THE PATHOLOGY OF BLACK AMERICA

Where are today's Black revolutionaries?

(and my request to abandon ship)

 

March 8, 2011

By Fige Bornu

aka Roland Lawrence

How long have we heard that the Black people in America spend hundreds of billions of dollars each and every year on goods, services and other things?  In a capitalistic country like the United States, hundreds of billions of dollars stand for clout.  But, why has this clout escaped the Black community?  Why do more than 25 percent of Black men spend time in jail, prisons and probation at any given time?  Why do Black people in America experience the worse of health disparities?  Why? Why? Why?

Bishop Charles Ellis prays for auto corporations

Well, I can answer these questions quite simply.  It is because Black people in America do not have a true, consistent and vocal activist/revolutionary demographic that is united, persistent and on the same page or at least nearly on the same page.  The Black community in America has been hijacked by corporations, religions, and all the things that divide and conquer.  Ok, I know, you have heard this before, and know like I do, that these are the reasons for our dismal conditions. 

Rev. Wendell Anthony of Detroit NAACP and Kid Rock

But, how in the hell can anyone explain the fact that the Detroit branch of the NAACP found the nerve to announce that they are going to honor country and western singer, Kid Rock?  This so-called musician displays the confederate flag on the stage when he performs, and does not have any attributes that would put him a position to be honored by this organization.  This revelation, my people, is one of the most telling signs of what has happened to our community.  Trust me, the death of 7 year-old Aiyana Jones is by far the most horrific tragedy we have faced in recent times, and this Kid Rock thing, is, I surmise, a natural complement to her death – considering the fact that hardly no one, including the NAACP, has fought to get justice for her.

Jewel Allison with daughter Honesti, 11, lead protest against Aiyana Jones' murder last June

I am writing this essay to say that I have decided to take a “back stage” role in the fight for Black liberation in America.  Why?  It is because Black people in America have crossed the line.  They have succumbed to the beastly work of those who have and continue to work 24/7 plus overtime to oppress them and eventually destroy them.  Black people in America today in great masses do not thrive to create revolutionary changes in their communities.  Black people, it appears, seem content on simply fighting to “keep up” with what white people have; thus, they do not see or care or fight for any collective stance against racism, imperialism, etc.  Black people in great numbers have decided to “join” their oppressors in the plan to finally and completely control them and eventually destroy them.

What happens to a dream deferred--does it dry up like a raisin in the sun--OR DOES IT EXPLODE?

Because of this worsening pathology that has Black people working against their own best interests, I have no interest of any degree to assist them in their demise.  And to those few that are working to liberate us – I say to them – you are wasting your time.  To be clear, human beings are simply flesh and bones, and will suffer and die out when pressed too hard or too long.  This is what has happened to Black people in America; they have been dumped down to the ground, and can’t get up.  Their only chance of revival is in the chance that their oppressors will first destroy themselves which may then give Blacks in America a chance to make themselves over in their own image.

October 1966 Black Panther Party
Platform and Program

What We Want
What We Believe

1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.

We believe that black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny.

Angela Davis rallies supporters for Black Panther goals

2. We want full employment for our people.

We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the white American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.

3. We want an end to the robbery by the white man of our Black Community.

We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of black people. We will accept the payment as currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over twenty million black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.

Family prays in front of house where Tro'vion, 5, Selena, 3, and Fantasia Young died in fire after DTE shut off their power last year

4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.

We believe that if the white landlords will not give decent housing to our black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.

5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.

We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.

6. We want all black men to be exempt from military service.

We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like black people, are being victimized by the white racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.

Child cries after police pepper-sprayed demonstration against school closings, held in front of the now closed Northern High School in 2007

7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.

We believe we can end police brutality in our black community by organizing black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all black people should arm themselves for self defense.

8. We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.

We believe that all black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.

Fortieth anniversary of Attica Rebellion this September

9. We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.

We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that black people will receive fair trials. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the black community from which the black defendant came. We have been, and are being tried by all-white juries that have no understanding of the “average reasoning man” of the black community.

10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny.

Children educated by Black Panthers

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.  

Victory in Egypt this year

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to supper, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.