Alicia Keys and an A-list roster of celebrities including Beyoncé, Rihanna, Adam Levine, Jennifer Hudson, Queen Latifah, Pink, Chris Rock, Bono, and others, are demanding change and explain why it's time to take action to heal the long history of systemic racism in America.
In January, we mentioned how black entertainers need to pool their talent and resources. Taking a stand against oppression and injustice with the video, "23 Ways You Could Be Killed If You Are Black in America", is a great first step.
This year’s “ESPY Awards” which aired on ABC yesterday, opened with NBA stars Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James delivering a message regarding last week’s death of two African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement, and the Dallas attack on police officers that left five dead and several others injured.
ESPY Award (short for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award) is presented to recognize individual and team athletic achievement and other sports-related performance during the previous calendar year.
Muhammad Ali was honored during the Espy's.
On July 13th, during the ESPY awards gave a tribute to Muhammad Ali the boxing great an humanitarian who passed away on June 3rd of this year. Ali's tribute was a hightlight of the In Memoriam portion of the show. Basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spoke about his friend and said that Ali had the ability to make the impossible seem real and he also said, "Every athlete handles fame in their own way. Some people revel in it. Some people aren't so comfortable with it. Muhammad Ali used it to speak his mind." Kareem said that he hopes that other atheletes will take notice of the legend and remember what it is that made him "The Greatest". Chance gave a musical tribute after Kareem's statement.
Kareem Abjul-Jabbar and Chance The Rapper Honor Muhammad Ali at 2016 ESPY Awards
I am certain the attention and reflection of Muhammad Ali's life after his death has inspired many atheletes and entertainers to take a stand and speak out about injustice motivated by the Greatest's extrodinary example. See, "Muhammad Ali's Memorial Service – Tributes of Greatness".
The prosecutor is the most powerful figure in the American criminal justice system. This is particularly so because, as the Supreme Court has recognized, the criminal justice system in the United States today “is, for the most part, a system of pleas, not a system of trials.” In the state courts where over ninety percent of criminal cases are prosecuted, ninety-four percent of the convictions are the result of guilty pleas, and ninety-seven percent of federal convictions are the result of guilty pleas. In this system of pleas, prosecutors have enormous advantages and often dictate not only the crimes defendants are convicted of, but the sentences that are imposed.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch addressed the National Black Prosecutors Association who are in St. Louis participating in a weeklong convention about the criminal justice system. Melba Pearson, the group's president, said the organization’s annual conference is being held in St. Louis because of the heightened focus on policing in light of the fatal 2014 shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer.
The City of St. Louis is a majority black city. However, the police and prosecutor, two institutions that have the most devastating effect on the lives of black folk are headed by white men. As I read the Post article, I couldn't help but consider the irony that McCulloch, the poster child of prosecutorial misconduct, was explaining to a group of Black prosecutors the “lousy job” that prosecutors do. Sadly, McCulloch on several occasions has appeared bias towards police and racist in some of his actions.
Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson (Center) has sought to use prosecutorial discretion to fight racial gaps in justice.
St. Louis is roughly 48% black and 47% white according to the most recent census data, but the prosecutors of both the circuit and municipal court levels are white. In the State of Missouri, county prosecutors are 99% white. There is only one black elected county prosecutor in the entire state; Shane Farrow in Moniteau County Missouri. Unfortunately, Mr. Farrow is being prosecuted himself for an accident that occurred, ironically in Columbia, MO, which recently gain national attention for racial discrimination.
Recent incidents in Ferguson, New York, Baltimore, Columbia and most recently Baton Rouge & Minnesota demonstrate the racial bias and divide that exist within our society. White police officers are quicker to stop and arrest black people and white prosecutors are quicker to bring charges against black suspects, especially when the evidence may not be compelling. The said reality is that many low-income defendants, even those that are innocent, may plead guilty to avoid the possibility of longer sentences. See the Kansas City Star article, "Study finds that Missouri and Kansas prosecutors are overwhelmingly white".
The primary election for St. Louis City Prosecutor is on August 2, 2016. It is my hope that a strong black candidate whose sole motivation is not to punish, but to rehabilitate, will be elected. However, as Phillip Agnew with Dream Defenders mentioned;
"It's not just a matter of having a representative that's on the city counsel, or in the mayor's office or on the police force that looks like you; they've gotta come from the community, know the issues of the community and then it's folks in the community that remind them everyday that we pay your bills and watching every single day to ensure that the platform on which we elected you with is followed and also defend you when those people who seek to calibrate the system and right the system as it's been built, seek to come at you for that office."
Unfortunately, I don't know any of the candidates well enough to make a recommendation. The Ethical Society of Police, a minority organization of about 215 St. Louis city officers who are almost all black, voted at their February 25 meeting to endorse Patrick Hamacher, a white candidate, in the race for St. Louis circuit attorney. I was surprised that they had not endorsed Steve Harmon, a former police officer and the son of former Police Chief Clarence Harmon. See the Atlantic article, "Most States Elect No Black Prosecutors".
I don't know much about Mr. Hamacher and he might be a great candidate. However, he and the other white candidate, Mary Pat Carl, currently work as prosecutors under Jennifer Joyce. In fact, Ms. Carl was endorsed by Joyce.
The St. Louis Prosecutor's office appears to be a corrupt system. In corrupt systems, decent people end up with three options: get out, conform or be crushed. There are always good, moral people who look at what's happening around them and decide that they can't live with themselves if they go along with it. However, such people are almost always bullied, marginalized and destroyed. In bad systems, the decent person is the freak, the oddball, the awkward crank who is not a team player, not one of us. Both Hamacher and Carl were promoted while working for Joyce and seemed to have flourished, which by default means they conformed. I understand that most people do, but it doesn't earn my vote.
