow It
- Tamir Rice
- Can We Stop Police From Shooting Our Boys?
- Protesters decry Eric Garner grand jury vote LIVE UPDATES
- Man That Filmed NYPD Executing Eric Garner Arrested On Gun Possession Charges 
  (hmmmm)

The murders won't stop unless and until, one way or another -- they are made to pay

"First of all, the European reigns; he has already lost but doesn't realize it; he does not yet know that the "natives" are "false natives." He has to make them suffer, he claims, in order to destroy or repress the evil they have inside them; after three generations, their treacherous instincts will be stamped out. What instincts?  Those that drive the slaves to massacre their masters?  How come he cannot recognize his own cruelty now turned against him?  How come he can't see his own savagery as a colonist in the savagery of these oppressed peasants who have absorbed it through every pore and for which they can find no cure?  The answer is simple:  this arrogant individual, whose power of authority and fear of losing it has gone to his head, has difficulty remembering he was once a man; he thinks he is a whip or a gun; he is convinced that the domestication of the "inferior races" is obtained by governing their reflexes.  He disregards the human memory, the indelible reminders; and then above all, there is this that perhaps he never knew:  we only become what we are by radically negating deep down what others have done to us.  Three generations?  As early as the second, hardly had the sons opened their eyes than they saw their fathers being beaten.  In psychiatric terms, they were "traumatized."  For life.  But these constant acts of repeated aggression, far from forcing them into submission, plunge them into an intolerable contradiction, which sooner or later the European will have to pay for."

(Excerpt from Jean-Paul Sartre's preface to

Frantz Fanon's, The Wretched of the Earth)

I'm sure the title of this post is unsettling for those of you who don't like having your "certainties disturbed" (I could almost SEE the practitioners of the endlessly annoying "respectability politics" clutching their pearls as I wrote it).  However, like Baldwin, Sartre and Fanon in his,  The Wretched of the Earth above (whenever you have the time, please DO read this very important liberation handbook at the link.  Thank you so much Warrior Publications for making it available!) -- it is exactly what I believe.

Since time immemorial we've suffered and died (and continue to do both) at the hands of these jack-booted thugs.  Sometimes pleading, sometimes demanding, sometimes helpless -- we keep asking them, hoping they'll just treat us, "Others" with the dignity and respect every human being deserves.  We've marched, we've tried to conform, some of us have sold out, we've berated one another and we've even gone to historically Black churches (on Father's Day no less) denigrating us (simply, IMHO, to assuage our own sense of loss) -- all to no avail.

All of this, Family is the definition of insanity!  We keep doing the same damned things over and over again and expecting different results.  Aren't you tired??  I sure as hell am!!

I've purposely not written about the murder of Micheal Brown until now because quite frankly, I've been overwhelmed -- by so many things.  Though I've briefly mentioned standing in solidarity with all those beautiful, young people who humbled me with their resolve as they gathered in his name for over 100 days and counting in Ferguson -- I needed to wait.  Wait, until I wasn't so overwhelmed by all that's been going on personally this past, almost year and a half; wait, to see if the white supremacists would get a damned clue and prove me wrong for a change (even though I never expected they would) -- I just needed to wait.

Eerily, I was on the road to Florida to see the husband last Sunday for our 34th wedding anniversary (two years ago, I didn't think we'd be here, but that's another story), alternately listening to BBC and CBC Radio.   Switching between each, around 7 p.m. or so, they both began reporting that the Ferguson grand jury had made a decision -- but it wouldn't be announced for a couple hours (more damned game-playin',  I thought to myself).  My youngest called to check on me as he always does when I'm road-trippin' right after that.  I told him to turn on his TV and keep me posted about what was happening because I couldn't' see it, but knew, "those mofos are gonna let Darren Wilson go free."

~#~#~#~

I say eerily because, in February of this year, after having put the house in the "Belly of the Beast" up for sale, the husband and I had two trips to make: a house-hunting trip to Florida for him, and a meeting on the 15th with the builder in South Carolina for me (more on that later).  We went to Florida first, because the day of the builder meeting coincided with the dedication of the Denmark Vesey Monument in Hampton Park in Charleston and I had to be there for deeply felt personal reasons (more on that later too).  Staying in a hotel as we checked out some places, we were also following the Jordan Davis case in Jacksonville, intermittently watching TV and listening to the radio -- constantly asking each other as we checked, "Got a verdict yet?"

We headed to South Carolina on the 14th, and shortly after our meeting, we heard the verdict -- Guilty!  While not totally what he deserved, he'll be in prison long enough to really know -- that shit he did was foul as hell.

