50 more years of Black people not being oppressed: 1967 - 2017

Continuing on this exhausting journey of 100 years of non-oppression..........

1960s:
COINTELPRO and the movements for Black lives.

From the FBI's own page, "The FBI began COINTELPRO—short for Counterintelligence Program—in 1956 to disrupt the activities of the Communist Party of the United States. In the 1960s, it was expanded to include a number of other domestic groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Black Panther Party. All COINTELPRO operations were ended in 1971. Although limited in scope (about two-tenths of one percent of the FBI’s workload over a 15-year period), COINTELPRO was later rightfully criticized by Congress and the American people for abridging first amendment rights and for other reasons."

While COINTELPRO included surveillance of the KKK, it's interesting that of the groups spied upon, ONLY the KKK survives today. Some might be inclined to suggest that COINTELPRO was an arm of an oppressive government, but this is America so that couldn't possibly be true....

1967: Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the armed services to fight in Vietnam. He famously claims, "I ain't got no quarrel with those Vietcong.” He is convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to time in prison (five years), fined ($10,000) and probably most significantly, banned from boxing for three years. At the height of his career, his progress is stopped cold. Did the same happen to Mitt Romney? To Donald Trump? Hm. Ali got no approval for his conscientious objection to the war, but Mittens and Cheetolini got deferments. Romney may even have demonstrated in favor of the draft and then avoided serving. Funny how Black men can't get a deferment but rich White men do and are able to go on to become presidential contenders and presidents huh? But ain't no oppression here!

Thurgood Marshall is nominated to and elevated to the Supreme Court of the United States. Woo hoo! He's the first to make it but do we really think he's the first qualified? Unlikely. But let's celebrate his firstness and ignore the dozens of others who were probably just as capable but didn't get anywhere near the steps of the court house.

1968:

Eartha Kitt speaks truth to power at the Johnson White House and pays for it with her livelihood. Shades of Colin Kaepernick?

Also in 1968, MLK Jr is assassinated.

Maybe we should just pause here a moment and consider what that meant, to whom it meant the most, and what it signified that a White supremacist would shoot dead a man agitating for equality under the law. A man known to be a man of peace, dead by violence. 

Think too on the fact that the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover sought to encourage King to commit suicide and yet every MLK Day, they do this. But shhhhh! Don't let's talk about oppression. That's so gauche!

Take a moment to think on these things. Think too on how well these truths support (or refute) the notion that no one has been oppressed in this country for 100 years............... 

Think about how some people now bandy King's name about as if, had they been there, they would have stood with him instead of angrily against him. It would be funny if it weren't so damn pathetic and dangerous. Those same people are here now, in the middle of today's critical civil rights issue of police violence, angrily burning Kaepernick jerseys and calling kneeling players n*ggers. Oh the irony! 

I could stop here but the 100 years ain't done yet. These stories are exhausting. This history is heavy and yet, Mikey says there's no there there. Is he reading the same resources I am? Clearly not. Onward.

1978:
Supreme Court once again upholds the constitutionality of Affirmative Action but the ruling also seeks to ensure that "greater opportunities for the minority didn't come at the expense of the rights of the majority" cuz yunno, opportunities are pie. One slice for me means one less slice for you. And ytfolk must not be denied their pie.

1985:
The MOVE bombing in Philadelphia takes place. Eleven are left dead, including five children. This massacre predates the Branch Davidian and Ruby Ridge events.

1991:
Rodney King is beaten bloody by five White police officers. The beating is caught on video. 

1992:
The officers who brutalized Rodney King are acquitted of all charges. Shades of Jordan Davis murder trial (first trial outcome). Shades of Trayvon Martin murder trial outcome. Shades of Tamir Rice attempted indictment. Past is prologue they say. King was prologue to Davis, Martin and Rice. Bland, Castile, Scott and far too many others to name.

2003:
SCOTUS once again upholds Affirmative Action, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the sharks are circling.  Becky with the bad grades is still to come (2016).

