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    BLACK PEOPLE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF BEING PLAYED, IN A VERY DANGEROUS GAME

    By Wattree on Wed, 11/11/2015 - 9:49am |
    Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
     

    BLACK PEOPLE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF BEING PLAYED, IN A VERY DANGEROUS GAME
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    Black people are in the process of being demonized and setup in a very dangerous way.  Yes, we've always been demonized, demeaned, and disparaged, but this time it's different, and the accusations are much more dangerous and malevolent. This time we're being accused of being anti-American terrorists who are bent on bringing down America, so we shouldn't take it lightly.  I've said this before, and I thought the potential danger in this situation would be both alarming and obvious to all, but I've noticed that a handful of very naive Black people are fluffing it off as meaningless, so I thought it was worth revisiting.
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    At this point the focus is on Black Lives Matter (BLM).  Due to the thoughtless antics of a few unthinking individuals in the name of the organization, they've made BLM an easy target.  So BLM needs to restructure their organization to require authorization to speak on behalf of the organization, keep tight control over any activities that take place in their name, and remain vigilant in weeding out any individual(s) who engage in any kind of stupid activity in their name, because the conservative establishment is slowing beginning to put the subliminal message in America's mind that BLM is not a social justice organization, but a terrorist organization, and they have absolutely no hesitation in infiltrating the group with plants and Judas goats to help them make that jacket stick, and if it gains traction, Black people as a whole are in trouble.
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    Black conservative sheriff,  David Clarke, of Milwaukee says, "Black Lives Matter will join forces with Islamic State (ISIS) to bring down our republic."  Now, Huffington Post reports that Fox News has suggested that BLM was responsible for the murder of  Deputy Darren Goforth of Harris County, Texas. The article reads in part:
    .
    "Fox News ran an onscreen banner during Monday night's episode of "Fox & Friends" referring to the Black Lives Matter movement as a "murder movement," and one Fox host wondered why the movement wasn't labeled a hate group.
    "'Fox & Friends' co-host Brian Kilmeade was speaking with Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke about the death of Deputy Darren Goforth of Harris County, Texas, who was fatally shot while pumping gas in a Houston suburb on Friday night. Goforth was white, and the man who police believe killed him, Shannon Miles, is black.
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    "There is no evidence that Miles has any connection to the Black Lives Matter movement, but the "Fox & Friends" segment made a point to strongly imply that Black Lives Matter was at fault for Goforth’s death."      
     
    And conservatives are far from done. That same Black conservative sheriff, David Clarke, has already gone on to say, "Blacks Sell Drugs' Because They Are 'Lazy' And 'Morally Bankrupt." And now it turns out that we have a White sheriff in Florida, David Morgan, saying, “We have unfortunately, in America, embraced a thug culture.  One that aggrandizes, again, foul language, shooting cops, abusing women and if you think those things do not have an effect on our children you need to get a grip!”
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    They are gradually conflating the Black community with terrorism and anti-Americanism. So Black people need to wake up!  But when I initially reported this, one Black person was so naive as to try to ridicule the position I'm putting forward here as paranoid. He laughed and said, "People aren't going to pay any attention to that discredited Black sheriff."  But he's dead wrong, and history has repeatedly demonstrated that fact. 
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    The Republican Party has made repeating lies until they gain traction a way of life - Fox News has made that concept its primary business model, and the entire advertising industry is based on the premise that if you tell a lie often enough, people will begin to believe it.  But it goes farther than that. As a simple rule of thumb, one should never make the foolish mistake of assuming what an adversary WON'T do. When you're dealing with an adversary, you should ALWAYS assume the very worst - and since the 2016 election is looming, with the change in the nation's demographics, and GOP's history of dirty politics, we should DEFINITELY expect the very worst.
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    SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT THIS?  
     
