Not the Black history we need

By Aswad Walker

BARBERS HILL MADNESS CONTINUES

A grown man in a position of incredible power and influence, making well over six figures, took time out of his life to pay for a full-page ad in the Houston Chronicle to attack a Black high school junior, Darryl George. All because this dude, the superintendent of Barbers Hill ISD, didn’t like the way God ordained the hair to grow out of George’s head. As if suspending George multiple times wasn’t enough. As if making George miss over 80% of his school days outside his school wasn’t enough. As if the fact that the rule Poole cited for the suspension wasn’t even broken by George but is broken daily by white students wasn’t enough. This dude takes out a full-page ad to shame George and states, “Being an American requires conformity.” How inadequate must Poole feel about himself, to the very core of his insecure being, to take policing Black bodies to that over-the-top level? Also, Blackfolk know that when those who believe in the myth of white supremacy expect/demand “conformity” of us (i.e. to get with the program everyone else is on), what they really expect/demand of us is slavish submission (do as “we” say, regardless of what “we” do).

TIM SCOTT… MAYNE!

Last week, South Carolina US Senator Tim Scott made what many are calling one of the most shameful displays of kissing a** in the history of a**es available to be kissed. Appointed to his current position by Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, and a long-time supporter of hers, when Trump won the South Carolina caucus, few expected Scott to be in attendance at the victory party. He was not only present, he was on stage, standing over Trump’s left shoulder, offering some Olympic-level skinnin’ & grinnin’. Then, Trump went all the way in on Scott, essentially calling him a no backbone, disloyal, punk, to which Scott responded by interrupting Trump’s rant to take the mic and say, while looking deeply into Trump’s eyes: “I just love you.” Ni**a please!

Thousands of Blackfolk immediately interpreted the act the same way – Scott just got “buck-broken” in front of the world. “Buck-breaking” was a vile practice used by “owners” of the enslaved when they wanted to punish Black men for standing up as Black men; as children of God. To “take their manhood,” these “owners” would rape the brother in front of everyone to “break” the spirit of the “buck.” But in Scott’s case, is it buck-breaking if the “buck” openly seeks to be “broken” and responds by saying “I just love you”? Ni**a please.

BROTHER, BROTHER, BROTHER

Over the many decades of our time in this Babylon, we’ve seen every shade and shape of oppression and abuse from every kind of U.S. institution (religious, academic, judicial, etc.). And with the rise in hate crimes and hate speech aimed at Blacks, and the deepening of the racial/political divide, one refrain shared often by Blackfolk over the past two years has been, “Oh, we’ve been here before. We’ve seen oppression like this in the past.” Wrong. We have not seen this before. Over the past two years one of the country’s two main political parties (Republicans) has openly endorsed 1) political violence, including jailing and assassinating political opponents, 2) a dictator form of government over democracy (see Project2025), 3) declaring Democrats enemies of the state who deserve violent attacks, prison, and/or death, 4) attacking over-qualified Black women in every area of society, 5) increasing the war against Black youth, and 6) declaring Black votes and Black history as illegitimate. Those last three (numbers 4, 5, and 6) they’ve been doing forever. But those first three are new levels of white nationalism in this country that are both disturbing and extremely dangerous for Blackfolk… and quite honestly, for all folk. Yet, daily, we hear reports that more young and middle-aged Black men are talking about voting for the party of Trump? Either someone’s lying about Black men and their 2024 political intentions, or we’ve reduced ourselves to a generation full of Tim Scotts openly seeking to be broken for all the world to see.