So welcome to Part Two of Miss Slik on Racism & the Rebel Flag... For those who have not read Miss Slik on Racism & the Rebel Flag Part One: Real Talk on History and Rooting Racism Out Where it Lives Now and the post that inspired it Tragic Church Massacres, the Rebel Flag Ban, Racists, and Overly Sensitive People then I would suggest catching up. We don't want anyone getting lost. As always.. Please read this in its entirety.. Open mind, don't get huffy, research, etc. I just want to make sure everybody gets the whole point here because fragments do you no good.
This post was actually the first tangent I went off on to explain my point about racism being a nationwide issue. But it got so long and it is about such an important topic that I felt it necessitated its own post. Actually, that's how this series came about in the first place.. One long post that would've been a book full of tangents long enough to be their own posts.
When we last left off we were discussing how racism exists all over the country and is not just something that happens in the South between white and black people. Like I said, it happens everywhere and is exhibited by people of all colors towards other people of other all colors. But since I also said we were going to focus more on black and white people because the issue over the Confederate Battle Flag is more of a black and white issue then we'll keep going with that.
In Part One, I picked more on white people and where they fucked up and the historical situations which lead to their racist mindset. As per my heads up, that would mean today will be more about picking on black people with regard to racism because we're all about equality here. So we are going to get into black racism and Black Supremacist Groups in this country. We'll also discuss the Pan-African Flag which can be regarded as the racist equivalent to the Rebel Flag.
"Oh wait? But that flag isn't racist. It's about Black Pride." Well, what do you call flags for White Pride? In fact, what do you call white people who go around shouting "White Power"? Typically, those people are called racists. So what makes black people who go around shouting "Black Power" any different? Why aren't they racist too?
The African American community is really the only racial/ethnic group doing this sort of thing.. And they've been doing it for quite awhile. It has pretty much even been totally condoned by mainstream society because, God forbid, a white person should tell a black person something isn't cool after black people were enslaved by white people and blah blah blah 150+ years later and ... But how is that fair? The people of the Asian and Latino communities need self-esteem building and empowerment too. But you don't here them yelling out about Asian Power or Latino Power.
I personally don't think there should be a difference. You can't claim you want racial equality while simultaneously touting an ideology of racial superiority regardless of the racial group to which you belong. I get that black people were put through the ringer for a long time and the African American community does need some empowerment and self-esteem building. But the way in which those objectives are being met is rather hypocritical.
It isn't a positive way to frame the attitude and outlook of a community. Using this type of speech aligns you with Black Separatists that began shouting the same jargon of hate 100 years ago. It continues to align you with Black Supremacy Groups around today which stemmed from those separatist organizations founded nearly a century ago by people like Marcus Garvey.
Don't believe me? Let's dig in....
The Southern Poverty Law Center is the main organization in the US that tracks hate groups all over the country. There are 784 of them according to what I read. Now, I would encourage you to go look through the SPLC Extremist Files. You can browse all the hate groups this organization tracks by name and ideology and read about the history of each one and see the lists of associated groups along with backgrounds on them. It is extremely disheartening to read though because it basically a gigantic list of hate and evil.
There is of course the Active Ku Klux Klan Groups, which is so big it necessitated its own separate section. There are also the Active Racist Skinhead Groups and the Active White Nationalist Groups. I even found Active Neo-Confederate Groups most specifically the League of the South. If you browse through these lists though you'll see that all but the Neo-Confederates have chapters in just about every state all over the country.
The Neo-Confederate group even has chapters in Idaho, California, and Maryland which are not, nor have they ever been, Confederate or even Southern states. Much like the KKK they can't really call themselves a Southern organization. This is all the more reason why I'm not sure why they rep our Southern Rebel Flag as their symbol. If you ain't Southern then you shouldn't be using our flag like you are. Now we'll get into all that in a separate installment in this series though because it really requires its own post.
In contrast though, there is a list of the Active Black Separatist Groups. These groups preach segregation of blacks the same way their white counterparts do as well as promote the ideology that black people are superior to all other races. This is why they are considered the exact same as white supremacy groups. These black separatists share in the views of being strongly anti-white, anti-LGBT, and anti-semitic as they assert that blacks, not Jews, are the "chosen people" of God.
Let's continue on with the history lesson...
First, the flag...
There are a ton of flags which represent Black Power. Here is a comprehensive list and overview of Modern American Protest and Message Flags. The first one that comes up is the Black Liberation Flag of 1920, also known as the Afro-American Flag, Pan-African Flag, the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) Flag, and by association, the Marcus Garvey Flag, and then in its new resurgence now it's being called the New Afrikan Flag... And it is regarded as a symbol of African and African American pride.
http://www.loeser.us/flags/images/protest/african-american-flag.gif
Most of us probably remember the Afrocentrism that dominated mainstream culture during the early 90's and how black pride and black power and the colors of red, black, and green were EVERYWHERE.
The black kids from where I grew up down in Florida actually thought that only black people could and should wear the Garvey colors together unless it was Christmas time.. That was the only exception for when it was permissible for white people to wear an outfit with these colors together... And all the white kids knew that.
Well, my family didn't have a lot of money so my mom had to bargain shop for clothes for herself and our family.. Like I didn't even get my first name brand pair of shoes until I was 12. So in her quest for inexpensive clothing, she found this one particular store she liked that was frequently patronized more by ladies of the African American community.
My mom came home one day and had bought some outfits for herself and a couple things for me from this store. Of course my dad felt the need to tell her that her dresses were... How shall I put this? "Very ethnic".. That is not what he said but I don't wish to repeat his exact words. The things she bought were but he didn't need to discourage her from wearing something she liked. She was all happy and he crushed her dashiki dress dreams.
Anyway, she bought a few things for me like some shorts and shirts that were in Garvey Pan-African colors. I told her I couldn't wear them because I was going to get beat up by the black kids for wearing their colors. She told me that was ridiculous and they were just clothes and said people can't just claim colors. I tried to persist but she told me I was to wear my new clothes and that would be the end of it. This was the deep South so when your mom says that's the end of it then all you can say is "Yes Ma'am".
So I wore them... I went to school the next day as the embodiment of white African pride.. Let me just fill you in on the fact that at the time I went to a technology magnet school, one of the first in Tampa.. and of course because it bordered a RCAP with a high black population a lot of kids from the neighborhood also went there too.. And I just knew one of them on that school bus was going to say something to me because they'd done it to other kids who made similar fashion mistakes.
Well, sure enough some black kid did attack me on my wardrobe like I didn't know.. along with a group of other kids who wanted to see if I'd cry or fight.. I want to say it was a girl who said something.. This was like 20 years ago.. and I'd kinda forgotten all about it until the other day when I started writing this. Anyway, I paused my Janet Jackson tape, took my headphones off, looked at that kid with my most mean muggy face, and said something to the effect of "Fuck you. I know what it means and I didn't pick it out. We're poor and my mom made me wear this just like I'm sure your mom made you wear that outfit you got on cause you're poor too."
This kid couldn't really say anything back because she knew it was true. Some of those other kids around felt bad after that because they were poor too and knew I was always nice to everybody and said it was better to back off. I do remember getting questioned on my knowledge of the colors too and that was when all my hip hop knowledge and those nights of watching In Living Color came in handy. I wore whatever I wanted after that because the black girls on the school bus made friends with me and had my back after that. But that was the day I guess I got what Eminem refers to as my "ghetto pass".
It was nice because the white kids stopped picking on me as badly since they knew the black kids would stick up for me. The mean white girls were always scared of the black girls because they thought they would get beat up.. Knowing that I guess I subconsciously started gravitating towards the groups of black girls first when I ended up being "the new kid" a few times after we moved around. Protection from asshole white kids wasn't why I befriended them though. It was just sort of an added bonus.
I just have always liked and appreciated having a multi-ethnic group of friends though.. which is really how I've always looked at it. The black girls I made friends with were fun and interesting and helped me learn how to manage my White People Arab hybrid hair. I can even respectably cornrow braid thanks to them. Plus I'd always been into hip hop and R&B and especially dancing since I was little. Most of the other white kids weren't really into hip hop dancing so I couldn't really share that with them.
But between my making friends with black girls on the school bus and our shared love of dance, this is how I ended up being the only white girl on the Soul Squad dance and step team in high school. I have no idea though if my friendship ever benefited those girls from school in any profound way like their friendship did me. But I'm still eternally grateful to them. Somewhere in there I think is a life lesson about the beauty of diversity and the value it adds to the human experience.
It seems stupid to discuss in a way. It's just that 15-20 years ago, kids were still more racially cliquey. Considering how a lot of our parents were, I kinda have to assume that people of my generation were probably the first in the South to really start embracing and actually practicing all that loving everybody and being friends with everybody stuff in a real way.
