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A True Moral Equivalent:  Trump/Obama on White Supremacy

8/16/2017

5 Comments

 
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This isn't going to be a popular piece with the liberals, but if any of them want to claim any piece of credibility for justice, they need to be asking themselves how they can refute this piece.  Not just be upset that its being stated.  Yesterday, Donald Trump, the so-called president of this country, made it quite clear that he openly and proudly supports white supremacy.  He did so in an extremely ignorant and amateurish way.  He attempted to  compare violent white supremacists - who have a well documented history of violence, brutality, death, and destruction, against hundreds of thousands of people - with the people who, knowing the violent history of racists, simply pledge to show up and prevent them from engaging in their terroristic activities.  At worst, anti-racist protesters may have punched a white supremacist or two, but they have no death toll against these terrorists (unfortunately) so to compare the two as Trump did epitomizes how stupid he is and how even dumber the people who support him are.

Most liberals, probably have no trouble agreeing with the above paragraph, but where we lose them is when we say with equal passion that Barack Obama, in our eyes isn't in a better moral position than Trump.  We realize Obama is a much slicker, polished, and cunning politician.  In other words, he's not stupid in the way Trump is, but at the end of the day, his politics were just as supportive of white supremacists as Trump's statements yesterday. 

By now, the liberals are having heart attacks, but there are ill refutable truths you cannot deny.  Anyone who knows the history of the federal government's counter intelligence program through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) understands that the FBI engaged in a vicious campaign against the African liberation movement in the 1960s.  With the 1974 Freedom of Information Act (FOI), open FBI files confirm that between 1967 and 1971, almost 300 FBI actions against African liberation organizations were carried out.  And by actions we mean illegal actions e.g. breaking into the houses of activists.  Sending forged letters to instigate antagonisms that often led to death (see the shoot outs between Black Panther Party members and US Organization members during this period which were completely instigated by the FBI).  And open murder of activists.  My point is these illegal actions by the FBI were not initiated because of confirmed illegal activities by activists.  These activities against our movement where carried out to eliminate the ideas of these liberation organizations from spreading.  Fast forward to 2017 and similar counter intelligence activities are still active by the government on the local, state, and federal levels against Black Lives Matter, the activities against the oil pipeline in North Dakota, and all movements fighting for social justice.  Activists are being systematically jailed, criminalized in the capitalist media, and attacked to the point where its difficult for their organizations, collectives, etc., to function in any productive way.  Where this connects to Obama is that during his administration, as with previous administrations and with the current one, no efforts were made to correct this repression of dissent.  In fact, while Obama was giving honey speeches about democracy, he was signing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2014 which is a measure that was specifically designed to eradicate the ability of social justice activists to engage in dissent activities without being labeled as terrorists if the government so desires.  The Patriot Act made the FBI's counter intelligence program look like child's play against the movement and the NDAA is making the Patriot Act look like child's play against the movement.  This is Obama's baby.  No one else's.

During Obama's tenure, it is the activists for legitimate social justice campaigns who were targeted by the NDAA, Homeland Security Act (Patriot Act), and other legislative means while no efforts were made to apply these measures to combatting white supremacist organizations.  Why?  Because as I've stated many times, white supremacist groups do nothing to challenge the status quo.  In fact, most often, they operate in ways that support the status quo.  The status quo is white supremacy because its the most effective arm of the capitalist system.  So, if people are engaging in protesting any element of the capitalist system (police terrorism, water protection, etc.), and these white supremacist groups show up, as they often do, to "enforce the law" they are operating to support state repression.  If the state does nothing to challenge them in this regard, as it doesn't today under Trump, and it didn't under Obama, then the state has to be compliant in supporting these white supremacist groups in their efforts to grow and expand.  This is true whether you are talking Trump or Obama.

And, its also inaccurate to give Obama a pass on criticizing the white supremacists.  He gave more than one speech calling out African people, particularly African men, to "take care of our children."  An insult to those of us who do more for our children and communities than most white men could ever imagine doing for theirs.  And, to add insult to injury, during those speeches, although Obama often talked in cascading terms about the concept of white supremacy, not once did he call out white people for behaving in ways that supports upholding the white supremacist system.  To us, this cowardice is absolutely no different than what Trump did yesterday.  Its as Malcolm X taught us 50 years ago when he spoke of one approach being that of a wolf and the other that of a fox.  "One is sly while the other is vicious, but both are canines and both have the same effect at the end of the day."

