White Hunters And Whether All Lives - And Lions Do Matter? - Chris "Preach" Smith

Photo Credit: The Daily Mirror

For those of you looking at the headline in a quizzical
way, there’s a reason for it.

As the global outpouring of anger and despair over the 
killing of Cecil The Lion outside of a wildlife preserve
in Zimbabwe by a dentist named Walter Palmer from
Minnesota dissipates, I thought that it might be best
to sit back and think about this situation in line with
a request a good friend made. A request that covers
an issue that is just as outrageous & anger-inducing 
and has been for quite some time. But, not for everyone.
That reasoning has its roots in history, forgotten to
some extent either on purpose or by indifference.

That second issue? Black Lives Matter. The movement
that has risen like a volcano from the ocean floor to
billow and explode, a movement that is a declaration
of the fact that the lives of Black people are meaningful
and should not be further subjected to the degredation
and extermination of system influenced by patriarchy
and white supremacy. A movement that is about Black
self-love and determination. The Black Lives Matter
movement, founded by three queer Black women in
Alicia Garza, Opal Tometti and Patrisse Cullors, has gained
tremendous strength since the heinous acquittal of George
Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin. And as
it has grown, so has the number of tragedies involving
the deaths of Black men, women, trans women and
children at the hands of some police officers as well as
“lone wolf” white domestic terrorists and rednecks. It
seems as if there’s a hashtag commemorating these
tragedies every few hours on social media, which has
been a better platform than the 24-hour news networks
who seem to be on top of other stories rather than these
Black deaths. Yet there’s a trend online that grows like a
rabid infection among some people. The response of, “All
Lives Matter.” You’ve seen this before - someone will make
a post about one of these stolen lives and someone will
undoubtedly make the response, “but ALL lives matter.
We’re supposed to be unified, blah blah.” Sometimes as
a twist, they’ll throw in a Dr. Martin Luther King quote as
a sort of “I’m more committed to being anti-racist than
YOU” trump card. It’s been the basis for many vicious
arguments and is now a favored weapon of bigoted trolls.
Now keep that in mind as we speak about poor Cecil.

The death of Cecil The Lion at the hands of a dentist who
is essentially proud of being a big-game hunter is galling.
Galling because Palmer paid a professional hunter by the
name of Theo Bronkhorst $50,000 to help him lure Cecil
out of a habitat and wound him with a bow & arrow, then
track him for close to 2 days before dispatching him with
a rifle. Palmer issued a statement that wasn’t really an
apology, which angered the public even more to the point
that they trashed him on Yelp and began an online petition
to have him answer for the crime. Even late-night talk show
host Jimmy Kimmel was moved to tears over Cecil’s killing,
prompting him to donate $15,000 to the Oxford Wildlife
Conservation Fund, a group that had saved Cecil and his
brother seven years ago and put a tracking collar on him -
which was removed along with his head and pelt. And the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Department has begun investigating
and lawmakers in Congress put a bill together to try to
stop illegal game hunting and trophy imports of animals. Cecil’s
killing within the boundaries of the Hwange National Park
is no doubt one of the more apalling instances of illegal
hunting and poaching on the African continent. But there
is a question or two posed within all of the online outrage
and the mob justice mentality that has risen in response.
That question, whether you may ask it or not, is: why are
there more people who seem to be moved to concern and
outrage over the death of a lion than the almost daily deaths
of Black people in the United States and globally in horrible
incidents?

The answer seems to be empathy, or a distinct and broad 
empathy gap that has been nurtured and reinforced by an
era where information is rapidly distributed but not fully
ingested and understood. There’s a historic element to this
that has to be taken into account that can explain the plight
of Cecil and Black lives. That element? The “great white hunter”
trope. The term, used to refer to those European and later 
American white males who went into the African continent to
hunt animals for sport beginning in the late 1800’s, is a relic
of those days of privilege and bloodletting. It’s been romanticized
in literature thanks to Isak Dinesen, Ernest Hemingway and
even former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and praised
in films like “King Solomon’s Mines” and “Mogambo” among
others. The white hunter, standing as a shining light in the
“Dark Continent”. The term represents an elitist attitude that
was brutally reinforced through the years by the slaughter of
countless lions, elephants, giraffes, rhinos and other animals.
Which was in addition to the brutality inflicted on the natives,
with the Congo of King Leopold II as a particularly bloody example.
The wave of independence movements sweeping across the
African continent in combination with the concerted efforts of
wildlife conservation groups helped to greatly diminish the hunter.
But not completely. It didn’t extinguish the sentiment. And if
anything can fuel racism and other brutal behavior, it is sentiment.
A longing to recreate a time long gone. Think about the furor
over the Confederate flag in this country and the sheer resistance
laden with racism by those clinging to it as “part of their heritage.”
Empathy flies out of the window. This is what fueled Palmer.
I mean, for all of his supposed feelings of being sorry, the man
is now nowhere to be found as there are calls for his extradition
back to Zimbabwe and death threat levied against him.