Anyway.. Bygones.. Back to the story....
Now do you know the history of that flag and what it represents?
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/africaindependence-nationalism-panafricanism-mod-130124182912-phpapp02/95/african-history-2-11-638.jpg?cb=1359052730
I'm going to tell you something right now. That second point of black representing the color of the skin of the people of Africa is sort of inaccurate. It may be the skin color of some of Africa's native people but not all.. And I don't mean the white Europeans who invaded African countries. But we'll get into that in a bit. Just keep that in mind.
This flag is also called the Marcus Garvey Flag and those colors of Red, Black, and Green are called Marcus Garvey colors.. and I really hate to break this to people but that flag can be and is considered extremely racist.
The Rebel Flag was created as a military battle flag for soldiers of different races to use during a war. Regardless of what the war was fought over or all the meaning put on it after that, it was created solely to be a military standard.. One that was and is flown by people of different races.
The Pan-African flag was specifically created by black people for black people to represent Black people and only black people. That is it. That is all. It was also only created as a response to a racist song.
Here is some more Wikipedia knowledge...
""Every Race Has a Flag but the Coon" was a song written by Will A. Heelan, and J. Fred Helf that was popular in the United States and Britain. The song followed the previous success of "All Coons Look Alike to Me", written in 1896 by Ernest Hogan. H. L. Mencken cites it as being one of the three coon songs which "firmly established the term coon in the American vocabulary"."
Here is the song that inspired the Pan-African Flag.. I'm not a fan of this song for obvious reasons. The video also shows the burning if the Rebel Flag which doesn't make me very happy either...
Sooooo just BTW FYI Ernest Hogan, the man who helped cement that particular racial slur into the minds and mouths of American people was black...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/Ernest_Hogan_smiling.jpg/440px-Ernest_Hogan_smiling.jpg
Anyway.. This guy who founded the organization UNIA that created the flag in response to the song is Marcus Garvey...
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dumas/garvey.jpg
Marcus Garvey is regarded as a hero to some and as a radical to others. The truth is he really isn't as cool as people make him out to be. But he has been idolized by black people who quote him while they shout "Black Power" for the better part of a century... Everyone from Malcolm X to King Samir Shabazz.
Garvey was Jamaican but immigrated to the US. Once here, he preached a widespread diaspora of the black people to their homelands in Africa. He assessed the situation in this country and believed that black people would never achieve equality in the United States. This is why he starting promoting the idea of repatriation back to African countries. I mean, where the hell do you think the KKK got that shit from?
Garvey even met with the Imperial Wizard of the KKK in 1922 because he saw them as an organization he respected and could work with... Cause that makes sense. The KKK view him as a great and wonderful help to their cause according to this from their website Marcus Garvey: A Black "Moses". He basically gave them most of their white supremacy hate speech they've used for nearly 100 years now.. And black people full of black pride thought they were the only ones quoting this man.
Garvey agreed with segregation and was quoted as saying things like because the black man didn't build the railroads they shouldn't expect to ride in the same train cars as whites and "Until you produce what the white man has produced you will not be his equal." But he also said things like "Black is beautiful" and decades later that's all most black people seemed to really know of and take away from his watered down legacy.. and of course everybody was all about Malcolm X who espoused Garveyism earlier in life.. so Marcus Garvey was and still is idolized as some sort of glorified prophet for their movement.
Garvey was at odds with W. E. B. Du Bois, one of the founders of the NAACP. Du Bois actually said, "Marcus Garvey is the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America and in the world." These are pretty strong words particularly since many Garveyist black separatist groups today align themselves with the NAACP.
The NAACP is an inclusive organization founded by black, white, and mixed people and it was created to help black people gain equality in the United States because they didn't see this ideal as a lost cause like Marcus Garvey. It operated on and promoted principles that for the most part were the exact opposite of those preached by Garvey and UNIA.
Now I will give Marcus Garvey some credit and say that if you read some of the things from earlier in his life and career, he seemed very empassioned and all about better treatment and equality. I guess somewhere he got really jaded and just gave up though.
Anyway, so one of the groups spawned from Garveyism and one of his quotes the Rastafari.. Though as many people know, the Rastafari are a religious group and not a black separatist group. With regard to the Rastafari, Garvey is quoted as saying "Look to Africa for the crowning of a black king, he shall be the Redeemer." Well 10 years later in 1930, Haile Selassie or Ras Tafari Makkonen, was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia and he came to be viewed as the Messiah reborn... Thus the Rastafarian religion was founded and they held Garvey second highest after Haile Selassie.
Here is the thing though.. Haile Selassie preached messages of peace and unity of all the world's people. He said that until we stopped believing in this philosophy that one race is superior to another that we will never know peace. Listen to Bob Marley's song War which quotes Haile Selassie's speech to the UN about peace, love, and brotherhood of all our fellow members of the human race instead of dividing into races separating humanity.
Here is the entire speech which I would encourage you to read H.I.M. Haile Selassie address to the Unted Nations Oct 6, 1963.
Here is the Bob Marley song War which quotes a part of Haile Selassie's speech...
Sounds very different from Garvey right? That's because they are not alike.
I also hate to break it to you but Haile Selassie is about the same amount of black as my Lebanese grandfather... Meaning none.. He's considered Caucasian. I still don't understand why people refer to us as that though and make it a synonym for White when clearly most Middle Eastern people are vary from olivey white-ish to more dark brownish.
My Lebanese grandfather was light olivey brownish so not quite as dark as Haile Selassie. Selassie was Amharic and Oromo/Cushitic and my grandfather was Arab.. But it's sort of all relative. If you really want to get technical though they are both Afro-Asiatic or the term most people just use is Middle Eastern/North African cause Ethiopia is similar to Egypt and other North African countries where people aren't all black. Doesn't mean we can't all be friends though.
Also, Selassie was Christian like my grandfather.. So not Muslim either in case you're trying to make an inference.. Though some of his ethnic group are Muslim as well much like how other Middle Eastern ethnic groups have a mix of both Christians and Muslims.
Here is Haile Selassie...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Haile_Selassie_in_suit_and_cloak_in_1960s.jpg
Now I can understand the confusion that maybe came back in the day before Kodachrome was invented.. See a picture of a dark man from Africa with some pet baby lions and you assume he must be black.. But that still doesn't make it true.
http://www.largeup.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Haile_Selassie_G_0052.jpg
But that's why Selassie was never quoted as saying anything about his fellow black people but instead for his fellow Africans.. Because he wasn't black and neither is all of Africa for that matter. He didn't divide or advocate for his fellow brownish people either because that's not what Selassie was about.
The only thing about him that holds true of Garvey's beliefs about Haile Selassie though are that Selassie was a great man worthy of reverence for his positive messages and that he cared about helping black people who wanted to repatriate back to Africa.
So between the revelations of Marcus Garvey's affiliation with the KKK as the Black Moses and Haile Selassie's ethnic heritage, the Black Power Movement begins to lose its mojo a bit.. Take a moment if you need to before I go Tsar Bomba on your brain and blow your mind again.
Good?
OK...
Back to flags.. Several African countries have redesigned their flags as variations of the Garvey Flag specifically Libya, Kenya, and Malawi. Others have incorporated Garvey colors..
http://www.mapsofworld.com/flags/images/africa-flag.jpg
This happened a little closer to home in the Caribbean as well... Here is another symbol of Black Power for a country that redesigned its flag with Marcus Garvey in mind. Created in 1963 after Jamaica became independent, the flag incorporates the colors of Jamaican hero Marcus Garvey as the black and green symbolize the black people of Jamaica..
Holy shit.. Looks awfully familiar doesn't it?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Flag_of_Jamaica.svg/1280px-Flag_of_Jamaica.svg.png
Oh wait.. add some stars and change the colors and...
http://www.bndflagpoles.com/750_500_csupload_42887081.png?u%201747286463
Bear in mind that the Black Liberation Flag and Jamaican flag were designed as symbols for black people that were creatively inspired by and associated with a known black supremacist who did not really stand for his white supporters in Jamaica that wanted to help the black population and also propagated messages that preached the exact opposite sentiments of the non-black person whom Garvey regarded as the Messiah.
However, the resurgence of the flag continues as there are members of the African American community advocating for the Pan-African Flag to be flown more as a symbol of Black unity and pride. A minister out of Durham, North Carolina named Paul Scott encouraged black people to use the recent national holidays when the American Flag is typically flown as an opportunity to fly the Pan-African Flag.
Scott did so in this article for Memorial Day, Local Minister Urges the Flying of Black Liberation Flag This Weekend. He then preached the same message for the 4th of July in this article, Minister Wants Black Americans to Fly Black Liberation Flag on Independence Day.