And, yes, we refuse to get hoodwinked into using the marketing terms of the white supremacists like "alt-right" and "white nationalists."  There is no such thing as a white nationalist because there is no white culture or ideology.  There is only capitalist ideology and there is only capitalist culture in that regard.  These people are only promoting these terms to improve their image from that of the club dragging violent white supremacist.  Its a recruiting tool as I've been saying all along.  Most decent white folks, especially liberals, would never associate themselves with "traditional" white supremacists, because that's still not socially acceptable in bourgeois circles, but an ideological perspective on how white people are being disrespected and wiped out?  Yes, that's palatable.  These people believe brown people serve no constructive purpose in this world which means they believe themselves to be better than us, whether they admit it or not.  Therefore, that makes them believe they are superior which means white supremacist remains the correct title to give them.

And, that title of white supremacist extends from Robert E. Lee to that despicable scurvy carrying, slave owning, George Washington.  All of them represent white supremacy equally.  All of them are enemies of African people and most of humanity.  This empire is the enemy of African people and most of humanity and everyone in the world knows it except those of you here trying to cling to a dream that has never been anything more than that.  In fact, as Malcolm said, its been a nightmare to the masses of people on the planet.  You just can't see that this empire is falling, despite clear evidence all around you.  Since we are talking empire, there is no logical reason in our minds to separate Trump from Obama from Washington/Jefferson/Lee, etc.  None of them fought/fight for mass empowerment.  All of them fight to defend empire.  Both Trump and Obama dedicate their lives to continuing to defend that empire.  The fact one of them skillfully neglects to tell the clear truth while the other one openly lies is simply an issue of semantics for those of you who have time for games like that.  To us, the future of humanity hangs in the balance so we prefer to see the world in the clear terms that a correct analysis requires.  You cannot compare protesters against white supremacy with the violent colonial and terroristic history of white supremacy.  You cannot separate the klan and neo-nazis from the "establishment" white supremacist culture of the original invaders who's ideologies didn't differ from the klan, etc.  I'm talking about Washington, Jefferson, etc.  And, you cannot separate the leaders of this empire from any white supremacists.  If they are going to justify embracing Washington, they may as well embrace Lee.  If they are going to embrace the U.S. flag, they may as well embrace the confederate flag.  If you don't understand how we can say that, you have so much reading to do that all I can say is don't respond now.  Come back and talk to me in about 10 years because you will need all of that time to catch up with the truth.  We don't criticize taking down capitalist statutes because that's probably the one thing we can see merit in what Trump says.  There is no stopping.  All of them are terrorists and colonizers.  Consequently, taking the statues down is fine, but we'll continue to focus our attention on taking the system down.

5 Comments
Christine
8/16/2017 08:41:17 pm

As usual, thank you for challenging my beliefs. I think you are correct that the hardest thing to swallow as a white liberal is the idea of Trump and Obama being the same. All of your logic makes sense, but it is still a really hard pill. My problems is, if I accept that the US Flag is imperialist and Obama helped the white supremacy system I start on a pretty scary path to nihilism. Which as you have said many times is not helpful. So thank you for writing and for always challenging and I will try to walk this path against white supremacy without sliding down to nihilism. Thank you.

Reply
Ahjamu
8/16/2017 08:57:19 pm

Thank you Christine. Be well!

Reply
Joseph j Lewis
8/16/2017 08:45:35 pm

The fbi has always been the enemy

Reply
Dana
8/16/2017 10:41:05 pm

Reading your perspective is important for me because I can so easily predict the response of many but rarely of you.

I see the corporate position and the impact of a government structure under the thumb of big money to be the culprit. No matter who takes office the desire of one will be shortly extinguished next to an endless flow of influence beyond comprehension.

Reply
Ahjamu Umi
8/17/2017 12:17:36 am

Agreed!

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    I don't see disagreement as a negative because I understand that Frederick Douglass was correct when he said "there is no progress without struggle."  Our brains are muscles.  Just like any other muscle in our body if we don't stress it and push it, the brain will not improve.  Or, as a bumper sticker I saw once put it, "If you can't change your mind, how do you know it's there?"

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