The headlines are sprouting up every five minutes. European (White) students are riding around in pick up trucks at the University of Missouri, shouting racial slurs at our youth, making every effort to intimidate us. Threats on social media are being recycled. The stories all go on to immediately report that African students are leaving the campus in droves, completely terrorized. While the behavior of racist bullies is justifiably traumatizing, I know enough about African history to know we are just like every other people. We are diverse and as humanistic as anyone else in the face of adversity. Self defense is often said to be the first law of human nature, but if you read these stories, you would think that's true except when it applies to Africans. For us, the suggestion is that we do everything we can to avoid conflict. That we refuse to stand up when insulted. That we will let you trample all over us without lifting a finger to defend ourselves. This analysis isn't reality. It's the sick and twisted logic of an oppressive system that wants to convince Africans that the only respectable and permitted response for us at any time is one of deference and respect for the system. Even if its protecting the people oppressing us. This dysfunctional analysis isn't anything new.
The recent movie "Selma" is a great example of how the capitalist media distorts history to drive home the message that we are always docile masochists in the face of terrorist attacks against us. Whether the movie was made with African influence or not is 100% ill relevant. The point is whomever made the movie, it, like everything else in this society, is made to promote values that are against the interests of the masses of African people. How else can you explain why the entire scene of that movie involving a heated display carried out by the character portraying Dr. King's wife, Coretta Scott, against the character portraying Malcolm X, was fabricated? The scene was done in a way which suggests that Malcolm was intruding. The truth is no such conversation took place between Coretta Scott and Malcolm because was invited by the youth to come to Selma and speak. I realize Hollywood is about fantasy. I'm a literary fiction writer who's work is much better than much coming out of Hollywood if I do say so myself, so I get that. What I don't get is why it's necessary to completely rewrite history for a movie in a way that completely writes out all militancy by movement activists. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is portrayed as a lesser organizing element to Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) when the truth is SNCC engaged in the most important work in the Southern Civil Rights Movement. Examples are the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO - the first Black Panther Party) in 1965 in Alabama. LCFO was taking place during the same time the confrontation in Selma took place, yet it was only slightly mentioned in the movie. The point is there was clearly a coordinated effort to write the militancy out of the movie. Malcolm was put in his place and SNCC was diminished to supplemental roles displaying John Lewis and what was apparently supposed to be James Foreman. LCFO, clearly a much more significant voting rights work than Selma, was left out of the movie completely because Lowndes County, just down the road from Selma, had armed Africans protecting our right to vote. These Africans along with the courageous Deacons for Defense, played a vital role in every aspect of the Southern movement. Guns, fearlessness, and a willingness and ability to strike back. These values characterized our movements and our people as much as anything else. We had the "one man, one vote movement in Azania, South Africa and we had the Spear of the Nation, the armed wing of the African National Congress as well as armed efforts from the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, the Azanian People's Organization, and Black Consciousness Movement. We had the negotiating efforts of Jomo Kenyatta and we had the militancy of the Land and Freedom Movement (Mau Mau) in Kenya. We had Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth and we had Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner. We had the SCLC, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Urban League, but we also had the Black Panther Party, the Republic of New Afrika, and the Revolutionary Action Movement.
We are a diverse people. We, like everyone else, are subject to the laws of dialetics. We aren't one dimensional. It's for that reason that I know, in spite of how the media paints the picture, that somewhere, somehow, some of our people aren't running. Some are planning on how to strike back at those crackers. And for the conspiracy theorists who will read that as alerting the enemy of our intentions, believe me, they already know. None of what I've talked about here; the Deacons, LCFO, Mau Mau, was a surprise to our enemies. The difference between victory and defeat is the extent to which we organize our people to support our work, whatever that work is. So whatever victories occur in Missouri or anywhere else as a result of our work, our willingness to organize against the enemy by any means necessary will always be as much a part of the victory as anything else we are doing. But, our enemies won't ever talk about it because maybe their ultimate fear is that those misguided youth of ours in the ghettos who turn their weapons on each other every day - one day they may get straight on where those guns should be pointed.
The recent movie "Selma" is a great example of how the capitalist media distorts history to drive home the message that we are always docile masochists in the face of terrorist attacks against us. Whether the movie was made with African influence or not is 100% ill relevant. The point is whomever made the movie, it, like everything else in this society, is made to promote values that are against the interests of the masses of African people. How else can you explain why the entire scene of that movie involving a heated display carried out by the character portraying Dr. King's wife, Coretta Scott, against the character portraying Malcolm X, was fabricated? The scene was done in a way which suggests that Malcolm was intruding. The truth is no such conversation took place between Coretta Scott and Malcolm because was invited by the youth to come to Selma and speak. I realize Hollywood is about fantasy. I'm a literary fiction writer who's work is much better than much coming out of Hollywood if I do say so myself, so I get that. What I don't get is why it's necessary to completely rewrite history for a movie in a way that completely writes out all militancy by movement activists. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is portrayed as a lesser organizing element to Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) when the truth is SNCC engaged in the most important work in the Southern Civil Rights Movement. Examples are the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO - the first Black Panther Party) in 1965 in Alabama. LCFO was taking place during the same time the confrontation in Selma took place, yet it was only slightly mentioned in the movie. The point is there was clearly a coordinated effort to write the militancy out of the movie. Malcolm was put in his place and SNCC was diminished to supplemental roles displaying John Lewis and what was apparently supposed to be James Foreman. LCFO, clearly a much more significant voting rights work than Selma, was left out of the movie completely because Lowndes County, just down the road from Selma, had armed Africans protecting our right to vote. These Africans along with the courageous Deacons for Defense, played a vital role in every aspect of the Southern movement. Guns, fearlessness, and a willingness and ability to strike back. These values characterized our movements and our people as much as anything else. We had the "one man, one vote movement in Azania, South Africa and we had the Spear of the Nation, the armed wing of the African National Congress as well as armed efforts from the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, the Azanian People's Organization, and Black Consciousness Movement. We had the negotiating efforts of Jomo Kenyatta and we had the militancy of the Land and Freedom Movement (Mau Mau) in Kenya. We had Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth and we had Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner. We had the SCLC, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Urban League, but we also had the Black Panther Party, the Republic of New Afrika, and the Revolutionary Action Movement.
We are a diverse people. We, like everyone else, are subject to the laws of dialetics. We aren't one dimensional. It's for that reason that I know, in spite of how the media paints the picture, that somewhere, somehow, some of our people aren't running. Some are planning on how to strike back at those crackers. And for the conspiracy theorists who will read that as alerting the enemy of our intentions, believe me, they already know. None of what I've talked about here; the Deacons, LCFO, Mau Mau, was a surprise to our enemies. The difference between victory and defeat is the extent to which we organize our people to support our work, whatever that work is. So whatever victories occur in Missouri or anywhere else as a result of our work, our willingness to organize against the enemy by any means necessary will always be as much a part of the victory as anything else we are doing. But, our enemies won't ever talk about it because maybe their ultimate fear is that those misguided youth of ours in the ghettos who turn their weapons on each other every day - one day they may get straight on where those guns should be pointed.
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