Thoughts on the concept of black on black crime

Picture the scene. A newspaper reports that someone has been stabbed or assaulted in “Sarf” London. Another grimly reveals that someone has been shot in Tottenham, North London; or maybe in Aston, Birmingham. One common denominator that I have noticed in these articles is that these papers who run the stories, and the journalists who print them are, doubtless in the interests of a warped form of political correctness, always quick to add that “the crime is believed to be currently under investigation by Trident”.  These are all heavily black areas. In the whiter and equally impoverished areas of London, Birmingham, Liverpool etc white on white crime is simply known as ....crime.. with little, if any, emphasis put upon the race of the victim or the perpetrator.

For those who do not know, Trident is the section of the Metropolitan Police in London that investigates gang crime. It was formed in 1998 to combat a spate of shootings that broke out in Brixton, London that primarily involved “Yardie” Gangs which were comprised, chiefly, of drug dealers of Jamaican origin (Posses)in the United States).

You may read a bit more about Trident here

These days, despite this department having since widened its scope to include all gang related criminality regardless of the racial composition of the individual gangs, the term is basically used as a euphemism for what is commonly described as “black on black” crime. So each time some outrage happens in the black community, in the interests of politeness, the papers decline to nakedly mention the race of the perpetrator or, more accurately in many instances, the alleged perpetrators, they throw the Trident thing into the mix as a sort of dog whistle to let their often right wing readers know what race the prime suspects are.

This concept, once sneeringly guffawed at by those of Middle Eastern and North African origin and who, to be blunt in my experience, have a nasty habit oflooking down on black people, appears to have begun to visit them too. Each time there is a shooting, or an explosion somewhere there is always some sort of mention of Mosque attendance, or discarded Koran's, or that “the suspect/s is or are thought to be of “Mediterranean appearance” They sneer no more.

More here on this often "swept under carpet" issue of the virulent nature of Arab Anti black racism

However, my main concern here is that there appears to be some sort of “racialising” of crime as if to suggest that should a certain type of crime take place it can be reasonably presumed that that crime was committed by a black man, or by an Arab or Middle Eastern looking person. Well, looking at the statistics, this appears to be a inaccurate despite the media coverage. Not all terrorists are Arabs as past events in places in Northern Ireland and past and present ones in the United States will show. The same goes for gang related activity. Not all gangs are black as one might notice when one takes the time to consider the Mafia, who are often portrayed as romantic, Robin Hood style criminals rather than the soulless murderers that they truly are.

Some other non black gangs below

Hells Angels

Aryan Brotherhood. 

Believe me, the above two gangs, like all other racially exclusive gangs murder way more of their own kind than other races, often over money, betrayal, or for "racial treachery". The incineration of the hapless Jessica Chambers is a case in point.

To compartmentalise crime and general evil-doing on the basis of race is dangerous and in my view, more than just a little dangerous as it leads to generations of children growing up with it hard wired almost innately in them to believe that a black man is someone you should flee, and always view with a healthy suspicion, rather than judge based on the individuals character as opposed to the entire race - as often seems to be the case from what I have learned over a life time of putting up with stereotypes.

Shall we judge an entire race because of the actions of a few?

It is a wrong way to approach life and I blame the media who, ironically, we ll look up to for guidance and a sense of morality, for perpetuating and propagating these myths. Evil is evil and should be confronted and reported upon fairly and with sincerity and integrity. The media is a powerful and widely influential institution which society looks up to and should not be used as a tool with which to shape society through a bigoted prism as often appears to be the case even within certain sections of the so called liberal media.

No black people don't all dance and listen to rap music, we don't all set out from our houses in the evening with the intention to mug and rob innocent people. We don't all play sport well, we are not all rapists and irredeemable drunks. We are just the same as other people and have the same, proportionally, inclinations to do either good or bad. Don't judge me because of what I wear, how I talk, how I cut my hair, how I choose to follow my own cultural norms as opposed to yours. If I have an Afro that is my business. If I choose to wear dreads that is my business too. Its how I choose to live. You don't know me to judge me. Neither do I know you to judge you either.

Frankly speaking I don't care what you do or how you live your life unless you wish to do me harm.

Complete Economic Independence means complete freedom.

Greetings family.

We often talk about “not being free”. I happen to agree with this and my pondering of this issue leads me to a singular conclusion for our current state as a people. The reason we are not free is because, like children, we are way too dependent on the goodwill of others in our endeavours to survive and make a proud living in today's world. What we need is complete economic freedom even though fighting, or working towards this end can be dangerous as you shall see below.

Let me explain why.

Freedom is nothing unless, and until, you become completely economically independent and thus become able to take complete control of your own destiny and to shape it positively for both yourself and your family, as well as for your community. Having the fetters of slavery and colonialism removed from you doesn't make you free. Economic independence though does, as it releases you from all the shackles that hold you back in life both as an individual and, for the purposes of this blog, as a people It instils in you a sense of achievement and grows your confidence as a human being. It also makes you proud of who, and what, you are.

Affirmative action, civil rights legislation; self-governance in some instances, and the evolving of racial tolerance have all played a positive part in raising us out of our past impoverished and feeble position compared to other races but that is only on the outside. As a people the truth remains that we are still the ward of someone else in the broader sense.

You see, being given good jobs on merit does not necessarily make us, as a collective, free. Sure, it improves our financial well being but the fact remains that we remain dependent on the good graces and kindness of those of the dominant races who make those jobs available to us. True freedom for us as a people can only come through ownership of the mode of production and using that ownership to provide jobs and the corresponding economic security for our own.

It pains me to see us, as a race, always negatively portrayed in Oxfam and Red Cross adverts whenever they appeal to people to donate to provide clean water, decent food, and so on, to deprived regions of Africa, or decent housing in the “inner cities” (euphemism for impoverished, often black, neighborhoods) in the developed world. The filming always seems to take place in some grim backwater in the worst places of the given area - which is then promoted as the true representation of how we all live and propagates the theory that we can not survive without the kindness of others.

The harsh truth is that we should be able to survive and progress on our own and in fact we, as as a people, should be doing all of that charity fund raising for ourselves by developing ourselves economically. To do this, and to improve our own areas and countries we need to focus on ourselves as a collective to do so. Not everyone will become rich but what we can certainly do to raise ourselves a notch or two upwards on the economic charts is to pool resources and create viable companies, and firms, and partnerships, that will create job opportunities for our children and spare them from the indignities of being denied employment on the basis of the names and of course, on their skin texture.

Trickle down economic improvement based on community support and unity, and a sense of purpose and drive amongst our own is how I would describe this in a nutshell.

People will always respect, and often times adore, an independent man or woman. More so if they know that that man or woman requires nothing from his admirers to get ahead in life. This, in a sense, is why whenever a black man preaches economic emancipation, the current global economic powers at the given time will do whatever they need to do to remove them as an influence as they understand very well the consequences of no longer being able to dictate terms to those that they consider to be beneath them. The control factor dissipates.....

This is something that has been preached about for ages by luminaries of the black cause like Booker T Washington, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and more recently, by people like Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba and so on. So important is economic freedom some of our former rulers resorted to the facilitation of murder and the creation of false criminal charges to suppress its rise within the black community. The last two leaders mentioned, Lumumba and Nkurumah were toppled at the behest of Western Intelligence agencies due their eagerness to reduce their peoples dependency on the master upon the attainment of independence of their respective countries. Garvey was imprisoned in 1923 on what are widely believed to be trumped up mail fraud charges, and Malcolm was gunned down in February 1965 as he gave his final speech in a ball room in Harlem New York with, it is believed, the complicity of the FBI under its leader, J Edgar Hoover - the same man believed to have been behind the downfall of Garvey

These examples given above, for me, serve to illustrate the power and importance of economic freedom as well as the importance of securing it for our children and for their children afterwards.

I will leave you first with a link to one the first tangible efforts at developing economic freedom for black folk which was funded via modest contributions from within the community. It failed in the end but it remains as an excellent example of what can be achieved via unity.

Marcus Garvey's BlackStar Liner company.

