Comment in the Amsterdam News (New York based African American Newspaper) |
Terrorism
is old school for Blacks
by ALTON H. MADDOX JR. Originally posted 7/21/2005 ![]() New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is having a temper tantrum over the refusal of the New York legislature to pass supplemental, anti-terrorism legislation this year. Earlier anti-terrorism legislation includes the draconian law passed immediately after the 1712 rebellion in New York City. Spitzer would have also been leading the charge in the eighteenth century. Within a week after 9/11, the New York legislature hastily rubber-stamped anti-terrorism legislation, according to the New York Law Journal. Interestingly, Gov. George Pataki had drafted this legislation in June, apparently, in anticipation of the attack on the World Trade Center. Pataki is good. He should have been a meteorologist. Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s political career was in a nose-dive. After 9/11, he rose from the ashes and is now filthy rich. Giuliani, obviously, has a nose for tragedy. His fingerprints were located a short distance from the 7/7 London bombings. London has an extensive surveillance
system. No other city in the world has more police cameras. Since Giuliani,
like the former slaveowners, desires to keep a watchful eye on descendants
of enslaved Africans, the Fourth Amendment is no obstacle. Former Mayor
Giuliani led the charge for a police state. Now, he can have his cake and
eat it too.
Obviously, aerial attacks on Blacks are not threats to homeland security. There has been no effort to end terrorism against persons of African ancestry. The recent Senate apology was duplicitous and a smokescreen. An apology must follow distributive and retributive justice and not vice versa. The United States, and not just the Senate, apologized to the Japanese for internment during World War Two and provided compensation. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court still holds that it is permissible to intern a despised people when white supremacy is threatened. This means that an apology has a double meaning. Only the Senate, and not any other branch of the federal government, apologized to Blacks for not enacting anti-lynching legislation or simply protecting us under the Constitution. No anti-terrorism legislation is still on the federal books even though Blacks are being lynched wholesale by vigilantes and cops. Bernard Burden was lynched
in 2004 without a whisper from Black leaders. Like with Eliot Gross in
the Michael Stewart case, the coroner, in Coweta County, Georgia, manipulated
the NASH system in pathology to avoid a homicide designation. This is permissible
terrorism.
Terrorism is warfare against a civilian population. Of all the forms of terrorism, state-sponsored terrorism is the most pernicious. It is usually employed as a tool by the oppressed against the oppressor. State-sponsored terrorism, on the other hand, is organized terrorism and used by the oppressor against the oppressed. In this country, however,
the Constitution sanctions and even encourages terrorism against persons
of African ancestry. The Reconstruction laws, in a strange twist, were
enacted to encourage terrorism. No similar laws were ever necessary to
protect whites.
Black leaders accepted the Senate apology and completely ignored the damage that had been inflicted on our ancestors. A half-hearted apology alone is an insult and a measure of the lack of any pulse in the Black community. During slavery, surveillance was an offspring of control. Today, incarceration has supplanted surveillance as the chief means of control. Arabs and Latinos must be kept under surveillance. Blacks must be incarcerated. Neither of these groups, however, approaches Blacks in terms of political presence. The threats against Blacks are both foreign and domestic. And yet we have failed to fashion an agenda to address either threat. We are waiting for Uncle Sam to save us from a foreign threat without questioning who is going to save us from Uncle Sam. Rudolph Giuliani? Black leaders know to steer clear of the Second Amendment. I would like to see the United States apologize for the lynchings of Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner. Fred Hampton, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. suffered the same fate for opposing white supremacy. Yet, no one ever accused them of either planning or participating in violence. No evidence exists that surveillance is an antidote for terrorism. Surveillance is rooted in slavery and it has always been a tool to promote racial profiling. Intelligence is the antidote for terrorism. Uncle Sam knows the difference. The Black community is in big trouble and it is also clueless. Soon, my Paul Revere perch may have a change of venue. Landlords have an interest in a capitalist state and they are on the frontline of suppressing any threats to white supremacy. Slaveowners and landlords are synonyms. Fannie Lou Hamer became a threat to her landlord and the rest is history. The Appellate Team, First Department, took the unprecedented and illegal step of advising the landlord to sue me a third time in Manhattan Housing Court. Within the past two years, I had pulled off two legal victories in holdover proceedings to stave off an illegal eviction. Landlords are big contributors to the Democratic Party. A reasonable person can only assume that the fix is in. Might makes right. I will have to face the music on Tuesday, July 26, at 9:30 a.m. in Room 523 of Housing Court, 111 Centre Street in Manhattan. Like Fannie Lou Hamer and Malcolm X, I am not a racial accomodationist. This position was unacceptable in the 1960’s. It is unacceptable today. Thus, Black leaders have chosen to live large. See www.reinstatealtonmaddox.com.
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