Our Eyes are Open and we will not Stop.

Many people have their eyes open. Many people have opened their eyes that we can’t live in a society where police brutality and oppression flourishes in the world. The man who killed the officers had mental illness and he shot his ex-girlfriend. This tragedy has been exploited by Patrick Lynch and others as a means for some to try to suppress the rights of the protesters. Also, the families of Ramos and Liu should receive prayers and sympathy. They are going through so much and human life has dignity. At the same time, we have to keep our eyes on the prize. The prize is justice and freedom. Communities should be improved upon, police terrorism must cease, and unjust laws must end. There are double standards here too. Many of the same police officers who slander the protesters never express grief over the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Aiyana Jones, and others. The same officers who turned their backs to Mayor De Blasio (which is an action by these cops meriting reprimand) lecture us on professionalism and decorum. So, we should defend the dignity of all innocent human life, but we will not stay silent. We will not stay silent in a society filled with economic inequality and racism. We will never stay silent in the midst of vicious slander against our black people. We will fight as our ancestors did. Our ancestors were heroes. It is the Creator and the Holy Spirit along with the ancestors that give us that strength today. That strength is not for show. That strength was shown when our ancestors ended the Maafa, caused the Haitian Revolution to be a success, and ended the Confederacy forever. When we have true unity, and true solidarity as one people, then we will be free indeed. We won’t stop until justice comes down like thunder. People have the right to protest and speak their minds. The movement for real social change should never be silenced. We deserve justice. There are Afro-Brazilians fighting for justice. Many Afro-Latinos are in anti-racist organizations demanding justice for black people in many countries. African Americans have every right to be in solidarity with all people of black African descent. That grows power and it is so beautiful to learn about the black Diaspora.


Certainly, there has to be a change. Hip hop, for a number of years, have been infiltrated by corporate multinational corporations who could care less about the art or about any hip hop artist (regardless of their background) in general. They care about financial profits and cultural exploitation. There is not going to be a solution unless we address the origin of the problem and the problem that exists today. To be real, we have to address misogyny, the corporate exploitation of the art form of hip hop, and establish solutions. Azalea Banks has expressed a lot of emotion and pain in her recent interview. We (as black people) know where that pain comes from. It comes from our struggle and it comes from how we, as black people, have not been totally respected as human beings in mainstream Western society. At the end of the day, we should not care if the powers that be like us or not. We should care about helping black people and helping others in a positive direction. Iggy Azalea has to realize that she has white privilege and we don’t live in some post-racial society. Iggy's stereotypical portrayals of black women in videos are highly disturbing and TI supports her doing these things. Q-Tip (who is not perfect and I make no excuses for his errors) expressed great points on this issue. There are tons of black artists with much greater talent than Iggy (like Jean Grae, etc.), but they don’t have that shine. Progressive hip hop voices have been greatly suppressed. If we want to get things done, then we have to defend and stand up for our black culture. We have to grow our institutions and we have to show that just because we love our blackness doesn’t mean that we hate other people in a vicious fashion. We just love our blackness.

Bill O’Reilly is a disgraceful person. He called a person a racist slur on television. He said offensive remarks about black people for years. The truth is that the black teenage pregnancy rates have declined massively since 1992. For him to talk like that to Dr. Martin Luther King III truly shows his character. I will never support FOX News. I will never support reactionary Republicans at all. Bill O’Reilly ignores the issues about police terrorism, about the evils of imperialism, about the necessity of economic justice, and about how the War on Drugs has been destructive and it has not worked. He or Bill readily ignores real issues since addressing real issues will refute his arguments. People have every right to wear “I Can’t Breathe” T-Shirts. Structures of society must be changed and justice should exist for black people. He also cursed out and threatened to assault Jeremy Glick, because Glick wanted a more peaceful, progressive foreign policy (and he opposed the Afghan and Iraq wars). Glick told his story of that interview. He or Bill tries to act like a bully, but he lacks logic. When someone disagrees with him, he goes off the deep end and raises his voice unnecessarily. He tries to lecture the black community, but he refuses to talk about the minimum wage, police terrorism, the viciousness of the War on Drugs, mass incarceration, and other important issues. He is a reactionary extremist. We are fighting against the agenda of the corporate capitalist elite (or the 1%). We don't want fascistic police terror. We see the crisis of global capitalism and we want a real, revolutionary change in the world.

In the final analysis, we have to be free. Freedom involves the freedom of religion and the freedom of conscience. So, people have the right to believe in spirituality or not. Yet, we have to show accurate information. Many people use distorted information as a means to advance an agenda (of trying to end all forms of spirituality in a vicious fashion or they try to form an authoritarian, theocratic state basically. I reject these aims, because I believe in freedom and liberation). So, we have to get to the facts and allow human beings to be respected of their human dignity. There is the story about Constantine and the Council of Nicea too. Constantine was a Roman Emperor who used his political connections to support the Council of Nicea. The Council of Nicea did not invent the modern biblical canon. There are over a dozen of canons of the Bible. Constantine did not form the Biblical canon at Nicea. Nicea never really dealt with the canon of the Bible. Other regional council touched on the canon of Scripture like the Council of Hippo in 393 and the Council of Carthage 397 A.D. Many historical scripts have been created long after 1 A.D. The book called the history of Joseph the Carpenter was not written until the 6th or 7th centuries. The Gospel of Barnabas was composed in Italian during the 14th century. The Gospel of the Essenes (or Essene Gospel of Peace) was a 20th century hoax by Bordeaux Szekely. The Avodah Zarah is a tractate in the Talmud. It dates to the third century AD. That’s too late for consideration in the New Testament canon. The Hebrew word of Solomon has nothing to do with 3 names for the sun either. The late 33rd Degree Freemason Manly P. Hall has promoted this claim as well. Here is the truth. The word is used in the Bible and would have been used by Hebrew speaker as Shlomoh (שְׁלֹמֹה). The name Shlomoh derives from the same Hebrew root as Shalom and means “peace.” It has nothing to do with the sun, nor does it in anyway correspond with the Hebrew word for sun. Additionally, the old esoteric doctrine that Sol-Om-On comprises three different words for sun can’t be true since no possible division of the original Shlomoh will even yield three individual syllables possessing vowels. So, people have the right to agree or disagree with spirituality, but it is wrong to use falsehoods in discussing about spirituality. That is the point.


The courage of past civil rights heroes is admirable. They risked their own lives, their resources, etc. as a means for them to fight for human rights. Today, we live in the midst of a new movement, which is part of the same black liberation struggle. This movement is made up of heavily the youth, the poor and the working class. Nonviolent action has worked to cause social change. The nonviolent Birmingham Bus Boycott worked and other nonviolent actions have worked in history. Also, there is nothing wrong with self-defense either. I believe in self-defense. I do respect any conscious person who is nonviolent for sincere reasons and walk their talk though. Today, many people are protesting nonviolently. Also, people are educating people on laws, so unjust laws can end. Many activists are working in their own communities to combat poverty, racism, discrimination, and economic exploitation. We certainly need a revolution of values and revolutionary change where the social order is changed for the better. Reform is not enough. We need a true, concrete revolution. A society must be people-oriented and not thing oriented. We should use the movements of Selma and Ferguson as a way for us to keep on going. A cooperative society is possible, but we have to fight for it. We have to fight against record economic inequality and build in our communities. We have to be politically empowered in an independent fashion if we want to be truly free. The truth about Assata Shakur is that there has been no gun fingerprints on Assata Shakur's hands or on her body. She had no gun residue on her hands. She was a victim of being shot by the police. One officer recanted his story and said that he did not see Assata Shakur shoot him. Therefore, the slander against this brave Sister falls apart. Therefore, she should be pardoned. Her wisdom is amazing and the FBI, the CIA (whose asset Luis Posada Carriles killed over 70 people, yet he is not in prison), etc. committed murder, civil liberty violations, torture, illegal spying, and other crimes for decades.


By Timothy