    The Black community must stop allowing itself to become such an easy target for demonization.  In the short term we should firmly deny the allegation and demand concrete evidence of the sheriff's dangerous, malevolent. and unsubstantiated allegation. If clear evidence is not provided, we should demand the sheriff's recall, explore civil litigation against him, and declare him an enemy of the Black community. We Should also follow the exact same procedure against any media person or organization who suggests such a thing. In this political environment accusing ANYONE of being a terrorist without concrete evidence to substantiate the claim should be declared a hate crime, because the consequences of such an accusation can be so dire - including the suspension of all of our Constitutional rights, and arrest and imprisonment without any kind of due process or trial. That may seem to be a remote possibility now, but if one of those right-wing Republican reactionaries should win the 2016 Presidential election, they will control all three branches of government, and they have no sense of limits.  So we should make it publicly clear to all Black people that anyone who does anything stupid to lend credibility to this allegation is placing the Black community in serious jeopardy.  In short, the Black community needs to stop sitting on its hands and be proactive in aggressively addressing this issue.   
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    And now that this charge has been floated, this is going to be an ongoing concern, so it's important for the Black community to start taking steps right now to address our cultural mores and the infrastructure within our community. We must insure that we can't be defined by the most dysfunctional people in our community, and we must also take steps to insure that dysfunction is not rewarded by, or in, the community.
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    IS HIP HOP BEING USED BY THE ESTABLISHMENT TO DEMONIZE THE BLACK COMMUNITY?
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    While there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the hip hop genre as an art form, it's literally drenched in people who are getting rich by producing 10 minute commercials that's being beamed all over America - and throughout the world - referring to the very womb of the Black culture as bitches and hoes. Many also take macho and adolescent pride in declaring themselves gangsters and are routinely promoting the use of drugs and violence. The Black community has got to send a message to these people - ignorance and dysfunction are neither cool, nor manly; it only lends comfort and assistance to an enemy who's out to destroy the Black community. And the way to send that message is to boycott any artist who engages in such stupidity, and also boycott any record company, radio, television station or magazine, and their sponsors, who promote this self-destructive idiocy. In addition, as Black parents, we must educate our children and be firm in forbidding such content from being played in our homes. 
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    MUSIC AWARD SHOWS 
     
    The community must also send a message to the producers, broadcasters, and sponsors of music award shows, and let them know in no unequivocal terms that we're tired of seeing the same entertainers swaggering across the stage and being rewarded for spewing a false image of Black people as just a group of dysfunctional idiots. We don't want to see such people at the Grammys, or any other award shows, and we must put our $1.1 trillion in Black spending power to work in backing up that demand.
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    We should also use our dollars to encourage Black award shows, such as the Soul Train Awards, to convert their format from music awards, to giving out awards for Black excellence in the community. Instead of continually giving out awards to the same old swaggering entertainers, they should use entertainers to entertain, and to PRESENT the awards to young Black scholars, and people who have contributed to the community, and who have demonstrated Black excellence. Such programs would serve three purposes - first, it would send a message to Black youth that excellence is what is cool, not dysfunction; secondly, it would beam the message around the world that the Black community is focused on growth and excellence, not terrorism; and finally, it would educate the world on the kind of excellence to be found in the Black community.
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    BLACK CHURCHES   
     
    The Black church has traditionally been a place where the Black community has organized to move itself forward.  In the past the Black church recognized that its mission was much more complex than to simply have a preacher come in and do spoken-word concert (for 10% of our earnings) every Sunday on how to get into Heaven. Jesus wasn't just giving spoken-word concerts about the joys of Heaven, he was also concerned with the plight of the people while they're here on Earth. When Jesus spoke he expected his disciples to LIVE his words, not just preach and pray:
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    "And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues [churches] and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . ." Matthew 6:1-34 
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    "IF YE WERE ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN, YE WOULD DO THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM"
    John 8: 39

    REV. CREFLO DOLLAR'S HOME

    So we must reorganize our churches, and re-traditionalize their mission to focus on enhancing the people's lives, as oppose to making individual preachers rich. Thus, if your preacher is doing better than the people in the community that surrounds your church, you're either attending the wrong church, or the right church with the wrong preacher. So we must re-organize our churches and put preachers on a fixed salary, and then use the billions of dollars in tithes that flow into the various Black churches every Sunday to elevate the community.
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    The Black churches in every community should come together to form a consortium. Thereafter, they should pool the tithes they're collecting every Sunday to purchase businesses to provide jobs for our young people that pay a living wage, and purchase property to provide affordable housing in the community. The entire community should also do it's part. If everyone in the community was encouraged to invest just $10 a month into the consortium, they could build a portfolio by indicating what businesses in the community they want their investment to go to. That could reap great dividends - the people would, literally, be investing in their own community. That would encourage the community to patronize it's own businesses, and it would provide the consortium the revenue to invest in any venture that it chose to pursue. Eventually, Black consortiums across the country could join forces and, essentially, become, Black People, Inc. 
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    The churches should also be open 7 days a week to provide affordable childcare for working mothers. Then they could also hire unemployed mothers to help in the daycare centers.  The churches should also utilize the knowledge and expertise of retired professionals in their congregations to help mentor and instruct the people in the community. And of course, there should be a citizens committee to oversee the operation of the various businesses (not the preachers), and it should require multiple signatures to withdraw any funds from the bank for any reason - and once again, to ensure that the funds are being used most efficiently, preachers should be placed on fixed salaries instead of being allowed to get rich at the expense of the community. Jesus was not a wealthy man, so why should any preacher be?
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    That's how we reform our community. We educate the community to give excellence and knowledge priority over dysfunction, and give the young people within it a sense of pride, an opportunity to put money in their pockets, and to build credit and buy new cars. We've got to teach them how the game is played, and give them hope and confidence in their future. 
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    If we are proactive in doing these things, then when the world looks upon the Black community, they won't see a "thug culture" and budding terrorists, they'll see a community with the backbone and political clout to back up our demands, and a community filled with conscientious, intelligent, and knowledgeable people who are on the rise. 
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    Eric L. Wattree 
    wattree.blogspot.com
    .
    Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

