By Tarikh Tehuti Bandele

This so-called patriotism (which is really more arrogance than patriotism) will not last as long as we think it will. Sooner or later, Afrikan men in America will continue to be police-profiled, Afrikan children in America will have their intellect questioned, and Afrikan nations will continue to be destabilized for no clear reason other than greed.

It is straight hypocritical for this media to make it appear as if all is well here other than this tragic event. For those with either short memories or no inclination toward history, what happened to Afrikan people in this country AFTER this nation was rallied to ‘defend democracy’ in World War One??? What happened to Afrikan people in this country after the ‘great Nazi threat’ was put down in World War Two???

We are always trying to find some reason to justify our fascination with the same nation that enslaved many of our fore parents, destabilized our native home, stripped us of everything that could be stripped from us (even our very humanity, which even we question from time to time), and continues to oppress us. It would appear as though some of us just can’t let go, like some spurned lover that’s been shown the freakin’ door (a long time ago). Sounds rather stalker-ish, doesn’t it??? (”If I can’t have you, no one can.”)

I saw Negroes (and that’s what they are) out, in the streets, waving flags and honking their horns. At the plantati, uh, job I worked at when this went down, everyone was encouraged to wear red, white, and blue the following Friday. And as expected, Negroes showed up with American flag ties, ink pins, cups, hats, jackets, umbrellas (not a damned cloud in sight), gloves, glasses, coffee mugs, watches, and blue jeans, red sneakers, white shirts, or some other combination with these colors (that, apparently, don’t run!).

However, I didn’t see the same outrage several years later when ‘Katrina’ went down. I didn’t see these same Negroes mobilizing to help, in any way they could, those brothers and sisters that really needed our help. Most of what they did was complaining. I heard a few “that’s a damn shame!”, and several “they (meaning the government) ought to be ashamed of they selves.” And, of course, the theories started popping up. But that was it. Hell when the mobilization was going down around the Jena Six situation, you couldn’t get these same Negroes to wear a freakin’ button, let alone wear all black the day hundreds of thousands rallied and marched in support of those young brothers. (And, I am aware that the mainstream media said that only several thousand people turned out. Do you honestly believe that the mainstream media wants to report that hundreds of thousands of people showed up in support of the Jena Six??? One newspaper said that there were only a few thousand attendees at the Million Man March in ‘95. GO FREAKIN’ FIGURE!!! As a rule, we should always add AT LEAST five to ten thousand [or more] to any media tally. So, if they say that only five thousand showed up, we gotta add another five to ten Gs to that. But I digress.)

What has to happen to show these “deranged” Negroes that America is not a friend of ours and that we are not Americans??? Katrina wasn’t enough; The Jena Six (which was just blatant white supremacy) didn’t do it. What has to happen to get these Negroes to come out of that ‘Crow on the fence’ mindset??? You know, the one that says if you come across a group of Crows sitting on a fence, and you shoot one of them, the rest will immediately take flight. But, five minutes later, they will return like nothing every happened, their ‘comrade’ laying dead right below them.

Hypocrisy has NEVER been as blatant and at the same time as misleading as it has been in the last few days.

Am I being callous toward those families that may have lost loved ones in this ‘mess’??? That would be up to those that read this. But I will never be drawn into some false sense of American patriotism and forget what has happened and continues to happen to certain groups of people in this nation.

And to think, there are capitalists out there making millions feeding people’s so-called patriotism (i.e. those flags dangling from car antennae aren’t free; somebody’s paying for them, even if you got yours for free).

Interestingly, those same whites that find themselves roaming streets with bats and sticks looking for some “foreigner” (read Arab, Sikh, or anything in between) to exact vengeance upon are the very same ones that don’t want to be lumped together with the sins of their slave-holding fore fathers and mothers.

I can hear them now: “I didn’t have anything to do with slavery. Why should I pay???”

ADDENDUM: While we are being encouraged to never forget 9-11 or the solemn mood that existed for those few days after, let us never, ever forget what was visited upon our ancestors, and what is still happening to us today. Let us, like the Jews, never, ever forget what was taken from us and what we have to struggle to get back. Let’s teach our babies that we didn’t land here by accident; that there were forces, cold and calculating, that conspired to get us here.

Now Get Up.

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