You may have noticed that some white people have gotten bolder and bolder about brandishing assault-type weapons in public. Not just in public places — lately they have gone to storming or surrounding what should be secure buildings like the Michigan and Kentucky state capitol buildings while those legislatures were in session.
The well-organized protests (rumored to use paid actors and stuntmen) are meant to intimidate. But who is “skeered” by these hooligans? Not me. These modern Ku Kluxers/terrorists want to foment a rebellion against all lawful authority that doesn’t cave to their demands.
Some Michigan lawmakers wore bulletproof vests in the legislative chamber when they stormed the chambers. My, how the worm has turned. More than 50 years ago, Black Panther Party founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale went to the steps of the California State Capitol with unloaded guns, and white Americans went ballistic.
Laws were quickly enacted and a full-out repression campaign was launched by state and federal authorities to repress and eliminate the threat of — as North Carolina Black activist Robert F. Williams wrote in his 1962 book — “Negroes with guns.” Dozens and dozens of Panthers were murdered by police. Hundreds and hundreds were jailed.
These white guys, with their Confederate flags, nooses and Nazi slogans — who call themselves some kind of “Boogaloo-jihadeen” — have up until now gone mostly unchallenged by law enforcement authorities and have even been praised by Donald J. Trump. So much for any semblance of “Equal Justice Under Law” in this country.
For now, they rally under the banner of reopening the government. But there will be more and more demands as time goes on. A few years ago, in some Western states these lawless terrorists fought the federal government. One of their leaders had been illegally grazing his cattle on government land without paying the required fees. When they were arrested, there were bloody gunfights. A protester lost his life.
This time, Michigan (not Mississippi) Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued a rebuke of the armed protesters who gathered inside the state capitol in defiance of statewide lockdown orders, saying the demonstrators embodied some of the “worst racism” of the nation’s history.
The only thing is that these are not antebellum times. Slavery is dead and will not be revived. When there were 11 states in league with that “Lost Cause” the Confederate ideology they now profess was defeated. Besides, Black people are not servile and under control like 170 years ago.
Then there is the one-word factor, which will doom these terrorists and hatemongers to fail and fail miserably. The word is: “No.” Let me be emphatic about it. Like we said in the Vietnam era: “Hell no, we won’t go.”
Even if they managed to wrest some power somewhere, they cannot rule the resulting ultra-divided nation their ascension will produce. And when — and it will — an external challenge grips the country, they and all their little private guns and militias will be unable to defend their homeland without the support of all the people, especially Black people. No. Hell, no.
They have been blinded, and their hearts have been hardened against recognizing the truth, let alone accepting it an amending their wicked behavior. They claim to be Christians, but they have none of the compassion or brotherly love that the Jesus of the Bible demonstrated. They don’t believe that what “you (individuals and nations) sow, so shall you reap.” They think all the earth’s bounties are meant for them to take, to plunder at will. No.
This is not a joyous thing to observe and, sadly, it’s only going to get worse. But Black people are not going back to those terrible times — and all the white men with all the guns in the world can’t bring that about again.
So what if Trump is packing the federal courts? More than 30 percent of all federal judges were appointed by this grifter-president and confirmed by his partner in crime, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). In 1857 the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 against Dred Scott, declaring a Black man had no rights a white man was bound to respect. Again, in 1896 the court ruled by a 7-1 margin in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision.
No. We’re never going back to those terrible times again. All we have to say is “No” to their unjust pronouncements. And it doesn’t have to be everybody — just a critical mass, enough resistance, enough people saying no to this attempted white intimidation, no to fighting America’s unjust wars, just saying “No.”
Guns cannot undue the resolve of a determined people who, with one voice, say: “No.”
While I share the belief that, “Black people are not going back to those terrible times — and all the white men with all the guns in the world can’t bring that about again” I however, fiercely disbelieve that, ” All we have to say is “No” to their unjust pronouncements.”
In the face of these gun strapped vigilantes, who call themselves some kind of “Boogaloo-jihadeen” the word “no” will be much more convincing when we position and equip ourselves so that we demonstrate as the martyred Malcolm X reasoned, that “We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.”