The Black Commentator: An independent weekly internet magazine dedicated to the movement for economic justice, social justice and peace - Providing commentary, analysis and investigations on issues affecting African Americans and the African world. www.BlackCommentator.com
January 8, 2009 - Issue 306
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Israelis Attack Boat Carrying Cynthia McKinney:
Still Strong, Still True, Still Black
In Struggle Spotlight
By Larry Pinkney
B
lackCommentator.com Editorial Board

 

 

While the pro-apartheid, Zionist Barack Obama remained deafeningly silent about the intensified Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, one lone Black American heroine risked her life and limb to engage in a peaceful fact-finding mission, attempting also to deliver desperately needed medical supplies to the people of Gaza. That woman is, of course, former U.S. Congresswoman and the Green Party U.S. Presidential candidate for 2008, Cynthia McKinney.

Cynthia McKinney continues to redeem the truest and the very best of Black America. She has demonstrated yet again that “beyond mere color, Black is first and foremost a conscious political, social, and economic commitment to the struggle for the collective betterment of the descendants of the Black slavery holocaust in what has now become the United States of America, in conjunction with other people of color and humanity as a whole.”

“One of my mates told me to prepare to die.”

On the evening of December 29th, 2008, Israeli war ships attacked a small boat in the international waters of the Mediterranean carrying over a dozen international dignitaries (including Cynthia McKinney), “three tons of hospital supplies, one pediatrician, and two surgeons” in route to the besieged people of Gaza. The tiny boat carrying our beloved Sister Cynthia McKinney was viciously rammed at least three times by huge, fast, and powerful Israeli war ships. The engines powering those Israeli war ships were gifts from none other than the United States. The boat was badly damaged and the vessel’s captain announced that the tiny boat was taking on water and that they might have to evacuate.

Cynthia McKinney reported that after their tiny boat had been repeatedly rammed by the Israelis, “One of my mates told me to prepare to die. And I reflected that I have lived a good and full life. I have tasted freedom and know what it is…” In a message dated January 1, 2009, Sister Cynthia McKinney further reported, regarding the experience of she and her mates, “We lived to tell the story. Lebanon rescued us…we met with the President of Lebanon, the Chief of the Military, and the Interior Minister who all thanked us for responding and risking our lives on a mission of mercy…”

Cynthia McKinney is the best of Black America. Indeed, she is the best of “America” as a whole. Let us hold her and those other sisters and brothers of like minds in our bosoms - near and dear to our hearts, emulating their noblest and truest of deeds.

Thank you Cynthia McKinney! Thank you for remaining true to the vision of John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Thank you for continuing to be our own shining Black princess. You are still strong, still true, and still Black.

We shall not tolerate apartheid or injustice at home or abroad no matter the pigmentation of its purveyors.

Onward now and forever…

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book). Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.

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