I will also leave links to some modern day success stories below; people who not only have, through innovation and dogged determination succeeded but who have also done something to improve our embattled community. Stories that should serve as inspirational and as a push towards a better life and condition for our people.

Strive Masiyiwa

John Johnson

Mo Ibrahim

Just think about it..... and act!

In love of Pan Africanism

Afritude.

Right wing outrage at the Islamic State. Where is this rage at Christianity's own evil past?

Perhaps some warped form of retrospective good may yet come out of the global outrage, particularly among Right wing at the recent cremation, in a cage, of the hapless and unfortunate Jordanian pilot, Muath Al-Kasaesbeh, by his sinister captors from the forces of the Islamic state, or ISIL as they are sometimes known.

He was captured at some point in December last year (2014), dragged half naked out of the Sea, after he was forced to eject from his aircraft after it was said to have been shot down by a heating seeking missile by fighters from ISIL during a failed bombing mission he was carrying out as part of the US led coalition against the same group. 

I was particularly amazed by American right-wingers who almost went berserk in their condemnation of this hideous act. Islam was denounced without qualification and they swore, at least on internet boards, and doubtless in the privacy of their dining rooms; indeed in public too that, given a chance, they would volunteer themselves to service of their country and gone and “educated” those Arab “barbarians”. All Arabs are equally evil in their view.

In the midst of their collective fury, President Obama, gave a measured speech that touched on religious extremism at a recent national breakfast prayer meeting held in Washington on February 5.

In this speech, he reminded many of those very same self righteous right-wingers of the role that their own professed religion, Christianity, played in similar acts of barbarity. Below is some of what he said.

“Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history, and lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

The response of these  Conservative “good folks of the Lord” was staggering to say the least. Rather than embrace the undeniable even if uncomfortable truth of what the President was talking about and engage in debate and so on, they chose to go on the offensive. After all, this type have never been the sort to face up to their own evil, past and present, as well as their long held prejudices against those of a darker shade. 

Instead they and their followers tend go to extraordinary lengths to avoid these issues wherever their own kind is involved. They will furiously say to the black man "get over it!, It was not me who did this!" when you try to discuss slavery and America's long standing troubles with racism with them. So why blame all Muslims in their entirety when it is clear to any fair minded person that it is not all of the Muslims who are responsible for this act of wickedness? Muslims could easily come back with retorts couldn't they?

Here is former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore who makes no attempt to actually debate what President Obama said. He is just angry that Christianity's dirty linen was aired in public it would seem.

“The president’s comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime. He has offended every believing Christian in the United States. This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.”

Huh?....  Below we shall see some of the "American values" that persisted in the South and indeed in Virginia not so long ago.

The same goes for Russell Moore the head of the Southern Baptists and Ethics and Religious Liberty commission, who described the speech as ...

“An unfortunate attempt at a wrongheaded moral comparison.” and went on to say that 

"What we need more is a “moral framework from the administration and a clear strategy for defeating ISIS,” 

Its worth noting that before Pastor Moore assumed the Presidency of this Southern Baptist organisation, it was led by a man called Richard Land who vacated, or rather, was forced to vacate, the position in the wake of these comments about the Trayvon Martin case

Anyway, moving on, lets leave aside for a moment the medieval brutishness inflicted upon by their ancestors by the "Christian" church at the rack, and the many unfortunate souls who perished in agony at Europe's stakes for not believing sufficiently in God and in his alleged son Jesus, and take the time to look at what used to happen in their very heartlands in the South and in the Mid west.  

Lets meet Henry Smith who was accused of murder and tortured and incinerated to death without the decency of a trial in Texas

You may read about Jesse Washington's case here too... another cremation

The retrospective good I refer to in first paragraph; indeed in its opening line, is that perhaps, with the passage of time, and when the current emotions, real of imagined, have dimmed a bit, these right wing warriors might just take the time to examine themselves, and their past as well as the past of their very, very, recent ancestors, in as far as the value of life is concerned. I never see any condemnation of the lynchings that used to take place in America by these people and, in fact, what I more often see are twitter posts from their kind mocking the brutality and agony our black forebears went through at the lynching stake.

