News flash: We’ve reached yet another hurdle in our marathon race for equal rights, one we cannot ignore, dismiss or aplogize for.
Unlike other obstacles, this impediment is uniquely rooted in a paradigm of self-hate, cultural miscegenation, and path-ology by folks who look like us, but lack fidelity to our village.
President Joe Biden’s call for a civil rights investigation into the public ‘lynching’ of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols by five Memphis ‘Crooked Colored Cops’ has put this dichotomous terminal template on display for the world.
Most appropriately, this page of our civil rights sojourn is being scrutinized as we enter the month designated to highlight Black leadership, our collective achievements, and hard-earned emancipation in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
To many, Black History Month is also an opportunity for self-reflection and making navigational adjustments in our journey for justice and equality.
Little did we realize our early agenda this year would focus on Black-on-Black crime.
The savage beating of Tyre took place less than a football field’s length from his home as he was crying out for his mother.
Moments before, the father of a child who will probably grow up hating police, was profiled and stopped for reasons yet to be explained by any of the chocolate-coated ‘poolease’ officers’ who executed him minutes later. The ‘peace officers’ were members of a tactical squad whose primary agenda was to harass and intimidating Black men.
Under a cloud of national scrutiny since Nichols’ murder, the unit has been disbanded. The officers were fired by the city’s Black police chief…24 hours too late.
Reportedly, Tyre was not their only victim this month, but he was the first to die, a victim of a slave-catching paradigm at the hands of a gang of vicious goons who loved blue more than Black.
Indeed, the heinous beating of Tyre captured, ironically, on the thugs’ body cameras, shocked and repulsed all who saw it when aired over the weekend. Some viewers went so far as to note a link between the cop’s mission to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.
That racist law was later codified by the US Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896.
Thus, to call the five thugs ‘Uncle Toms’ is to hit short and wide ‘right’ of the mark.
While their deplorable actions may be linked to the same disease that infected Herschel Walker and Clarance Thomas, it can not be fully explained by concluding they are modern-day ‘Uncle Toms.’
In fact, (here’s a history fact), the model for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book character, Josiah Hensen, redeemed his capital crime of leading a group of fellow slaves from Massachusetts to certain death in Mississippi by later engineering the escape of nearly 200 slaves.
Moreover, Hensen’s crime was facilitated by his unwavering submission to the bible, which called on slaves to “obey their masters…” with a smile!
Thus, while there is a symbolic similarity between Hensen and the ‘Haters’ (the Black Memphis cops), their traitorous actions could also be more readily linked to their membership in the Fraternity of ‘Bastardly Blues.’
Two years after the similarly sensationalized execution of George Floyd in Minnesota, America is again faced with a blatant act of institutional terrorism by a police gang, this time in ‘blackface.’
Some, including a local Black radio talk show host, have questioned if the scandalmongering media attention given these Black officers is racially motivated.
That concern is myopic at best.
Not only was their despicable act of ‘police terrorism’ a too-long ignored indicator of an apparatus of American Apartheid, but it was also needed to expose the reality that: “not all skin folks are kin folks!”
Moreover, instead of focusing on how much media attention was warranted, it would be more beneficial to set our sights on the fact that this culture (police culture) is fueled by attitudes and convictions that will not be muffled by the passage of bills to ban choke-holds and assault rifles, or presidential apologizes to the victim’s families.
To remedy this problem requires the destruction of the institutional arm of apartheid and, equally importantly, eliminating racism—a philosophy and mindset that can’t be legislated.
And make no mistake, the ‘colored cops’’ actions were racist.
As explained by the Nichols’ family attorney Ben Crump (ironically) on Fox News Sunday, “it is not the race of the police officer that is the determinant factor, it is the race of the citizen.”
In a statement issued before a scheduled appearance on the weekly “Institute of the Black World” broadcast, retired D.C. police officer Ron Hampton lamented the conduct of the Memphis cops should not be taken in isolation.
Hampton, the former head of the National Black Police Association (NOBLE), posited the structure of American policing is a “destructive, death-dealing system that is suppressing, oppressing and killing Black people.”
It cannot be reformed but must be radically restructured.
He said the actions of the coons…err cops “is a raw, naked manifestation of the systemic and internalized racism within policing which is a mirror reflection of other institutions in our society.”
Attorney Crump elaborated during one of a dozen interviews he provided on Sunday morning television, stressing the ‘guilty party’ is not restricted to the thuggish cops, but the ‘police culture’ and structure that not only condones but encourages oppression.
It speaks volumes that none of the tsunami victims of questionable police killings were white.
As you ponder Crump’s undeniable truths, also consider that Black History is full of incidents of self-hatred and complicity to institutional racism.
Start with Cane’s murder of Able, orchestrated by the first White Supremacist, Satan, and work your way through the ages.
His disciples, wearing white hoods or blue suits, have utilized various forms of encoding, and frequently torture, to instill a sense of self-abasement in the victims of oppression.
In many cases, the end result has been a manifestation of the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ in which tribal members identify with their oppressors.
