Fighting Nazis
There was this one tweet saying something to the effect of “you ever wish that you were back in the Nazi era trying to fight the Nazis? Well, this is your time.”
No.
No I don’t.
Why would I be interested in fighting Nazis? Why would African-Americans be interested in fighting Nazis?
We’ve fought plantation owners and White supremacists alike for over 3 centuries. Right now, we’re fatigued, in pain (some of which is self-inflicted) and at the mercy of a White majority which is experiencing an angry contraction of the social contract.
I find it unacceptable that we have to be in this fight at all.
Stuntin’ on Some Xenophobes
The Afrocentric Education Crisis
I was looking for Afrocentric education in charter and private schools and found this article:
Exact numbers are hard to come by, but those working within the field say African-centered schools peaked at around 400 in 1999, and have been on the decline ever since. When charter schools first emerged in the 1990s, some private school leaders decided to convert their African-centered institutions into charters, sacrificing their independent status in exchange for the increased financial stability that comes from receiving state and federal dollars.
Today, however, many Afrocentric charter schools are being shut down for poor academic performance and financial mismanagement.“The [charter] rules and regulations get worse and worse every year,” says Thompson, who opened up an Afrocentric charter in 1999—Roots Public Charter School—but didn’t close down her private school, as many others did. “First they lead you on and tell you can just do your thing. But that was a come-on, and every year they’ve got more bureaucratic red tape.”
Source: The Afrocentric Education Crisis
“In the treatment of poverty nationally, one fact stands out: there are twice as many white poor as Negro poor in the United States. Therefore I will not dwell on the experiences of poverty that derive from racial discrimination, but will discuss the poverty that affects white and Negro alike.”
-MLK Jr.
Executive Orders as Shock and Awe
Through his EOs, Trump is using shock and awe to overwhelm the resolve of progressives and liberals.
But saying “don’t get distracted by what he says” isn’t enough. Saying “he’s trying to bring attention to himself” isn’t enough.
Ask yourself: why are his press conferences and media events being covered on live TV? Why are his EO signatures being covered? Why are he and his sycophants being interviewed on live TV?
If Hannah Arendt is right about how authoritarians use big lies and media events to draw attention to themselves and issue “declarations of intent”, why not “starve the beast” of that attention?
Get in the way of the most accessible news media when Trump is sucking up attention. Suck that attention right back in your direction. Hold more press conferences. Hold more media events. Hold more marches. Issue more lawsuits. Compete for that attention. Do it in the places and times which most matter.
Get. In. The. Way.
#DNCforum
America was founded by people who ran away. From religious persecution, from famine, from genocide, from bad economies, from cramped living conditions, from war, from dictatorship, from discrimination, from a lack of business opportunities, from prison, from sheer boredom.
All good reasons to run away. All the reasons why the the settler colonies of the United States of America, Argentina, Canada, Chile, Brazil, apartheid South Africa, Australia and New Zealand exist.
But Syrian war refugees will now not be allowed to run away to this settler colony, nor will refugees in 6 other countries.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…”
-Carl Sagan
Trump’s Protectionism
The deep protectionism which Trump is signifying with his executive orders is a manifestation of a long history of perceiving ethnic competition for jobs in the United States.
The same people who support Trump’s trade-first supremacy over the national security-first supremacy which has shaped our post-WW2 policy are the same people who rage against undocumented immigrants “taking” jobs. Their ancestors raged and engaged in race riots against Negroes, Asians and even Eastern Europeans “taking” jobs in big cities.
The ethnic majority in this country, or at least those who take “America First” seriously, will now proceed to screw over or remove anyone who gets in the way of their economic security. Anyone.
I wonder if there is historic precedent in other countries for this trade-first emphasis.
Trump vs. the Southside of Chicago
Trump’s rage on Chicago is the latest manifestation of conservative rage against Chicago’s gang violence.
The gang violence is largely concentrated in the predominantly-black Southside.
The Southside of Chicago has always been a destination for the working class.
The Irish working class settled there for low skill jobs, committed violence against each other in gang warfare and killed Black working class emigres in race riots because they competed for jobs. The Black working class of the Deep South migrated to the Southside for low skill jobs and committed violence against each other in gang warfare.
Guess which group had more ability to get out of that hood?
Guess who is still stuck in the Southside after the low skill jobs have left?
This desire for hamfisted martial law against the Southside will score him points among his White conservative supporters.
None of those supporters give a shit about what produces young Black men killing each other in the Southside. They want explosions.
Get out of the Southside while you still can.
White paternalism, unfettered by tact, is about to get more innocent Chicagoans killed.
