No words can describe the pain of the victims' families. For centuries (including in our time), black people have always talked honesty about race. It is that some people have ignored our voices and some folks have killed many of our heroes for speaking courageously about racial issues. Now, the murderer alone did this. This incident was caused by one murderer. This white savage murderer is a stone cold racist and he is the face of what white racism is all about. What that white murderer did was terrorism. We are under attack. This is a war for our survival as a people and for our community. We have every right to use nonviolence and self-defense to defend our communities. Many people (of every color and of every background) have sincerely expressed prayers and condolences to the victims’ families. We are a compassionate people. People should be allowed to grieve, to reflect, and to be inspired to carry onward in the fight for human liberation. The Pastor and others who were murdered had amazing character, they loved their communities, and they just wanted to express their faith in peace. We want white racism to end totally. We want not only self-determination, but economic (as working people should have economic rights. We reject social Darwinism) plus social justice. I'm certainly tired of black people being scapegoated for all of the problems in this country. Society must change. We are against bigotry and the culture of hate that some embrace. Injustice must be fought. The church has great historical significance in our history as black people. The innocent human beings who died (including those who survived this act) should be remembered and honored. Southern pride is nothing more than a P.C. way of outlining white racist, neo-Confederate extremism. This situation deals with how vicious white racism is and how we as black people should never back down from injustice. White terrorism is a serious problem in the world. This murderer expressed hate and executed pre-mediated murder. If I can type these words then the President can easily say these words. It is bigger than a gun violence issue. It also deals with a certain segment of the populace who just has irrational hatred of our people. There has to be structural change where people are free to experience a strong standard of living. Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded by many people including our hero Denmark Vesey. I hope that the murderer is convicted on as many charges as possible.
RIP to the victims who passed.
As the old cliché goes, the more things change, the more that they stay the same. I will certainly read the entire quote later on during the day. Rod Serling made accurate points about the sanitation of Dr. King's views after he passed away. The police institution has a long, controversial history. We know how many Texas Rangers from the 19th century were racists. We know about how the slave patrols oppressed our black ancestors. Back then, many in the establishment hated Dr. King not just Hoover. When Dr. King started to see what Malcolm X was talking about and when he publicly criticized the Vietnam War (Dr. King called the America government the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today during 1967), then he was hated even more. The NY Times and other media organs criticized Dr. King. Dr. King wanted economic justice with his Poor Peoples Campaign. The FBI, Memphis police, and Military Intelligence monitored him illegally while he was in Memphis in 1968. A lot of forces in America hated him and after he was assassinated, America has promoted a whitewashing of his views and his legacy (which continues to exist presently). We know Malcolm X was a revolutionary and Dr. King was lot more progressive and revolutionary than some consider him as. Many people ignore Dr. Martin Luther King's radical side (like how he said in August 1967 that capitalism was involved in slavery. He publicly condemned the system of white supremacy and he shook hands with Malcolm X in 1964). Martin Luther King Jr. changed before he passed. Black people have expressed great courage. Our people always fought back. Evil people murdered black people for just peacefully protesting and doing basic activities to defend our human rights. We always remember the Sisters who were involved in the struggle too like Ella Baker (she was the Mother of SNCC. Ella Baker was one of the greatest civil rights activists in history), Septima Clark, Gloria Richardson, Fannie Lou Hamer, etc. We want social change categorically. The racists are desperate for us to act docile and malleable to their interests. Yet, we will not turn around. We will fight for our rights as human beings.
This incident is truly evil (of what the girls experienced in Maryland). These girls have done nothing wrong, but they were subjected to racist taunts from vicious, brutish white racists. This story refutes respectability politics once and for all. These little girls were just trying to sincerely care for precious animals. These girls wanted to care for their community and society in general. Later, racists have spewed vile verbal abuse against black children. Enough is Enough. These girls are owed a total apology and they are owed for those racists to experience accountability. Racism is a scourge that must be eliminated. Bless the courageous girls for their strength and their wisdom. It is great for Sister Ava Duvernay to diligently classify herself as a black woman filmmaker. She is absolutely correct to say to people that there is nothing wrong with folks owning up to who they are. She has a bright future. Great people have her back and her talent is not just about filmmaking. Her gifts will inspire future generations of black people who will express themselves in filmmaking, technology, architecture, music, dance, art, and other valuable fields of human endeavors. Being a light is telling your own story and helping neighbors live up to their potentials.