Few of our history books note it, but there were Black slave owners who served in the Confederacy. There is also evidence that many slaves were used to track down their escaped brethren.
You could easily pick them out of the crowd, as many used wheel axel grease or lye to ‘process’ their hair in the mistaken belief that ‘lookin’ like massa’ was the pathway to equality.
For many African American cops, it is not out of a sense of self-loathing or a rejection for being hue-man, but instead an uncompromising commitment to blue.
Kristian Williams’ well-researched book, ‘Our Enemies in Blue,’ paints a disturbing portrait of a culture created centuries ago to control African Americans.
In truth, I have read but a chapter of the 570-page book. But a statement by its publisher summarizes its thesis:
“…Williams shows that police brutality isn’t an anomaly but is built into the very meaning of law enforcement in the United States.
From antebellum slave patrols to today’s paramilitary units, peacekeepers have always used force to shape behavior, repress dissent, and defend the powerful.”
I stopped scanning the book when I ran into an assessment that concluded American policing has ‘legalized social pathology.’
Scanning the book also forced me to reassess my belief that racism is a genetic defect. Instead, I now consider it a learned attitude.
And so is much of what has become endorsed police brutality and misconduct.
Crump repeatedly stressed that not only is the Memphis police chief an African American female but, moreover, the department has recently undertaken long sought after ‘reforms’ that politicians and myopic Black leaders couldn’t achieve.
Obviously, not all police officers have digested this caustic pill of oppression, but the few who have significantly taint their respective departments, including in Milwaukee, where we brothers cross our fingers and utter a prayer to God or an idolized rapper when we see a flashing red light in our rear-view mirror.
And it doesn’t make a difference in many cases if the officer is black, brown, or vanilla.
In case you needed reminding, the cop with the most ‘notches’ on his gun is a former Black Wauwatosa cop who killed two Black teenagers in separate incidents.
He was exonerated for both, but because of protests, was ‘reassigned’ to Waukesha, considered the ‘plantation of the west.’
A common denominator in this systemic paradigm is an invisible virus that attaches itself to the gullible and racist brain stem, substantiating an attitude that manifests into a John Wayne persona.
The benefactors of the resulting misconduct can be seen smiling from atop the apartheid wall, a position they held while poisoning law enforcement through the application of the Fugitive Slave Act.
Thousands of demonstrations and prayer vigils have been ineffective in altering this status quo. Indeed, as Crump noted, the Memphis PD had recently instituted ‘reforms’ that proved fruitless, as evidenced by the murder of Nichols.
Moreover, it is significant that (as noted earlier) the Memphis police chief is a Black woman, Cerelyn “CJ” Davis.
But who knows? Maybe there’s a silver (bronze) lining on this page of Black History.
If Tyre’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, is correct, God may have used him to illuminate this affront to democracy and race relations.
In a recent interview, Wells said Tyre’s martyrdom may spark a much-needed study of the vestiges of the Fugitive Slave Act and the Plessy decision (my interpretation).
Hopefully, that investigation will also include an evaluation of how policing in high-crime, impoverished urban communities impact the psychology of police officers, manifesting into police brutality.
Obviously, many racists join police departments to actuate their racial hatred. And it goes without saying that officers of every complexion and socioeconomic background bring their prejudices to their units.
But for many, police disrespect and brutality are learned through on-the-job training.
It is often a callousness grown from experiences witnessing the worse of humanity. And also a sense of being targeted as ‘enemies’ by the people they serve.
I learned of that paradigm while following the career of a White officer I recommended for the police academy.
I did so because I observed him as the only White kid attending a Black-owned karate school during his youth.
He easily fit in and became an honorary brother to his fellow students.
After serving in the military and marrying an Asian, he sought employment with the MPD, a request I endorsed, even writing a letter of recommendation.
Over the years, however, I watched as his attitude change.
He did not morph into a racist, but his attitudes toward the Black residents he served in a high-profile crime area began to change. He became prejudicial and asked rhetorical questions that made me uneasy.
Sadly, working in one of the worse districts in town poisoned him.
That scenario can and has crippled Black officers as well.
Some Black police become so hardened by the job, witnessing Black self-hatred daily, that they distance themselves from the village.
Some unwittingly join the oppressors, acquiring an ‘us versus them’ attitude.
Whether they take on the role of the Black Confederate or the naïve Josiah Hensen, the end result is the same—they find themselves functioning as designated White Supemacist.
But who knows? Maybe Tyre’s mother is right— perhaps her son’s vicious and savage execution by five ‘Colored Cartoon Coons’
will serve as a divine wake-up alarm clock.
I pray she is right. But then again, both Black History and ‘His-story’ reveal we are always late for important events, operating on ‘CP time,’ and as such, have missed dozens of divinely inspired opportunities to tear down the walls of apartheid. Included among them was our showing up late for the George Floyd demonstrations, which allowed missionaries to convert that movement into a political campaign.
We were then convinced that a white knight riding a donkey would lead us to the promised land of justice.
Tyre Nichols’ death shows the fallacy of that failed assumption.
Hotep.
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