If you are one of these fragile minded superficial folks, who may see this headline and immediately react without reading the content, do yourself a favor and just don’t go any further.
This piece is triggered by European (white) people everywhere in the world today who are making huge fusses because they cannot do whatever they want to do (due to the covid 19 crisis and sheltering in place restrictions). These people are whining and crying about being oppressed and being trampled by the tyranny of governments. They are telling everyone that unless we support their “protesting” we are the ones who are “giving up our freedoms.”
Talk about coming to the dance late. We need no petti bourgeoisie, or even working class white people, telling us about tyranny and oppression. We have been dealing with more tyranny and oppression in our pinky toes than white people combined have experienced their entire lives. I’ve used that logic multiple times when having the conversation about race with white men. To close the discussion down (usually after it gets insane), I tell them that they already know I can be in their environment (which we usually are) and I can do as well, if not much better, than they can. By the same token, they know, and I know, that they couldn’t last more than a short period in the environments that produced me. Why? Because our collective experience has been one of oppression. And, guess what, we have had to adapt to that, any way that we can. For most of these white people, feeling like they are losing something or being treated unfairly is a somewhat new phenomenon. Unlike us, they are not used to it. At least no where near the level that we are. And, unfortunately, also unlike us, they don’t know how to manage it the way we are accustomed to doing (I believe we need to undue the practice of accepting trauma the way we do).
Anyway, the whole white people are oppressed act is tired, stupid, and I’m really sick of it. Of course the government is tyrannical and oppressive! We have telling you that for centuries, but you never batted an eye during our suffering. The contradiction is so naked that most of them cannot even see the glaring inconsistencies. For example, one of these classically misinformed humans was attempting to challenge me earlier today (via social media) on my understanding of the need to “stand up against the government.” This person had already taken the time to check out my online presence, which is significant, so they should have been able to figure out quickly that standing up against the government is my middle name. Nevertheless, they wanted to challenge me on this question. My response to them was to ask them what protests against the government they had ever participated in. After some chest pounding, they finally had to just admit that they have never attended a single demonstration of any kind in their life. I then told them that they obviously have no experience, or understanding of what they are talking about, but still, the one cause they support is one they see as representing their individual interests. I told them this is the reason they have absolutely no credibility because I’ve attended more demonstrations than I can count. And, just as many of those demonstrations I’ve participated in, helped plan, etc., are for immigrant families, women, Trans people, etc. Not just African liberation. In other words, I have a platform to claim I stand for justice because my response is universal. You don’t get to do that when all you have to speak about is something you personally stand to benefit from (at least from your warped perspective).
It’s a tired act, absolutely. We had distrust for the government before most of them could spell government, so clearly, we understand that concept better in the middle of rim sleep then most of them can articulate at the highest level of their consciousness. Yet, their arrogance and white supremacy places them in the center of everything, so they cannot discern simple elements, like the fact their anger, somewhat justified, is completely misdirected. They should be angry at the capitalist system. Its that system that has no plan to take care of people living within its confines because its only priority is capital accumulation for the super rich. No plan for income replacement. No plan to ensure the millions of unemployed have food, housing, shelter. No plan of any kind for the houseless. Nothing. We are completely left to our own despite giving everything we have in our essence to work and try to sustain ourselves, along with the trillions we pay in taxes.. So, people should be angry, but that anger needs to be directed at the super rich. The Rockafellers who own controlling interest in J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup, two of the largest benefactors from the so-called “stimulus” package. Our hard earned tax revenues are being provided as corporate welfare for those capitalist thieves and instead of being angry about that fleecing and organizing to do something about it, these people instead go to empty government building and engage in pass the virus ceremonies. Meanwhile, the ruthless corporations receive absolutely no anger from any of these people.
My training is to always make the effort to provide an analysis to everything that happens. Some of that is indicated above. And, there is certainly more. I know that I cannot just ride my emotional reactions to all of this because those reactions are strong. I know part of my visceral reaction is connected to seeing these people get such respectful and compassionate treatment from the police, something I’ve never gotten, even when I was just sitting down minding my own business. This contradiction is so vivid to me because I know none of those people are trained to see the disparity. Their arrogance is so institutionalized that they even flaunt the contradiction, claiming still that our protests against police terrorism are fueled by nonexistent factors living in their idealistic heads, while they are convinced that they are really the real victims.
The other piece to the analysis is that these people are being intentionally confused by capitalism to focus on numerous non-issues instead of the real issue – the inefficiency and incompetence of the capitalist system to do anything except further exploit everyone. Since they don’t recognize this glaring contradiction, they are simply reacting to the immediate circumstances of their realities. Since they have no concept of history i.e. studying the true history of these lands, they see the entire world, as capitalism wants them to, as simply an extension of their personal experiences. As a result, since they are personally uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than they have ever been (both physically, mentally, and spiritually), to their extremely low level of consciousness, their perception is they are being targeted. They have no tools and/or desire to contextualize what’s happening and they probably never will. On the positive side, the fact they are waging struggle against government is good. Them waging struggle against government and us doing the same makes our chances for success much better even with us not fighting for the same things. This is objectively true.
All of this leads me to conclude that its in our best interest to ramp up our focus on our own struggle for liberation. This isn’t difficult for us to do because our work to bring about revolutionary Pan-Africanism is not in any way, form, or fashion dependent or needing of white involvement for our work to progress. Never has been that way and never will be that way. And, certainly, I can count on one hand the number of Europeans who have really provided any concrete and consistent support against white supremacy. Related to the analysis provided at the beginning of this piece, my experience is they more so need our insights on how to navigate this system then they are in a position to help us. So to me, the internal focus loses very little in capacity on our part, but what it does is provide us the mental space to try and develop our work without being bogged down in white confusion. For those white people sincere about justice work, you have your work cut out for you with these people. For us, at this stage, we have no other alternative but to prepare our people for the future. And, any cognitive analysis of that future has to conclude that the longer these self entitled, selfish, and unwilling to think people have to endure what they believe to be the most heinous crimes against humanity (by being forced inside to stop the virus from spreading), its only a matter of time before their very short fuse causes them to start acting out. History has confirmed for us that we need to be ready to straight up defend ourselves against them and the government. They have a long line of practice of physically turning against us when things get difficult for them. And, this fascist government is the entity that has trained and supported them doing so for centuries. So, my call here is for us to really seriously contemplate the work we need to do to get ourselves prepared. We have to begin to engage in the type of community defense work that will make anyone who tries to terrorize us pay dearly.
While we are building that capacity, there will certainly be some of those people who will figure this out correctly and come to the side of justice. We can’t trust that to happen thought and we definitely can’t wait on it. History has been extremely unkind to Africans who placed any stock in waiting on white people to do what’s right, just because its right.
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