Regardless of who you support, if you're registered, you need to vote! If you're not registered to vote, you need to get registered, however, it's too late for the August 2nd primary. If you don't vote, don't complain, you got exactly what you're efforts earned.
Johnetta Elzie, a St. Louis native who emerged as a Black Lives Matter leader during the Ferguson protests has proposed that the Dallas police ambush was a conspiracy designed to make the Black Lives Matter movement look bad.
On Friday, July 8th, Ms. Elzie made the following tweets:
"From my experience, whenever public opinion shifts to strongly support the movement an act of violence against the police happens." … "It happened in Ferguson last year, and like many Ferguson protesters have pointed out today, a random black person becomes the shooter." … "I will not let go of the fact that i know cointelpro exist."
Ms. Elzie's suspicions are not without precedent. During President Kennedy's administration the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed a false flag operation, where many innocent civilians would be killed and blamed on Cuba to justify going to war with them. The term false flag describes covert operations that are designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by entities, groups, or nations other than those who actually planned and executed them.
President Kennedy rejected the Joint Chiefs false flag plan, but the fact that the plan was submitted suggest that similiar plans had been executed in the past or might later be approved. Any chess player knows that you willingly sacrafice pawns to win the game or protect the king. Were Dallas police officers pawns in a high stakes chess game?
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred in 1964 whereby the CIA conducted operations reported by the NSA as North Vietnamese aggression towards the United States. The incident was used as a pretext for the United States to escalate Vietnam War efforts. During the operations on August 2nd, 1964 USS Maddox provoked the North Vietnamese by entering restricted waters. Then, on August 4th, 1964, it was reported that North Vietnam attacked two US ships, USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy. The claim that the ships were attacked was later discovered to be false and in 2005 declassified documents revealed that both the CIA and NSA were involved in the manufacture of the incidents that led to US air strikes on August 7th, 1964.
If Ms. Elzie's theory is correct it may take decades for any information to become public and the world may never know the truth. Her suspicions will most likely go down in the annals of crazy conspiracy theory, but it might be wise to see if the pattern continues.
Also consider the fact that there has been a serious propaganda campaign to smear Muslims. After Muhammad Ali died, tribute was paid to the world's most famous Muslim. Ali's memorial service, which had shown the Muslim faith in a very positive light, was attended by heads of state and celebrities. In less than two days after Ali's funeral, in Orlando, a random Muslim man committed the worst single person mass shooting in U.S. history; just food for thought.
Twelve police officers were shot, five are dead and two civilians were also injured in an ambush during a peaceful protest of recent lynchings by police. Our condolences go out to all the victims and their families.
Hundreds of people of all races were marching down Lamar St. between Commerce and Main, mere blocks from Dealey Plaza where President Kennedy was assassinated, when gunfire erupted around 9 p.m. last night from the top floor of a parking garage.
The ambush was a cowardly act and the wrong type of response to recent lynchings by police of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
One suspect was killed and police have several suspects in custody. Dallas Police Chief, David Brown, said the following about the dead suspect; “he was upset about Black Lives Matter, he said he was upset about the recent police shootings. The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers. The suspect stated he was not affiliated with any groups, and he stated that he did it alone.
Dallas Police Chief David Brown was absolutely correct, police do need and should expect our support, however, support should not only run in one direction. When police officers murder innocent people or even suspects, other officers need to stop protecting them. When good police remain silent about the deeds of bad cops or when those deeds are covered up, they increase the likelihood that this type of response will eventually take place by someone mentally ill and angry.
Innocent man originally identified as a suspect
Mark Hughes, the brother of the Dallas protest organizer, was exercising his second amendment right to open carry, similar to Oath Keepers during the Ferguson Protests. Hughes was named in the media as a suspect because he was seen earlier with an AR15 rifle strapped over his shoulder. The police do not want us to jump to conclusions because of videos, but they jumped to conclusions and placed a man's life in jeopardy, simply for exercising his constitutional right to bear arms.
I don't believe assault weapons should be authorized for civilians, but the open carry law should apply equally to everyone. Original gun restrictions and the first modern gun laws were intended to keep guns out of the hands of black people. See video on our "Armed and Black" post.
Mark Hughes speaks to the media after the Dallas Police Department erroneously announced him as a suspect involved in the fatal shooting of several officers during a protest on Thursday.
Double standards must stop
The video above demonstrates the type of double standard that must change in this country. During the Ferguson Protests, none of the multiple white guys carrying assault rifles who called themselves the Oath Keepers were ever named as suspects when shootings occurred during those protests.
A person identified as Changa, an organizer with the Dallas Action Coalition told a reporter from The Daily Beast; “If you don’t give the people justice after a certain amount of time they get hopeless and seek other means of justice.” In his 20 years of activism, Changa said, he could not get any response from the local Dallas community. “So it’s sad, but it’s ironic.”
Changa's expression is similar to those expressed by Frederick Douglass 130 years ago; “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe”
The shooting in Dallas is the result of a disease that if left untreated will most likely be repeated. The symptoms of racism, poverty, oppression, and injustice when combined results in anger, hopelessness, mental illness and retaliation. We have seen these symptoms take the lives of black men and women in urban areas all across America for years. Some young black men, especially those who believe they have nothing to lose, are starting to focus their anger on targets other than themselves.
Trevor Noah from the Daily Show give a great critique of the double standard in this country during a discussion about the fatal shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
The video footage of the Dallas shooting is equally clear, however, I don't expect anyone would dare suggest that we should use restraint before reaching to conclusions. Five police officers were murder, end of conclusion! Two black men were lynched by police, end of conclusion!
