Black people who assert their rights to be sovereign and liberated have always been treated as enemies to be silenced or destroyed. Even enslaved people who sought to escape from bondage were labeled as sufferers of “drapetomania.” The effort to pathologize and stigmatize the fight for freedom never ended. To this very day Black liberation is diminished and discredited as being wrong headed or dangerous.
It continues to this day. We see it in the way the Uhuru House wasn’t allowed to protest the war effort without literally getting raided and incarcerated as “Russian disinfo agents”. We see it in the way that online settler-liberals can’t help but slander any criticism as “bot farms”. We see it in the way that when one of our Misleaders thrives on the malicious philanthropy of the settlers(*cough* CLARENCE *cough*), nothing resembling legal consequences ever seems to happen to them.
“Sell out to us and we’ll uplift you, at the cost of your community”. This is the byline of the Amerikan Dream offered to us. “Sell out to us, and you’ll be comfortable. Sell out to us, and we won’t send stochastic crackers to gun you down in broad daylight.”
That’s all it is. And when you don’t comply, you’re “a Russian” in need of silencing. In need of incarceration. In need of assassination.
The fear also explains why the forces arrayed against us continue their fight. Black liberation is dangerous to them. Anti-imperialism is dangerous to them. Challenging the political duopoly is dangerous to them. Allowing any counter narrative to thrive puts the system at risk.
I struggled for a couple minutes on how to end this; cause ending with a quote makes it feel like an eternal pause-- so I’m going to end it by telling you to get armed. Arm up, learn your tool, practice with it. The hard days are coming; and it’s better to have and not need, than to need and not have.