Dissident Veteran For Peace

41. The Empire is the institution, the codification, of derangement; it is insane and imposes its insanity on us by violence, since its nature is a violent one.

42. To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement. This is a paradox; whoever defeats a segment of the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus, imposing its form on its enemies. Thereby it becomes its enemies.

Source: The Cryptica Scriptura of VALIS by Philip K. Dick (Bantam Books, 1981).

Labels: Empire, Philip K Dick, quotations, violence

It's been suggested that when the only tool you have is a hammer everything begins to look like a nail. A similar phenomenon seems to occur when the only tool in your critical tool box is racial analysis—everything starts to look like racism.

Thus, "With the killing of Freddie Gray and the Baltimore Uprising we are 'back to the future': Jim and Jane Crow white supremacy is a poltergeist that continues to haunt the American body politic in the 21st century." This claim is meant to be taken seriously despite the fact that the events in question took place in a city where both the mayor and police chief are Black. And despite the fact that three of the four police officers charged, by the Black prosecutor, with felonies in the death of Freddie Gray are also Black. And despite the fact that all of this occured in a country that for the last six-and-a-half years has been governed by a Black president and a Black attorney general.

White supremacism sure is some powerful stuff. Undoubtedly, it is also to blame for the latest outrageous shooting deaths in Baltimore—Jennifer Jeffrey-Browne and her 7-year-old son, Kester "Tony" Browne —which have, apparently, elicited no massive public protests. Seemingly, Black lives matter much more when a police officer is involved in their end.

So, what explains such idiocy? It's easy, really. You take all the Black people in positions of power and reduce them to tokens. It goes kind of like this: "The symbolic progress along the color line is substantial. The American people elected a black man as president." See? The election of a Black man as the POTUS is not substantive but "symbolic".

Never for one minute lend any credence to the idea that Black leaders may be people who have internalized the values of the Domination System, a system which in fact has purged itself of White supremacism. Never for one minute seriously consider that in their roles they are every bit as powerful/powerless as their White predecessors/counterparts. This is what you do when the race hammer is the only tool in your critical thinking box.

Labels: Black America, crime, critical thinking, Obama, politics, race, United States

Labels: Black America, poetry, video

Labels: music, video

Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X, was born on this date in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska.

I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice, and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think that it will be based upon the color of the skin ...

Source: Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz a.k.a. Malcolm X, Toronto, January 19, 1965.

Labels: freedom, Justice, Malcolm X, quotations, race, resistance

This song is from the 1971 Edgar Winter's White Trash album.

Labels: music, philosophy, video