Jeb Bush has officially said that he is running for the Presidency. He’s a Republican. The amount of candidates running for President on the Republican side has increased to 12. He spoke at a rally in Miami. There, he gave a 40 minute speech where he talked about his family, country, and religion. He promised to increase the growth rate of the American economy to four percent a year without many details on how he would do this (except for gutting regulations on U.S. corporations and banks). Jeb Bush is a conservative, so he praised charter schools (which is a form of slick privatization of public schools), and he believed in church run charities and businesses to impose their religious precepts on employees. Jeb Bush’s foreign policy advisors are heavily neo-cons. He has promoted a more aggressive foreign policy and greatly increased military spending. He has not talked about Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other country bombed, invaded, or occupied by his father or his brother during their Presidencies. Jeb Bush declared in his speech that: “…We don’t need another president who merely holds the top spot among the pampered elites of Washington.” That is highly silly, because Jeb Bush is part of the establishment. His father is George H. W. Bush, his brother is George W. Bush, and his grandfather was U.S. Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut). Jeb Bush went into banking, real estate, and Republican politics. He was elected governor of Florida in 1998. His agenda as Governor was reactionary. As Governor, he cut taxes for corporations and the super wealthy. He created the first school voucher program and he backed the bad “stand your ground” gun law, which advanced vigilantism. He played a big role in the 2000 Presidential election theft. His state government first conducted a massive purge of voter rolls, which was mostly aimed at African Americans. Then, he acted to shut down vote-counting in south Florida in order to preserve George W. Bush’s 537-vote lead in the state. These brazenly undemocratic actions set the stage for the Supreme Court’s intervention to install Bush’s brother in the White House. He is financially aided by large financers. Some of the other candidates in the GOP are so extreme, that some view him as a “moderate.” Many Tea Party extremists abhor his views on immigration and on education. The election could be between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. We want freedom not massive unemployment, financial crisis, illegal wars, torture, and other evils. We want liberation.
Today is the 150th anniversary of Juneteenth. This is the official date of the abolition of slavery after the Civil War in 1865. During this time, people celebrate in Texas and across the nation. This is a time of celebration for us black people. Yet, under these circumstances of the tragedy of the Charleston church shooting, this is a time of reflection too. Many things have changed for the better since 1865, but we have a long way to go. We have seen the end of Jim Crow apartheid. Many racists have been jailed and convicted for their crimes. There have been a lot of black people graduating from high school including college. Yet, we have a very long way to go. We see almost half of the 2.3 million American prisoners being Black, and more black men under the supervision of the criminal injustice system than were slaves in 1850. We see crooked cops and vigilante lynch mobs terrorizing our communities. So, we have made revolutionary stands for our liberation and the reactionary counterrevolutionary backlash has fought us back. Our ancestors were a key factor in causing the Confederacy to be defeated. Afterwards, Reconstruction came about which allowed many black people to have unheard of political power during that time period. Later, Jim Crow came about as a way for the oligarchy to harm the human rights of black people. During the 1960’s and the 1970’s, the civil rights and Black Power movements inspired people of many backgrounds to radically democratize the South. These movements consisted of workers, soldiers, the poor, and other oppressed people. Today, we see the growth of the war on drugs and the mass incarceration state instead of the completion of the War on Poverty. Many prisoners--55 percent of federal prisoners, for example--are serving time for low-level nonviolent offenses, including low-level nonviolent drug offenses). We see the American capitalist state allowing the economic disenfranchisement in cities plus towns all across America. Some cops have used extrajudicial murder of black human beings. Therefore, with the Trayvon Martin case, Jena Six, Troy Davis’ death, etc. the Black Lives Matter Movement developed. This is a new movement, but it is a very powerful one. It is fighting against capitalist exploitation and police terrorism. There have been examples of evil conduct of some of the police like some of them firing tear gas in Ferguson (against men, women, and even children), conducting mass arrests in Baltimore, declaring a "wartime" footing in New York City, etc. Recall the police calling protesters "f___ animals" in Ferguson, and a mayor calling them "thugs" in Baltimore. We have to transform society, so classism, discrimination, and injustice are obliterated. Even with a black President, Black America is not free. We want Black America to be free and we have to work in social activism in order to make that a reality. Uhuru.
By Timothy
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