If video exists of a suspect shooting one of those officers, no one would suggest sending that suspect home with pay until an investigation is finished a year later. No, I expect that suspect to be immediately arrested if possible. It would be an insult to those officers who gave their lives in the line of duty to suggest anything less. However, when a police officer clearly committed murder on video and is sent to the comfort of his home and taxpayers are forced to continue providing the murderer with a paycheck, that is an insult as well. The ultimate insult occurs when no charges are brought against the officer.
While we pray for the families of the twelve officers injured and killed, let's not forget the twelve victims name above and all the others who were killed by police "for no apparent reason". That's why these protests all over the country are taking place because police for all intents and purposes are above the law. There is no equal treatment under the law as long as police officers can abuse, humiliate and murder innocent people with impunity and suffer no consequences.
Black police officers
A black female Cleveland Police officer, Nakia Jones, recently acknowledge that fact in a stirring and moving video she made in response to the Alton Sterling lynching.
Officer Jones isn't the only Black police officer complaining about racism in the ranks. Below is a video of three Black St. Louis Police Officers discussing their negative experiences with white officers.
Ironically, just yesterday, the St. Louis Black Police Union called for the resignation of Sam Dotson, the current police chief, because of racism, discrimination, cronyism and even crime within the department.
The media's attention will certainly be focused on Dallas and rightfully so. The police chief, mayors, governors and other public officials and leaders will argue it's time to stop protesting and fully support the police. That would be a false narrative.
I am pro-police, but I am anti-brutality. I don't want to live in an area where I can't call and rely on help from the police. But that's the whole point! I shouldn't fear encounters with police, especially during times when I need them the most; but that is the reality. To stop protesting obvious injustice with certain police encounters would be a monumental mistake and would only embolden and invite continued brutality and murders by rogue officers.
Potential dangers of rogue police
When police lose respect for the people in a community or when a community fears its police force, there's a sort of unspoken invitation for corruption. Police are public servants and as Officer Jones so eloquently stated, they take a vow to protect and serve.
Years ago, I heard rumors that the white police chief, who has long since retired, was the head of a local drug cartel. I originally dismissed those claims as an urban legend, and I am not now saying those rumors are true, but over time I seriously began to wonder if they were true. A close family friend called to report what she suspected was drug activity on her block. There was no action taken against the suspected drug house, but housing inspectors showed up to her house the next day resulting in citations costing thousands of dollars and had to mortgage her home to make the repairs.
A relative, who had gone to jail on drug charges and has since passed away, upon mention of calling the police, stated how the then police chief controls drug activity in St. Louis. He said police officers harass, arrest, shakedown and even kill drug dealers competing with drug dealers who are a part of the police network. I know of people making anonymous calls to police to report drug activity who were later retaliate against by the same drug dealers. After hearing about these sort of incidents and others over the years it became increasing difficult to not consider the possibility that the rumors might be true.
Regardless, it's time to take back control of our communities, public officials and require them to serve us properly or get out of the way so we can find others who will. One of the major issues with St. Louis City Police Officers is that they are not required to live in the city in which they serve. That doesn't make any sense to me. Every other city employee is required to live in the City of St. Louis within 120 days of employment. Most city employees are required to maintain residency to keep their jobs, but police officers are allowed to move after seven years, as we stated, police are above the law.
As Jessie Williams recently stated, "The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That’s not our job, all right, stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down."
Another black man, Philando Castile was lynched yesterday. The lynching happened late Wednesday during a traffic stop after being pulled over for a "busted tail light" in the St. Paul suburb of Falcon Heights. Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who was in the car when Castile was shot, live streamed video after the shooting.
According to his girlfriend, Mr. Castile notified the police officer that shot him, that he was licensed to conceal and carry and that he had a firearm on him. The officer asked for his license and registration. He explained that he was about to reach for his wallet to comply and that's when the officer fired.
I was just finishing making boycott comments concerning Alton Sterling when I learned about this incident involving Philando Castile. As a community, we have to do more than just march. We must respond differently to make this stop. We need to withhold our support as consumers from companies that are no speaking up on our behalf and use our dollars as weapons.
These police killings are senseless, I cried like a baby after watching these videos. I don't want to hear any more about how the police fear black men, how a particular officer feared for his life or how I don't understand the stress police officers go through. If certain cops are that fearful or the job is that stressful, those officers how can't handle the pressure need to seek other careers. I couldn't help but think, my god, this could have so easily have been one of my children.
During a news conference Thursday morning, Diamond Reynolds accused the St. Anthony, Minnesota police of murdering her boyfriend, Philando Castile, right before her eyes. "They took his life for no reason," …. "He took his last breath in front of us."
Reynolds accused the St. Anthony police of racism and poor treatment of her and her young daughter, who was also in the car at the time of the shooting. "They took me to jail. They didn't feed us. They didn't give us water," she said. "They put me in a room and separated me from my child. They treated me like a prisoner."
She wants the police officer who shot her boyfriend arrested and charged with murder. "He should not be home with his family. He should be in jail in handcuffs." … "He didn't do anything; he did exactly as the police asked," … "I want justice."
During a televised CNN interview, Philando Castile's mom stated, 'We are being hunted'
After I posted about boycotting the beverage industry, the question was posed; "What does Coca-Cola or Seven-Up have to do with police killings". Nothing and everything.
Pepsi was one of the companies that spoke out in opposition to a North Carolina law that would have restricted a person to using the bathroom designated for the sex they were born, rather than the sex they identified with. I was shocked at the corporate response to such a relatively new issue.
Since the 1600s, there has been a long history of police brutality and police have abused and suppressed the rights of black people. In the 1960s, Malcolm X addressed police brutality conditions that still exist today and the Black Panther Party was created in response to police brutality. Two days ago, Alton Sterling became one of the latest victims of police brutality that was captured on video. How many more incidents of brutality exists for each one captured by video?