That same nostalgia, whether some want to admit it or not, exists
in the indifference and outright disrespect of those Black people
who have been murdered in this country since 2013 in ways that
have grabbed national attention. From Trayvon to Rekia, to Eric
to Sandra and many more in between, there is no doubt that
these people died for just being Black and a perceived threat. Look
at the recent murder of Sam Dubose in Cincinatti by a university
cop who claimed he was afraid for his life during a routine traffic
stop. If it wasn’t for the body camera footage, his story would not
have been questioned. Yet there is not the general consensus of
outrage for his and all of the others’ lives. Again, a sentiment that
is nudged on a political and social level and reinforced by systemic
inequities. A sentiment of distrust of ‘scary, uppity Negro boogiemen’
that dates back as long as that of the ‘white hunter’. I’ve seen some
commentary online that is so rank and vile that it would make a
Klan member blush coming from seemingly ordinary people. Mostly
white but also from those of color who want to get in where they fit
in. Commentary that debases these men, women and children as
nothing. And in the same breath, elevating the lives of animals over
them. Even some vegans and their organizations, who are not above
using slavery as a poor analogy to eating meat. Don’t believe me?
Look it up. And out of all of the deaths of Black people in police custody,
there’s only 3 cases where an indictment has been brought against the
officers in question. The disconnected empathy lies at the root of why so many
feel compelled to speak out about any issue that doesn’t hit close to
home. Like Cecil. Or any other issue that has set social media ablaze.

Now am I saying that you shouldn’t have empathy for Cecil’s death?
No. I feel that you can and should be highly upset about that and the
fact that Black and Brown people are dying under horrible circumstances
that criminalize and degrade them even as they’re laid into the ground.
I also feel that one should state that Black Lives Matter without having 
to add a disclaimer to it or having to hear “All Lives Matter” as code for
“get over it”, another verbal microagression that’s all the rage. Or to 
have to deal with someone employing a naive approach steeped in not
trying to acknowledge differences and celebrate how they can add to
harmony if allowed. The tragedies stemming from 2013 to now have 
started to really affect some people and spark a dialogue, however
fleeting in this country. We keep talking about having this conversation
on race. You cannot have a conversation without someone or some
people who are willing to actively listen with empathy. As much as some
don’t want to admit it, they’re going to forget about Cecil as soon as the
next TMZ headline crawls across their TV or smartphone screen. And
they wish they could do that with Black Lives Matter. And in that gap,
lies the ugly truth that gets hidden in online mob justice and distraction. 

Meek Mill & The Age of Decaffinated Diss Tracks - Chris "Preach" Smith

Photo Credit: Takemybackpack.com

Somewhere, Kool Moe Dee is shaking his head and
sounding like Danny Glover in “Lethal Weapon”.

In the past few days, rap fans and a good part of the 
general public have kept their eyes glued to computer
and smartphone screens to see the latest instance in
the ongoing feud between Drake and Meek Mill. Although
“feud” would suggest that this is something fierce in
the making. This squabble between Drake and Meek?
Nothing of the sort. To give you a recap of events, we
have to go back to the origin point. Meek Mill was apparently
upset that Drake didn’t support his new album release
via social media by posting the link to it on iTunes. So
Meek decided to vent and roast Drake online by claiming
Drake doesn’t write his own rhymes, even naming an
Atlanta-based MC by the name of Quentin Miller as his
ghostwriter. The Twitter rant went on in the wee hours,
even getting Rick Ross involved(although his tweet in
support of Meek was deleted soon after he posted it.)
Drake kept quiet, only issuing one vague comment to a
supporter on Instagram. Then he released three new songs,
one of them being “Charged Up.” “Charged Up” threw
shots at Meek without mentioning him. And then…then
things got downright weird. In just the past 48 hours,
we saw Funkmaster Flex of HOT97 promise to drop a
response by Meek on his Monday night radio show. Many
(not including me)listened to the entire show only to be
disappointed and outraged that there was NO record to
be played. The outrage has now boiled over into an online
petition to get Flex off the airwaves. Meek Mill only offered
up a joke or two online after that incident. And then last
night, Meek was late to a concert appearance in Drake’s
hometown of Toronto, Canada - only to get onstage with the
large screen saying “F**K YOU”. Drake’s response? ANOTHER
diss track entitled “Back to Back”.

