There is a difference between cowardice and hypocrisy, just as there is an important distinction between benefiting from economic and/or class privilege (no matter what one’s pigmentation might be) versus suffering in the throes of worsening economic poverty - including joblessness, homelessness, and no comprehensive single-payer health care, etc.

To label an entire “nation” collectively as “cowards” on the subject of race, or anything else, is arrogant, uninformed, demagogic, and just plain wrong. Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Huey P. Newton were not cowards, nor were John Brown or Viola Liuzzo. U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder’s, recent use of the word “coward” in the context of racial discourse in the United States, is at best misguided, and at worse, cynically opportunistic. Moreover, Holder’s statement totally misses the point of the need for real and total systemic change in this nation, which crosses both color and gender boundaries. This nation’s political “leaders” are indeed, for the most part, cowards and hypocrites, but the common everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples are definitely not. Rather, they are misinformed, disinformed, and deliberately manipulated by a corporate “news” media who in fact serve as nothing more than the fifth column for the U.S. Government’s internal and external propaganda machine. Surely, Eric Holder knows this, for he and the Barack Obama regime, of which he is a part, directly benefit from this economic reality of class privilege.

Holder’s militantly uninformed comment is no practical or acceptable substitute for militantly informed, principled organizing for collective and holistic systemic change. Militancy without revolutionary ideology is nothing more than opportunistic banter.

Race / color has been and continues to be an extremely important factor in the United States, and must be forthrightly addressed. However, class issues are also integrally intertwined with race/color issues in ‘America.’ Thus, a Black oppressor and/or economic exploiter is no more acceptable than a White one, or one of any other color. If there is any “coward[ice]” involved, it is that of pretending that color is the only important operative factor, when every passing day highlights to the suffering masses, nationally and internationally, that economic and class issues are also an integral part of the unfolding equation.

U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, made his above mentioned remarks to an audience celebrating “Black History Month.” But it seems that Holder himself misses the point that every single month of the year is, in fact, Black History Month, and indeed every day of the year is one of discourse, agitation, and struggle for all peoples, including our indigenous so-called “Indian” sisters and brothers.

The Black, Brown, White, Red, and Yellow everyday peoples of this nation are not cowards. The privileged so-called leaders of this nation, for the most part, are.

It is up to you and me to change both the narrative and the terms of the political equation, for we are not the cowards but too often continue to be the victims of the cowardly actions of our so-called “leaders.”

Onward…Onward NOW brothers and sisters. It’s time to change the equation.

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.