"Paul Scott, leader of the Messianic Afrikan Nation ministry and an anti-violence activist, says that in light of the recent acts of racially-charged violence and hate, displaying the RBG flag is very necessary this Independence Day.
I agree with a lot of what Paul Scott expressed about the need to stop racism and police brutality. I also think his call to advocate for raising the Pan-African Flag up instead of making people take their Rebel Flags down is a valid solution. If everybody has a flag or even multiple flags they want to fly regardless of their respective meanings then everybody can feel included.
So, I mean, you can still keep flying your own Marcus Garvey flags and rep Black Power all day. I don't personally care because I'm cool with it as long as you leave my Rebel Flag alone. Just know that our flag is more inclusive as it encompasses soldiers of white, black, and Native American descent while the Pan-African Flag does not.
Anyway...
So from Garveyism also stemmed several other groups that are a bit more hardcore, some of which are the ones that still exist today and are listed as tracked known Black Separatist Groups by the SPLC. Most of the group names that come up are for that are the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party and they have chapters all over the country.
It is important to point out that neither group has any real affiliation or is apart of the things their names denote. The NOI does not represent all those of the Islamic faith and the NBPP is not associated whatsoever with the Black Panther Party of the Civil Rights Movement. They really just wanted some kind of name recognition to give them more credit and validity.
The Nation of Islam was founded in Detroit (Michigan again) and has promoted itself as a religion based group. But I think you have to read this from the SPLC background to full appreciate the group's founding...
"Founder Wallace D. Fard (alternately, Farad Muhammad) and his "messenger" and successor Elijah Muhammad preached a hybrid creed with its own myths and doctrines. These held that over 6,000 years ago, the black race lived in a paradise on earth that was destroyed by the evil wizard Yacub, who created the white "devil" through a scientific process called "grafting." Fard and his disciple preached of a coming apocalyptic overthrow of white domination, insisting that the dominion of evil was to end with God's appearance on earth in the person of Fard. Following this, NOI predicts an epic struggle in which the Nation of Islam will play a key role in preparing and educating the Original People, who ruled the earth in peace and prosperity until Yacub's "blue-eyed devils" came along to gum things up. The Nation of Islam teaches that intermarriage or race mixing should be prohibited. This is point 10 of the official platform, "What the Muslims Want" published 1965."
It's also important to read this snippet from the SPLC about the NOI...
"Since its founding in 1930, the Nation of Islam (NOI) has grown into one of the wealthiest and best-known organizations in black America, offering numerous programs and events designed to uplift African Americans. Nonetheless, its bizarre theology of innate black superiority over whites — a belief system vehemently and consistently rejected by mainstream Muslims — and the deeply racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay rhetoric of its leaders, including top minister Louis Farrakhan, have earned the NOI a prominent position in the ranks of organized hate."
Here is Louis Farrakhan...
http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/louis-farrakhan.jpg
The Nation of Islam does not adhere to the core tenets of Islamic theology. This article by Michael Young What’s in a name? - The Problem with the “Nation of Islam” goes on and on about exactly how wrong the NOI's theological beliefs are and how much they differ from the real Islamic faith so many believe in worldwide. It even includes quotes from prominent Muslim converters Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X about how diverse the Islamic faith truly is.
Malcolm X became disillusioned with the NOI after his pilgrimage to Mecca and experience with the brotherhood and love of people of all colors Islam truly embraces. But when he became Orthodox Muslim, the NOI lost its main public face and also had light shed on its practices that were not truly in keeping with Muslim ideology... So they assassinated him.
Oh but wait.. It gets better...
Just last year according to this article, Louis Farrakhan Says African-Americans Should Have Their Own Justice System because he believes the US courts are not doing their job. The NOI also "The Nation of Islam's "Muslim Program" calls for equal justice for African-Americans under the law. But it also calls for NOI followers to establish their own state under the law to be subsidized for 20 years by "our former slave masters;" an end to taxation on African-Americans if a separate state is not created; "separate but equal" schools divided by race and the release of all NOI followers from prisons and jails.""
Soooo, along with creating an unconstitutional court just for black people to I guess just try white people, Farrakhan and the NOI basically want black people to self-segregate and make white people pay for their segregation for 20 years. Stop me if I'm wrong but isn't the whole segregation thing what made black people unhappy with white people in the first place? This would undo the point and progress of the entire Civil Rights movement. Meanwhile Farrakhan has thousands of people flocking to listen to him preach this shit.
The NOI continues to align itself as a group which advocates for Muslim rights. But they really don't because according to Pew Research and the Huffington Post article Muslim-American Demographics Reveal A Diverse Group That Rejects Categorization, a significant majority of Muslims in the United States aren't black.. Only 23% are Black.
The other 77% are White, Asian, Hispanic and of mixed race. The NOI only cares about that 23%. But not all of that 23% agree with the NOI. Still, the NOI is actually apart of what has created and further perpetuates stereotypes and hateful attitudes toward Muslims of all skin colors because they have been in the forefront for so long. They are in essence inspiring even more violence and hatred both by proxy and directly.
Meanwhile the New Black Panther Party is even worse. I'm going to go ahead and say it's on par with being the black version of the KKK. They really do preach nearly similar ideologies of hatred. This group also played off of the name of an organization that has nothing to do with them and the real, original Black Panther Party isn't happy about it at all because it is disparaging and damaging to their reputation and legacy.
This article by Ben Norton from December 2014 Huey P. Newton Foundation: There Is No New Black Panther Party discusses and features a press release from Huey P. Newton which directly expresses that the NBPP is not a continuation nor has any association with the group he co-founded.
"The Black Panthers formed one of the most influential resistance movements in all of US history. Today, however, some reactionaries have tried to exploit this legacy to advance ultra-nationalist causes that directly contradict those sought by the internationalist, intersectional, revolutionary socialist Black Panther Party for Self-Defense."
It goes on to say...
"Huey P. Newton had visited NOI mosques and determined that it wasn't for him... "I have had enough of religion and could not bring myself to adopt another one. I needed a more concrete understanding of social conditions. References to God or Allah did not satisfy my stubborn thirst for answers." This is why he formed this militant Civil Rights group we so strongly associate with the movement.
Other members of the original Black Panther Party even insist that the NBPP is illegitimate and say that they only “pretend to walk in the footsteps of the Party’s true heroes.”The New Black Panther Party was founded out of hatred. Their only real objective is to advocate for black superiority and separation and incite violence. They did it in Sanford, Florida after Trayvon Martin was killed. They did it again during the Ferguson protests and then again during the Baltimore Riots.
The current head of the NBPP is National Director Hashim Nzinga...
http://cdn1.eaglerising.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Hashim-Nzinga.jpg
This article from April 2015 New Black Panther Head: Like Founding Fathers, We Are Willing to Kill For Black Nation discusses how Nzinga said recently on “Black Power Radio,” that America has “declared war on us,” evidenced by “military police in the black neighborhood” protecting the rich, the New Black Panthers should be looked upon as Founding Fathers who declare war and are “willing to die or kill to save our babies and to save a black nation that is dying before our eyes. America is about protecting the rich and the powerful. We pay taxes. They have declared war on us and it’s nothing but state racism.”
Nzinga is mild in his public comments though compared to Field Marshal King Samir Shabazz.
http://blog.adl.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/samir-shabazz-black-panther-adl.jpg
This article has a ton of quotes from New Black Panther Field Marshal: Whites ‘Should be Thankful We’re Not Hanging Crackers By Nooses…Yet, Yet, Yet’.
Here is a sampling:
Here are even more quotes from King Samir Shabazz in this article, King Samir Shabazz: Bomb White Churches and Kill White Babies.
This post was actually the first tangent I went off on to explain my point about racism being a nationwide issue. But it got so long and it is about such an important topic that I felt it necessitated its own post. Actually, that's how this series came about in the first place.. One long post that would've been a book full of tangents long enough to be their own posts.
When we last left off we were discussing how racism exists all over the country and is not just something that happens in the South between white and black people. Like I said, it happens everywhere and is exhibited by people of all colors towards other people of other all colors. But since I also said we were going to focus more on black and white people because the issue over the Confederate Battle Flag is more of a black and white issue then we'll keep going with that.
In Part One, I picked more on white people and where they fucked up and the historical situations which lead to their racist mindset. As per my heads up, that would mean today will be more about picking on black people with regard to racism because we're all about equality here. So we are going to get into black racism and Black Supremacist Groups in this country. We'll also discuss the Pan-African Flag which can be regarded as the racist equivalent to the Rebel Flag.
"Oh wait? But that flag isn't racist. It's about Black Pride." Well, what do you call flags for White Pride? In fact, what do you call white people who go around shouting "White Power"? Typically, those people are called racists. So what makes black people who go around shouting "Black Power" any different? Why aren't they racist too?
The African American community is really the only racial/ethnic group doing this sort of thing.. And they've been doing it for quite awhile. It has pretty much even been totally condoned by mainstream society because, God forbid, a white person should tell a black person something isn't cool after black people were enslaved by white people and blah blah blah 150+ years later and ... But how is that fair? The people of the Asian and Latino communities need self-esteem building and empowerment too. But you don't here them yelling out about Asian Power or Latino Power.
I personally don't think there should be a difference. You can't claim you want racial equality while simultaneously touting an ideology of racial superiority regardless of the racial group to which you belong. I get that black people were put through the ringer for a long time and the African American community does need some empowerment and self-esteem building. But the way in which those objectives are being met is rather hypocritical.
It isn't a positive way to frame the attitude and outlook of a community. Using this type of speech aligns you with Black Separatists that began shouting the same jargon of hate 100 years ago. It continues to align you with Black Supremacy Groups around today which stemmed from those separatist organizations founded nearly a century ago by people like Marcus Garvey.
Don't believe me? Let's dig in....
The Southern Poverty Law Center is the main organization in the US that tracks hate groups all over the country. There are 784 of them according to what I read. Now, I would encourage you to go look through the SPLC Extremist Files. You can browse all the hate groups this organization tracks by name and ideology and read about the history of each one and see the lists of associated groups along with backgrounds on them. It is extremely disheartening to read though because it basically a gigantic list of hate and evil.
There is of course the Active Ku Klux Klan Groups, which is so big it necessitated its own separate section. There are also the Active Racist Skinhead Groups and the Active White Nationalist Groups. I even found Active Neo-Confederate Groups most specifically the League of the South. If you browse through these lists though you'll see that all but the Neo-Confederates have chapters in just about every state all over the country.
The Neo-Confederate group even has chapters in Idaho, California, and Maryland which are not, nor have they ever been, Confederate or even Southern states. Much like the KKK they can't really call themselves a Southern organization. This is all the more reason why I'm not sure why they rep our Southern Rebel Flag as their symbol. If you ain't Southern then you shouldn't be using our flag like you are. Now we'll get into all that in a separate installment in this series though because it really requires its own post.
In contrast though, there is a list of the Active Black Separatist Groups. These groups preach segregation of blacks the same way their white counterparts do as well as promote the ideology that black people are superior to all other races. This is why they are considered the exact same as white supremacy groups. These black separatists share in the views of being strongly anti-white, anti-LGBT, and anti-semitic as they assert that blacks, not Jews, are the "chosen people" of God.
Let's continue on with the history lesson...
First, the flag...
There are a ton of flags which represent Black Power. Here is a comprehensive list and overview of Modern American Protest and Message Flags. The first one that comes up is the Black Liberation Flag of 1920, also known as the Afro-American Flag, Pan-African Flag, the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) Flag, and by association, the Marcus Garvey Flag, and then in its new resurgence now it's being called the New Afrikan Flag... And it is regarded as a symbol of African and African American pride.
Most of us probably remember the Afrocentrism that dominated mainstream culture during the early 90's and how black pride and black power and the colors of red, black, and green were EVERYWHERE.
The black kids from where I grew up down in Florida actually thought that only black people could and should wear the Garvey colors together unless it was Christmas time.. That was the only exception for when it was permissible for white people to wear an outfit with these colors together... And all the white kids knew that.
Well, my family didn't have a lot of money so my mom had to bargain shop for clothes for herself and our family.. Like I didn't even get my first name brand pair of shoes until I was 12. So in her quest for inexpensive clothing, she found this one particular store she liked that was frequently patronized more by ladies of the African American community.
My mom came home one day and had bought some outfits for herself and a couple things for me from this store. Of course my dad felt the need to tell her that her dresses were... How shall I put this? "Very ethnic".. That is not what he said but I don't wish to repeat his exact words. The things she bought were but he didn't need to discourage her from wearing something she liked. She was all happy and he crushed her dashiki dress dreams.
Anyway, she bought a few things for me like some shorts and shirts that were in Garvey Pan-African colors. I told her I couldn't wear them because I was going to get beat up by the black kids for wearing their colors. She told me that was ridiculous and they were just clothes and said people can't just claim colors. I tried to persist but she told me I was to wear my new clothes and that would be the end of it. This was the deep South so when your mom says that's the end of it then all you can say is "Yes Ma'am".
So I wore them... I went to school the next day as the embodiment of white African pride.. Let me just fill you in on the fact that at the time I went to a technology magnet school, one of the first in Tampa.. and of course because it bordered a RCAP with a high black population a lot of kids from the neighborhood also went there too.. And I just knew one of them on that school bus was going to say something to me because they'd done it to other kids who made similar fashion mistakes.
Well, sure enough some black kid did attack me on my wardrobe like I didn't know.. along with a group of other kids who wanted to see if I'd cry or fight.. I want to say it was a girl who said something.. This was like 20 years ago.. and I'd kinda forgotten all about it until the other day when I started writing this. Anyway, I paused my Janet Jackson tape, took my headphones off, looked at that kid with my most mean muggy face, and said something to the effect of "Fuck you. I know what it means and I didn't pick it out. We're poor and my mom made me wear this just like I'm sure your mom made you wear that outfit you got on cause you're poor too."
This kid couldn't really say anything back because she knew it was true. Some of those other kids around felt bad after that because they were poor too and knew I was always nice to everybody and said it was better to back off. I do remember getting questioned on my knowledge of the colors too and that was when all my hip hop knowledge and those nights of watching In Living Color came in handy. I wore whatever I wanted after that because the black girls on the school bus made friends with me and had my back after that. But that was the day I guess I got what Eminem refers to as my "ghetto pass".
It was nice because the white kids stopped picking on me as badly since they knew the black kids would stick up for me. The mean white girls were always scared of the black girls because they thought they would get beat up.. Knowing that I guess I subconsciously started gravitating towards the groups of black girls first when I ended up being "the new kid" a few times after we moved around. Protection from asshole white kids wasn't why I befriended them though. It was just sort of an added bonus.
I just have always liked and appreciated having a multi-ethnic group of friends though.. which is really how I've always looked at it. The black girls I made friends with were fun and interesting and helped me learn how to manage my White People Arab hybrid hair. I can even respectably cornrow braid thanks to them. Plus I'd always been into hip hop and R&B and especially dancing since I was little. Most of the other white kids weren't really into hip hop dancing so I couldn't really share that with them.
But between my making friends with black girls on the school bus and our shared love of dance, this is how I ended up being the only white girl on the Soul Squad dance and step team in high school. I have no idea though if my friendship ever benefited those girls from school in any profound way like their friendship did me. But I'm still eternally grateful to them. Somewhere in there I think is a life lesson about the beauty of diversity and the value it adds to the human experience.
It seems stupid to discuss in a way. It's just that 15-20 years ago, kids were still more racially cliquey. Considering how a lot of our parents were, I kinda have to assume that people of my generation were probably the first in the South to really start embracing and actually practicing all that loving everybody and being friends with everybody stuff in a real way.
Anyway.. Bygones.. Back to the story....
Now do you know the history of that flag and what it represents?
I'm going to tell you something right now. That second point of black representing the color of the skin of the people of Africa is sort of inaccurate. It may be the skin color of some of Africa's native people but not all.. And I don't mean the white Europeans who invaded African countries. But we'll get into that in a bit. Just keep that in mind.
This flag is also called the Marcus Garvey Flag and those colors of Red, Black, and Green are called Marcus Garvey colors.. and I really hate to break this to people but that flag can be and is considered extremely racist.
The Rebel Flag was created as a military battle flag for soldiers of different races to use during a war. Regardless of what the war was fought over or all the meaning put on it after that, it was created solely to be a military standard.. One that was and is flown by people of different races.
The Pan-African flag was specifically created by black people for black people to represent Black people and only black people. That is it. That is all. It was also only created as a response to a racist song.
Here is some more Wikipedia knowledge...
""Every Race Has a Flag but the Coon" was a song written by Will A. Heelan, and J. Fred Helf that was popular in the United States and Britain. The song followed the previous success of "All Coons Look Alike to Me", written in 1896 by Ernest Hogan. H. L. Mencken cites it as being one of the three coon songs which "firmly established the term coon in the American vocabulary"."
Here is the song that inspired the Pan-African Flag.. I'm not a fan of this song for obvious reasons. The video also shows the burning if the Rebel Flag which doesn't make me very happy either...
Sooooo just BTW FYI Ernest Hogan, the man who helped cement that particular racial slur into the minds and mouths of American people was black...
Anyway.. This guy who founded the organization UNIA that created the flag in response to the song is Marcus Garvey...
Marcus Garvey is regarded as a hero to some and as a radical to others. The truth is he really isn't as cool as people make him out to be. But he has been idolized by black people who quote him while they shout "Black Power" for the better part of a century... Everyone from Malcolm X to King Samir Shabazz.
Garvey was Jamaican but immigrated to the US. Once here, he preached a widespread diaspora of the black people to their homelands in Africa. He assessed the situation in this country and believed that black people would never achieve equality in the United States. This is why he starting promoting the idea of repatriation back to African countries. I mean, where the hell do you think the KKK got that shit from?
Garvey even met with the Imperial Wizard of the KKK in 1922 because he saw them as an organization he respected and could work with... Cause that makes sense. The KKK view him as a great and wonderful help to their cause according to this from their website Marcus Garvey: A Black "Moses". He basically gave them most of their white supremacy hate speech they've used for nearly 100 years now.. And black people full of black pride thought they were the only ones quoting this man.
Garvey agreed with segregation and was quoted as saying things like because the black man didn't build the railroads they shouldn't expect to ride in the same train cars as whites and "Until you produce what the white man has produced you will not be his equal." But he also said things like "Black is beautiful" and decades later that's all most black people seemed to really know of and take away from his watered down legacy.. and of course everybody was all about Malcolm X who espoused Garveyism earlier in life.. so Marcus Garvey was and still is idolized as some sort of glorified prophet for their movement.
Garvey was at odds with W. E. B. Du Bois, one of the founders of the NAACP. Du Bois actually said, "Marcus Garvey is the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America and in the world." These are pretty strong words particularly since many Garveyist black separatist groups today align themselves with the NAACP.
The NAACP is an inclusive organization founded by black, white, and mixed people and it was created to help black people gain equality in the United States because they didn't see this ideal as a lost cause like Marcus Garvey. It operated on and promoted principles that for the most part were the exact opposite of those preached by Garvey and UNIA.
Now I will give Marcus Garvey some credit and say that if you read some of the things from earlier in his life and career, he seemed very empassioned and all about better treatment and equality. I guess somewhere he got really jaded and just gave up though.
Anyway, so one of the groups spawned from Garveyism and one of his quotes the Rastafari.. Though as many people know, the Rastafari are a religious group and not a black separatist group. With regard to the Rastafari, Garvey is quoted as saying "Look to Africa for the crowning of a black king, he shall be the Redeemer." Well 10 years later in 1930, Haile Selassie or Ras Tafari Makkonen, was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia and he came to be viewed as the Messiah reborn... Thus the Rastafarian religion was founded and they held Garvey second highest after Haile Selassie.
Here is the thing though.. Haile Selassie preached messages of peace and unity of all the world's people. He said that until we stopped believing in this philosophy that one race is superior to another that we will never know peace. Listen to Bob Marley's song War which quotes Haile Selassie's speech to the UN about peace, love, and brotherhood of all our fellow members of the human race instead of dividing into races separating humanity.
Here is the entire speech which I would encourage you to read H.I.M. Haile Selassie address to the Unted Nations Oct 6, 1963.
Here is the Bob Marley song War which quotes a part of Haile Selassie's speech...
Sounds very different from Garvey right? That's because they are not alike.
I also hate to break it to you but Haile Selassie is about the same amount of black as my Lebanese grandfather... Meaning none.. He's considered Caucasian. I still don't understand why people refer to us as that though and make it a synonym for White when clearly most Middle Eastern people are vary from olivey white-ish to more dark brownish.
My Lebanese grandfather was light olivey brownish so not quite as dark as Haile Selassie. Selassie was Amharic and Oromo/Cushitic and my grandfather was Arab.. But it's sort of all relative. If you really want to get technical though they are both Afro-Asiatic or the term most people just use is Middle Eastern/North African cause Ethiopia is similar to Egypt and other North African countries where people aren't all black. Doesn't mean we can't all be friends though.
Also, Selassie was Christian like my grandfather.. So not Muslim either in case you're trying to make an inference.. Though some of his ethnic group are Muslim as well much like how other Middle Eastern ethnic groups have a mix of both Christians and Muslims.
Here is Haile Selassie...
Now I can understand the confusion that maybe came back in the day before Kodachrome was invented.. See a picture of a dark man from Africa with some pet baby lions and you assume he must be black.. But that still doesn't make it true.
But that's why Selassie was never quoted as saying anything about his fellow black people but instead for his fellow Africans.. Because he wasn't black and neither is all of Africa for that matter. He didn't divide or advocate for his fellow brownish people either because that's not what Selassie was about.
So between the revelations of Marcus Garvey's affiliation with the KKK as the Black Moses and Haile Selassie's ethnic heritage, the Black Power Movement begins to lose its mojo a bit.. Take a moment if you need to before I go Tsar Bomba on your brain and blow your mind again.
Good?
OK...
Back to flags.. Several African countries have redesigned their flags as variations of the Garvey Flag specifically Libya, Kenya, and Malawi. Others have incorporated Garvey colors..
http://www.mapsofworld.com/flags/images/africa-flag.jpg
Holy shit.. Looks awfully familiar doesn't it?
Oh wait.. add some stars and change the colors and...
However, the resurgence of the flag continues as there are members of the African American community advocating for the Pan-African Flag to be flown more as a symbol of Black unity and pride. A minister out of Durham, North Carolina named Paul Scott encouraged black people to use the recent national holidays when the American Flag is typically flown as an opportunity to fly the Pan-African Flag.
Scott did so in this article for Memorial Day, Local Minister Urges the Flying of Black Liberation Flag This Weekend. He then preached the same message for the 4th of July in this article, Minister Wants Black Americans to Fly Black Liberation Flag on Independence Day.
Here is a snippet from the 4th of July article...
"Paul Scott, leader of the Messianic Afrikan Nation ministry and an anti-violence activist, says that in light of the recent acts of racially-charged violence and hate, displaying the RBG flag is very necessary this Independence Day.
“This flag has always been about Black unity and right now to stop Black-on-Black crime, to stop racism and police brutality all across this country. We need Black unity right now,” Scott said of the flag that represents the red blood that Africans shed for liberation, the black skin of the people, and the green land and natural wealth in Africa."
“While some people are talking about Confederate flags and saying take it down, we’re saying let’s take this flag and raise it up,” said Scott. “Every ethnic group is proud to raise their flag … it’s time for us to have that same Black pride and raise our flag.”
I agree with a lot of what Paul Scott expressed about the need to stop racism and police brutality. I also think his call to advocate for raising the Pan-African Flag up instead of making people take their Rebel Flags down is a valid solution. If everybody has a flag or even multiple flags they want to fly regardless of their respective meanings then everybody can feel included.
So, I mean, you can still keep flying your own Marcus Garvey flags and rep Black Power all day. I don't personally care because I'm cool with it as long as you leave my Rebel Flag alone. Just know that our flag is more inclusive as it encompasses soldiers of white, black, and Native American descent while the Pan-African Flag does not.
Anyway...
So from Garveyism also stemmed several other groups that are a bit more hardcore, some of which are the ones that still exist today and are listed as tracked known Black Separatist Groups by the SPLC. Most of the group names that come up are for that are the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party and they have chapters all over the country.
It is important to point out that neither group has any real affiliation or is apart of the things their names denote. The NOI does not represent all those of the Islamic faith and the NBPP is not associated whatsoever with the Black Panther Party of the Civil Rights Movement. They really just wanted some kind of name recognition to give them more credit and validity.
The Nation of Islam was founded in Detroit (Michigan again) and has promoted itself as a religion based group. But I think you have to read this from the SPLC background to full appreciate the group's founding...
"Founder Wallace D. Fard (alternately, Farad Muhammad) and his "messenger" and successor Elijah Muhammad preached a hybrid creed with its own myths and doctrines. These held that over 6,000 years ago, the black race lived in a paradise on earth that was destroyed by the evil wizard Yacub, who created the white "devil" through a scientific process called "grafting." Fard and his disciple preached of a coming apocalyptic overthrow of white domination, insisting that the dominion of evil was to end with God's appearance on earth in the person of Fard. Following this, NOI predicts an epic struggle in which the Nation of Islam will play a key role in preparing and educating the Original People, who ruled the earth in peace and prosperity until Yacub's "blue-eyed devils" came along to gum things up. The Nation of Islam teaches that intermarriage or race mixing should be prohibited. This is point 10 of the official platform, "What the Muslims Want" published 1965."
It's also important to read this snippet from the SPLC about the NOI...
