In light of the latest turn of events in Baltimore, I’ve belatedly arrived at a painful realization: American blacks will never receive the justice that they demand until they cease being American. In other words, justice for blacks in America requires nothing less than the establishment of a sovereign nation-state or country that they can call their own.
Doubtless, this claim will shock many. Though I don’t know why or how it could: The logic of the conventional narrative of black suffering in America points irresistibly to the call for an independent country ruled and populated by blacks out of America (and anyone else to whom they decide to grant citizenship).
Consider: From as far back as the War Between the States, and certainly for the last half-of-a-century, America—by which everyone means white America—has undergone nothing less than a revolution vis-à-vis its treatment of its black citizens.
From the bloodiest war in American history that ended slavery to the passage of Constitutional amendments granting equal rights to freed blacks; from sweeping federal legislation forbidding discrimination against blacks to equally robust legislation compelling discrimination in favor of blacks; from the explosion of blacks into the upper echelons of professional sports, entertainment, and elsewhere, to the decades-long War on Poverty with its trillions of tax payers’ dollars invested in improving the plight of blacks—(white) America’s efforts to right past wrongs and level the playing field for blacks have been at once relentless and comprehensive.
In fact, (white) America has even elected a black man—and a black man by the name of Barack Hussein Obama, to boot!—to the office of the presidency! Twice! And this black president’s Department of Justice has been run by black Attorneys General.
Statistically, white-on-black violence and crime occurs at numbers that are negligible relative to the rates of black-on-white violence and crime: Well over 90% of all interracial crime involving blacks and whites consists of black perpetrators and white victims. Even here, however, white-on-black crime surely constitutes less than ten percent of all interracial attacks, for the government treats Hispanics as white when the perpetrators of interracial crime are brown.
Still, to hear many blacks—and whites too—tell it last week in Baltimore, this social upheaval, this campaign to slay the beast of white racism for which (white) America has been mobilizing for 50 plus years, never really happened. Or if it did happen, it failed.
Racism is not only alive and well. It is more endemic and, hence, more dangerous, than it has ever been.
Yet the situation is even graver than this.
According to more than one anti-racist, even the best, the most selfless, of white people’s intentions are neither here nor there. Racism is systemic or institutional.
Racism, in other words, doesn’t need racists.
Blacks, then, will never be able to get a fair shake in America. If the tireless and immensely ambitious efforts made by (white) America—to say nothing of the sacrifices made by legions of individual white Americans—have failed to relieve blacks of the oppressive burdens that they feel have been imposed upon them, then nothing will. Moreover, it seems that the more (white) America attempts to rectify past injustices and convince blacks that it wants only the best for them, the more oppressed blacks feel.
This, at any rate, is the most reasonable conclusion to draw from such sights as those that unfolded in Baltimore.
If America is so much as remotely as exploitative of its black citizens as we’re told, blacks shouldn’t be made to continue to call it home. If America is in effect no different in character than the slave plantation of yesteryear writ large, then this generation of black Americans face the same choice faced by their ancestors: Either remain on the master’s plantation as a slave, or abandon it for the promised land of freedom.
The slaves of an earlier era had it much rougher than the slaves of today: It was against the law for the former to flee their state of bondage, and the penalties to be meted out in the event that slaves were returned to their masters could be brutal. In stark contrast, with all of their political power, today’s slaves could demand a separate, independent state that they can call their own.
No justice, no peace.
After all, as black Americans are forever reminding us, “they” didn’t choose to come to this country. Justice, then, appears to require that (white) America deploy its awesome resources to erect a country ruled and populated by blacks. Only something on this order is just compensation for the ruthless racist subjugation and exploitation to which (white) America has been subjecting blacks for centuries and up to the present moment.
So, why hasn’t anyone called for this? Why do the most outraged of the enemies of white racism, whether white or black, continue to demand more of the same measures and policies that, to their own admission, fail miserably to deliver the goods? Why do these same folks, black and white, continue to make their peace with a racist society rather than insist upon seceding from it?
Some of us know the answer to this question. And we know that for all of the demands that black activists and their followers among the masses are inclined to make, the demand for the founding of an independent black-ruled country is not one that we will ever hear spring from their lips.
Poster Comment:
All hail the Nogtopia of Watermelonia!!