Over my 50-year life span, I have probably spent tens of thousands of dollars on beverages purchased from grocery stores, restaurants, vending machines, amusement parks, and other venues. If Pepsi felt the need to speak up about bathroom rights, shouldn't it also feel the need to speak up when people are being murdered! What's more important, the right to use a particular bathroom or the right to live?
"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." – Martin Luther King, Jr.
I thought about simply boycotting just Pepsi, but then I'd be giving Coca-Cola and all the other beverage companies a pass. Collectively, black people spend billions each year on beverages. I can't ever remember any company speaking out for us the way several corporations spoke out for bathroom rights. I'm not hating on the LGBT community, but I do demand that Pepsi and other companies pay us the same respect and speak up for us as well.
I don't expect a mass movement to happen because of my post, but consider if just one percent (1%) of black people in the country gave up soft drinks. There are about 46 million black people in the U.S., one percent equals 460,000 people. Let us assume on average each of those people spends five dollars per week on soft drinks; that's $2,300,000 dollars per week, $9,959,000 per month or $119,508,000 per year. Now imagine two, five or even ten percent of African American boycotting soft drinks; do you imagine they might take a stand against police brutality?
History favors disruption
"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue." – MLK, Letter from Birmingham Jail
Historically, the only effective protests have been disruptive or violent. There are not many examples of successful peaceful revolutions. For example, the Occupy Wall Street Movement gain national attention and support, but what did it ultimately accomplish? Nothing. The Occupiers were so peaceful, they didn't even block the entrance to banks or the streets leading to them. Had the Occupy Wall Street leaders simply suggested opening credit union accounts instead of using the major banks, that would have caused disruption on Wall Street and some changes might have occurred.
During the Montgomery bus boycott; the City of Montgomery, AL didn't integrate buses because they suddenly felt guilty about Rosa Parks' arrest, the revenue of downtown merchants and the bus company were negatively impacted (disrupted) and that led to a change in policy.
The peaceful civil rights demonstrations of the 1960's gained attention, but it took violence; four little girls killed in church and scenes of dogs and water hoses used against women and children in Birmingham, AL, the murders of three civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner, beatings on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL, beatings and killings of countless others before public sentiment rose high enough to pass the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.
In 1963, Jefferson Bank operations were disrupted by protesters for about a month. Jefferson bank had previously been located in an African-American neighborhood but moved south. After the move, the two black tellers that had previously worked there were gone. By the end of the protest, Jefferson Bank had hired at least six black employees.
In 1964, Percy Green and Richard Daly climbed the construction rigging of the Arch and stayed there for five hours halting construction. The Arch protest prodded officials of the National Park Service into pressuring construction companies to hire more African-American workers and contractors for the Arch project.
In 1999, protesters in St. Louis shut down highway 70 in both directions because of a lack of minority contractors and construction workers on the repair of I-70 through North St. Louis. That shutdown and threats of future shutdowns resulted in more training of minority youth for construction trade jobs and more contracts to minority contractors.
The Ferguson protest resulted in rapid change because of the high policing and property damage cost and the threat of protests in other areas such as Clayton, MO. Even though the peaceful marchers gained national and international attention, it took burned buildings and the threat of continued disruptions for meaningful changes to occur in St. Louis area courts and policing.
The peaceful Mizzou protest might have been ineffective if the football team hadn't threatened to boycott a game which would have inflicted serious economic harm.
The obvious initial response to disruption from those in power or with influence will be negative. No one likes disruption, but disruption is necessary if anything is to ever change.
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." – Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am and admirer of Dr. Martin Luther King who preached and stood for non-violence, but just as nations have diplomats for peaceful resolutions and armies to apply force when neccesary; I believe true freedom will call for both violent and nonviolent methods.
Although, I have no doubt about Dr. King's belief and committment to nonviolence, some speeches he gave as he neared the end of his life indicated that he might have had a change of heart or at least was open minded about different strategies.
MLK – "My Dream Has Turned Into a Nightmare"
Dr. King, "I'm Black and proud"
Also, see Dr. King's statement about Federal Subsidies for White Land Owners on our reparations page.
The root of racism is money!
Slavery didn't occur because of hate, slavery was profitable and fueled the wealth and independence of the United States. Hate was a by-product of the economics of slavery. Even during slavery, it was commonly understood that no one wants to be a slave. But the profits were so great and the institution continued and tried to justify itself by spreading lies that slaves were happy and were better off.
Jim Crow created a new system, very similar to slavery, that was also profitable. In urban areas, racism continues to ensure that whole groups of people are economically depressed ensuring an available workforce to fill what others may consider undesirable jobs. Those same groups are then targeted by predatory institutions such as payday loans and rent to own outlets because it's profitable!
There are some who may try to argue, slavery and Jim Crow was a long time ago, forget it and move on. The legacy of those institutions, crimes, lack of education, poverty, self-hatred, prison systems, and broken homes are still with us today.
"It's foolish to let your oppressor tell you that you should forget about the oppression that they inflicted upon you."
Yesterday, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man was shot and killed as two police officers had him pinned on the ground. The video clearly shows Mr. Sterling was subdued and could not have possibly caused any threat to those officers that justified deadly force.
A week ago, Jessie Williams delivered a remarkable acceptance speech during the BET Awards that emphasized racial injustice, police brutality, and cultural appropriation. During that speech Williams stated:
"police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day. So what’s going to happen is we are going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function and ours."
Restructure your function and stop being a consumer!
A few months ago, Corporations in defense of LGBT rights threatened to boycott the states of North Carolina, Georgia and others. If a corporation can take a stand for people to use the bathroom of their choice, it's time for the companies black folks support to take a similar stand for us in defense of our lives!
According to BlackDemographics.com, in 2015 the US Census Bureau estimated 46,282,080 African Americans in the United States meaning that 14.3% of the total American population of 321.4 Million is Black. This includes those who identify as ‘Black Only’ and as ‘Black in combination with another race’. The ‘Black Only’ category by itself totaled 42.6 million African Americans or 13.3% of the total population.
Black buying power is expected to reach $1.2 trillion this year, and $1.4 trillion by 2020, according to the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth. That is so much combined spending power that it would make Black America the 15th largest economy in the world in terms of Gross Domestic Product, the size of Mexico based on World Bank data.
Unless some of the Industries and major corporations we collectively support such as Pepsi, McDonalds, WalMart and others speak out and use their influence to speak out against the senseless killing of black people by police, I will stop spending my dollars with them. I hope others will join me, however, if you do, you must contact those companies thru their websites and let them know why you won't be purchasing their products; see sample letter below.
You don't need to wait for an organized effort or protest. The only protest that will make a difference is one that negatively affects those with the power of influence or change. Individually, you can decide to stop your support of businesses that remain silent while oppression and injustice are openly committed against us.
Beverage Boycott
Starting today, until they speak out, I will not purchase any beverage purchases including Pepsi, Coke, Arizona, Seven-Up, and others and instead will drink water, which is better for me anyway. Those companies need to pressure the mayors and governors of the cities and states they do business in to bring charges against officers when they clearly have abused their authority.
Next month, I will not make fast food purchases from any national chain such as Burger King, McDonalds, KFC, Churches, Taco Bell, SubWay, ect., until they speak out. I will flip my own burger, fry my own chicken, make my own taco or quesadilla. and make my own sandwich.
The month after that, maybe WalMart. Don't wait until it's your child, relative or friend that becomes the next victim.
Sample Boycott Letter:
I have purchased and enjoyed your product (name the product) for years (or whatever time period applies), however, I will no longer purchase your product until you break your silence about the police brutality and oppression and is negatively affecting the black community, a community that has supported your company for decades.
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." – Desmond Tutu
I will periodically check your website to see if you have made some gesture or statement in support of justice. Please feel free to send me a link to any article or web page that demonstrates your support.
If you don't want my money, simply remain silent and I will spend it elsewhere!
Last July 4, my family and I went to Long Island to celebrate the holiday with a friend and her family. After eating some barbecue, a group of us decided to take a walk along the ocean. The mood on the beach that day was festive. Music from a nearby party pulsed through the haze of sizzling meat. Lovers strolled hand in hand. Giggling children chased each other along the boardwalk.
Most of the foot traffic was heading in one direction, but then two teenage girls came toward us, moving stiffly against the flow, both of them looking nervously to their right. “He’s got a gun,” one of them said in a low voice.
I turned my gaze to follow theirs, and was clasping my 4-year-old daughter’s hand when a young man extended his arm and fired off multiple shots along the busy street running parallel to the boardwalk. Snatching my daughter up into my arms, I joined the throng of screaming revelers running away from the gunfire and toward the water.
The shots stopped as quickly as they had started. The man disappeared between some buildings. Chest heaving, hands shaking, I tried to calm my crying daughter, while my husband, friends and I all looked at one another in breathless disbelief. I turned to check on Hunter, a high school intern from Oregon who was staying with my family for a few weeks, but she was on the phone.
“Someone was just shooting on the beach,” she said, between gulps of air, to the person on the line.
Unable to imagine whom she would be calling at that moment, I asked her, somewhat indignantly, if she couldn’t have waited until we got to safety before calling her mom.
“No,” she said. “I am talking to the police.”
My friends and I locked eyes in stunned silence. Between the four adults, we hold six degrees. Three of us are journalists. And not one of us had thought to call the police. We had not even considered it.
We also are all black. And without realizing it, in that moment, each of us had made a set of calculations, an instantaneous weighing of the pros and cons.
As far as we could tell, no one had been hurt. The shooter was long gone, and we had seen the back of him for only a second or two. On the other hand, calling the police posed considerable risks. It carried the very real possibility of inviting disrespect, even physical harm. We had seen witnesses treated like suspects, and knew how quickly black people calling the police for help could wind up cuffed in the back of a squad car. Some of us knew of black professionals who’d had guns drawn on them for no reason.
This was before Michael Brown. Before police killed John Crawford III for carrying a BB gun in a Wal-Mart or shot down 12-year-old Tamir Rice in a Cleveland park. Before Akai Gurley was killed by an officer while walking in a dark staircase and before Eric Garnerwas choked to death upon suspicion of selling “loosies.” Without yet knowing those names, we all could go down a list of unarmed black people killed by law enforcement.
We feared what could happen if police came rushing into a group of people who, by virtue of our skin color, might be mistaken for suspects.
For those of you reading this who may not be black, or perhaps Latino, this is my chance to tell you that a substantial portion of your fellow citizens in the United States of America have little expectation of being treated fairly by the law or receiving justice. It’s possible this will come as a surprise to you. But to a very real extent, you have grown up in a different country than I have.
As Khalil Gibran Muhammad, author of The Condemnation of Blackness, puts it, “White people, by and large, do not know what it is like to be occupied by a police force. They don’t understand it because it is not the type of policing they experience. Because they are treated like individuals, they believe that if ‘I am not breaking the law, I will never be abused.’”
We are not criminals because we are black. Nor are we somehow the only people in America who don’t want to live in safe neighborhoods. Yet many of us cannot fundamentally trust the people who are charged with keeping us and our communities safe.
As protest and revolt swept across the Missouri suburb of Ferguson and demonstrators staged die-ins and blocked highways and boulevards from Oakland to New York with chants of “Black lives matter,” many white Americans seemed shocked by the gaping divide between law enforcement and the black communities they are supposed to serve. It was no surprise to us. For black Americans, policing is “the most enduring aspect of the struggle for civil rights,” says Muhammad, a historian and director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York. “It has always been the mechanism for racial surveillance and control.”