2008:
Barack Hussein Obama becomes the president of these United States and cases of Obama Derangement Syndrome are being diagnosed far and wide across the land. 

2011:
Dolt 45, the current resident in the House of White (Supremacy), made an entire career of birtherism and challenging the  bona fides of a sitting president. This was entirely acceptable because Black people don't actually belong in America, they are not actually citizens of America and they certainly shouldn't be the president of America. Oppression? Nope. Facts.

2012:
Trayvon Martin is followed on his way home from a run to the store for Skittles and a drink. He is eventually shot dead by an armed 'neighborhood watch' guy who later is found not guilty of all crimes.

In the course of defending the killer - whose name I will not type - the defense team makes Martin the cause of his own death. Martin is accused of having been armed with the sidewalk because in the fight for his life, he attempted to bash his attacker's head into the pavement. I shit you not. But he wasn't oppressed. Nah. Being accused of culpability in your own death is entirely reasonable (for a Black person in America). But oppression? That's a bit of a reach don't you think? 

2014:
Michael Brown, an unarmed* Black man, is shot dead in Ferguson, MO under circumstances that remain unclear. Officer Darren Wilson claims inter alia "“When I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan,” Wilson, who is 6' 4" and 210 lbs., said of Brown, who was 6' 4" and 292 lbs. at the time of his death." More here.

Tamir Rice, a 12 year old boy, is shot dead by former police officer TL. TL is not  indicted. When the city settles with Rice's family nearly two years later, the head of the police union suggests that it is Samaria Rice's responsibility to use that money to teach other Black kids how to avoid being shot dead by incompetent police officers. Here. You can't make this shit up. Mike D., you still with me? 

2015:
Sandra Bland is pulled over on a pretext stop, arrested, and dies in police custody three days later. The fact that she was incarcerated for three days for failing to use a turn signal isn't oppressive of course. That's perfectly normal. In America. The land of the free. 

Also in 2015, Texas tries to change history and suggest that the enslavement of Africans was just some new-fangled migrant worker arrangement. But again, this isn't oppressive at all. I'm not even sure why I've mentioned it......

2016:
The movie Hidden Figures takes us by surprise. Who knew that in 1962 these four fabulous brilliant women had performed critical calculations to get John Glen safely into (and out of) space? But their omission from our history books ain't oppression. Nah! That's just an oversight.

2017:
The Republican Party's president gins up a toxic stew of racist with Sieg Heiling and Nazi-flag flying such as we've never seen before. A counter-protester is killed by a Nazi-sympathizer and the president says that there are "good people on both sides".

Oppression? In America? Surely you jest!


*'unarmed' save for his Blackness which, as we all know, is the greatest armament known to mankind

Hey Mike, here are some stories of POC not being oppressed from 1917 to 1967

It's kind of exhausting to have to push back against willful ignorance, but it has to be done. So here I am doing it. Again.

Mike Ditka is on the record as saying that there hasn't been any oppression in this country in 100 years. This piece of interesting writing makes a similar claim. Neither could possibly be more wrong.

As the argument goes, in the Oppression Olympics POC can't even score a tarnished bronze cuz yunno, Saudi women just got the right to drive in 2017!, or Chinese dissenters!, or Russian LGBTQ! or Christians in majority-Muslim countries! (but not Palestinians in Israel, or Black Africans in apartheid-era South Africa or Black people in Jim Crow southern states tho) The logic is (entirely predictably) illogical and hypocritical but it makes for a good rallying cry I suppose.

The historically ignorant have decided that if things are better today than they were before emancipation, then everyone should just shut their pie hole and whistle a happy tune. But that's not how this works. What these folk fail to realize is that no improvement to the social condition of oppressed or excluded groups occurs naturally. It certainly hasn't occurred naturally or easily in these United States. Our evolutionary process has always required agitation, effort, pressure and spublic shaming. America has never yet recognized the rights of those it routinely brutalizes without a damn good reason. Folk have to give America reasons to live up to her hype. Calling out her oppressive nature? That's very much part of the process. Ditka is an ass if he thinks this place is anything BUT oppressive....but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm supposed to offer up evidence and then draw a conclusion. Beg pardon!

