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.    

THE FINAL STRAW

President Wayne Alexander Ian Frederick declared under oath that my having skipped away to Panama and absented myself without authorization for the first two days of summer school 2017 and furthermore my having invited my wife to teach my classes in my stead constituted the final straw. He had been overly generous in giving me the opportunity to remediate my aberrant conduct by placing me on a Performance Improvement Plan for the academic year 2016-2017. But I had persisted in my deviant conduct, topping it off with this egregious violation of the rule and order established by the Faculty Handbook.

Alas, the goodly president appears not to understand that an academic institution is not a plantation. You can’t just mete out “justice”—like Mr. Gore did to Demby—without fulfilling the burden of proof, as the Faculty Handbook quite clearly states.

YOU HAVE TO LAUGH, WI!!

DOCUMENTATION AS UNLAWFUL

The witnesses who have been deposed in the closed sessions of the current Impeachment Inquiry have earned high praise for their custom of meticulously memorializing the misconduct of their higher-ups, that is to say, they “documented” everything. I myself have in my decades on the faculty of the nation’s premier HISTORICALLY BLACK university—named after an avowed white supremacist—have sought to “document” meticulously.

The upper administration of the university has relentlessly retaliated against my habit of meticulously documenting. They have declared my documentation to constitute an attack on my colleagues and my “higher-ups.” Indeed, the President has placed me on suspension without pay since August 2017 because these “attacks” constitute egregious “neglect of my academic duties.”

YOU HAVE TO LAUGH, WI!

DOCUMENTATION AS UNLAWFUL

The witnesses who have been deposed in the closed sessions of the current Impeachment Inquiry have earned high praise for their custom of meticulously memorializing the misconduct of their higher-ups, that is to say, they “documented” everything. I myself have in my decades on the faculty of the nation’s premier HISTORICALLY BLACK university—named after an avowed white supremacist—have sought to “document” meticulously.

The upper administration of the university has relentlessly retaliated against my habit of meticulously documenting. They have declared my documentation to constitute an attack on my colleagues and my “higher-ups.” Indeed, the President has placed me on suspension without pay since August 2017 because these “attacks” constitute egregious “neglect of my academic duties.”

YOU HAVE TO LAUGH, WI!

UNITARY EXECUTIVE

The President of a certain “Historically Black” university that is named after an avowed white supremacist has been led to believe by his Board of Trustees that he is a unitary executive who can run the institution as he deems fit, even to the point of running it into the ground.

The President would be well served by doing some serious reflection on the meaning of the term “collegial,” focusing on the fact that a university is not a private corporation; and certainly not a plantation.