The recent tragic shooting in Fresno, California, U.S., like all violence against humanity, is a terrible tragedy for the families and communities of the victims. In this instance, it appears that an African man has committed the killings against European (White) community members because they are White. I say appears because the information I have at this point is coming from the capitalist media and as a practice, I don't believe anything they say about anything, but so far, this seems to be the scenario.
Like trained monkeys, whenever something like this happens, the White right and left, continuing to be extremely difficult for us to tell apart, begin to pontificate about how any single incidence of violence by an African against any Europeans is comparable to 500+ years of systemic violence by Europe and her children against Africa and her children (not to mention the Indigenous people and all other Brown communities). We of course have no interest in diminishing the pain of those who are suffering in Fresno, but we also refuse to dismiss the suffering of the African masses. These incidents do not compare qualitatively and certainly not quantitatively.
In fact, it can be said that if a martian ship landed on this planet 1000 years from now after all life was eliminated and those martians were presented with evidence of what happened over the last 500 years, without having any prior knowledge, those martians would have to come to a couple of conclusions. First, whatever violence Africans inflicted against Europeans, whether organized, random, whatever, was understandable in light of the systemic oppression Africans experience. Second, those martians would have to start asking what took the Africans so long to retaliate and why they didn't do it more often.
Any other argument is nothing short of a well veiled apology for white supremacy and capitalist oppression. This system was created based on stealing from Africa. And I mean stealing everything. Mineral resources, people, etc. The theft has been taking place as policy for those 500+ years and it continues. A standard byproduct of this oppression is that African people have been dehumanized on an equally systemic basis so as to justify this oppression. It has been necessary to create a vision that African people somehow deserve this suffering in order to make the suffering acceptable to all of us. Under these barbaric circumstances, any human would have to understand that at some point, the people suffering this treatment would start striking back. And no one could blame them for doing so. It also must be said that as sad as it is for those who suffer, there really are no innocent victims because everyone participates in this exploitative system, oblivious at best to it. At worse, unconcerned about it. So, with those conditions in place, it would be extremely naive to expect to have a safe environment for yourself and your family when large segments of the population are forced to live under unsafe conditions as a way of life.
Franz Fanon talked about African people being unable to break the chains of mental slavery until we organize and strike back against the enemy who has inflicted systemic violence against us. I'm not arguing in support of these people who randomly kill police or everyday White people. If you pay any attention to the themes in my writing, you would know by now that I am for organized resistance, not random one offs. My point is anyone who examines the conditions of this society has to acknowledge that these types of things are going to happen because of the oppressive situation that exists. And, if you don't like to see these things happen, then start educating the White community about why they shouldn't be protecting white supremacy and capitalism. If you do that, then maybe these African people who decide to commit these one off acts would not see all of white society as compliant in our oppression. That would be a much more productive use of your time then what you are mostly doing now; engaging in a false and extremely dangerous facade intellectual racist activity of trying to pretend that one violent act against any white person is the same as 500 years of violence against millions of African people.
Like trained monkeys, whenever something like this happens, the White right and left, continuing to be extremely difficult for us to tell apart, begin to pontificate about how any single incidence of violence by an African against any Europeans is comparable to 500+ years of systemic violence by Europe and her children against Africa and her children (not to mention the Indigenous people and all other Brown communities). We of course have no interest in diminishing the pain of those who are suffering in Fresno, but we also refuse to dismiss the suffering of the African masses. These incidents do not compare qualitatively and certainly not quantitatively.
In fact, it can be said that if a martian ship landed on this planet 1000 years from now after all life was eliminated and those martians were presented with evidence of what happened over the last 500 years, without having any prior knowledge, those martians would have to come to a couple of conclusions. First, whatever violence Africans inflicted against Europeans, whether organized, random, whatever, was understandable in light of the systemic oppression Africans experience. Second, those martians would have to start asking what took the Africans so long to retaliate and why they didn't do it more often.
Any other argument is nothing short of a well veiled apology for white supremacy and capitalist oppression. This system was created based on stealing from Africa. And I mean stealing everything. Mineral resources, people, etc. The theft has been taking place as policy for those 500+ years and it continues. A standard byproduct of this oppression is that African people have been dehumanized on an equally systemic basis so as to justify this oppression. It has been necessary to create a vision that African people somehow deserve this suffering in order to make the suffering acceptable to all of us. Under these barbaric circumstances, any human would have to understand that at some point, the people suffering this treatment would start striking back. And no one could blame them for doing so. It also must be said that as sad as it is for those who suffer, there really are no innocent victims because everyone participates in this exploitative system, oblivious at best to it. At worse, unconcerned about it. So, with those conditions in place, it would be extremely naive to expect to have a safe environment for yourself and your family when large segments of the population are forced to live under unsafe conditions as a way of life.
Franz Fanon talked about African people being unable to break the chains of mental slavery until we organize and strike back against the enemy who has inflicted systemic violence against us. I'm not arguing in support of these people who randomly kill police or everyday White people. If you pay any attention to the themes in my writing, you would know by now that I am for organized resistance, not random one offs. My point is anyone who examines the conditions of this society has to acknowledge that these types of things are going to happen because of the oppressive situation that exists. And, if you don't like to see these things happen, then start educating the White community about why they shouldn't be protecting white supremacy and capitalism. If you do that, then maybe these African people who decide to commit these one off acts would not see all of white society as compliant in our oppression. That would be a much more productive use of your time then what you are mostly doing now; engaging in a false and extremely dangerous facade intellectual racist activity of trying to pretend that one violent act against any white person is the same as 500 years of violence against millions of African people.
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