U.S. Supreme Court Building. Credit: AP.
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SUPREMELY IMPORTANT
The Defender has sounded the alarm – writing 75.2 million articles about the importance of voting in general and casting your ballot this Nov. 5, in particular. Still, there are folk talking about not voting, or Black people coming out against VP Kamala Harris. For me, it’s simple; voting is a tool for survival, not our sole salvation. Do the Democrats seem slow and wimpy about fighting to the death for issues important to us? Probably. But the alternative is a Republican Party hell-bent on ending us. Voting for Harris and others who at least represent the lion’s share of our interests gives us the space and opportunity needed to fight, organize, and build. The other side wants to make shooting peaceful protesters a standard operating procedure, jail teachers of Black history, divert our public tax dollars to pay for the private school education of the wealthy, and more. If we don’t show out at the polls anti-Black forces will lock down the U.S. Supreme Court for the next 100 years, ready to destroy all civil and human rights that impede their profits. Maybe we don’t think things can get that crazy, But honestly, they already have – banning Black history, taking away women’s agency over their bodies, etc. And that’s just the start. If these GOP mobsters capture the Supreme Court, MAGA white nationalism will be the law of the land for the next century. It’s supremely important that we vote for the party that will at least give us a fighting chance to fight back.
NAT TURNER LIVES
Nat Turner. The original engraved image was published in Orville J. Victor’s History of American Conspiracies: A Record of Treason, Insurrection, Rebellion, &c. in the United States of America, From 1760 to 1860 (1863). Credit: National Park Service
Recently, the spotlight has fallen on the noise being made by a growing group of Black religionists who are fed up with hyper-white racist wolves masquerading in Christian evangelist’s clothing, audaciously “defining” what is and what isn’t “true” Christianity. There must be something in the air – or the DNA – because what’s happening this August could be read as a continuation of another Black religionist who called out whites for cloaking their racism in Christianity. His name was Nat Turner, and he led a whole-A revolt in August of 1831 to end slavery and the white “Christians” who ran the system. An author friend of mine wrote a book in 2004 (“Weapons of Mass Distraction: And Other Sermons for a New World Order”) calling on Blacks to confront white racists’ god-complex, thinking they had the right to define Christianity for the world in their own warped terms. When asked about these “new” 2024 voices doing the same, he said, “About time.” But truth be told, there’s been a long “Black radical tradition” within Christianity that’s been calling out this white “Christian” racist hypocrisy for generations. Good to know more people are finally listening.
ONE-SIDED RELATIONSHIP
Some members of ‘The Squad’ from left, Representatives Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). Credit: Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call via AP.
U.S. Congresspersons who are members of “The Squad” are considered the most progressive (i.e. most pro-Black) members of Congress. AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, reportedly spent over $100 million in recent elections, doing everything humanly and inhumanely possible to defeat these political representatives who have a proven track record of fighting for the well-being of Blackfolk. If any other organization worked that hard to block Black progress we’d call them every kind of racist enemy of Black people in the book. The problem is, anyone who criticizes AIPAC or stands against any position they take (i.e. calling out the genocide of Palestinian humanity), feels their wrath, like those Squad members, at least two of which lost in the Democratic primaries, thanks in large part to AIPAC money spent to defeat them. If anyone dares call AIPAC anti-Black, they are either attacked by the group economically, labeled anti-Semitic, and/or beaten over the head with the history of Civil Rights-era Black/Jewish solidarity. But $100 million spent to defeat elected officials with a history of fighting for Black people doesn’t feel like solidarity to me.
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