IT’S THE CONSTITUTION!

The very first chapter of my book, The Gunning Down of Michael Brown: An Afrocentric Response is, “Three-Fifths of All Other Persons.” Yes, that’s a direct quote from our Constitution.

The question everyone is asking these days is who is ultimately responsible for the cold-blooded murder of Mr. George Floyd, right there in the street in front of witnesses? And it’s hard not to think about Trump’s boast that he could with absolute impunity gun down somebody right there on Fifth Avenue.

Who’s ultimately responsible? Well, it’s not the police; it’s not even Trumpism. No, IT’S THE CONSTIUTION, with that unspeakably odious phrase: “three-fifths of all other persons.”  

AMERICAN BARBARITY IS WITHOUT RIVAL

“There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. . . [Furthermore,] for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without rival.” Thus spoke Frederick Douglass in the course of his discourse at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York on 5 July 1852.

A cold-blooded, inhuman white man in blue, aided and abetted by three of his gang, snuffed out the life of George Floyd in full view of the public. And this is the pattern and practice of police departments all over these United States. Nothing has really changed here in America since Frederick Douglass spoke those words 168 years ago.

THE FIRST STEP IN DISMANTLING THE STEREOTYPE IS TO TAKE CONTROL OF OUR HISTORY

George Floyd was murdered by those white policemen because all Black men are stereotyped as criminals. This stereotype is fundamental to white supremacy and is based on alternative facts. The surest way to dismantle this pernicious, murderous stereotype is through the presentation of the indisputable historical data. This is why the white supremacist system clings desperately to its alternative facts and is unrelenting in its opposition to the historical data, labeling such data as fantasy history.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me became #1 New York Times Bestseller right after its publication in 2015; and was declared by Toni Morrison to be “required reading.” Coates confesses: “I began to feel that something more than a national trophy case was needed if I was to be truly free, and for that I have the history department of Howard University to thank” (53). Yes, it was as a student at the nation’s premier HBCU (historically Black college / university) that he was disabused of all that “fantasy history” about The African Origin of Civilization.    

KEEPING THE STEREOTYPE ALIVE

George Floyd was murdered by those white policemen because all Black men are stereotyped as criminals. This stereotype is fundamental to white supremacy and is based on alternative facts. The surest way to dismantle this pernicious, murderous stereotype is through the presentation of the indisputable historical data. This is why the white supremacist system clings desperately to its alternative facts and is unrelenting in its opposition to the historical data, labeling such data as fantasy history.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me became #1 New York Times Bestseller right after its publication in 2015; and was declared by Toni Morrison to be “required reading.” Coates confesses: “I began to feel that something more than a national trophy case was needed if I was to be truly free, and for that I have the history department of Howard University to thank” (53). Yes, it was as a student at the nation’s premier HBCU (historically Black college / university) that he was disabused of all that “fantasy history” about The African Origin of Civilization.