All life is precious regardless of race or creed and these would be crusaders would do well to get to grips with their own behaviour, past and present before they go poking their judgemental and chubby, tobacco stained fingers into the behaviour of others.

Brotha Afritude.

Welcome to Great Zimbabwe. The most powerful civilisation ever in Souther Africa

Greetings family.

Today, I would like to take you all on a journey to a place called Great Zimbabwe in the heart of Southern Africa.  It was designed as a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1986.

This city, with a population of 25 000 at least at its zenith, and which existed from the 11^th to the early 16^th century extending over 800 hectares, eventually grew to become the seat of the fabled Munhu Mutapa empire founded by Nyatsimba Mutota (pictured below)  which was the successor of the original Kingdom of Zimbabwe and which itself is also a World Heritage site. It is generally acknowledged as the third most powerful African Empire ever. What remains of this city can be found in the present day city of Masvingo in Zimbabwe which is about 200 miles South East of the Zimbabwean capital Harare.

A painting of Nyatsimba Mutota

Its original name was Dzimba DzeMabwe (the mighty house of stone) and it was constructed, over a period of centuries, by the members of the Shona tribe. At its glorious peak it was the administrative centre of an empire ruled by kings known as Mutapa's, or Mambo's before them, and covered most of modern day Zimbabwe and a large portion of present day Mozambique. 

The Mutapa's controlled all international and domestic trade routes along the present day Mozambican coast, and imposed taxes of up top 50 percent on all traders who did business within the boundaries of this empire. Trade was carried out in ivory, gold, copper, salt, livestock and agricultural produce, in exchange for fabrics, pottery, glass and beads from countries as far afield as China, Persia and Portugal. There also existed a thriving trade with bordering tribes within Africa itself.

The city generally housed the nobility, religious leaders, and the elite soldiers and their families, and its most famous section is the Great Enclosure which is where the king himself, and his wives and children lived.

The Great Enclosure

The valley complex housed the military top brass along with the kings special regiments who were tasked with the king, and the noble classes personal protection.

The religious leaders; the high priests, known as Mhondoro lived within a section known today as the Hills complex. 

They were the keepers of the eight holy Zimbabwe birds which survive to the this day and which were believed to bring luck, wisdom, and battlefield glory to the Munhu Mutapas who ruled at the given time . The birds are representations of the Bateleur eagle (Chapungu in the Shona language).They were carved out of soapstone by the original high priests of the site and served as the national symbols of the Great Zimbabwe and Munhu Mutapa empires A depiction of the Zimbabwe bird can be found on today's Zimbabwean flag and indeed they are the emblem of both Rhodesia and Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwe Bird

With walls as high as 15 metres in some places and, incredibly, built without any mortar at all, Great Zimbabwe is one of the most impressive structures anywhere in the world. Its very existence and durability is testament to the outstanding masonry skills of its founders and builders, the Shona tribe. 

It should be noted here that the Smith regime in the thenRhodesia (the fore runner of present day Zimbabwe), as well as their colonial forebears went to great lengths in their attempts to discredit the African builders of this magnificent city and try to attribute its construction to either Arabs or Europeans. They even went as far as to commission quack “researchers” to write pseudo-intellectual books, long since discredited, challenging the truth about this cities construction. However all respectable and reputable research indicates that the city was indeed constructed by the ancient Bantu ancestors of the Shona.

The demise of this once thriving civilisation is thought to have been due to a severe and continuing drought which made it impossible for the area to maintain human and animal populations (the Mutapa's controlled vast herds of cattle, goats and so on) as well as the exhaustion of gold and other mineral reserves within the cities outer areas which led its inhabitants to leave the area for pastures new. In addition to this  factional fighting in between the various sections of the polygamous royal households each time a Mutapa passed on progressively weakened the kingdom to a point where the eventual successor no longer had the national unity and loyalty required to fend of would be usurpers.

This link gives a more in-depth hypothesis on the cities decline.


You can read a bit more about Great Zimbabwe here and here.



In love of Africa.

Brotha Afritude