Black Lives Matter leader and Greater NY BLM Chapter
President Hawk Newsome stated, “if this country doesn’t give us what we want,
then we will burn down this system and replace it.” (Video Interview on The
Story, June 24, 2020). And what is
it that Mr. Newsome and his BLM want? At
the end of the interview he stated, “I just want Black liberation and Black
sovereignty, by any means necessary.”
Let’s think about that.
Liberation is the act of setting someone free. I think that was celebrated just a few days
ago on Juneteenth, the celebration also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation
Day, and Emancipation Day. Juneteenth
celebrates and commemorates African American freedom.
So, to what liberation does he refer? Perhaps he has liberation confused with some idyllic Utopia where everyone has everything they want, perhaps even without having to work for it, where no one is biased,
where everyone has everything that everyone else has, where no one ever has to
compete for and sometimes not get the job, or house, or friends, or family, or
whatever else that he wants. Perhaps he
refers to that Utopia that we all know can never really exist.
We will come back to these thoughts in a moment, but first let’s
look at the definition of his other key word:
sovereignty. Usually used in
referring to a state, country, or similar entity, the word sovereignty means
supreme power or authority; the right to be self-governing. No, the identity group Black is not a self-governing
state and if he seeks it to become so then that idea is quite radical and will
indeed require burning down our system as well as our country.
But, perhaps by sovereignty he intends to mean the right of
Black individuals to be responsible for themselves, to make their own decisions
and chart their own individual courses in life. That of course requires choices and decisions
and in the real world everyone makes some very good decisions but also some
very bad ones. In either case, when an
individual governs oneself that individual must be prepared to take the
consequences, both good and bad, of those decisions.
And, if that is the sovereignty to which Newsome refers,
then Black individuals received that sovereignty along with their
emancipation. If that is BLM’s demand,
then BLM already has what it wants. So,
let’s explore why they feel so oppressed that they must protest and riot for “liberation
and sovereignty.”
The key here is identity politics. It does its best to deny Black individuals
the freedom to be individuals. That is its
point and how it serves as a tool for those who seek power via division and, in
classic socialist tradition, pitting one group against another. As the Left has fueled the flames of identity
politics for the last many years, Blacks have been pushed and cajoled to see
themselves not as individuals but as members of a victim group.
With Blacks as the oppressed, and Whites or the System as
the oppressor, the oppressed Blacks are urged to blame the oppressing Whites for
everything within their lives that is less than the Utopia of perfection that
we all dream of. Anything less than
perfection is not the fault of the oppressed, but of their oppressors. The Utopian dream would be possible if the
oppressed were liberated from their oppressors.
This is the fairy tale of identity politics.
“Systemic Racism” is nothing more than a false narrative that
is used to solidify victimhood of all who are deemed members of that identity
group known as Black. It is a byproduct
of identity politics – a means of dividing us to further a progressive quest
for power. To proclaim that some sort of
systemic racism is the force that keeps Blacks from being liberated and
sovereign is simply another way of claiming, underscoring, and maintaining victim
status for an identity group.
Identity politics, not plantation owners, is what now keeps Blacks
enslaved. Group victimhood diminishes self-worth
and destroys individuality; with that comes a lack of motivation and a
dependence on those who have convinced these “victims” that they cannot live
without the assistance of their victim-makers.
If liberation is necessary, it is not from the “system”, not
from “institutionalized racism” but from politicians who push a victim
narrative promising to save those victims, while at the same time turn those “victims”
into an underclass of dependent voters who will keep their victim-makers in
power.
Yet no one forces Blacks to be identified by a group
narrative. They, like any other
individual in this country, have the freedom to create their own narrative, one
in which they are free to see themselves not as victims but as individuals who
can take responsibility for their own lives and in so doing enjoy the fruits
thereof. They can do this without envy
of or hate for or dependence on some other group. But this requires accepting the fact that the
life they create will in all likelihood not be perfect – there is no Utopia.
Truly accepting one’s own liberation and personal
sovereignty requires no small amount of courage. It is easy to sit back, take no risks, and
let others create things that you would like, whether that is a physical
creation or the fruits of one’s labor, or a state of mind. It is easy to accept the narrative that you
can do no more than be dependent on others for your well-being. And, when your life is not what you would
choose, it is easy to be prompted into a mindset of victimhood. To break free
of that mindset takes courage and independence.
This is not to imply that no people have biases or do not act
in a way that is or can be perceived as racist.
That, however, does not prove systemic or institutional bias. There are hundreds if not thousands of
anecdotes about a Black person being somehow slighted or treated badly. Sometimes that is due to racism, sometimes it
is not. There are just as many anecdotes
of non-Black and indeed White people being slighted or treated badly. Sometimes that is because of their color,
sometimes it is not. Some people will choose
to see these as the individual occurrences they are; others will choose to see
everything through the glasses of racism.
George Floyd’s murder was horrendous. But what proof do we have that it was
racially motivated, that it occurred because he was Black? How do we know that his accused murderer was
not just a cop who was drunk on his own power?
He had, with police union help, been allowed at least 17 prior times to
abuse his power; those abuses were not labeled racist. Perhaps this was just a bad man who felt like
killing that day; do we have any proof that the blackness of Floyd’s skin was
the reason? And if we do, how does this
horrible murder in any way prove the existence of systemic racism?
Far more realistic than systemic racism is the existence of
identity politics and its use by the Left to turn Blacks and others into a dependent
sub-class. Repeated assertions that some
specter known as “systemic racism” is to blame are useful to solidify the
identity group and hence keep them as a class dependent on those who proclaim
with both words and actions that only with their help can the group break free
of its dependent status. Yet, such promises
and their accompanying handouts do nothing more than to keep that class dependent.
It is this political and progressive if not socialist game that
threatens the liberty and sovereignty of every individual who accepts as their
own the uni-dimensional identity of a group. The “victims” are nothing more than pawns in
that power game. Their only use to the
victim-makers is the color of their skin; their human individuality has no
merit and is of little concern to those who are using them as pawns
The system has already worked to grant to those who choose
to take it the freedom and the sovereignty Mr. Newsome and BLM demand. It is identity politics and its accompanying
demeaning of the individual that are the threat. This key tool of the socialist warrior is
being wielded well by the Progressive Left who would indeed tear down the
system – the very system that has already given BLM what they seek.
So, I would encourage Mr. Newsome and BLM to reevaluate
things. If liberation and sovereignty
are what you want, then I suggest that you already have it. Victimhood and its oppression are just one of
many choices available to you. Do not
take the coward’s way forward, blaming others for the imperfections in your lives
and life in general. Within you is what
you need - the courage that it takes to
stand up and be responsible for your own lives, to throw off the dependent
victimhood identity and choose instead your own individual, multi-dimensional, and independent narrative.
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