“Violence in American is as American as Apple Pie!” – H. ‘Rap’ Brown (Imam Jamil Al-Amin,) Political Prisoner
On a daily basis in the U.S.A. thousands of young Black males are randomly stopped and frisked, arrested, shuttled through the Industrial Criminal Justice Complex. These youth are given a criminal record usually for minor possession of marijuana. (despite legalization or decriminalization in over a dozen States) or beat up and charged with “resisting arrest and disorderly Conduct if they questioned the police’s conduct. Once identified by the “system” as a criminal offender or violator, these Black youth upon reaching adulthood ( or if already adults) cannot legally own or possess firearms, hence can never avail themselves of access to legal gun ownership and therefore can never exercise their right to armed self-defense of their person or family. Their 2nd Amendment Right is efficiently abrogated. Couple this with the fact that “gun culture” as a family sport never existed in Black communities as “healthy” social recreation because the very concept of armed Blacks was a nightmarish prospect to Whites. In a nation that once placed Samuel Colt metaphorically on par with God with axioms “that God Created Man, but Samuel Colt made them equal” this unholy encapsulation from the days of America’s “Wild, Wild West” offers a glimpse into just how deep the fear of Black and White equality truly is. For Blacks to defend themselves is a crime at worst (if they live) and at best unfortunate (if they die like Trayvon Martin).
White America’s fear of social and economic equality between Blacks and Whites is understandable though pathetic. Its rooted in the inherent inequality of Black flesh locked-stitched into White America’s national beginnings as a slave holding settler state. This has left predominantly Black communities, especially Black urban domestic colonies (Ghettoes) devoid of a tradition of a legal gun culture and even subjective fear of even exercising their right to armed self-defense, something White folks take for granted as their Right. Which is probably why Black people will record a Police Murder rather than defend each other against it. Does anyone think a legally armed white citizen would hesitate to intervene if a White woman was being brutally murdered by a plain clothes Black cop in broad daylight? While gun ownership and gun culture was somewhat ameliorated in the Southern states that constitute the “Black Belt,” it’s absolute in the Urban North and Northeast. So much so that Black people, even Black cops, who legally own a gun have been shot dead by white cops and white civilians alike.
Ironically, Black urban communities subject to communal violence by those, who, in pursuit of their American material Dream by any means at their disposal, including illicit Black capitalism – crime, have made the Broader Black community in to a “free fire zone” forcing the Broader community to deal with racist law enforcement to protect themselves from predatory elements in their own communities. Which is much like the sexually abused underage child appealing to the late Jeffrey Weinstein for protection from the pedophiles at his house party.
The nullification of legal access to firearms in the communities suffering under racial profiling is prolific, and the sociological reality that all people, living in close proximity usually commit acts of physical violence on each other is distorted to imply that generally inner city Black communities are prone to crime. The idea of “Black on Black crime” is used to reinforce this notion albeit via the Back door. Despite White folks propensity for mass shootings, mass murder, armed resistance to Federal and local authority, Black people are the one’s perceived as malevolently violent prone and must act politely and non-threatening in the presence of White people least they feel vulnerable and insecure. But a racist cop can kneel on a Black person neck for almost ten minutes in the presence of scores of able body Black people and no one will feel vulnerable and insecure enough to call for help or throw a skittle
There’s no such thing as “black-on-black” crime distinct from, and apart from the violent nature of the White supremacist social construct of the United States. Violence in American is, as American as Apple Pie! As H. Rap Brown once noted.
Yes, from 1976 to 2005, 94% of black victims were killed by black offenders, but that racial ratio of violent crime applied equally to white victims of violent crime as well —86% percent of white victim of violent crime were killed by white offenders. This ratio has increased today as Police violence against Blacks continues unabated. The increased criticism of militarized Policing today caste serious doubt on the causes and origin of increased gun violence in urban areas without a corresponding increase of arrests for gun related shootings. One can reasonably believe, given the history of police murder of Black activists, that “Law Enforcement” will stop at nothing to maintain their power and control over Black communities. Police death squads or individual armed agents of the state, the police, (or their snitches) may well be behind such an obvious self-serving increase and unprecedented upswing of “Black on Black” gun violence. The camouflage is COINTELPROesque in simplicity.
Irrefutably, for the large majority of crimes, you’ll find that victims and offenders share a racial identity, or have some prior relationship to each other or live in relative proximity to each other. Crime in general is driven by opportunism and proximity. The term “Black on Black”crime was devised in the Sixties by the Police Unions PR departments (mainly using Black Cops) and Black supporters of the Police (who were then increasingly isolated by wide-spread anti-Police sentiments in the Black communities) to deflect from the systemic racist Police brutality and murder of Black People that time and time again were the causes for urban racial rebellions (riots). The term is still employed today for exactly the same purpose by both elected officials and the Police. Black on Black crime is still trotted out to detract from Black organization against the racist institutional violence of the state and its agencies. And even more potent a deceptive cover for clandestine Police conduct to undermined the call for decentralization of police and diversion of their funding to community Control of Public Safety.
To further complicate things the same establishment type Black leadership (who rant against Black on Black crime) consistently implement Police sponsored “Gun Buy Back “ campaigns to further disarm Blacks while refusing to create a positive environment for Black community self defense. None of these “buy back” campaigns are accompanied with establishment of Legal Gun Clubs or Associated with Legal gun ownership programs among Black people threatened by White America’s violent extreme Right. This was, and still is, especially disturbing during a period that militarization of the Police has proceeded with unprecedented speed. Blurring the distinction between criminal gun violence and the legal right to Black self-defense and obscuring the connection between the right to self-defense and racist fear of armed Blacks is the job of todays Black leaders and Civil Rights figures who permitted the erection of the “New Jim Crow” system of mass incarceration during their watch – with hardly a whisper of protest. Practically every Black elected official and prosecutors consistently called for more cops and harsher sentencing for convicted felons in the 70’s 80’s and 90’s. Biden and Clintons were not unsupported in this. The government’s disingenuous “War on Drugs”, “War on Crime”, and even the “War on Terrorism” were all racially motivated and used to justify militarized policing. Each so called “war” has been abysmal failures in either eliminating drug use or radical reduction in crime rates. Nonetheless, the Black misleadership class, and the plethora of today’s Black mayors still focus on Black on Black violence to detract from organization against the racist institutional violence of the state and its agencies.
So now, many of these same leaders want us to follow them once again down the path of “legalism” absent a mass movement, pursue “reform” absent independent political power to challenge the often violent hegemony of status quo politics and the police state.
Dhoruba Bin-Wahad
August 2020
i think you raise a number of interesting points. while this may not have been the point of this writing, i think it would benefit from more historical facts about prohibition of weapon ownership and/or possession for Blacks in America. i learned of this in researching oppression of irish (my lineage) in america, with the resonating point being that, while oppressed, the irish still could possess weapons, including guns, legally, while the same could not be said for Blacks. i expect you could find more. Also, if the point is that these historic circumstances are a major influence in Black on Black violence today, i think your work would benefit from more focus on and support for that connection. These are just suggestions offered from someone who is a novice in these areas and lacks formal training (me). thank you for your work.
My son JAHQUI GRAHAM OF EAST ORANGE NJ. WAS BEATEN and ARRESTED AND KILLED BY THE east police for JUST 5 MONTHS AFTER 21 ST BIRTHDAY. HIS FIRST BORN SON WAS JUST 3MONTH OLD.