~#~#~#~

About two hours or so after his first call,  the youngest checked in on me again as the BBC cut to Ferguson.  Listening to McCullouch's long, drawn out, bullshit spiel on the radio, I already knew -- Darren Wilson had gotten away with murder.  When the phone rang in the car, he didn't have to say anything.  I said, "Baby, I told you."  I listened, as he angrily vented about the unfairness of it all, then --  I just let loose (suffice it to say, not only was it past warm, it was vitriolic and quite profane). After letting me unload, he said, "Calm down, Mom. Pay attention to the road.  Call me when you get to Dad's and -- take it easy on Dad, he didn't kill Mike Brown" (Little did he know I was also listening to reports on the Tamir Rice killing in Ohio during the trip as well -- and it sure was gonna make that, "take it easy on Dad" thing,  a Herculean task!).

Nervous energy abounding, we both burst out laughing at the same time because he knows us as well as we know ourselves and he knew I was pissed. He knew I'd unload on his society-identified white Daddy as soon as I got there.  I said, "Okay, I love you madly, Man," -- and I kept driving the 20 or so minutes until I got there.

And he was dead-on. Not only was I feeling that familiar "quiet riot" roiling deep in my belly -- I was seething. Talking aloud to myself as I pulled in and parked, I said, "When in the hell are we going to see that none of this shit will ever change until we make them feel what we feel??!!  My head was so filled with all that had gone on before and since.

~#~#~#~

Shortly after closing on the house the end of May, I was assaulted by the death of yet another Black young man in June -- in what we used to call Bayside Manor.  Yes, it was then, and still is -- the "projects" (with a new, and white-folk-acceptable-name til they gentrify it and probably turn them into condos or something like everything else) -- but damn!!   This time though, it was one of our own -- a "Black in Blue," protected by a system, led by the same white man who'd been mayor when I left home at 18 -- 40 years ago!

When I was a more of an integrationist, I was always, more or less, a "joiner" (ΔΣϴ, NAACP, US Navy, Teaching Tolerance, BCCLT, blah, blah, blah).  But, as I continue working to decolonize my mind -- I know today, I ain't none of them (that didn't, however, stop the president of the local NAACP chapter at home, from trying to recruit me when I attended the meeting concerning the murder and the three missing minutes from the surveillance tape finally released by the Charleston PD).  The tape showed the time the off-duty, CPD cop working private security encountered Denzel Curnell, then a three-minute blank, then the time he was dead, in front of the officer's car.  I felt so f*ed up about the "insanity" of it all, I had  to say something -- and I did (beginning at the 21:52 click).

Charleston used to be a city with a "Black Majority" when I was growing up -- not any more.  As one of my favorite commenters, "king of trouble" noted, on another of my favorite commenters, "jefe's" guest post, Anacostia over at Abagond's -- the city has slowly and methodically been, and to date, is successfully -- BLEACHED (and it breaks my damned heart).

Considering this child, IMO had been murdered, the attendees at the meeting were way less than I'd expected (and not even a march was planned or executed).  I told my brother later, "It doesn't matter if the killer was Black -- by day he wore blue and was automatically protected by that! -- and no response?!"  He said, "Welcome home, Deb, welcome home."

~#~#~#~

When the pupples and I walked in, the husband was watching CNN.  I said, "Hey, how you doin' -- I'm NOT in a good damned mood."  He said, "I know, I talked to Alan. already."  As I sat down and watched Ferguson on fire, my first words were, "Dammit!  Go burn down their shit, not ours!!  Then I realized, the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy's plan had always been to just LET it burn (plenty cops armed at the ready for protesters, but no fire trucks, no ambulances -- nothin' in the hood.  Wasn't their shit -- Oh well!).

And when the powers that be trotted out their Sambo/Quimbo puppet to yet again give his presidential words of wisdom, I was really through (yes Family, do re-read Harriet Beecher-Stowe's, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" -- now I understand how we've been focusing on the wrong Negro all this time.  It was Sambo and Quimbo to whom we should've been paying attention)!!  Family, this man is "skin-folk, not kinfolk."  He's no more our people than any of the white supremacists who've bought and paid for him.  As I listened to his voice, all I could think of was dear, old Maxine saying:

~#~#~#~

As I said in the beginning, they must be made to pay.  Be it hitting them in their capitalist pockets as these wonderful, young folk chose in Ferguson, OR --  read Fanon's chapter, "On Violence" at that link up there and let it sink in.  Either is preferable to nothing at all at this point.  However, the onus is not merely on us to do something.  As Mr. Baldwin so succinctly explains here, starting at the 4:41 click -- they've got some shit to figure out themselves.

Family, I'm pretty full about all this (as well as those other things I mentioned above).  I just had to let some of it out right now.  I do plan to write more later, so please bear with me.  Most importantly though, never forget this:

“Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity”

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

My young Bothers and Sisters holding' it down in Ferguson still -- again, I'm so damned proud of YOU!

Related:
- Enough Is Enough
- No Indictment for Darren Wilson, No Justice for Black Lives
- Chronicle of a Riot Foretold
- As a white mother, I fear for my black son
- Despite Blacks Killed By Cops Here, Ferguson Reaction Unlikely
- Gaps remain in the Denzel Curnell suicide narrative
- Denzel Curnell case: Read the full SLED report