"Since its founding in 1930, the Nation of Islam (NOI) has grown into one of the wealthiest and best-known organizations in black America, offering numerous programs and events designed to uplift African Americans. Nonetheless, its bizarre theology of innate black superiority over whites — a belief system vehemently and consistently rejected by mainstream Muslims — and the deeply racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay rhetoric of its leaders, including top minister Louis Farrakhan, have earned the NOI a prominent position in the ranks of organized hate."
Here is Louis Farrakhan...
The Nation of Islam does not adhere to the core tenets of Islamic theology. This article by Michael Young What’s in a name? - The Problem with the “Nation of Islam” goes on and on about exactly how wrong the NOI's theological beliefs are and how much they differ from the real Islamic faith so many believe in worldwide. It even includes quotes from prominent Muslim converters Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X about how diverse the Islamic faith truly is.
Malcolm X became disillusioned with the NOI after his pilgrimage to Mecca and experience with the brotherhood and love of people of all colors Islam truly embraces. But when he became Orthodox Muslim, the NOI lost its main public face and also had light shed on its practices that were not truly in keeping with Muslim ideology... So they assassinated him.
Oh but wait.. It gets better...
Just last year according to this article, Louis Farrakhan Says African-Americans Should Have Their Own Justice System because he believes the US courts are not doing their job. The NOI also "The Nation of Islam's "Muslim Program" calls for equal justice for African-Americans under the law. But it also calls for NOI followers to establish their own state under the law to be subsidized for 20 years by "our former slave masters;" an end to taxation on African-Americans if a separate state is not created; "separate but equal" schools divided by race and the release of all NOI followers from prisons and jails.""
Soooo, along with creating an unconstitutional court just for black people to I guess just try white people, Farrakhan and the NOI basically want black people to self-segregate and make white people pay for their segregation for 20 years. Stop me if I'm wrong but isn't the whole segregation thing what made black people unhappy with white people in the first place? This would undo the point and progress of the entire Civil Rights movement. Meanwhile Farrakhan has thousands of people flocking to listen to him preach this shit.
The NOI continues to align itself as a group which advocates for Muslim rights. But they really don't because according to Pew Research and the Huffington Post article Muslim-American Demographics Reveal A Diverse Group That Rejects Categorization, a significant majority of Muslims in the United States aren't black.. Only 23% are Black.
The other 77% are White, Asian, Hispanic and of mixed race. The NOI only cares about that 23%. But not all of that 23% agree with the NOI. Still, the NOI is actually apart of what has created and further perpetuates stereotypes and hateful attitudes toward Muslims of all skin colors because they have been in the forefront for so long. They are in essence inspiring even more violence and hatred both by proxy and directly.
Meanwhile the New Black Panther Party is even worse. I'm going to go ahead and say it's on par with being the black version of the KKK. They really do preach nearly similar ideologies of hatred. This group also played off of the name of an organization that has nothing to do with them and the real, original Black Panther Party isn't happy about it at all because it is disparaging and damaging to their reputation and legacy.
This article by Ben Norton from December 2014 Huey P. Newton Foundation: There Is No New Black Panther Party discusses and features a press release from Huey P. Newton which directly expresses that the NBPP is not a continuation nor has any association with the group he co-founded.
"The Black Panthers formed one of the most influential resistance movements in all of US history. Today, however, some reactionaries have tried to exploit this legacy to advance ultra-nationalist causes that directly contradict those sought by the internationalist, intersectional, revolutionary socialist Black Panther Party for Self-Defense."
"Huey P. Newton had visited NOI mosques and determined that it wasn't for him... "I have had enough of religion and could not bring myself to adopt another one. I needed a more concrete understanding of social conditions. References to God or Allah did not satisfy my stubborn thirst for answers." This is why he formed this militant Civil Rights group we so strongly associate with the movement.
Other members of the original Black Panther Party even insist that the NBPP is illegitimate and say that they only “pretend to walk in the footsteps of the Party’s true heroes.”The New Black Panther Party was founded out of hatred. Their only real objective is to advocate for black superiority and separation and incite violence. They did it in Sanford, Florida after Trayvon Martin was killed. They did it again during the Ferguson protests and then again during the Baltimore Riots.
The current head of the NBPP is National Director Hashim Nzinga...
This article from April 2015 New Black Panther Head: Like Founding Fathers, We Are Willing to Kill For Black Nation discusses how Nzinga said recently on “Black Power Radio,” that America has “declared war on us,” evidenced by “military police in the black neighborhood” protecting the rich, the New Black Panthers should be looked upon as Founding Fathers who declare war and are “willing to die or kill to save our babies and to save a black nation that is dying before our eyes. America is about protecting the rich and the powerful. We pay taxes. They have declared war on us and it’s nothing but state racism.”
Nzinga is mild in his public comments though compared to Field Marshal King Samir Shabazz.
This article has a ton of quotes from New Black Panther Field Marshal: Whites ‘Should be Thankful We’re Not Hanging Crackers By Nooses…Yet, Yet, Yet’.
Here is a sampling:
- “I love white-on white-crime, because that is the best crime.”
- “I hate the g*ddamn white man, woman, and child, grandma, aunt, uncle, Pappa Billy Bob, and whoever else.”
- “You should be thankful we’re not running around here hanging crackers by nooses and all that kind of stuff — yet, yet, yet”
- He has a “wet dream about killing the g*ddamn cracker.”
- “We don’t allow faggots and lesbians” in the New Black Panther Army
- Envisions a world where every black person is “ready to bang on this cracker”
- Wants to take over neighborhoods “block by block” so “crackers…or even the developer” would be scared to come into them
- “We’re taught to send this cracker to the cemetery… so kiss ‘em goodbye”
Here are even more quotes from King Samir Shabazz in this article, King Samir Shabazz: Bomb White Churches and Kill White Babies.
"If Blacks want to be free, Shabazz explained, “you’re going to have to kill some of these babies, just born three seconds ago. You’re going to have to go into the God damn nursery and just throw a damn bomb in the damn nursery and just kill everything white in sight that ain’t right.”"
Later in his rant, Shabazz describes how white churches are also a legitimate target: “We gonna need preachers going into the cracker churches throwing hand grenades on early Sunday morning when the cracker got his hands up, ‘please white Jesus!’ Well we gonna throw a bomb in that God damn church, burn up the cracker, burn up the cracker Jesus, and burn up some cracker white supremacy.”
Here is King Samir Shabazz again with another NBPP member, some guns, and lovely Pan-African Flag backdrop...
http://www.mainjustice.com/files/2009/05/black-panthers-flag-and-guns.jpg
Much like the pictures of the KKK with the Rebel Flag included in Part One, here is the Black equivalent with the NBPP and Pan-African Flag...
http://atlantablackstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/17j2mmv4gaq28png.png
And again...
http://media.vocativ.com/photos/2015/01/New-Black-Panther-Party-Chawn-Saddam-Kweli-02801517267.jpg
And here is just some nice young man waving the flag outside the Washington Monument who doesn't really scream militant black racist supremacist to me.. But we don't know for sure...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b2/Young_man_from_Detroit_waving_the_Black_Liberation_Flag_at_the_Washington_Monument_-_50th_Anniversary_of_the_March_on_Washington_for_Jobs_and_Freedom.jpg/682px-Young_man_from_Detroit_waving_the_Black_Liberation_Flag_at_the_Washington_Monument_-_50th_Anniversary_of_the_March_on_Washington_for_Jobs_and_Freedom.jpg
These guys are definitely NBPP members though..
http://static.prisonplanet.com/p/images/july2013/120713bp.jpg
And here is the Pan-African Flag being flown in Columbia outside the state house in January 2015 for Martin Luther King Jr. Day like 5 months before the shooting probably not for racist reasons...
http://twt-thumbs.washtimes.com/media/image/2015/01/19/639559d21307b3036b0f6a7067003239_c0-305-3648-2431_s561x327.jpg?0677ce6705674cd339c5ec30faee74a678185327
And then there are the parades for Black Pride with people who don't really look like hate group militants either...
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV8_1U_D3LRbxrx1CqOLE0y2qlfPNRU11wpIq8v_C1SVo3Z-Cm5jkypFe43DwtPWmLLZlwMBpA8Mo-ljykg7lNCtkDCNl8aCPYWi1zzzlJik9eLrcxV4PZby0qfRYsNJ9ed45oMJVdLVbw/s640/Clipboard04.jpg
And then there are people who take it a little too far.. Note the banner about reparations...
https://nycparadelife.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/african-american-parade-13-070.jpg
Then there are these nice people in Ferguson with the flag who also don't look like NBPP members either...
https://ajmacdonaldjr.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/bhferguson33.jpg?w=939
But the NBPP were there in Ferguson too...
http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Screen-Shot-2014-08-14-at-2.25.11-PM.jpg
So too were the UHURU Black Power group with the flag...
