It saddens me to anticipate that President Obama will use the funeral service for the slain Charleston Nine to pick at the scab of race. Instead of letting our 400 year old wounds continue to heal, his words will open the scab and expose the wound to to the air of racism that we have seen rise up in the last two years.
The profound honor and decency demonstrated by the families of the slain, is part of that healing. The coming together of the people of Charleston, indeed all of South Carolina — both black and white, demonstrated so dramatically by the 15,000 that marched hand-in-hand across Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge to honor the slain (incidentally most of those marchers were white) is a part of that healing.
The organic campaign to remove the Confederate flag from state property in not only South Carolina, but Alabama and Mississippi, is reflective of that healing. Recognizing the power of that press conference picture of Governor Nikki Haley (the second Indian-American Governor elected below the Mason-Dixon line) flanked by Senator Tim Scott (the first black American to be elected to the senate in the South since the end of Reconstruction over 100 years ago) is a picture of a nation healing.
All these healing moments if the face of tragedy were irritated by President Obama within days of the tragedy when he appeared on a comedic radio podcast using the n-word to promote the idea that racism has not ended. This is an example of his continual picking at the scab of race. It is yet another example of the regressive-progressives promoting victimology among minorities. The regressive-progressive movement would have minorities in America believe that nothing has changed in America since the days of segregation. They will not stop with agitating about the Confederate flag. My prediction is they will use the battle over the flag as a means to accelerate their efforts to erode and destroy our founding documents and the memory of our founding fathers.
They have successfully done this already in far too many public schools across the country and college campuses across the nation. They will ultimately use the Confederate battle flag as a metaphorical battering ram against all western civilization. Next stop statues of Robert E. Lee, the Jefferson Memorial, and even the names of existing military bases. Those efforts will be vigorously opposed by my organization, C.O.R.E.
The power of the victimology drive by the regressive-progressives should not be underestimated. It is a powerful political motivation. More importantly, it promotes a mentality of hopelessness and powerlessness. It shackles the brain with imagined impediments to progress. It robs the soul of the self-control of fate and accountability of action. Indeed, if racism is so pervasive and dominant, then clearly blacks and browns are powerless to better their station in life until so-called white supremacy is extinguished, right? It is in fact a neo-slavery of the mind and soul.
Take a look at a speech by first lady Michelle Obama to black graduates of one of the oldest historically black schools in the nation, “the road ahead is not going to be easy. It never is, especially for folks like you and me. Because while we’ve come so far, the truth is that those age-old problems are stubborn and they haven’t fully gone away.”
Later in the speech she asserts, “The world won’t always see you in those caps and gowns. They won’t know how hard you worked and how much you sacrificed to make it to this day … instead they will make assumptions about who they think you are based on their limited notion of the world. And my husband and I know how frustrating that experience can be. We’ve both felt the sting of those daily slights throughout our entire lives — the folks who crossed the street in fear of their safety; the clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those department stores; the people at formal events who assumed we were the “help” — and those who have questioned our intelligence, our honesty, even our love of this country.”
The first lady ends her victim litany with, “the realization that no matter how far you rise in life, how hard you work to be a good person, a good parent, a good citizen — for some folks, it will never be enough.” And all this from the Princeton and Harvard educated millionaire wife of the most powerful man on the planet — a historical figure. A graduating student that should be full of optimism and hope when confronted by the first ladies statement, must believe “my goodness if the first lady and the president are victims, then surely I must be too.”
This hopelessness was on full display in Baltimore several weeks ago with the self-destructive riots. The frustration in Baltimore is very real. Baltimore youth unemployment is near 50 percent. The murder rate for the month of May was the highest in 40 years. The high schools graduate more people to prison than college. But the question is why one of the nation’s oldest cities is such an economic basket case? Lack of resources? Not enough money for the schools? Police Brutality? White Supremacy? Racist White Republicans? These are all largely distractions born from the dominant narrative enforced by the wife and first lady of Americas first black president; the rhetoric of anti-black racism/victimology.
Yet this neo-slavery robs the people of Baltimore of motivation to ask some fundamental questions. Questions such as: $1.8 billion dollars of Obama stimulus money was directed to the municipality of Baltimore, largely represented by big-government black Democrats. What happened to the money? Lack of resources? Of the top 100 largest school districts in the nation Baltimore has been number three or number two in spending per pupil for the last five years. What are the results of this $14,000 per pupil student spending? Do the black Mayor, black Police Chief, and black members of the City Council have any accountability with the current state of the city? Certainly not if there is some mysterious all encompassing fog of white supremacy that paralyzes even the president of the United States and his wife.
This illusion is the neo-slavery that like slavery of old robs its “beneficiaries” of accountability of action, of hope to determine one’s fate. Liberated from this neo-slavery, the citizens of Baltimore might demand that the black Attorney General, serving the black President of the United States launch an investigation into how the $1.8 billion Obama stimulus dollars have been spent by Mayor Rawlings Blake and the other liberal Democrat powers of Baltimore.
The Republican Party was born to end slavery over 150 years ago. It has a very large abolitionist wing. Today, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents of honor must be modern-day abolitionists against the neo-slavery of victimology; if not this disease will spread to other minority groups. Already Latinos are being told that immigration amnesty is a civil right. That if it is not granted, and then they are VICTIMS of Xenophobia. Women are constantly being told of a war against them. We will become the Balkanized States of America, if brave patriotic Americans don’t stand with CORE and fight this as the abolitionists did a century and a half ago. We all must be modern day Fredrick Douglasses, who said 150 years ago when asked what America shall do with the slaves when freed:
“The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. … I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! If the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall. All I ask is give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!”
Niger Innis is currently the the National Spokesperson for the Congress of Racial Equality (C.O.R.E) and the Executive Director of TheTeaParty.net.