Its Time For Black Liberation, Not Liberalism
White Supremacy & Anti-Blackness is about power, it is about domination, and it is instilled into every factor of the world we know. It is so infectious that even for someone with black skin it takes more conscious effort to not replicate it than it does to perpetuate it. It is because of this that it is important that we understand our own internalized anti-blackness and white supremacy, and begin to question and deconstruct what that looks like.
This is important so that we do not continue to perpetuate those things onto each other. We see that happening a lot now with rhetoric from liberal blacks who when talking about white on black murder say, “we should be fair, more black people are killed from black on black crime.” Apologism for this white supremacist police state is not helping our community, neither is the constant attempt to dilute the black in this resistance. We have seen #BlackLivesMatter turn into #AllLivesMatter (this is reference to what most presume to be just a hashtag stating that their lives matter, and not related to the organization). We’ve also seen, specifically here in Los Angeles, too many white people taking a lead role in organizing protest. There is this idea, that we can not do this alone, that police violence is everyones problem, so everyone should be working on this. This approach, ignores the systemic larger issue at play, that these black lives are not just being murdered because we have trigger happy police, but it is because we live in a white supremacist society that devalues black lives.
Black autonomy is key, our rebellion must be ours and ours alone. Yes, there are allies who also have a vested interest in changing the current power structure, the success of their struggle does not necessarily mean the success of ours. Anti-blackness is the foundation of this country. All other races either benefit or are punished for it depending how close they are perceived to be to blackness. White supremacy is not something exclusive to just the European race, but that white supremacy is perpetuated also in other non-black cultures as well. We see anti-darkness amongst other communities of color as well. I make a distinction from anti-darkness and anti-blackness, because you can still be of dark skin and still perpetuate anti-blackness. This is why the quick reaction to unify under all colors, and as just humans is lacking the critical understanding necessary to achieve anything more than a band aid to a gushing wound.
For that, and many other reasons, white people should NEVER lead or organize resistance of any sort. Especially not black resistance in which they are the benefactors of both white supremacy and anti-blackness. Allowing white people to organize black resistance makes as much sense as allowing the police to dictate how you protest against police brutality. There is an enormous amount of entitlement, and again white supremacy for a white person to even think they should be organizing around black struggle. There is also a certain amount of internalized white supremacy where we believe white people should be allowed to be included to organize amongst our spaces.
Do not allow your oppressors to organize you, they will have you running around in circles, making sure your tactics hold no true threat. Because black liberation comes at a cost to their privileges.
You can’t have a conversation about unity and coming together when some still have chains on their feet. It is the structure of white supremacy and the institutionalization of white supremacy that has allowed for the lives of black people to be murdered by police every 28 hours, and that has allowed it to become a normalized occurrence in this country for years.
While the two cops who were allegedly murdered by one black man allow for war to be publicly declared on the black community. For the mayor to state that the whole city will be in mourning. Where were the cities mourning when their city’s police officers killed Eric Garner? Were the cities mourning when their justice system failed Esaw Garner? You cannot take the issue of race out of this struggle, when the reason why we struggle is because of our race.
THIS IS A HELLA IMPORTANT READ.