Listen. This whole situation is really just prolonged comedy.
I mean, you even have Norm Kelly, a Toronto politican, 
throwing shots at Meek saying he wasn’t welcome in the 
city. A politician. If that’s not something that doesn’t make
you long for the days of L.L. Cool J against Canibus, I don’t
know what else really will. Make no mistake though: this isn’t
a battle. Can you really call it a battle? Can you really call it a battle
when one rapper calls out another almost a week ago and
STILL hasn’t issued one coherent response to the attacks?
I’ve listened to “Charged Up.” It’s not an overwhelming
track. Drake sounded like he was just sliding out of the booth
at a Jack Astor’s and signing the check while laying out those
bars. It speaks more to what he thinks of Meek’s lyrical skills
than anything else. “Back to Back”, just released, to me is
better in terms of energy and bars. It’s not on the level of “Ether”
by Nas in his torrid battle against Jay-Z. Even if current media
outlets want to make it so. Hey, I’m laughing along at this situation
as much as the next person. But I don’t see this as “beef.” Even the 
diss tracks seem a tad decaffinated to me. And that speaks
more to the current climate in contemporary rap music than
anything else. I mean, Nicki Minaj is in the midst of this, being
in a relationship with Meek Mill and a labelmate to Drake and
frequent collaborator. It seems more like a soap opera that
could be on Oxygen than a real situation. In the past couple of
days I’ve spoken with folks who have raised the question of
whether or not this is staged, like I have. While it doesn’t seem
likely that it is, the fact that we’ve gotten to a point where we
even have to raise that question is a bit sad.

If you love hip-hop culture and rap music, this situation does
make you have to shake your head. Conflict between MC’s back
in the day were commonplace. Hell, there was once a time where
you got noticed as a rapper by cutting a “response” track to a
famous song on the airwaves. Roxanne Shante and The Real
Roxanne and UTFO. Boogie Down Productions and MC Shan.
Kool Moe Dee and L.L. Cool J. The Wu-Tang Clan and Biggie.
I understand that this is a different time and things are dealt
with in a different way but as a matter of pride, the entire 
situation of calling someone out then not even responding
flies in the face of what rap music IS. It’s about bravado. It’s
about verbal combat. It’s about the challenge and meeting it.
Drake, to his credit, is handling it as you should - someone
comes at you, you come back at them with BARS. Listen, I 
howled at that one line: 

Yeah trigger fingers turn to Twitter fingers
you gettin’ bodied by a singin’ n***a

The biggest problem here is Meek Mill. First of all, if this is to
promote your new album - which I haven’t seen ANY heavy
promotion - you failed miserably. Staying silent with no track
after you promised one to Flex and didn’t deliver, but you had
time to clown on Twitter? You’re being the embodiment of a 
cat-in-the-hat ass rapper. Even your girlfriend’s former boyfriend
is throwing shots at you? There’s even a crowdfunding campaign
for you to record a response track. If there’s no response by
Meek real soon, he’s set to make his mark in rap history by
basically being rap’s Mitch “Blood” Green by taking a repetitive
beating verbally. But make no mistake, this isn’t rap beef. It’s
more like if you went to Crown Fried Chicken instead of Popeye’s.
Let the laughs continue. 

The Stolen Life of Sandra Bland - Chris "Preach" Smith

Photo Credit: Heavy.com

“The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common
forces of nature at the same time she is caught in the tripartite crossfire
of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.”

