The Hard Truth — Couldn’t happen here.

1st October 2012   ·   0 Comments

By Min. J. Kojo Livingston
Contributing Columnist

You may have heard this old racist joke.

Question: “What do you call 200 Blacks at the bottom of the Mississippi River?”

Answer: “A good start.”

Forty-Nine years ago, last week, the mentality that created that joke, also caused the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birming­ham, Alabama. On the morning of Sept. 15, 1963 a box of dynamite placed under the church was detonated, resulting in the deaths of four girls, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair.

The culprits were ignorant white racists who were members of the Ku Klux Klan. They were most likely motivated by a call to violence from then Governor George Wallace, who told the New York Times that Alabama needed “a few first-class funerals” to stop integration. The bombing happened a week later.

That same mentality caused thousands of lynchings of innocent Black men. It allowed the rape of Black women in the south to become a common occurrence that white violators never had to answer for. That mentality forced Blacks into substandard housing, education, employment, health care, public accommodations and mistreatment in most areas of life.

That mentality is still bombing Black people by dismantling public education, health care and human services. It has created a situation where every 36 hours an innocent, unarmed Black person is being killed by police or security guards. You’d have to count beatings by the minute. That mentality is so strong that even when caught on tape beating or killing an innocent or handcuffed person cops are allowed to go free.

That mentality and the governmental policies that spring from it flourish best in a climate of ignorance, anger and fear.

Case in point: A recent poll taken in Ohio by Public Policy Polling. Ohio is considered a key state to win in a national election. The poll found that 15 percent of residents who called themselves “very conservative” believe that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is more responsible for the death of Osama bin Laden than President Obama. Whether or not you support the assassination of bin Laden or believe it even happened, that statistic should bother you. What’s even worse is that most of the respondents, 51 percent, said they were “not sure” if Romney, a governor, played a larger role in the assassination of bin Laden than the President.

Still worse, of those who claimed to be “somewhat conservative” 30% said they were “not sure” whether Romney played a bigger role in killing bin Laden than the President and six percent gave credit to Romney for the military action. You could probably go to other states and get the same results.

What happened here? These racist/conservatives could not give an intelligent answer because they do not think for themselves. If Limbaugh, Pat Robertson or some other talking head had addressed this, they might have given answers closer to reality. But the leaders of the rabid, racist right can’t give any credit to Obama, so they can’t tell their mindless sheep what happened.

In the absence of being told what to think, your average racist only knows that Obama could not be responsible for doing anything they would consider to be good. Their approach is summed up in this formula. If Obama did it, it was wrong/bad. Therefore if it was good or right, then Obama could not have been responsible for it.

The brainwashing is so great that if Obama did something noble or great in front of their eyes, they would have to deny that it happened unless or until some media racist said so. Of course, if they were pressed to admit Obama did do something great, the rules say they must reduce or even ridicule the importance of the deed and they MUST find something bad to say about him to overshadow the great deed.

If you notice that integrity is missing from this process, go to the head of the class. Con­servatives threw that out the window decades ago. Any lie will do. Why? Because they believe they are at war and that deception is a legitimate tac­tic/strategy to use to win. That’s why even their religious leaders like Robertson, Hagee and others will go on TV or radio and lie, lie, lie, like a wet Persian rug.

This should concern us because the Ohio poll shows clearly that racists/conservatives will believe, promote and act on any lie their leaders tell them. It should concern us moreso because what racist believe about Obama is what they believe about all Black people.

We have seen this before in history, but possibly not like this. We have a growing segment of the white population that is literally gearing up for a race war. They are not playing, folks! They really, really want this, because they are certain they will win. At the same time we have a government that is controlled by people who want to exert absolute control, a government that is rushing to become a police state. The overt elimination of civil liberties is a warning sign. Are you old enough to remember when peaceful protest used to be a 1st amendment right instead of a crime?

Both groups hate us and are becoming very open about their opinions and their intentions. History tells us it would be foolish to ignore them.

If there were ever a time for Black people to prepare for survival and self-sufficiency it is now. We must reclaim the skills we lost: growing, canning, bartering and making things we need. A dependent people is a vulnerable people.

We must organize at the cellular level to help our people prepare for whatever may come. It would be a mistake to wait for anyone or anything to do this for us. It’s self-determination or death…

…and That’s the Hard Truth!!!

This article was originally published in the October 1, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper