AFRIKA SPEAKS: What’s REALLY Behind the Charleston Massacre? 22.06.15

June 19, 2015 Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement

ASwA Charleston copy We begin offering condolences to the families of the victims of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church massacre: Rev. State Sen. Clementa Pinckney (41), Cynthia Hurd (54), Tywanza Sanders (26), Sharonda Singleton (45); Myra Thompson (59); Ethel Lance (70); Susie Jackson (87); the Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr.(74); and Rev DePayne Middleton-Doctor (49).  All nine died at the hands of avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof in the midst of a prayer meeting at their Charleston, South Carolina church.  At the scene Roof is reported to have said: “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.”  In spite of this, according to the BBC, the teenage children of Sharonda Singleton told the BBC they have forgiven her killer and wanted to focus on moving on in a positive way: “We already forgive him for what he’s done,” said her son, Chris. “And there’s nothing but love from our side of the family. Love is stronger than hate.”

 
The fact that the police immediately categorised the killings as a “hate crime” was in some ways a departure from usual strategy of eschewing any racial element when the victims are Afrikan.  However, numerous commentators have asserted that this is in reality an attempt to individualize the attack rather than contextualize it within the framework of white terror against Afrikans in the USA.  As veteran political strategist Charles D. Ellison stated on theroot.com:  “State, local and federal authorities, however, will want us all to find comfort in the “hate crime” stamp… Pretty soon he’ll be just another “mentally ill” guy with a gun.  The “mentally ill,” along with “high on drugs” perspective goes beyond just these authorities to network media and even to influential website like infowars.com – that seem able to able to find conspiracies everywhere (e.g. Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission, etc.), except, it appears, when they’re perpetrated against Afrikans.
 
Another strand to the response focuses on the gun control debate.  As president Obama said in response to the tragedy: “we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it.”  Yet the USA has a very powerful gun lobby, that clings to the 2nd amendment of the constitution which states: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”  However, as Bruce Dixon, managing editor at Black Agenda Report states in his article The Real And Racist Origins of the Second Amendment “Historically then, the principal activities of the Founding Fathers’ “well regulated militia” were Indian killing, land stealing, slave patrolling and the enforcement of domestic apartheid, all of these, as the Constitutional language declares “being necessary to the security of a free state.” The Constitutional sanction of universally armed white men against blacks and Indians is at the origin of what has come to be known as America’s “gun culture.”
 
What is becoming apparent is that a growing number of Afrikan commentators, in contrast the USA government and white media, view the Emanuel AME Church massacre as, in the words of Lawrence Brown of salon.com: “This is American terrorism: White supremacy’s brutal, centuries-long campaign of violence There’s a war being waged against Black Americans, whether white America wants to admit it or not.”  Brown’s words have some historical import.  For example, attacks on Afrikan churches did not begin with the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 (murdering one pre-teen and three teenage girls), nor will it likely end with Emanuel AME.  In fact, Emanuel AME was subject to one of the earliest attacks in 1822, six years after its inauguration when it was burned to the ground after the execution of co-founder and revolutionary Denmark Vesey.  There is also some indication that Rev. Clementa Pinckney was striving to tap into this legacy. The “Black Church” in the USA has historically been at the forefront of the fight for social justice in the USA, frequently putting on collision course with the forces of white supremacist terror.  Although, with some notable exceptions, this social activism has waned considerably in recent decades, the church remains a powerful symbolic target in the war on Afrikan people.  But it’s not just the target of organised American white terror.  The massacres and white mob violence  of Wilmington (1898), Atlanta(1906), Springfield (1908), St. Louis (1917), Red Summer (across 25 cities – 1919), Tulsa (“Black Wall Street” – 1921), Rosewood (1923), Move Organisation (1985), as well as nearly 4,000 lynchings between 1887 and 1950 and the experiments of Tuskeegee and Planned Parenthood form an alarming narrative.  It’s also worthy of note that, for example, the majority of those lynched were not shot, suggesting perhaps that an analysis of the aftermath of the shooting should be less about gun control legislation than about the (murderous) intent of the people using them.
 
In an environment where white mass murderers can be pursued and arrested “without incident,” while innocent Afrikan men, women and children can be slain with impunity for surrendering, running, or selling cigarettes (allegedly), etc. – only to be demonised in the white media after their deaths is a telling representation of the power dynamics at play in the USA.  Consequently, in the absence of any drastic transformation of the status quo, this genocidal narrative looks set to continue. 
 
So we ask the question:
 

What’s REALLY behind the Charleston Massacre?

  1. Was the attack the result of a mentally ill or drugged up individual?
  2. Was it a hate crime or an act of terrorism?
  3. Can the situation be addressed by tighter gun controls?
  4. Should Dylann Roof have been forgiven?
  5. How is it that a white mass murderer can be arrested  by the police “without incident,” while numerous innocent Afrikans die while encountering the same?
  6. Can anything be done to prevent such attacks happening again?
 
Our special guest is:
 
Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and UNIA-ACL Ambassador for the UK.  A veteran activist of over 30 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An Africentric Guide To Excellence

Tendai MWARI,


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