Savant's Words in early December of 2014

An AA colleague who teaches History mentions his students being so incensed not only with the killing of Mike Brown and his exoneration, but the recent killing of a 12 year old, were saying "How long are we supposed to put up with this?" One Black coed said (according to my colleague): "We need to bring back the Black Panthers!" My mother (now in her 80s), who lost a brother to lynchers in North Carolina, said "If this keeps up it's going be like it was when I was growing up. Why don't our MEN do something? Some of them have even been in the army!" There is a wave of protest against fascistic police violence by Blacks and some of our allies. It is happening all over the country, and it is mainly NONVIOLENT (no matter how much media attention to rioting in Ferguson may suggest otherwise). There was a teach-in here in Bmore which drew large numbers of Blacks, and also white and other non-Black allies. It was wholly peaceful. There were protests by university students and church and civic groups here in Bmore. I hear that one of them which I missed was addressed by Marshall Eddy Conway, former head of the Black Panther Party in Baltimore. Again, all of this has been NONVIOLENT. But if this pattern of police slayings of my people followed by judicial exoneration CONTINUES, the resistance will not remain nonviolent. Bring back the Black Panthers? Of course, that can't happen. And young sister who said that, and who hadn't even been born when the Panthers were around, is probably given to an image of the Panthers as gun toting brothers and sisters who didn't take no shid off "the man" or the "pigs." What her sentiments suggest is the belief that the only language the racist pig cops and their superior understand is the language of force and violence. While the Black Panthers--who were really a political organization, not a guerilla army---won't be coming back, we may see the re-emergence of a kind of insurgent or even revolutionary consciousness among contemporary Black youth. And it is possible that organized, ARMED resistance to police terror may develop. One AA colleague at Johns Hopkins University has suggested on more than one occasion that we need some kind of clandestine military force to counter the fascist cops. And I have also heard young black people less than 24 years old talking about bringing back the Panthers or creating some thing like them. Some have even suggested something like a underground military force. These ideas, when expressed, do not seem to get strong negative reaction. Even people opposed to such ideas are not shocked by those ideas as they are indignant about unpunished police violence against our people. So, the resistance is still mainly NONVIOLENT, whether in the form of protests and civil disobedience, or forms of litigation. I wholeheartedly support this nonviolent movement, especially in the form of civil disobedience and protest. But let no one assume that our patience is infinite. We want justice, not bloodshed. But don't push us too far. -Savant



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 A colleague at my university is also Ibo. I've been thinking about doing a DNA TESTmyself. At times I do wonder about which African ethnic group my family line descended from. Sometimes an AA person might be descended from more than one group. What if my dad had Ashanti ancestry and my mom Ibo or Yoruba ancestry? It would be interesting to know. -Savant

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 I understand that Kwame Nkrumah envisioned and advocated a United States of Africa. Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael) I have actually heard advocate such. I'm not sure how likely that can be done in the near future. And there would be the issue, if it were achieved, of how to keep a continental government accountable. I'm wondering whether some kind of federation is what would be needed.

 -Savant

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 Yes, our white allies are growing, especially among the "milennials ". I think that over time a sizeable fraction, maybe even a small majority of white America, can be won to progressive causes. One interesting thing brought to my attention during an interview with Ferguson activists interviewed by Marc Steiner here in Bmore: Not only were some whites joining our people. But you had Jews and Palestinians drawn into this as well. One young white girl who was with a group from Ferguson said: "This movement is drawing together people who often do not even talk to each other.." When asked how her participation was received in the Black community, she said that it was a warm and friendly reception she got. And some of the older Blacks (and some whites) were saying that it reminded them of the Civil Rights era in unifying people. -Savant

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 Most violent crimes against whites are committed by other whites even if we don't hear much about "white on white crime." Whites are punished for killing whites. In fact, there seems to be evidence that whatever race to which you belong, you run a much greater risk of the death penalty if you kill a white than if you kill a black. I seem to recall reading about one white guy who was on death row for killing another white, and trying to appeal on the grounds that the decision was racist! LOL! He argued something like "Hey, if I'd killed a black I wouldn't have gotten the death penalty. It ain't fair!" LOL! (7 hrs ago | post #13)

-Savant

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We are only as great as the LEAST among us" said Vernon Johns, pastor who preceded Dr. King in Montgomery, Al. Men and women of such a mindset are more fit to lead a movement or a community.

 -Savant

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 American plutocracy which REALLY dictates is at least 99% white; and while it includes some Jewish members it's not a Jewish club, but a corporate capitalist club. Most American Jews belong to the middle classes, not the classes that rule. And those Jews who do belong to the classes that rule are not particularly better or worse than others. Banksters are banksters, be they Jew or Gentile. One is as despicable as the other. And that includes the occasional newly arrive Black and Latin ones as well, however few their numbers.

 -Savant

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 By the way, in what area do you have your Ph.D.? Mine is in Philosophy. I also like that sister's post. I grew up in East Baltimore, and rarely got to meet Africans in that inner city community. However, I was fortunate in being able to go to university. And I did meet many brothers and sisters from various parts of African, and befriend quite a few of them. As fellow students in philosophy I met one brother from Nigeria and another from Ethiopia. I met brothers and sisters from Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa while in grad school. I became involved in the anti-apartheid movement here in the USA, and worked in building support for the liberation of South Africa. Consequently, I met a good number of South Africans--some fellow students=--and just folk who were living in the community. In fact, I met a lovely South African girl in the context of building the anti-apartheid movement with whom I became romantically involved for some time. (She eventually returned home, however). In France, where I traveled after during and after grad school, I tended to hang with Africans from Guinea, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Mali and other places. I recall a very lovely, statuesque Bambara woman to whom I was attracted. (Nothing happened, however). There I found in the Francophone African community considerable curiosity regarding the attitude of Black Americans toward the fight against the white supremacist regime in SA. (I think I inherited much of my Pan-Africanist sentiments from my mother who used to keep with the progress of events in Africa even while focusing on the Movement that was happening during the 1960s here. I first learned about the evils of colonialism, especially in Belgian Congo, and the fate of Lumumba from my mother---a women who came up from the Jim Crow south without even a high school education. I have never had or felt the animosity that some African-Americans and Africans feel for each other. At times it strikes me as a form of madness. -Savant

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 http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TVG7O4BOHC6387O60#c1