Published in Issue 504 of The Black Commentator on February 14, 2013
Republished in thepeoplesvoice.org on February 19, 2013
By Larry Pinkney
“They realize at last that change does not mean reform, that change does not mean improvement.”
– Frantz Fanon
Perhaps the more encompassing and pertinent question is not only can Black America survive the ‘Kill List,’ NDAA signing, slick-talking, corporate Trojan Horse, predator drone man Barack Obama; but can this nation as a whole, and Mother Earth herself survive him?
Frankly, whether we survive or not remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: If we are to survive and regain our rightful places as a part of the global human family we must exercise political and social conscience and consciousness as critical thinkers. We must be principled. We must quickly cease allowing ourselves to be perpetual pawns of the ‘color’ game, which game implies that if a person is black, then he or she must be given a pass no matter what he or she does. This is folly. Malcolm X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz] was absolutely correct when he said, “Wrong is wrong no matter who does it or says it.”
It is time to be brutally honest. Either you are on the side of the oppressors or you are on the side of the oppressed. There is no in-between and you cannot have it both ways simultaneously.
We must feel the exact same pain and outrage at the blowing to bits of babies, children, women, and men by Obama’s predator drone missiles that have slammed down from the skies over Libya (North Africa), Somalia (East Africa), Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Bahrain, etc. as we do at the gun violence and carnage against persons right here in this nation. I reiterate: There is no in-between and you cannot have it both ways simultaneously! Either you are on the side of the oppressors or you are on the side of the oppressed – no matter where they are – and no matter what their color!
We cannot somehow disconnect the wanton systemic police brutality against black and other oppressed people of all colors right here in the United States from the murderous U.S. corporate/military ‘police actions’ against people in other nations. We cannot! We cannot disconnect the corporate greed and oppression of people right here in this nation from the bloody carnage and wars for profit by corporations such as General Electric, Westinghouse, General Dynamics, Lockheed, Goldman Sachs, Wall Street banksters & robber barons, and an endless list that won’t be missed.
Black America! Make up your collective mind!! Whose side are you on? The side of the bloodsuckers and their pawns or the side of everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation and throughout Mother Earth? Whose side are you on?!
And what of the so-called ‘State of the Union’ in this nation in this year of 2013? You know the answer! It is both pathetic and despicable! But we the people hold the key to liberation in our trembling hands. Wake up! Seize your humanity. Seize the time – for the time is NOW! Storm the Bastille – in the name of humanity – storm the Bastille!!
Remember: 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, and more recently on the nationally syndicated Alex Jones Show. 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), 107 Cowgate (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.)
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I love and support Larry Pinkney he is a great teacher/role model of a free thinker and free man.
It’s long been my contention that Obama – worship is a genuine religion and therefore one can no more expect reason and judgment from Obama religionists than one can from a religious fundamentalist fanatic of any other stripe.