�I
freed a thousand slaves - I could have freed a thousand
more if only they knew they were slaves.�
-Harriet
Tubman
�Sometimes
people hold a core belief that is very strong. When
they are presented with evidence that works against
that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It
would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable,
called cognitive dissonance.�
-Frantz
Fanon
The
euphemistic mountain top of freedom is actually not a
mountain top at all. It is a plateau. For each succeeding
generation must struggle to scale the heights of indifference
and apathy in order to bring to fruition one more forward
step in the amazingly persistent evolution of humanity.
Nevertheless, humankind is constantly shadowed by the
ever present danger of losing our grip and falling backwards
into an abyss of stagnation and extinction.
In
this year of 2012, everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown,
Red, and Yellow people in this nation, and indeed worldwide,
face extraordinary challenges and perils. Black America,
in particular, finds itself under merciless political
assault by those who make dubious claim to enhancing the
centuries-long struggle for economic, political, and social
justice.
The
hypocrisy, greed, and callousness of the relatively small
�Black elite� towards the everyday struggling people of
Black America is unrivaled. The twin evils of greed [i.e
ME-ism] and militarism are presented as
good, or at the very least, somehow acceptable today.
The historic sacrifices by Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X [el-Hajj
Malik el-Shabazz], Martin Luther King, Jr., etc.,
on behalf of the collective good of Black
America and humanity as a whole, are plundered, disfigured,
and distorted for the benefit of the cynical greedy
few. The vast majority of this �Black
elite� and Black intelligentsia are, in the words of Malcolm
X, among �those who want to continue the system
of exploitation.� They are traitors not only to Black
America collectively, but to humanity as a whole. Notwithstanding
their obfuscated rhetoric, they are about joining
the system - not totally and fundamentally changing
it for the collective good of everyone.
Today,
the actual rates of poverty, unemployment, and mass incarceration,
etc. within Black America have skyrocketed virtually off
the charts, even as the corporate-stream media seek to
distract and numb Black America by highlighting the life-styles
of the small Black elite. The treachery of this is self
evident. However, despite these deliberate novocaine-like
distractions, Black America is beginning to slowly
reawaken to its true history and present peril.
Black
America must, and will ultimately, reawaken to the fact
that its survival is, as with people of all colors,
to be found within we the everyday people - ourselves!
No systemic so-called �leader� of any color
or gender will ever place the collective political and
economic needs of everyday people above the interests
and greed of the blood-sucking corporate elite. Only
everyday people, ourselves, will do this collectively.
We
must free ourselves collectively from the de facto
slavery of this corrupt and hypocritical U.S. political
system, even as we remember the even more relevant words
of Harriet Tubman, when she said, �I freed a thousand
slaves - I could have freed a thousand more if only
they knew they were slaves.�
This
has been, and will continue to be, a long and protracted
struggle. And it is time to reawaken and reach up
for yet another plateau in this, humanity�s struggle.
The road is rough, but it must be traveled. We
can do this together. Each one, teach one! Each one, reach
one!
Onward
then, my sisters and brothers! Onward!
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 News
Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer
News Hour. 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.