- Dr. Maya Angelou

These days, it feels as if the United States of America has actively 
engaged in nostalgia of the hateful kind. The kind that feasts upon
the bodies of Black men, women and children openly among other
in various forms and in addition to others of color.  It is a weary 
nostalgia, a tremulous feeling that nestles at the pit of the stomach.
In the past three years, we’ve seen a startling rise in the amount
of stolen lives. “Stolen lives” being the term used to describe those
Black victims who die at the hands of law enforcement with little to
no provocation. Sandra Bland, a 28-year old woman is the latest
of these to capture national attention - but not without the help
of activists and other concerned citizens to spread the word and
insist on her story being brought to light via social media. As is the
case these days, the mainstream media networks began to cover
the story of her arrest and her death in a Hempstead, Texas jail
cell. As this article is being written, the district attorney has ruled
that Bland died as a result of “suicide by hanging”. This determination
falls in line with the background information ferreted out by the
networks that she had been suicidal in the past after a miscarriage
and her own admission of brushes with PTSD, or post-traumatic
stress disorder. There was even mention of her having a series of
slashes on her arms that would lead one to believe she practiced
“cutting”, a method of self-harm. But as Sandra’s family is preparing
to lay her to rest, there are still many unanswered questions which
will not go away. And much like the other instances that have become
almost hourly in this country, the people want answers. Answers
which quite possibly have their origins in decades past.


“In prisons, it is not at all uncommon to find a prisoner
hanged or burned to death in his cell. No matter how 
suspicious the circumstances, these deaths are always
ruled ‘suicides’. They are usually Black inmates, considered
to be a ‘threat’ to the orderly running of the prison.’ They
are usually among the most politically aware and socially
conscious inmates in the prison.”

- Assata Shakur

There is the growing thought that is becoming more widespread by
the hour that Ms.Bland was murdered and her suicide staged. And 
before you sweep this aside, look at the inconsistencies that have
come to light. You have to go back to when Ms. Bland was arrested
by Officer Brian Encinia. The dashcam video, with its suspicious air
(compelling many including famed director Ava Duvernay to state
that the video was edited). Encinia’s hostile, aggressive nature which
came into heavy play as Sandra Bland verbally defended herself and
her rights even as he opened her car door. Encinia not answering
Ms. Bland’s repeated inquiries - 14 of them - as to why she was
being arrested. Officer Enicnia getting her out of the car, taking her down
and in the process, injuring Ms. Bland’s head. Threatening to even
detain a passerby who was trying to film the situation, which was within
their right to do so. The suspicion grows as Bland is detained, and
is fairly calm during her stay in the cell as viewed on closed-circuit
camera in the jail with the glaring exception of a hefty chunk of time
missing. Then the method - hanging herself with garbage bags that
aren’t even sturdy enough by fellow prisoners’ admissions and not
even supposed to be used in her cell? And the mugshot - at first
glance, you wouldn’t suspect anything. But in comparison to others
taken in that same jail, the major red flag is the orange jumpsuit
she’s dressed in. The positioning of her shoulders. Even the background
of the photo which is darker in comparison to other mugshots taken
of prisoners in that jail. The medical examiner and the county have
also confessed to the family that they made errors in the first autopsy.
These inconsistencies loom larger than the parade of allusions and data
now being released to the networks - data which includes the claim of
her ingesting a  “large quantity of cannabis” which would also make her
a remarkable jailhouse magician in addition to being highly suicidal given
that their claim is that she either ate or smoked it - and these inconsistencies
cannot be ignored. Not when the prosecutor for the area, and the chief of
police in Hempstead have been alleged to support racist beliefs and practices. 

Which brings me to a point that might not be discussed heavily in this
case. One which has to be fully addressed. Officer Encinia obviously
arrested Ms. Bland because he felt she was “uppity”. “Uppity” being
that whistle that invokes the piggish behavior of white supremacy.
That historical significance I referred to earlier? In a recent report by
the Equal Justice Initiative entitled “Lynching in America: Confronting
the Legacy of Racial Terror”, it was determined that between 1877
and 1950, there were 4,000 lynchings recorded that took the lives
of Black men, women and children. It was also estimated that of this
figure, twenty percent happened because of trangressions of a social
manner - in one case just for simply going to the wrong door. These
lynchings were enforced by mobs with the consent of local officials and
groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council. We’ve 
seen a great deal of stories since 2008 of certain law enforcement
officials making overly racist statements and even being outed as
full-blown Klan members. In a climate such as this, you can imagine
how many of these ill-minded individuals occupy the ranks of police
departments throughout the country. And it’s not only confined to
the South. I recently had a friend relate to me that one of her
acquaintances, whose husband works with the NYPD, referred to
Black people as “hats”. Why? “Because hats are useless.” As much
as some will still try to deny it, there is a heightened level of racist
attitudes that are systemically embedded within law enforcement
departments in this nation and an overall sense of irritation towards
people of color by that cross-section of white people that has been
rising steadily since 2008. Wonder what took place then?