In the South, police once did the dirty work of enforcing the racial caste system. The Ku Klux Klan and law enforcement were often indistinguishable. Black-and-white photographs of the era memorialize the way Southern police sicced German shepherds on civil rights protesters and peeled the skin off black children with the force of water hoses. Lawmen were also involved or implicated in untold numbers of beatings, killings and disappearances of black Southerners who forgot their place.
In the North, police worked to protect white spaces by containing and controlling the rising black population that had been propelled into the industrial belt during the Great Migration. It was not unusual for Northern police to join white mobs as they attacked black homeowners attempting to move into white neighborhoods, or black workers trying to take jobs reserved for white laborers. And yet they strictly enforced vagrancy laws, catch-alls that gave them wide discretion to stop, question and arrest black citizens at will.
Much has changed since then. Much has not.
Last Fourth of July, in a few short minutes as we adults watched the teenager among us talking to the police, we saw Hunter become a little more like us, her faith a little shaken, her place in the world a little less stable. Hunter, who is biracial and lives with her white mother in a heavily white area, had not been exposed to the policing many black Americans face. She was about to be.
On the phone, she could offer only the most generic of suspect descriptions, which apparently made the officer on the other end of the line suspicious. By way of explanation, Hunter told the officer she was just 16. The police called her back: once, twice, then three times, asking her for more information. The interactions began to feel menacing. “I’m not from here,” Hunter said. “I’ve told you everything I know.”
The fourth time the police called, she looked frightened. Her interrogator asked her, “Are you really trying to be helpful, or were you involved in this?” She turned to us, her voice aquiver. “Are they going to come get me?”
“See,” one of us said, trying to lighten the mood. “That’s why we don’t call them.”
We all laughed, but it was hollow.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, at front; with her friends Carla Murphy, left, and Monifa Bandele; and her husband, Faraji Hannah-Jones, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. (Ben Baker/Redux Pictures)
Nikole Hannah-Jones, at front; with her friends Carla Murphy, left, and Monifa Bandele; and her husband, Faraji Hannah-Jones, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. (Ben Baker/Redux Pictures)
My friend Carla Murphy and I have talked about that day several times since then. We’ve turned it over in our minds and wondered whether, with the benefit of hindsight, we should have called 911.
Carla wasn’t born in the United States. She came here when she was 9, and back in her native Barbados, she didn’t give police much thought. That changed when she moved into heavily black Jamaica, Queens.
Carla said she constantly saw police, often white, stopping and harassing passersby, almost always black. “You see the cops all the time, but they do not speak to you. You see them talking to each other, but the only time you ever see them interact with someone is if they are jacking them up,” she said. “They are making a choice, and it says they don’t care about you, it tells you they are not here for your people or people who look like you.”
Carla herself was arrested at a young age—because she was present when her cousin pushed through a subway turnstile without paying. The teenagers were cuffed, thrown in a paddy wagon, booked and held overnight. At 15, Carla, then a student at The Dalton School, a prestigious private academy in Manhattan, had an arrest record.
That experience, along with many others, informed Carla’s decision on July 4.
“I am a responsible adult, but I really can’t see having a different reaction. Isn’t that weird?” she told me. “By calling the police, you are inviting this big system—that, frankly, doesn’t like you—into your life. Sometimes you call and it is not the help that comes.”
“So, no, I wouldn’t call the police,” she said. “Which is sad, because I want to be a good citizen.”
I moved to the historic Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn in 2011. Before then, I had been living in Portland, Oregon, and when I chose my new home in the gritty big city, it was partly because it was only a block away from a police precinct. That proximity made me feel safer—I figured crime would be less common with so many police nearby. Inadvertently, however, I also picked a prime target area of the city’s stop-and-frisk program—a system of policing that caught so many innocent black and brown men in its dragnet that a federal judge found it unconstitutional in 2013.
My block is fairly typical of Bed-Stuy. My neighbors, until recently, were all black and included everyone from laborers to college professors. Both immaculately kept brownstones and boarded-up townhouses line my street. We have block meetings and a community garden. Police are a constant presence, speeding down the street to the precinct or walking the beat. Sometimes, I escort my daughter to the store underneath police watchtowers with tinted windows that pop up around the neighborhood with no warning, then disappear just as suddenly—their entire existence ambiguous yet alarming. I have witnessed from my window, countless times, police stopping someone, usually a young man, who is walking down the street. These men are often searched and questioned as they go to the bodega or head home from work or school.
A few months ago, a police officer approached my neighbor as he was leaving the bodega and began questioning him. My neighbor is quiet and respectful, but he also is poor and transient. He tends to look disheveled, but the worst thing I’ve seen him do is drink beer on the stoop.
When he asked why he was being stopped, the police grabbed him and threw him to the ground. As someone recorded the incident on a cellphone, police shot my neighbor with a Taser gun and then arrested him.
He was never told why police stopped him. The only thing they charged him with was resisting arrest. But this arrest cost him his job and a fine he will struggle to pay. If he doesn’t pay, a judge will issue a bench warrant, and instead of preventing crime, the police will have created a criminal.
Across the street and a few doors down from me, my neighbor Guthrie Ramsey has his own story. Guthrie was born in Chicago and grew up in a family that did not emphasize the obstacles their children would face. “I was socialized to believe that the police were our friends,” he said.
Yet one night, some years ago, while driving his teenage son to a soccer game, Guthrie was pulled over by police. Within minutes, he and his son were sprawled on the ground, with guns drawn on them. The police believed Guthrie fit the description of a suspect. Guthrie, a short, easy-going guy with a contagious laugh, managed to point the police to his University of Pennsylvania faculty ID. That’s right: He’s an Ivy League professor. And a noted musician.