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iDFzFk8Fufg/U_O3iDs0WEI/AAAAAAAAmmE/wZLjqp01dVo/s280/ferguson.jpg
And Baltimore...
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CDdCA48UMAAYGYS.png
The NBPP is in Charleston too....
http://media.vocativ.com/photos/2015/06/Charleston-Panthers-KKK-42-74026446540054640.jpg
Right after the shooting, the NBPP and other black extremist hate groups mobilized and went down to Charleston. This article Hate Groups Are Descending On Charleston—And They’re Armed explains that they came down to offer protection.. But I don't think so.
"Malik Shabazz, the former leader of the New Black Panther Party, has summoned several black separatist groups to Charleston to provide protection for the families of the victims because, he claims, there have been “credible threats” made against the families.
All this controversy over the Confederate Battle Flag has totally dominated the news. Meanwhile the media hasn't exactly been publicizing the other side of things like the NBPP and other hate groups invading Charleston along with the extremist and radical behavior going on down there. I can only assume the reason for this is because it would have undermined the Anti-Rebel Flag cause.
First, there was this going on during the protests against the Rebel Flag which definitely wasn't popularized...
Now hang on.. Doesn't that remind you of something we've seen recently?
Oh damn... Wait for it...
How is exhibiting the same behavior as a racist murderer doing anything to move forward? How is this honoring the 9 victims and their families? How is taking one flag down because people of one color deem it racist and raising another one up that is also viewed as racist helping anything? How is burning the American flag showing any respect or bringing us together as people in a good way?
This article by A.J. MacDonald Jr., Black Power vs Confederate Flag, talks about the rally that was held a couple weeks ago outside the Emanuel AME Church where the 9 people were killed. It was organized by the NBPP and had 200 NBPP members in attendance along with God only knows how many other people.
All of this.. Every last bit of this is just awful and wrong. If you think this is right then I would seriously suggest taking a moment to reevaluate your life.. This is EXACTLY the sort of hate message the KKK and other white supremacy groups preach to white people so they will hate black people. If you think it's OK just because the men are black then heaven help the world.
First, the beginning where Malik Shabazz introduced Shaka Shakur and says "This ain't the Forgiveness Squad. This is the Death to Our Enemies Squad" is directly disrespecting the families of the 9 victims.. whom he has already referred to as "House Slaves". Those people of those families in my eyes are models of Christian love. A man cut down their loved ones and they came out and said they forgive him.
I'm a Christian and I don't think I could forgive someone who did that. Those people who are dealing with such an awful tragedy have shown they actually do practice the Christian values they preach and their example is one of beauty, compassion, positivity, and purity of faith that we all should follow. That speech and those words of hate shit all over the families' demonstration of love and dishonors them.
Second, Shaka Shakur advocating for churches to be surrounded by militias is crazy and wrong. Churches are houses of the Lord that stand as sanctuaries of love and togetherness. Surrounding them with people preaching messages of racist hate and inciting violence will not protect them from other people who attack them violently out of racist hate. All this will do is create more violence.
The congregation of these churches and the communities around them need to come together to protect them... But they should not be organized and lead by extremist hate groups. They should be lead by heads of the churches and community members. They need to make it clear to the police departments of their respective areas that police presence is necessary to protect the churches and men, women, and children of the community who attend them and hold their local law enforcement accountable for doing its job. They also need to make it clear to EVERYONE that these are places of love filled with people who will not stand for violence from ANYONE.
Third, Shaka Shakur's words that Dylann Roof was a trained soldier carrying out a mission are simply not true. He was not trained nor sent by anyone. He acted alone. He even said it in his manifesto. Dylann Roof was actually not raised in a racist home or environment. He said this himself again in his own manifesto. He does not belong to the KKK and never has. He points out that there was no KKK presence where he lived. They may be supporting him now but they had nothing to do with his actions.
An article from Gawker, Here Is What Appears to Be Dylann Roof’s Racist Manifesto, has the whole thing.. Just skip over the crap at the beginning to where it says "Read the full document below"... and actually read the whole thing. It also has this link to Dylann Roof’s website lastrhodesian.com with Dylann Storm Roof’s Manifesto. And when I say "Read the whole thing", I mean actually read the whole damn thing. It's really not what you would expect... like I even have to admit that I, along with the media and the rest of the country, sort of had this kid pegged all wrong.
Aside from the use of some choice language like the N word, Roof’s manifesto is really not the same hate drenched spewing of typical white supremacy KKK jargon. I know this because in researching my upcoming article in this series to petition the KKK to stop using the Rebel Flag I visited a bunch of KKK websites and read through a rack of their insane bullshit.. like so much so I needed a shower for my brain afterwards to scrub it clean of all that awful white supremacy filth. So believe me when I say this to you now.. This guy is not the same.
The media has twisted his words around and taken them out of context. He has been painted as just another white supremacist who committed a violent act purely driven by the same exact racial motives and message as other white supremacists. Why? Because he's easier to write off that way. What happened in that church is easier to write off that way.
Reading his message and representing him accurately would mean that we as a country and we as people would actually have to open our eyes and consider something that we have not admitted openly. That all this black power and black pride our society has condoned is instilling behaviors and mindsets in black children to mentally subjugate white children... That it is instilling a behavioral response and mindset in white children that they deserve it.
This is something no children of any color understand. They are taught it by their parents in the name of righting racial wrongs in this detrimental path that is not a true, enlightened, positive progression from the past no matter how you slice it. Our present is one that empowers the black at the expense of the white. This is not equality. This is retribution.
This current kind of racial hatred Dylann Roof has was not bred from an old school, archaic white supremacy mindset of inherited hatred passed down by white families for generations. It was created from an inability to reconcile and justify the treatment most white people have experienced throughout their lives from black people who believe the kind of messages of hatred towards white people that Malik Shabazz and Shaka Shakur preached in those videos... That white people are all evil and wrong and owe black people a perpetual debt over slavery.
Why do all white people, even white people whose ancestors did not own slaves, owe all black people this perpetual debt over slavery simply because of the color of their skin? How long must they continue paying it? When is enough going to finally be enough?
I will tell you honestly that Dylann Roof is just the beginning of a new wave of racial violence that the continuation of this mindset is going to inspire and it will permeate our future if we do not resign ourselves.. all of us of every color.. to do something to stop it now.
As far as the Pan-African Flag and it's current resurgence within the African American community, it's hard to tell if the flying of this flag is really an actual common thing. It's also not easy to tell if those who are flying it or at least support it are doing so as a positive symbol of solidarity and pride or because they share in the more extreme racial ideology of black supremacists and view the flag as their mark of racial superiority, self-segregation from other races, and separation from the American government.
The problem comes though that black people flying the Pan-African Flag will start automatically being lumped in with racists. But maybe if you have to defend a flag you support then you'll understand how us Rebel Flag supporters feel. It's not a fair assumption to make of people.
But beyond the flags, I really think we need to start taking the words of Haile Selassie to heart. Something as trivial as a flag won't matter if we start coming together more as people. We can still celebrate our differences on the outside. It's just more important to remember that at the end of the day we are still all people.. We are all still members of the Human Race.
Revelations all day... Stay tuned for Part 3....
Much like the pictures of the KKK with the Rebel Flag included in Part One, here is the Black equivalent with the NBPP and Pan-African Flag...
And again...
These guys are definitely NBPP members though..
And then there are the parades for Black Pride with people who don't really look like hate group militants either...
And then there are people who take it a little too far.. Note the banner about reparations...
Then there are these nice people in Ferguson with the flag who also don't look like NBPP members either...
But the NBPP were there in Ferguson too...
So too were the UHURU Black Power group with the flag...
And Baltimore...
The NBPP is in Charleston too....
Right after the shooting, the NBPP and other black extremist hate groups mobilized and went down to Charleston. This article Hate Groups Are Descending On Charleston—And They’re Armed explains that they came down to offer protection.. But I don't think so.
"Malik Shabazz, the former leader of the New Black Panther Party, has summoned several black separatist groups to Charleston to provide protection for the families of the victims because, he claims, there have been “credible threats” made against the families.
“White Supremacists, Klan groups and others are making credible threats to do physical harm against their families,” Shabazz said. “[The people assigned to protect the families] will be legally armed or unarmed and in shape.” Even though technically he’s the former leader of the New Black Panther Party, many believe he still runs the organization.
Charleston Police Department spokesman Charles Francis says that the CPD has no information of any credible threats being made against the victims’ families."