Let’s also consider that another young woman, Kendra Chapman,
died in an Alabama jail cell and was also ruled a suicide. In a climate
where Black and Brown lives in police custody are extinguished by
methods that would even give David Copperfield some pause, you
would be kidding yourself if you didn’t have questions. And that is
what we have here with Sandra Bland. It was no secret that she
was involved in the Black Lives Matter movement. She was very
vocal and strident for the cause. And we have seen that those who
fight for the people in that manner have been targeted by law enforcement
at protests. She had a bail of $5,000. For allegedly failing to signal a
lane change. A minor traffic offense that most places would write you
up or give you a warning for. That’s what Encinia tried to get her for.
Let me make one thing clear: I don’t want to hear that her ‘attitude’ is
what led to her arrest. Not when Encinia is clearly being outwardly
combative. Not when you combine that with his speeding up to catch her
at a red light. Not when you combine that with his attacking her. And if
he didn’t do anything wrong why was he immediately placed on desk duty
afterwards? Also, how many stories have we seen where white individuals
have violently attacked police officers and walked away to tell the tale? She
was pissed. She was inquisitive in her indignation. But she did not deserve
to die for it.

The death of Sandra Bland should give many Americans pause. Of course,
there will be the naysayers. Those who want to dismiss her death as if
she was C.J. Memphis in the play “A Soldier’s Story”. But like the demise
of that character, she was driven to her death. Could she have been dealing
with depression? Of course - the affliction has some visible symptoms but
also can’t be easily detected depending on the individual. But a woman who
drove from Illinois to Texas to see about a job offer, who’s family described
her as vibrant, who told her mother that she planned to go to Texas to also
get justice for all the Black people there - to drastically die like that in a jail cell?
Something isn’t right. And until the Justice Department gets involved, people
shouldn’t rest. They should continue to say her name, as well as the names
of all the other Black women and men and children lost to police brutality. She
did that for those before her. Sandra Bland fought for those stolen lives to get
justice before hers was lost. Her death should, if it hasn’t already, hammered
home just how broken the system is in this nation and just how much inequality
and death we have regarded as ‘normal.’ 

On Geraldo's Cognitive Dissonance and Kendrick Lamar - Chris "Preach" Smith

Photo Credit: Pitchfork

I wasn’t initially inclined to write something about the new video
for the smash Kendrick Lamar single “Alright” off of his thrilling
recent album To Pimp A Butterfly. I mean, the video speaks on
its own in an intensely powerful way to anyone who’s seen it.
It heightens the commentary Kendrick has embedded in the
track concerning the onslaught of police brutality against the
Black community as a tool of systematic oppression. And when
those powers get threatened, they get defensive - and then they
go on their own offensive. Enter Geraldo Rivera, and Fox News.
Geraldo, who seems to be dead set on assailing what he thinks
is the root cause of the struggles that Black people have in the
past year or so as some sort of ‘paternal adviser’ attacked the 
video and hip-hop culture on a whole as to what’s plaguing the
whole of Black youth. When I first got wind of the comments, I
laughed. Yeah. I laughed. Because those words say something
more about Rivera and the supremacist outlook that Fox News
is guilty of nurturing and the effect that mindful hip-hop has on
counteracting their message of cognitive dissonance.

