BLM vs Black on Black crime

This is a  is NOT mine…this is a repost authored by Maceo Willis…I don’t know the brother but thank you.

“This is long but I really don’t give a damn because I’ve had it with these idiotic “Black on Black crime” statements. So you know what? I will break this down, just this damn once. You read it? Fine. You don’t? Fine too. This is therapeutic for me because I’ve been wanting to get this off my chest for a long time.

There is no such thing as Black on Black crime. To understand the social and psychological construct and intention of this term you have to go back to the end of enslavement. When enslavement ended there were three things that the white Anglo Saxon power structure feared:

1. Black people getting revenge for being enslaved.

2. Growth of Black communities in the South

3. Growth of Black political power in the South.

White America also had to answer the question of how they were going to replace their free labor. They came up with the answer in the form of sharecropping and the 13th Amendment. The loophole that allowed any person convicted of a crime to be sent to jail and served in forced labor. While that took care of that in terms of policy (also policies such as the pig laws, black codes, and of course Jim Crow) the challenge was creating the narrative to justify such actions.

And with that comes the movie “Birth of a Nation.” There is no movie ever created that has had more of a long-lasting influence and impact on the moral and psychological consciousness and policy construct of America in history. In one felled swoop it framed Blacks in government as corrupt, Black communities as lazy and ignorant, Black women a subservient and yes, the big one, Black men as evil, bestial, vile criminals and rapists.

And with this movie, the incarcerations of Black men skyrocket. Lynchings catch on like wildfire. The destruction of middle-class Black communities such as Tulsa, Rosewood, Wilmington, strike in tactical precision. Even when Black people tried to leave the south they were met with Redlining in the north. The economy and some can argue far more evil and sinister twin brother of Jim Crow.

So let’s get into that.

The reason for Jim Crow in the South and Redlining in the North was to contain Black communities in areas where cities can cut off their access to the economic centers. To INTENTIONALLY keep these communities in poverty. Why? For one, whites did not want to see their economic status threatened. But secondly, because the “ah-ha” moment came. Poverty is profitable. In the case of crime, where there is poverty there is crime. This is not a Black thing. This is a universal law. When you cut off people’s access to those limited resources necessary to live people go into survival mode. The more scarce the resources the more human beings act in a primal state.

So now, if I create communities that are INTENTIONALLY cut off from those resources, I have INTENTIONALLY created a state of scarcity and survival. If I do that, then crime is going to happen and when it does, the powers that be can profit off that.

Don’t believe me about poverty? Take a look a Dublin Ireland, Mumbai India, towns in China, the Middle East, etc. etc. etc. Give me any country and its poorest towns and I will show you where the highest rates of crime happen.

So if that’s the case why call it Black on Black Crime? Because the narrative created isn’t about bringing awareness to crime in the Black community but to psychologically equate Black people with crime (Black = Crime) as a way to justify the policies of injustice, inequality, and incarceration against Black people without consequence. THAT’S WHY.

So when you repeat this narrative, which seems to only pop up when Black people start getting close to attacking the systems of oppression that created the state in which many Black communities live, you reinforce the psychological perception that to be Black EQUATES to being a criminal. Thus you become an unwitting accomplice to white supremacy and white oppression of Black people and render invisible the policies that have been enacted and still on the books for over a century that have created these environments.

So if you really want to do something about the CRIME you see in the Black community don’t attack Black people. Attack the City Council, attack the mayor, attack the policies of redlining. Attack the remnants of Jim crow. Attack the banks that purposely devalue homes in the Black community. Attack every policy and system that cuts off access to the necessary resources and opportunities the Black communities need to grow and evolve economically. ATTACK those.

Not your own damn people.”

MPM