“It was so frightening. It was humiliating. You get so humiliated that it’s hard to even get to the anger,” he told me. “You just don’t get to experience interactions with the police as a garden-variety circumstance.”
These types of stories in black communities are so ubiquitous as to be unremarkable. If my husband is running very late and I cannot get hold of him, my mind does not immediately go to foul play. I wonder if he’s been detained.
This fear is not unjustified. Young black men today are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by police than young white men. Still, it’s not that black Americans expect to die every time they encounter the police. Police killings are just the worst manifestations of countless slights and indignities that build until there’s an explosion.
Since 1935, nearly every so-called race riot in the United States—and there have been more than 100—has been sparked by a police incident, Muhammad says. This can be an act of brutality, or a senseless killing. But the underlying causes run much deeper. Police, because they interact in black communities every day, are often seen as the face of larger systems of inequality in the justice system, employment, education and housing.
In the months since Ferguson, many pundits have asserted that black Americans deserve this type of policing, that it is a consequence of their being more likely to be both the perpetrators and victims of violent crime. “White police officers wouldn’t be there if you weren’t killing each other,” former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani argued on Meet the Press as the nation awaited the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown shooting. It should be noted that Giuliani oversaw the NYPD during two of the most notorious cases of police brutality in recent memory, the sodomy of Abner Louima and the death ofAmadou Diallo, who was unarmed, in a hail of 41 bullets. Both were black men.
What Giuliani was saying, in essence, is that law-abiding citizens deserve to be treated with suspicion because they share racial traits with the tiny number among them who commit crimes.
Black communities want a good relationship with law enforcement because they want their families and property to be safe. After all, it is true that black communities often face higher rates of crime; in 2013, more than 50 percent of murder victims across the country were black, though only 13 percent of the total population is. But it’s also true that crime reduction efforts by black people in black communities have contributed to the recent, historic drop in crime across the country.
So why are black Americans still so often denied the same kind of smart policing that typically occurs in white communities, where police seem fully capable of discerning between law-abiding citizens and those committing crimes, and between crimes like turnstile-jumping and those that need serious intervention?
“You can be protected and served,” Muhammad says. “It happens every day in communities across America. It happens all the time in white communities where crime is happening.”
During the height of the “Black Lives Matter” protests, a mentally ill man shot and killed two police officers a few blocks from my home. I lay up that night thinking about those two men and their families. No one wants to see people killed. Not by police, not by anyone. The next morning, my husband and I took food and flowers to the grim brick precinct right around the corner from us that the officers were working out of when they were killed.
The officer at the front desk did not greet us when we came in. And he looked genuinely surprised by our offering, his face softening as he told us we didn’t have to do this, but thank you. That people who should be allies somehow felt like adversaries troubled me.
The next day, I drove by the precinct on my way to the store. It had been cordoned off with metal barricades. Two helmeted officers stood sentry out front, gripping big black assault rifles, and watching. The message felt clear.
They weren’t standing out there to protect the neighborhood. They were there to protect themselves from us.
This article republished with permission under license from ProPublica.
"To hold a people in oppression you have to convince them first that they are supposed to be oppressed." … "Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it." – John Henrik Clarke
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave one of the most powerful antislavery speeches of the 19th century, an effort that historian David Blight refers to as “the rhetorical masterpiece of American abolitionism.”[1] Douglass’s speech in Rochester’s Corinthian Hall is rightfully viewed as an important enunciation of black abolitionist thought and black political theory. Indeed, when I have taught the early U.S. history survey or advanced courses on American intellectual history to the Civil War, that is how I have presented the work. I’d like to suggest another reading for the speech, however, namely as one of the first articulations of African American secularism.
Douglass begins his speech by praising the Founding Fathers and the ideas articulated in the Declaration of Independence. He quickly moves to a critique of America’s civil religion, however, noting that “this Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.”[2] After blasting America’s civil religion, Douglass goes on to offer one of the strongest critiques of American Christianity among 19th century black abolitionists.
James Earl Jones reads an excerpt from Douglass' speech below. The full text of Fredrick Douglass' speech, "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" is near the bottom of the page.
Douglass notes first that because American churches support the Fugitive Slave Act, “that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards men.” If ministers throughout the North were to treat the Fugitive Slave Act as a violation of Christian liberty, he argues, there is no way the law would stand. At the same time that the church is indifferent to the sufferings of the slave, he posits, it also “takes sides with the oppressors. It had made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slavehunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines, who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system.” For his part, Douglass thundered that he would “welcome infidelity! Welcome atheism! Welcome anything! In preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines.”[3]
Douglass’s strident anticlericalism articulated in this speech would be a key feature of African American secularism from the mid-19th century to the present. African American secularism can be defined as a commitment to promoting liberty, equality, and economic justice through a focus on reason and human rights rather than the authority of God. This commitment has most often been present among atheists and agnostics, however one’s specific theological orientation is not as important as one’s commitment to fostering the public good by relying on reason and not faith. While Douglass’s religious views, in his words, “pass[ed] over the whole scale and circle of belief and unbelief, from faith in the overruling Providence of God, to the blackest atheism,” for most of his career after the speech on the Fourth of July, he articulated humanistic and secularistic viewpoints when it came to freedom for slaves and equality for blacks.[4] As he notes in his speech before the final meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1870, while many people have thanked God for freeing the slaves, “I like to thank men…I want to express my love to God and gratitude to God, by thanking those faithful men and women, who have devoted the great energies of their soul to the welfare of mankind. It is only through such men and such women that I can get a glimpse of God anywhere.”[5]
[1] David W. Blight, ed. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, with Related Documents 2nd edition (Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003), 146.