    Comments

    Eric

    I remain curious why you focus on two obscure Sheriffs. Republican Presidential candidates have tied Black Lives Matter to anti-police sentiment. Republicans tie BLM to riots. Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, two reactionaries with large audiences, demonize BLM. Fox News calls BLM a murder machine and a hate group. You are missing the larger problem. The two Sheriffs pale in comparison to the entire reactionary action conducted by talk radio, Fox News, and the GOP. The problem is already much larger than you portray. Regarding, fighting back against lies about BLM, President Obama and the White House have defended Black Lives Matter.

    Secondly, respectability politics is ineffective. What I mean it that what actually stands for does not matter to the reactionary media. BLM will never be squeaky clean enough for reactionary media to stop attacking the organization. Remember Martin Luther King Jr., the reactionaries were relentless in their attacks. The only rational solution is to directly attack the reactionaries.

    The Sheriffs are the fecal material of the snake. The head of the snake is the problem. The GOP, Conservative talk radio, and Fox News are the problem.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 11/11/2015 - 10:41am

    Chris Christie, a Republican Presidential candidate, attacked Democrats for supporting Black Lives Matter. The battle has already been engaged.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 11/11/2015 - 10:53am

    RM,

    I'm sorry brother, but I don't even take you seriously anymore .  Your arguments are senseless, and a textbook example of ego padding. Rather than facing reality, it's obvious that you're trying to contort truth and reality to conform to your need to defend your clueless position. Clear evidence of that is that you've repeatedly asked for my solution to the problem, and now that I've presented it you haven't addressed even one element of it. So don't expect me to respond to you anymore, because I'm more interested in solutions than I am padding my ego.  I'm a serious thinker, so I have no time for that self-centered game.


    by Wattree on Wed, 11/11/2015 - 7:28pm

    You do pad your ego because you think that you are the only one recognizing the problem. You ignore that there has been pushback against the lies spread about BLM. President Obama responded to the lies. The White House press secretary responded to the lies. Democratic Presidential candidates responded to the lies. Democratic Presidential candidates responded to the lies. You cannot digest new information. You cannot accept that their has been action taken against the lies about BLM.

    You repeated post the same picture because you are trapped in a bubble of depression. Let me ask you if you are aware of any response of the black community to music that degrades black women? Was there any backlash to the movie "Straight Outta Compton"? If you are aware that there was backlash to the Mel Gibson movie "The Passion of the Christ" but the movie grossed millions, did you expect backlash to the NWA movie to result in it being pulled from theaters?

     


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 11/11/2015 - 8:45pm

    BTW

    Movie protests and boycott advocacy usually results in more people coming out to see the movie.


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 11/11/2015 - 8:54pm

    Eric

    You propose that blacks and black institution need to do X and Y to counter reactionary charges that blacks are thugs, terrorist, and criminals. The truth is that there is nothing that blacks can do to stop attacks from reactionary forces. Trying to get the black community to practice respectability politics will end in failure.

    President Obama was declared a thug by the reactionaries. Donald Trump forced the President to produce a long form birth certificate. Barack Obama is still considered a thug and illegitimate President by the reactionaries. Eric Holder has a Harvard Law degree, but he is still a thug according to the reactionaries. 

