Malcolm X

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Baltimore Unrest

by Akan Bosemann

Is America listening? If we take everything that has been happening since before Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Eric Garner, Michael Brown Jr, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray and many more going back to even before Emmit Till, and deeper into the beginnings of the slave trade, we can see a long trail of gun powder leading to a black powder keg the size of a Continent.

Speaking to a friend about the recent rioting and looting going on in Baltimore, we came to the conclusion that this is just the tip of the iceberg. CNN showed images of cop squad cars burning and being attacked. There are lines of police officers some without riot shields standing in a wait for the masses of rioters. An MLB game is cancelled over the concern for safety.

Why should anyone be surprised at the age of the rioters involved in Baltimore? The police have shown they will kill minorities at any age with impunity. What you teach children at an early age will become part of who they are if and when they grow into adulthood.

If you show kids that no matter what they do they are screwed, that there is no justice or recourse for them when they go about things the “right way” what logically should one expect to happen? What are we talking about here? The symptoms of a problem or the source?

The source of all of this isn’t the actions of the people who are rioting. They are the consequence of frustration over inequality of injustice, of poverty, of disenfranchisement, and the increase of awareness to rampant police brutality and murder against the same disenfranchised, poverty stricken, education deprived community.

We are all connected not just in this country but in this world. The problems of one’s neighbors if left unchecked and/or ignored one day become your problems.

If we adopt the attitude that it’s not our concern or that’s “their problem” eventually we will have to deal with the consequences of the ignored coming to where everything is “rosey”. Misery loves company and when there are more miserable people than there are content people, logic should dictate that it won’t be long before the miserable seek out the misery free to spread their experience or exact what they feel is owed.

Destruction of the property in the poor communities is sad but should it be taking precedence over the loss of black lives which has precipitated the violence and rioting. Hopelessness leads to irrational thinking. Some of my fellow contributors to this blog have mentioned it. Accountability is the “elephant in the room”.

Talking about the economic impact of the damage as a result of the rioting and looting again misses the mark. It shows what the real concerns are for the media. “Oh boo hoo, the CVS in these poor communities are destroyed”. Uh do you really think that the people who have nothing, give two shits about a multi-billion dollar corporations branch in their community losing a store? Is that the most important issue at hand? Look at where the media’s focus is. It’s sick. They care more about structures than the people.

As far as violence goes, why do we see people brazenly throwing bottles and rocks or whatever they can get their hands on at the police? They obviously are fed up with the abuse and the injustice. It’s a message to the oppressors “we have had our backs put up against the wall and have nothing to lose.”

Some think you can provoke unrest and expect people to sit passively and just take it. A reaction to the language of violence and injustice should be expected from any human being suffering from it. For those who say violence isn’t the answer. Well what is the answer if the justice system has shown its willingness not to deliver justice to the same affected people?

Ask the question, how did America get it’s independence again? Was it by being passive and hoping the monarchy of Great Britain would give them redress in the courts? I think the answer comes out a resounding NO!

Liberty or Death. Justice and Equality for All.

I encourage everyone who has read this to this point watch and listen to the Malcolm X Oxford Debate you can find on https://youtu.be/S3H2eul-50k and his speech on the House Negro and The Field Negro https://youtu.be/7kf7fujM4ag

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Black History Month 2015

I wanted to start this post with the question what does Black History Month represent for each of us? A quick Google search to find out the origins of Black History Month turned up the fact that what is now observed as a month long tradition actually began as “Black History Week”.

How interesting our history was only initially considered to be worth note for a single week in remembering Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays. Both birthdays two days apart. And while I won’t get into whether or not Lincoln’s should be as celebrated as Douglass’s the fact remains both were celebrated in Black communities since the late 19th century.What would be called today (at most colleges across the nation) the “Black Student Union” of Kent State University proposed the expansion of Black History Week to Black History Month in 1969. By February 1970 the first year of the celebration of Black History Month began. It was recognized by the U.S. government and celebrated informally in 1976 as part of the U.S Bicentennial.

All that said, I have mixed feelings when I think about Black History Month. On one hand I see the need for the recognition of Black History. Especially in lieu of world history & in particular American History as a whole. What happens to those whose history is forgotten? Should our collective accomplishments be relegated to footnotes and bywords? On the other hand if we can only say our history is worth mentioning on a specific month, once a year, what are we really saying?

I acknowledge that there is a need for there to be an emphasis in the teaching and learning about Black History but can that be separated of American History like the segregationist era? I’m not so sure. Black History I agree with Morgan Freeman, is American History and to be honest one month doesn’t do it nearly the justice it deserves. Am I in favor of abolishing Black History Month? I say no. Am I in favor of seeing it expand like it did in the past from a single week to a single month to a year? Absolutely.

I think all human history as part of world history is important and worth learning about all the time and year round. Maybe one day we won’t be divided by our nationalities, our ethnicities, or cultural diversities.

Maybe one day we’ll simply say in the annals of Human history…this person did this and this person did that, seeing each person as what they are… a person, a human being, a creation in the image of God, worth mentioning not for the color of his/her skin but for the mark they left on this world while they walked in it.

What are your thoughts on this?