[2] Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?,” ibid, 156.
[3] Ibid, 163, 164.
[4] Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series Two: Autobiographical Writings, Volume 2, ed. John W. Blassingame, et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 130.
[5] Quoted in Herbert Aptheker, “An Unpublished Frederick Douglass Letter” in Anthony B. Pinn, ed. By These Hands: A Documentary History of African American Humanism(New York and London: New York University Press, 2001), 79.
Vernon Johns (April 22, 1892 – June 11, 1965) was an American minister at several black churches in the South. He is best known as the pastor 1947-52 of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery Alabama. He was succeeded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Vernon Johns was the civil rights era version of Frederick Douglas because he challenged the status quo and accepted norms of his day. An excerpt from his story is below and Johns is also portrayed by James Earl Jones as was Douglass above.
"The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" – Full Text
Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too-great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory….
…Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."
But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common.ÑThe rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."
Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America.is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery Ñ the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.
But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, "It is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, an denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!
For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!
Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Amercans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.
What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their mastcrs? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.
What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is passed.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival….
…Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from "the Declaration of Independence," the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. — Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other.
The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. 'Ethiopia, shall, stretch. out her hand unto Ood." In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:
God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th' oppress'd shall vilely bend the knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom's reign,
To man his plundered rights again
Restore.
God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end,
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.
God speed the hour, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly power,
Nor in a tyrant's presence cower;
But to all manhood's stature tower,
By equal birth!
That hour will come, to each, to all,
And from his Prison-house, to thrall
Go forth.
Until that year, day, hour, arrive,
With head, and heart, and hand I'll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey deprive —
So witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate'er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.
I am happy to see a new generation of black artists and entertainers finally stepping up and speaking out against injustice and oppression. In the spirit of Muhammad Ali, these entertainers are now using their celebrity status to speak out against police brutality, racism, and other social ills. The latest example was shown at the 2016 BET Awards.
Jessie Williams
The highlight of the evening was the moving Humanitarian Award acceptance speech delivered by Jessie Williams. Williams is a former teacher who plays the role of Dr. Jackson Avery on "Grey's Anatomy and his speech emphasized racial injustice, police brutality, and cultural appropriation. Watch and listen to Williams full acceptance speech below.
Williams is on the board of The Advancement Project, civil rights think tank and advocacy group. Williams participate in Ferguson October in 2014 to protest the killing of Michael Brown. He is also the executive producer of Question Bridge: Black Males, a multifaceted media project, art exhibition, student, and teacher curriculum and website, focused on the black male identity and the diversity within the demographic. He has written articles for CNN and The Huffington Post and has been a guest on Wolf Blitzer's The Situation Room.
Full text of Williams Speech
“This award, this is not for me. This is for the real organizers all over the country. The activists, the civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families, the teachers, the students, that are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do.
All right? It’s kind of basic mathematics:, the more we learn about who we are and how we got here, the more we will mobilize. Now this is also in particular for the black women, in particular, who have spent their lifetimes dedicated to nurturing everyone before themselves. We can and will do better for you.
Now, what we’ve been doing is looking at the data and we know that police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day. So what’s going to happen is we are going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function and ours.
Now — I’ve got more, y’all. Yesterday would’ve been young Tamir Rice’s 14th birthday, so I don’t want to hear any more about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive-by on a 12-year-old playing alone in a park in broad daylight, killing him on television and then going home to make a sandwich. Tell Rekia Boyd how it’s so much better to live in 2012 than 1612 or 1712. Tell that to Eric Garner. Tell that to Sandra Bland. Tell that to Darrien Hunt.
Now the thing is, though, all of us in here getting money, that alone isn’t going to stop this. All right? Now dedicating our lives to get money just to give it right back for someone’s brand on our body, when we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies and now we pray to get paid for brands on our bodies.
There has been no war that we have not fought and died on the front lines of. There has been no job we haven’t done, there’s been no tax they haven’t levied against us, and we’ve paid all of them. But freedom is somehow always conditional here. “You’re free,” they keep telling us. But she would’ve been alive if she hadn’t acted so… “free.”
Now, freedom is always coming in the hereafter. But, you know what, though? The hereafter is a hustle. We want it now. And let’s get a couple of things straight, just a little side note: The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That’s not our job, all right, stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.
We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, yo, and we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind, while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil, black gold. Ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit. The thing is, though, the thing is that just because we’re magic, doesn’t mean we’re not real.”
Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar
Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar gave an outstanding opening performance at the BET Awards that set the tone for the rest of the evening. The video is below.
Many entertainers want to speak out, but some are afraid of the repercussions, that's why your support is important and needed more than ever. As these artists become more vocal about the injustice and oppression in our community, there will be backlash and allegations lodged against them, maybe similar to the media attack of Bill Cosby. In the future, if some of our more vocal entertainers are targeted by negative propaganda, allegations, and comments, use your critical thinking skills before automatically believing allegations simply because they appear in mass media.
When our artists are unfairly targeted, we need to not only support them but we need to stand up against and boycott those companies and institutions involved. My eyes were further opened this spring when companies spoke out and some were threatening to boycott Georgia and North Caroline because of proposed religious freedom laws that would have impacted the LGBT communities. Those companies did the right thing, but that's when I realized they did the wrong thing when they didn't speak up about stop and frisk, police killings of unarmed people and other injustice. In the future when businesses the black community supports doesn't support us back, stop supporting them. You don't need a formal boycott or movement. When a company isn't doing what you think they should do, just stop doing business with that company and send them a note stating why you stopped doing business with them, otherwise, they'll never know.
Ms. Elzie's suspicions are not without precedent. During President Kennedy's administration the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed a 