    Michelle Obama is characterized as a militant who according to Fox News gave a terrorist fist bump with President Obama. Reactionaries do not respect blacks. Blacks will never reach a level of respectability that will be acceptable.There is a post on dagblog noting the message put out by hate radio. If blacks do not behave in a manner showing subservience to whites, they are thugs. Think of how Colin Powell was treated by the Republican reactionaries when he spoke his mind about racism in the Republican Party. Powell, a respected military man and diplomat was ridiculed. There is not enough respectability politics in the word to appease reactionaries and halt their assault on the black community.

    What does the black community have to change to demand that their rights as human beings are respected? Not one damn thing! The Declaration of Independence recognizes unalienable rights. Those rights do not go away if people go to an NWA movie, listen to rap music, or do a host of other legal activities. I don't have to agree with profanity or misogyny, and I am free to call Dr.Dre a misogynist who beat up a women and should have gone to jail. The actions of black misogynists do not cause my rights to go away. Dr Dre and Bill Cosby have been outed. My rights have nothing to do with their wrongs.

    Respectability politics will do nothing to stop reactionary attacks. Respectability politics is a waste of time. That time should be used to attack the head of the reactionary snake assaulting the community. 

    The black community is addressing issues of violence, misogyny, etc. Violent crime and homicide is down in most cities. 

    Rights are unalienable (inalienable) the reactionaries don't have to respect us, and they never will. They do need to be made to respect our rights.

    Edited to correct major Oops

    Unalienable Is obviously from the Declaration, not the Constitution.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/12/2015 - 9:49am

    Not that I should put my 2 cents in, but there's a difference between Obama who deserves none of this outlandish rhetoric thrown at him and Eric Garner who was either only selling untaxed cigarettes or nothing at all and put in chokehold until he died, vs. a Michael Brown who was filmed taking smokes and shoving a store owner earlier in the night.

    The fewer thuggish incidents, the easier it is to focus on injustice and prejudicial actions towards blacks, and not the "he deserved it" excuses. Yes, idiots with an agenda like Trump will always find the 1 out of 1000, but if there really is 1 out of 100 or somehow relatively few, more normal people will see a problem.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/12/2015 - 11:24am

    The point is that reactionaries view them all the same. Homicides declined but the stigma continues. Obama and and Eric Holder are thugs just like Michael Brown. 

    The other thing is that unalienable rights are those that cannot be taken away. There is no precondition on unalienable rights. You can have an argument that you personally don't like Gay marriage. You cannot post a vote on it that passes Constitutional muster. I really don't care if people like me or not. I don't care if they think all blacks are criminals. They cannot infringe upon my rights.

    Rosa Parks was pulled off a bus and came to national prominence. The reason it was possible to pull Rosa Parks off that bus was that when Claudette Colvin, a dark-skinned black teenager was pulled of the bus, she was not considered worthy of mounting a fight. Colvin was involved with a married man and became pregnant out of wedlock. Because no one spoke up for Colvin, Rosa Parks was abused.

    If you don't speak up for the "least of these", the best will fall as well.Rights are rights and it does not matter what other people think about a group of people.

    Arresting a Muslim child with a homemade clock is ridiculous, even if he was warned what people might think. Tossing a child across a classroom is insane even if she doesn't give up her cellphone. Reactionaries don't differentiate, so you have to defend everybody's rights.

     


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/12/2015 - 11:48am

    There are connections between Michael Brown's shooting and lynchings of the past.

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/25/mike-brown-shooting...

    Killings by police surpass the number of hangings during the height of lynchings

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerome-karabel/police-killings-lynchings-c...

    You speak out for Michael Brown because he represents just another part of the trend.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/12/2015 - 11:56am

    You should differentiate public relations from protecting human rights.

    The ACLU is focused on protecting the rights of the least and the most controversial.

    BlackLivesMatter is engaged in public relations for advocacy, so needs to pay attention to its presentations, and sensibly should pick its battles and arguments well, just as you noted the choice of Rosa Parks as a good poster child, not Claudette Colvin, even though her rights are as valuable.

    Look at what happened in Houston re: the Equal Rights bill upholding gay rights - it failed because the opposition found a meme of "it'll allow men in women's bathrooms". The opposition will search for some visceral crowd-pleasing nugget no matter how devoid of fact and truth - eyes on the prize: in this case, pass the bloody bill, don't let them distract. Upholding a passed bill comes after, at which point you expand focus to everyone covered by the law. In passing the law, you focus on the fine upstanding citizens living peacefully, good jobs, never hurt anyone, but denied simple basic rights and security.

