I know that there have been some who have condemned the earlier acts of violence in this most recent move for a just society. I know that there have been many who have expressed understanding without condoning by quoting Dr King. There have even been some who have attempted to their resistance as peaceful, but neglect the fact that say what you want, it was not peaceful protest that got national attention. But if I may, I would like to give another perspective. These words are taken from the speech given by Brother Malcolm X on Feb 14, 1965 in Detroit after his home was firebombed. ......One of the shrewd ways that they use the press to project us in the eye or image of a criminal: they take statistics. And with the press they feed these statistics to the public, primarily the white public. Because there are some well-meaning persons in the white public as well as bad-meaning persons in the white public. And whatever the government is going to do, it always wants the public on its side, whether its the local government, state government, federal government. So they use the press to create images. And at the local level, theyll create an image by feeding statistics to the press -- through the press showing the high crime rate in the Negro community. As soon as this high crime rate is emphasized through the press, then people begin to look upon the Negro community as a community of criminals. And then any Negro in the community can be stopped in the street. Put your hands up, and they pat you down. You might be a doctor, a lawyer, a preacher, or some other kind of Uncle Tom. But despite your professional standing, youll find that youre the same victim as the man whos in the alley. Just because youre Black and you live in a Black community, which has been projected as a community of criminals. This is done. And once the public accepts this image also, it paves the way for a police-state type of activity in the Negro community. They can use any kind of brutal methods to suppress Blacks because theyre criminals anyway. And what has given this image? The press again, by letting the power structure or the racist element in the power structure use them in that way. A very good example was the riots that took place here during the summer: I was in Africa, I read about them over there. If youll notice, they referred to the rioters as vandals, hoodlums, thieves. They tried to make it appear that this wasnt -- they tried to make it -- and they did this. They skillfully took the burden off the society for its failure to correct these negative conditions in the Black community. It took the burden completely off the society and put it right on the community by using the press to make it appear that the looting and all of this was proof that the whole act was nothing but vandals and robbers and thieves, who werent really interested in anything other than that which was negative. And I hear many old, dumb, brainwashed Negroes who parrot the same old party line that the man handed down in his paper. It was not the case that they were just knocking out store windows ignorantly. In Harlem, for instance, all of the stores are owned by white people, all of the buildings are owned by white people. Black people are just there, paying rent, buying the groceries. But they dont own the stores, clothing stores, food stores, any kind of stores; dont even own the homes that they live in. This is all owned by outsiders. And then these run down apartment dwellings, the Black man in Harlem pays more money for it than the man down in the rich Park Avenue section. It costs us more money to live in the slum, than it costs them to live down on Park Avenue. Black people in Harlem know this. And the white merchants charge us more money for food in Harlem -- and its the cheap food, its the worst food; and we have to pay more money for it than the man has to pay for it downtown. So Black people know that theyre being exploited and that their blood is being sucked and they see no way out of it. So finally, when the thing is sparked, the white man is not there; hes gone. The merchant is not there, the landlord is not there; the one he considers to be the enemy isnt there. So, they knock at his property. This is what makes them knock down the store windows and set fire to things, and things of that sort. Its not that theyre thieves. But they try and project the image to the public that this is being done by thieves, and thieves alone. And they ignore the fact that no, it is not thievery alone. Its a corrupt, vicious, hypocritical system that has castrated the Black man; and the only way the Black man can get back at it is to strike it in the only way he knows how.... #anotherperspective #Ferguson
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 13:49:01 +0000
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