Look at it in these terms - Geraldo is being propped up to be in
this position for a couple of reasons. This is someone who at one
point was considered among the greatest of journalists this nation
had. Puerto Rican, a New Yorker who was a legal defender of the
Young Lords at one point. One of the pre-eminent Latinos to be
on television and who had his own television talk show. But his
comments on the video and Black youth(especially young Black
men given his reprehensible commentary during the Trayvon
Martin case) show that he’s turned for the worst. Because…it’s 
what pays the bills. To claim that rap music(because that’s what
he’s really going after with his recent comments) is the downfall
of the Black community in America is generalized, ignorant bile
that further cheapens his stature in the eyes of many who know
better. This is coming from someone who by being at Fox News
has gone from criticizing one of their champions in Michelle Malkin
to sounding like her. This is coming from someone who took a pay
cut to be at the network after 9/11 and has dealt with numerous
instances of his reporting being questioned while there. Elders in
the Latino community haven’t still forgiven him for going with a
more palatable version of his name in order to avoid anti-Hispanic
backlash. Rivera has essentially become just another tool of division
that Roger Alies and his network can use to try to salvage an America
that thrives on oppression and white supremacy. The sad thing is that
he believes it so much that he’s willing to alienate anyone. Look at 
how he had to apologize after the comments he made on Trayvon - but
only after a tremendous and justified backlash that even had his son
say that he was “ashamed” of his father.

Photo Credit: VEVO

The underlying message in Geraldo’s comments do prove
something else though. They speak to a growing fear among
those who think like this, and those who find themselves in
a country that’s beginning to undergo serious change in terms
of policies, demographics and thinking. The ‘Alright’ video and
song ultimately speaks about rising above the different factors
of systematic racism that the Black community faces daily in
the United States. For all of its stark portrayals, its about hope.
Hope that Kendrick spoke on in his rebuttal to Rivera a day or
two after the initial comments. Rivera’s comments are meant
to be a distraction from the real issues, and use hip-hop as a
way to do it. It’s meant to rally those in our community who
have been dead set against “commercial” rap music for years
to say, “he’s right!!” When they know all too well that unless
rap music goes by the name of Wells Fargo and other banks who
duped Black homeowners into subprime mortgages, that unless
it is the music of those police officers who go against their duty
to harm and murder Black citizens of all ages and many other
ills - the argument is not one of lasting substance. Notice that 
Geraldo and others with Fox News and their ilk are pointedly going
after Kendrick Lamar. They go after Killer Mike. Talib Kweli. Why?
Because these artists have actually cut through the commercially
profitable rap played on so many radio stations to give the people
honest and raw accounts from the streets. You know, how rap on
a whole used to be before 1995. And many are getting hip to it.
Are there negative scenarios and issues that plague rap and the
culture? Yes. Are they the total destruction of the Black community?
Of course not. But that’s cognitive dissonance - hold onto an idea
so tightly that critical thinking is rendered mute and any attempt to
fix it is swatted away. It proves that the fear of a better informed public
is growing more and more by the day among the elitists and those
who aid them for their own gains. And its also more proof that the 
real spirit behind the culture of hip-hop, one that informs and uplifts
in a variety of messages with skill and growth, is finding its tide to rise
upon just in time for folks to get behind.  

The Burning of Black Churches In Silence - Chris "Preach" Smith

Photo Credit: The Huffington Post

“America will tolerate the life the taking of a human life without giving it a second thought.
But don’t misuse a household pet.” - Dick Gregory


By the time you have begun to read this article, there will have been seven
Black churches in the Southern United States of America that have been burned
to the ground. SEVEN. All over the past few days going back to the aftermath of
the senseless murders of nine members of the historically Black Emanuel A.M.E.
Church in Charleston, South Carolina at the hands of a craven white domestic
terrorist who some media outlets claim had ‘apparent’ white supremacist leanings
despite publicizing his photo wearing a jacket bearing the apartheid-era South
African flag and the flag of Rhodesia. The heinous murderer Dylann Roof shot down
these nine people, including the pastor and state senator Clementa Pinckney.
The fires started on June 22nd, days after the horrific massacre and the calls for
the Confederate flag to be taken down from the state capitol being that it is a
symbol of racism. In those following days, the Confederate flag has been
yanked from stores, state parks, taken off license plates, stripped from flagpoles
and in one or two accounts, even from the skin of people ashamed to comprehend
what it truly means. They’ve even taken reruns of “The Dukes Of Hazzard” and the
General Lee off the air. And who can forget the sight of Bree Newsome scaling
the flagpole at the state capitol in South Carolina last weekend to take down the
flag? These events have been publicized, debated heavily and dissected across
networks and in columns. 

But seven Black churches burning in eight days? Scant notice.