    Re: the kid with the clock it's likely he was a setup - the clock wasn't for a school assignment, his father's involved in Muslim political causes, the kid refused to listen to his teachers, the clock looked like a comicbook homemade bomb with wires sticking out, maybe Radio Shack 1975,  not a 2015 LED-based IC circuit thing that would be 1/10th the size. With the number of school mass murders - not from Muslims - I'd be wary of anyone bringing strange devices in. I had a classmate (white of course) flush chemicals down the sinks hoping to cause an explosion. Another budding engineering talent to meet the President?

    Added: my problem with Michael Brown was the disdain with which he shoves another human being, not his stealing some cigarrillos. Brown has bigger body size, the policeman had a gun - might doesn't make right.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/12/2015 - 12:13pm

    BLM is bold and outspoken. Democratic candidates changed the way they addressed bias in the justice system. BLM demands a Democratic debate on racial issues. Campaign Zero accepts a town hall. If BLM is bad, then Campaign Zero is acceptable. Good cop, bad cop. Similarly, Martin Luther King Jr. was considered a heretic and a Communist, but King was a better option than Malcolm X. Being timid advances nothing. 

    Re: the Houston situation. Rights should not have to come to a vote. People willing to vote to suppress Gays will outnumber people who are for Gay Rights, but aren't energized enough to vote. The anti-Gay group is energized. The poor-Gay group accepts equal rights, can't fathom way others wouldn't agree with equal rights, and don't come out to vote.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/12/2015 - 2:19pm

    Good cop/bad cop is fine strategy. I just always asked what the perceived outcome of their acts is. In this case, it's the success ofnthe symbiotic cohort.

    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 11/12/2015 - 3:30pm

    There is great danger in the meme that black lives only matter if they "act right".

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/12/respectability-poli...

     


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/12/2015 - 4:00pm

    RM,

    I see you're still talking in spite of the fact that I clearly stated that I WAS DONE - and not that I don't like and respect you on a personal level, but there's so many things that you don't seem to grasp, I've gotten completely tired and frustrated in having to repeatedly go in circles trying to explain those things to you.  For example, show me where I said that the things I suggested would shut-down bigots. In the very first sentence under "SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT THIS?" I clearly stated, "The Black community must stop allowing itself to become such an easy target for demonization." So bigots are not the problem. The problem is, we've got to prevent them from convincing other Americans that what they're saying is true. I don't see why you can't seem to grasp that simple concept. But maybe you'll get the point hearing it from someone else who doesn't have a vested interest in the debate, and who's certainly not one of my biggest fans. Read Peracles' comment.
    .
    And by the way, if you think everything is just fine in the Black community, and we're not in dire need of reassessing our cultural mores and the infrastructure within our community, you're just straight-out blind. We're not at the very bottom of the social ladder for nothing. Immigrants are coming over here from other countries and just stepping right over us to become our bosses, our landlords, and our children's teachers - and that's AFTER they had to take the time to learn to speak English.  So something is obviously wrong.  It demonstrates that we're either inept, or we're not taking care of business, and I refuse to believe the former. And no, it's not just due to racism, because if it were, all Black people would be in the same boat, but some of us are doing just fine.
    .
    Now I appreciate your trying to standup for our people, but at a given point, that can be more of a detriment than an asset to the community, because it gives us a convenient excuse for failure, and to ignore the obvious. As I've said before, if you have skin cancer, insisting that it's only a heat rash may make you feel better in the short term, but in the long term, failing to address reality is going to kill you. 

    .
    With that said, I hate having to ignore you, RM, because I don't want you to feel disrespected, but I just cannot allow you to continue to waste my time.  So in case you missed it the first time, let me repost what I said to you several OF YOUR comments above:

    "RM,

    "I'm sorry brother, but I don't even take you seriously anymore .  Your arguments are senseless, and a textbook example of ego padding. Rather than facing reality, it's obvious that you're trying to contort truth and reality to conform to your need to defend your clueless position. Clear evidence of that is that you've repeatedly asked for my solution to the problem, and now that I've presented it you haven't addressed even one element of it. So don't expect me to respond to you anymore, because I'm more interested in solutions than I am padding my ego.  I'm a serious thinker, so I have no time for that self-centered game."
    .
    I hope you take me seriously this time, because I'm shutting down on you, brother - at least, on this subject, because you have absolutely no objectivity with respect to this matter.
     


    by Wattree on Thu, 11/12/2015 - 1:24pm

    Eric

    You seem to operate under the assumption that you can shut down my commentary.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 11/12/2015 - 1:09pm

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