Based on the explosive nature of last summer’s protests against naked police terrorism inside North American borders, each and every one of those casualties by circumstance like Emmitt Till and Hector Pieterson before them, have emerged as martyrs whose tragedies will be used to analyze and interpret this historical moment. From the exact second that US born Africanss resorted to express their displeasure concerning the fascist and barbaric nature of police terrorism through urban rebellions, the Democratic Party’s behind the scenes brain trust was forced to develop a countering methodology rooted in all- out damage control.
Because the urban rebellions arguably are an integral extension of rebellions waged by our ancestors on plantations against physical captivity and forced free labor, it has taken nearly 50 years for our organized formations regardless of where they fall on the ideological spectrum, to change their condescending tone when speaking about rebellions as a form of genuine outrage. Before Dr. King reached the level of comfort to utter the word rebellion, he genuinely arrived at the conclusion when stating “A riot is the voice of the unheard”.
On the complete other side of the spectrum the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee coined the slogan Burn Baby Burn, which appeared to be a more accurate reflection of the pulse of the US born African community at that moment in history. The same numerical year that President Johnson was putting his John Hancock on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, surrounded by the who’s who of Civil/Human Rights leadership, US born Africans ignited a flame beginning in the Watts section of Los Angeles, and by 1968 leaving 289 cities resembling the deadliest volcanic eruptions human eyes have witnessed and absorbed. Three years before the Watts Rebellions the treacherous Los Angeles Police Department murdered Nation of Islam member Ronald X Stokes in cold blood, and it was none other than Brother Malcolm who in his capacity as the NOI’s national spokesperson put US Imperialism on notice that thanks to the subculture of nationwide naked police terrorism, a militant retaliation by US born Africans was the inevitable.
When the truth is either verbalized or written, the elected officials representing our community both locally and nationally are the most uncomfortable with urban rebellions. The root of this political discomfort has not intellectual but pragmatic dimensions as well. On one hand these products of the ballot do not have the luxury of walking through the bloodshed riddled puddles and trail of dead bodies, that fascist police officers live in their midst, however sending a message that these officers are far more deserving of the handcuffs and prison cells than defenseless casualties slaughtered for decades in the name of law and order. Therefore, the voting power of the National Fraternal Order of Police explains why our elected officials have always walked on eggshells on the question of Naked Police Terrorism.
If that dynamic isn’t toxic enough, the three branches of the US Government have an even more pressing concern, preventing US born Africans resistance against naked police terrorism from evolving to a declaration of no retreat until their genocidal foreign policy bites the dust.
This qualitative leap in both words and deeds would lead to a triumphant ascension over certain groupings who conveniently indulge in micro-nationalist small talk, voiced by a combination of skeptics and novices stubbornly hellbent on propagating the amputated narrative of our collective plight and experience.
While the Biden administration adamantly and dogmatically pursues regime change in Cuba, Venezuela, Eritrea and Zimbabwe, the decision to acknowledge Juneteenth as a national holiday was spoon-fed to US born Africans, with the intent of honoring the strategy of appeasing US born Africans with nickel and dime platitudes.
What President Biden has done in a rather demonstrative manner is send a message to US born Africans, through our political vehicles and outfits like the Congressional Black Caucus, National Conference of Black State Legislators, and African American Mayoral Association, that he will not play of the role of a white liberal superhero who will allow us to tug on his cape when the going gets rough.
President Biden instead has chosen the course of racist and conniving forerunners like Wilson and Truman whose brain trust are responsible for establishing the United Nations and breathing life into the CIA and the Zionist State of Israel.
This helps us celebrate the courage of the Pan Africanist Giant Dr. W.E.B. DuBois refusal to endorse Truman’s re-election bid, at the expense of the NAACP’s leadership composed of the likes of Walter White, Thurgood Marshall, Roy Wilkins conspiring to show him the door.
Let us remember that the very first political figure to attack Dr. King for condemning the Vietnam War was Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke, and the first US born African Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio Carl Stokes did not want Dr. King at his victory speech for the same reason.
Before he was rebuked and removed from Capitol Hill, even Congressman and Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Jr felt compelled to play the role of apologist for US Imperialism at the Bandung Conference in 1955. When Commandante Hugo Chavez of Venezuela stated that President Bush left the podium at the United Nations General Assembly smelling like sulfur, it was late Congressman Charles Rangel who sprang to his defense.
These political miscalculations are often overlooked by Civil/Human Rights defenders past and present, when engaging in activity characterized as voter education, which is equally as debilitating refusal to share our historical relationship to both the Democratic and Republican parties.
These mistakes in the 50’s and 60’s paved the way for the Congressional Black Caucus to come five votes short of voting in favor of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001 and supporting a measure to extradite Assata Shakur from Cuba. This includes Congresswoman Karen Bass travelling to Ethiopia and Eritrea 3 years ago, pretending to support an historic peace agreement, only to currently serve as President Biden’s lapdog working for a regime change in both nations simultaneously.
Before the defenders of the integrationist clarion call Black Excellence teach our children, they can grow up to become President like Barack Obama or Vice President like Kamala Harris, we hope they count the coffins of dead Libyans or hear the testimonies of imprisoned US Africans throughout California.
Any US born African holding political office aligned with our enemies, is more deadly than all the weapons and soldiers who have waged wars in the name of Imperialism and Global Domination.
Obi Egbuna Jr is the US Correspondent to The Southern African Times and the External Relations Officer to the Zimbabwe Cuban Friendship Association. His email is obiegbuna15@gmail.com twitter @jregbuna