Honestly, I don't think there were any threats. The NBPP are using it as an excuse to justify going down to South Carolina to incite more violence and make things worse.. which is the last thing anyone needs.All this controversy over the Confederate Battle Flag has totally dominated the news. Meanwhile the media hasn't exactly been publicizing the other side of things like the NBPP and other hate groups invading Charleston along with the extremist and radical behavior going on down there. I can only assume the reason for this is because it would have undermined the Anti-Rebel Flag cause.
First, there was this going on during the protests against the Rebel Flag which definitely wasn't popularized...
http://rightwingnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/deray_mckesson_burns_flag.jpg
Now hang on.. Doesn't that remind you of something we've seen recently?
http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/the_slatest/2015/06/20/dylann_roof_details_white_supremacist_worldview_in_shocking_online_manifesto/c.jpg.CROP.promo-mediumlarge.jpg
Oh damn... Wait for it...
This article by A.J. MacDonald Jr., Black Power vs Confederate Flag, talks about the rally that was held a couple weeks ago outside the Emanuel AME Church where the 9 people were killed. It was organized by the NBPP and had 200 NBPP members in attendance along with God only knows how many other people.
https://ajmacdonaldjr.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/a-man-raises-his-fist-while-marching-down-calhoun-street-in-charleston-s-c-to-the-front-of-emanuel-ame-church-tuesday-june-23-2015.jpg?w=584
This rally began a block away at Marion Square organized by Black Supremacy Groups. This article New Black Panther Party Charleston Rally: 'This is War' talks about the rally..
Malik Shabazz made this speech at the rally...
Listening to this drivel makes my head and heart hurt the same way it did reading all this KKK shit I read during my research. I do not understand how the black people around can agree with this man, Malik Shabazz, or believe in anything that came out of his mouth.
He calls the black people in the audience "Field Slaves" and says the black people who have been in the media and in part the Charleston 9 as "House Slaves". It's seriously demeaning. How is any black person alive today going to stand there and let ANYONE call him or her a slave? How can anyone stand for this or agree with this or believe this?
Here is a snippet from the article about Shaka Shakur's speech...
Malik Shabazz made this speech at the rally...
Listening to this drivel makes my head and heart hurt the same way it did reading all this KKK shit I read during my research. I do not understand how the black people around can agree with this man, Malik Shabazz, or believe in anything that came out of his mouth.
He calls the black people in the audience "Field Slaves" and says the black people who have been in the media and in part the Charleston 9 as "House Slaves". It's seriously demeaning. How is any black person alive today going to stand there and let ANYONE call him or her a slave? How can anyone stand for this or agree with this or believe this?
Here is a snippet from the article about Shaka Shakur's speech...
"At a speech during a rally Tuesday night a block from the scene of the Charleston massacre of nine black churchgoers, New Black Panther ally Shaka Shakur treated the criminal attack as war, calling for “freestanding militias” to surround churches and claiming that alleged shooter Dylann Roof was a “solider” who “carried out his mission” after being trained and sent by others."
Here is a video of the speech.. Note the Garvey colors and the big Pan-African flag in the video...
All of this.. Every last bit of this is just awful and wrong. If you think this is right then I would seriously suggest taking a moment to reevaluate your life.. This is EXACTLY the sort of hate message the KKK and other white supremacy groups preach to white people so they will hate black people. If you think it's OK just because the men are black then heaven help the world.
First, the beginning where Malik Shabazz introduced Shaka Shakur and says "This ain't the Forgiveness Squad. This is the Death to Our Enemies Squad" is directly disrespecting the families of the 9 victims.. whom he has already referred to as "House Slaves". Those people of those families in my eyes are models of Christian love. A man cut down their loved ones and they came out and said they forgive him.
I'm a Christian and I don't think I could forgive someone who did that. Those people who are dealing with such an awful tragedy have shown they actually do practice the Christian values they preach and their example is one of beauty, compassion, positivity, and purity of faith that we all should follow. That speech and those words of hate shit all over the families' demonstration of love and dishonors them.
Second, Shaka Shakur advocating for churches to be surrounded by militias is crazy and wrong. Churches are houses of the Lord that stand as sanctuaries of love and togetherness. Surrounding them with people preaching messages of racist hate and inciting violence will not protect them from other people who attack them violently out of racist hate. All this will do is create more violence.
The congregation of these churches and the communities around them need to come together to protect them... But they should not be organized and lead by extremist hate groups. They should be lead by heads of the churches and community members. They need to make it clear to the police departments of their respective areas that police presence is necessary to protect the churches and men, women, and children of the community who attend them and hold their local law enforcement accountable for doing its job. They also need to make it clear to EVERYONE that these are places of love filled with people who will not stand for violence from ANYONE.
Third, Shaka Shakur's words that Dylann Roof was a trained soldier carrying out a mission are simply not true. He was not trained nor sent by anyone. He acted alone. He even said it in his manifesto. Dylann Roof was actually not raised in a racist home or environment. He said this himself again in his own manifesto. He does not belong to the KKK and never has. He points out that there was no KKK presence where he lived. They may be supporting him now but they had nothing to do with his actions.
An article from Gawker, Here Is What Appears to Be Dylann Roof’s Racist Manifesto, has the whole thing.. Just skip over the crap at the beginning to where it says "Read the full document below"... and actually read the whole thing. It also has this link to Dylann Roof’s website lastrhodesian.com with Dylann Storm Roof’s Manifesto. And when I say "Read the whole thing", I mean actually read the whole damn thing. It's really not what you would expect... like I even have to admit that I, along with the media and the rest of the country, sort of had this kid pegged all wrong.
Aside from the use of some choice language like the N word, Roof’s manifesto is really not the same hate drenched spewing of typical white supremacy KKK jargon. I know this because in researching my upcoming article in this series to petition the KKK to stop using the Rebel Flag I visited a bunch of KKK websites and read through a rack of their insane bullshit.. like so much so I needed a shower for my brain afterwards to scrub it clean of all that awful white supremacy filth. So believe me when I say this to you now.. This guy is not the same.
The media has twisted his words around and taken them out of context. He has been painted as just another white supremacist who committed a violent act purely driven by the same exact racial motives and message as other white supremacists. Why? Because he's easier to write off that way. What happened in that church is easier to write off that way.
Reading his message and representing him accurately would mean that we as a country and we as people would actually have to open our eyes and consider something that we have not admitted openly. That all this black power and black pride our society has condoned is instilling behaviors and mindsets in black children to mentally subjugate white children... That it is instilling a behavioral response and mindset in white children that they deserve it.
This is something no children of any color understand. They are taught it by their parents in the name of righting racial wrongs in this detrimental path that is not a true, enlightened, positive progression from the past no matter how you slice it. Our present is one that empowers the black at the expense of the white. This is not equality. This is retribution.
This current kind of racial hatred Dylann Roof has was not bred from an old school, archaic white supremacy mindset of inherited hatred passed down by white families for generations. It was created from an inability to reconcile and justify the treatment most white people have experienced throughout their lives from black people who believe the kind of messages of hatred towards white people that Malik Shabazz and Shaka Shakur preached in those videos... That white people are all evil and wrong and owe black people a perpetual debt over slavery.
Why do all white people, even white people whose ancestors did not own slaves, owe all black people this perpetual debt over slavery simply because of the color of their skin? How long must they continue paying it? When is enough going to finally be enough?
I will tell you honestly that Dylann Roof is just the beginning of a new wave of racial violence that the continuation of this mindset is going to inspire and it will permeate our future if we do not resign ourselves.. all of us of every color.. to do something to stop it now.
Just so you are aware the NBPP and the KKK are both having rallies today right now outside the state house in Columbia, South Carolina at the same time so that should be fun.. This article discusses it.. KKK, Black Panther rallies in SC still on despite flag’s removal. Let's all pray that Columbia doesn't become the next Ferguson or Baltimore tonight. There is actually supposed to be a prayer vigil during it so let's hope those prayers work.
As far as the Pan-African Flag and it's current resurgence within the African American community, it's hard to tell if the flying of this flag is really an actual common thing. It's also not easy to tell if those who are flying it or at least support it are doing so as a positive symbol of solidarity and pride or because they share in the more extreme racial ideology of black supremacists and view the flag as their mark of racial superiority, self-segregation from other races, and separation from the American government.
The problem comes though that black people flying the Pan-African Flag will start automatically being lumped in with racists. But maybe if you have to defend a flag you support then you'll understand how us Rebel Flag supporters feel. It's not a fair assumption to make of people.
But beyond the flags, I really think we need to start taking the words of Haile Selassie to heart. Something as trivial as a flag won't matter if we start coming together more as people. We can still celebrate our differences on the outside. It's just more important to remember that at the end of the day we are still all people.. We are all still members of the Human Race.
