Maybe they could take a break from trashing statues, and converge onthe US Penitentiary, Coleman, in central Florida, where they've been holding
Leonard Peltier for over 40 years, on bogus charges used to lock him up,
in furtherance of the US government's covert campaign against the American
Indian Movement (AIM), which had allied itself with the Black Panther Party
(which the state also destroyed). As Anthony Hall points out (below), in
this BLM moment there's been no audible reference to America's founding
genocide of the Indians, or the misery of their descendants to this day.
Protesters could demand an honest public inquiry into Peltier's sentence,
which would result in his release at last.
And, speaking of the BPP, maybe the protesters could stop attacking statues
—not only of Confederate leaders, and frank imperialists like Theodore Roosevelt,
but also of black soldiers who fought for freedom in the Civil War, and of
Ulysses S. Grant, a staunch advocate of Reconstruction—and take a moment
to demand that FBI headquarters no longer be named in honor of J. Edgar
Hoover, whose virulent racism postdates the sins, real or imagined, of all
those 19th-century figures, and who micromanaged the destruction of the
Panthers, persecuted Martin Luther King (then helped frame James Earl Ray),
and who evidently ordered the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.
(Also, protesters in Philadelphia might assemble at the state penitentiary
in Mahonoy, Pa., where Mumia Abu-Jamal has been held prisoner, on bogus
charges, since 1982. Protesters could demand an honest public inquiry into
his sentence, which would result in his release at last.)
And maybe the protesters could take a break from knocking over statues
honoring slave-owners like Francis Scott Key, who flourished 200 years ago,
and assemble at the doorways of the Israeli embassy in Washington, and
Israel's consulates in other cities nationwide, and demand an end to the
atrocious current occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and Israel's
apartheid system overall, since that subjection of the brown lives over
there is no less racist, and far more lethal, than the systemic mistreatment
of black people over here.
I'm tempted to elaborate on several other of the many cogent observations
that Prof. Hall makes in this piece; but I'll desist, and end by urging you to
read it for yourself, to get a firmer grip on the post-COVID pseudo-revolution
raging now, as a slo-mo extermination program* planned for all of us unfolds
right before our eyes.
MCM
* BLM has not protested Bill Gates' lethal vaccine programs throughout Africa
(and Asia), and, likewise, not protested Melinda Gates' suggestion that black
people here should be among the first to get injected with the experimental
COVID-19 vaccine.
Protest, Riot, Loot, and Burn for Black Freedom in America?
June 21, 2020
Our Current Dilemmas Go Much Deeper Than Racism
In Russia Today, Helen Buyniski reflects on corporate responses to the depiction of Black people in brand labeling. Buyniski highlights the comments of B and G Foods as it jumped onto the bandwagon of corporate virtue signaling. The company signaled its intentions to “proactively take steps to ensure that we and our brands do not inadvertently contribute to systemic racism.” The company informs consumers that B and G Foods “unequivocally stand against prejudice and injustice of any kind.”
Two of the brands Buyniski highlights were introduced at the World’s Columbian Exposition that took place in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America in 1492. Whooopeee! The World's Columbian Exposition is exactly the kind of event that merits close consideration in any meaningful re-examination of American history.
Both Cream of Wheat and Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix were introduced at the Columbia Exposition during an era when brands were still a relatively new form of capitalist commodity.
The Columbian Exposition introduced America to a vast array of new products, concepts, celebrities and systems, everything from hamburgers to motion pictures to Harry Houdini and Antonín Dvořák. The US identification with Columbus’s westward expansion of Christendom was calculated to advertise the emerging role of the United States as the self-declared leader of “Western Civilization.”
There was at the Columbian Exposition in 1893 a "Colored Peoples Day" when "negroes" attending the Fair were given a free slice of watermelon. I'm serious. Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show touched down in Chicago at the edge of the Fair. The Buffalo Bill spectacle featured for a time the real Sitting Bull as part of the primal dramatic interaction of cowboys and Indians.
Click on the link for the rest.
