Saturday, June 20, 2015

Terror in Charleston, Identity Crisis in Spokane

Everyone knows that a 21 year old young white man entered the history laden Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston in, South Carolina, joined in a class to which he was welcomed, drew a pistol and murdered nine Black people. He had a white supremacist website, and he posted a manifesto of hatred and loathing for Black people. He's said to have confessed to the crime, and he left one person alive, that she describe his deed to the world. Given his manifesto, his confession and the witness I am not going to use the word "alleged" here. If I could do so I'd end his life immediately, because he does not deserve a court room podium. "The system" is not capable of resolving the plight of the African American people justly . I am convinced that there is an anti-Black underground functioning inside and outside the America's armed enforcement wing and that this man's role in it, whether he acted consciously or unconsciously as a cog in the mechanism won't be reliably revealed to the public.

This church is not just any Black church. It was Denmark Vesey's church, a part of an historically slave uprising. It was burnt to the ground and forbidden to reconstitute itself until the army of the slavocracy was defeated by the Union forces led by Abraham Lincoln.
This is one more mortal attack on African American people, unlike most of the recent ones apparently not carried out by a paid and official one percenter gun thug. Armed self defense might be what's needed. Who am I to say?


Over in Spokane, Washington, a different kind of story regarding the African American people unfolded. An apparently "white" woman was outed for "passing" as "Black." Rachel Dolezal, a woman who grew up with Black adoptive siblings, who married and had a child with a Black man, who has lived much of her life among Black people, and who apparently gave excellent service to the Spokane branch of the NAACP and who deeply and profoundly identifies with the oppressed Black people and not with their oppressors, is getting hit from all sides, with Jon Stuart in the lead. I feel bad for Rachel Dolezal and in my own way can identify with her. It's a long story and this post shoulm dn't be mainly about me. I've spoken of it. I grew up in Queensbridge projects ( Google "Jew boy of Queensbridge" and also " How  I tripped over the a wrinkle in the Uniform Code of Military Justice "if you're curious.) Probably most Black people who are thinking about this situation are not sympathetic with Rachel Dolezal. I think people should read the exchange between her and the Spokane Chapter of the NAACP before judging her. I do want to say that a person does not have to be Black to be hurt by anti-Black racism. I participated in an anti racist demonstration , was arrested, handcuffed to a Black person, thrown down a flight of stairs while handcuffed to him, and all the while the cops shouted "Niiiii@@" and that I was a N lover, That doesn't mean I am Black, or even an honorary Black. I had a friend who was not gay but was mistaken for gay. He was badly beaten by gay bashers and as a result he lost his life. So yes, he was victimized as a gay man. I imagine that a single mother who is raising a Black child could be victimized as such, a victim of anti-Black racism.



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