Betrayal And The Insidious Dumbing-Down of Black America

Published in Issue 484 of The Black Commentator on September 6, 2012
By Larry Pinkney

“To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.”

– Malcolm X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz]

“Tell no lies, claim no easy victories.”

– Amilcar Cabral

Ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow women and men in this nation, and throughout Mother Earth, have been systematically and systemically horribly betrayed by a cynical, callous, selfish, and blood sucking group of persons who place prestige, wealth, and personal power above the collective needs and human rights of everyday people.

This hideous betrayal is being demonstrated today, more than ever before, by the actions on the part of much, if not most, of Black America’s so-called ‘intelligentsia.’ In the fallacious name of some kind of distorted and disfigured color-pride, Black America’s struggling masses are being cynically, economically pimped and emaciated by a relatively tiny elite of the black intelligentsia.

Moreover, this black intelligentsia (including many of whom who dare to refer to themselves as ‘progressives’ and/or ‘leftists’) have urged, and continue to urge, Black America collectively to cast its lot in with politicians of this war-crazed, filthy, corrupt, unjust, and hypocritical U.S. political system. They have grotesquely disfigured, revised and (in de facto terms) repudiated the stalwart legacies of selflessness, internationalism, anti-war, anti-colonialism, and anti-imperialism on the part of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, WEB Du Bois, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr, Fred Hampton, and so many other women and men freedom-fighters who have sprung from the bosom of Black America. In so doing, this present-day black intelligentsia (for its own purposes) has engaged in, and is engaging in, the deliberate and insidious political and intellectual dumbing-down of Black America collectively.

On the one hand, this black intelligentsia brazenly supports the perpetuation of the fake left/right paradigm embodied by the symbiotically-joined corporate Democrat and Republican parties, while simultaneously on the other hand, covertly and/or overtly injecting the fear and color / ‘race’ card into what should be (but is definitely not), political struggle based upon principles and the pursuit of egalitarianism.  Thus, further engaging in the manipulation, and insidious dumbing-down, of Black America. Of course this cynical strategy on the part of the black intelligentsia enhances fear and racism in this nation, rather than weakening, with a view towards, eradicating it.  Nevertheless, it does serve the cynical and selfish short term objectives of the black intelligentsia.

This black intelligentsia knows full well that the current political skirmishes between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney [i.e the Democrats and Republicans] is nothing more than a well perpetrated, ongoing, systemic farce, carried out in order to keep everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people politically enslaved on the self-serving Democrat and Republican party plantations / reservations.  In the words of Malcom X, this betrayal is for sure, “worse than death;” and its ramifications for Black America, and indeed people of good-will of all colors, portends to be long-term and devastating. Yet, we the everyday people, can and must reverse this course.  Let us demonstrate once again our undying love for Black America and for all of humankind. We stand at the precipice of disaster or of human and planetary renewal. Which will it be? Make your choice – NOW!

As this black intelligentsia well knows pertaining to this irreparably corrupt U.S. Political system, there is no such thing as the ‘lesser of two evils’ [i.e. the Democrats and Republicans], for the system itself and those systemic gate-keepers who perpetuate it are the perpetual ‘evil.’  It is this system itself that must be changed – totally and unequivocally.

May those who have and still are betraying us, be themselves, dumbed-down into oblivion where they belong! May Black America, and everyday people of all colors, be triumphant in this long and protracted struggle!

In the words of Amilcar Cabral, “Tell no lies, claim no easy victories.” It is time to stop allowing ourselves to be pimped and manipulated! It is time to wake up and get busy! It is time to change this rotten system, and collectively, persistently, and creatively bring about a New Woman and a New Man – a NEW HUMAN in this 21st century. It’s certainly not easy, but the future and very survival of Mother Earth, this nation, and of humanity as a whole is what is at stake!

Come now! Each one reach one. Each one teach one. Onward, then, my sisters and brothers. Onward!…

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, Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour. Pinkney is a former university instructor of political science and international relations, and his writings have been published in various places, including The Boston Globe, San Francisco BayView newspaper, Black Commentator, Intrepid Report, Global Research (Canada), LINKE ZEITUNG (Germany), 107Cowgate (Ireland and Scotland), and Mayihlome News (Azania/South Africa). He is in the archives of Dr. Huey P. Newton (Stanford University, CA), cofounder of the Black Panther Party. 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.)