When you consider that you’re just now seeing coverage of the church burnings
in mainstream media outlets in the past two days and these incidents began on
June 22nd? When you consider that it took the efforts of those on social media
platforms like Twitter to even catch the eye of certain journalists? It’s reprehensible.
Even now, there is a relative silence that is deafening. It comes from a good deal
of people in this country who would rather focus on anything else BUT the possibility
that these church burnings are yet another wave of white sponsored terror against
Black Southerners. Out of the seven church fires, the main culprit in the majority of
these incidents? Arson. But there are those who desperately want that not to be
the case. There are those who do not want to face the fact that there are certain
individuals who are setting fire to Black churches deliberately for the same reason
Roof walked into the bible study session at Emanuel A.M.E. It is the cold, cancerous
plaque of racism rearing its head once again. It is insulting to believe that these
fires are mere coincidence. Take the Mount Zion A.M.E. Church in Greeleyville,
South Carolina, the most recent of the church burnings. It caught fire twenty years
TO THE DAY that the Ku Klux Klan set fire to it twenty years ago. The incident even
led to the creation of a now defunct task force by then president Bill Clinton. Even
that lead photo above this article? That’s from a Black church burning in 1996. Yet
news outlets, in a facepalm worthy moment, are trying to parrot the line that it
could’ve been “struck by lightning.” This is how systematic racism gets bolstered.
I’m addressing it in these stark terms because there can be no other way to look at it.
We are in an American society that has chosen not to look at these incidents as 
another symbol of the failure of this country to effectively deal with racism. And in
doing so, we have begun to repeat history from decades and centuries ago.

Step back a moment and consider these incidents in this light - since the fledgling
years of this nation’s origin, as long as there have been Black churches, there has 
always been a vanguard of those whites who wanted to destroy them and their
purpose. The first such recorded instance took place in 1822. In South Carolina.
It might also interest you to know that 1822 was the same year that Denmark
Vesey, a Black man who bought his freedom and founded Emanuel A.M.E. Church
was caught and executed for attempting to orchestrate possibly the largest slave
revolt in the nation. The reality that exists here is that as long as there has been
Black resillience and excellence in this nation, there has always been reprisals borne
out of illogical fear and hatred. These church burnings are no different. Yet the
silence surrounding them has made more noise than the violent screeches of 
ignorant individuals holding “Southern Pride” rallies over the past few days in response
to calls to do away with the Confederate flag. You’ve seen them - unwashed,
loud, infantile and petulant in their cries that ‘the flag has nothing to do with
slavery!!!’ Despite the expressed historical evidence to the contrary. And as much
as it would be easy to claim that only the rednecks and outed white supremacists
are the major culprits, it would ignore the fact that the silence of certain sections
of the Christian faith in this nation, be they indifferent or willfully ignorant, has
caused the most noise. You begin to ask yourself - if it were Islamic State-coddled
homegrown agents assaulting churches with predominately white congregations -
if the weight of the Green Berets wouldn’t be exercised? Hell, there’s a federal
manhunt, yes, a federal manhunt for the person who they feel set fire to the CVS
drugstore during the unrest in Baltimore months ago conducted by the ATF. But
these church fires aren’t yet getting a full federal investigation.You begin to wonder
how Pat Robertson, who has all the time in the world to contemplate if same-sex
marriage will lead to more Christians engaging in anal intercourse, hasn’t said one
word about these incidents on “The 700 Club”? You wonder if Creflo Dollar, the
slick televangelist who recently begged his flock to help him purchase a $65 million
dollar private jet, is even going to mention any of these churches? There have been
a few pastors and churches who have decried these church burnings and called them
out as acts of racial terror. But again, not nearly enough.

Photo Credit: The Washington Post

The seven Black churches being set ablaze need to be fully investigated by federal
authorities. In a taut and charged climate, these incidents cannot be ignored. In an
ideal world, every candidate running for President including the fourteen currently
running on the Republican ticket should be pressed about these church burnings at
every opportunity. What the powers that be have been counting on is the story
dying out. That there won’t be sustained pressure on officials in the Justice Department
to investigate. I know the knee-jerk response is, “what do you expect the government
to do?” My rebuttal is, “maybe more than the ego-stroking you might be content to
do instead of keeping that pressure on them.” Look at the issue of the Confederate
flag - people got outraged enough about the flag of secession being flown over good
souls callously murdered that stores and brands are rushing to get it out of sight.
That same energy, that same insistence needs to be behind the push to get these
burnings investigated again. Because each one, is one too many. And we’ve come
too far down the road to let the petulant and dangerous bigots attempt to turn
back the clock.