In honor of Ditka's patently ridiculous claim that there's been no oppression these last one hundred years, here are some of the shameful events of the first fifty years of those 100. US history is replete with stories and so here are a few. Enjoy. I guess.

1917 to 1931:
485 Black men, women and children were lynched. Source here. The likelihood is that these data are incomplete and underrepresent the actual totals. But neither lynching nor the threat thereof are  oppression. Mike says so.

1923:
Rosewood Massacre

1931:
The Scottsboro Boys: 9 Black youths indicted on a charge of having raped two White women (shades of Susan Smith and Sherry Hall).

"Two were paroled in 1944, one in 1951. When the fourth escaped (1948) to Michigan, the state refused to return him to Alabama. In 1976, Alabama pardoned the last known surviving  Scottsboro boy,  Clarence Norris, who had broken parole and fled the state in 1946 the other three who had been convicted were posthumously pardoned in 2013. Ultimately, the nine were all exonerated." From Fact Monster.

But there's been no oppression in 100 years Mike, cuz crying rape and getting men murdered or incarcerated for life? That ain't oppression, that's just fun and games.

1939:
Marian Anderson sings at the National Mall because the lovely Nice White Ladies of the DAR Constitution Hall refused her access to their space to concertize. This ain't oppression, this is creating an opportunity to sing for a far larger (if less comfortable) audience!

1944:
The GI Bill is passed but the majority of Black GIs are unable to access those benefits because - we can't call it oppression - something limits their access to universities and housing developments. I wonder what the problem was? It must have been laziness and a woeful lack of ambition.

See more here.

It wasn't until 1948 that the military was actually desegregated, not that that had any impact on POC GIs accessing their benefits, I'm just pointing that out. But again, that's not oppression according to Mikey.

1945:
Jackie Robinson faces racial slurs, death threats and abuse to break the color line in baseball. But this ain't oppression.

1954:
Brown vs. the Board of Education determined that segregated education was unconstitutional. Until the SCOTUS decision, not only were our schools separate but our teachers were frequently paid less. But I don't know if you'd rightly refer to that as oppression. /sarcasm font/

1955:
Emmett Till is brutally murdered by Roy Bryant and his brother-in-law J. W. Milam. Neither spends a minute in jail. (Shades of 2013, '14, '15, '16, '17 and the absence of prosecution or the not guilty findings in the deaths of unarmed POC by the police). But don't you say this is oppression!

Just bye the bye, Carol Bryant Donham, the woman who accused Emmett Till, admitted in 2017 that she is a liar and the primary cause of the death of a child. Oppression then, oppression now if you ask me, but you didn't ask me. You asked Mike and Mike says ain't nothing to see here.

1956:

Here's Paul Robeson, the tremendous American basso profundo, of whom many White Americans will never have heard (a story for another day) being harangued by the HUAC - House UnAmerican Affairs Committee - in 1956 for his speeches and support for workers' and Negro rights.

1957:
Subsequent to Brown vs the Board of Ed. Daisy Bates, an NAACP activist found nine young people who were willing to break the barrier to entry to the Little Rock Central High School. Their eventual success in that effort generated this iconic image but don't you dare call this oppression!

1960:
Black students begin the sit-ins at Woolworth's segregated lunch counters.

1961:
Freedom Rides begin to register Black voters.

1962:
James Meredith becomes the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. President Kennedy has to send in 5000 troops after rioting breaks out. But that ain't hardly oppressive! I mean the president stepped in didn't he?

Medgar Evers is murdered for his work registering African American voters in Mississippi. More here.

1963:
MLK arrested in Birmingham, Alabama and pens the Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom occurs.
The I Have A Dream speech is given (which people like Ditka misunderstand to this day).

1964:
Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination against POC based on race, color, religion or national origin. The need to legislate rights for POC indicates quite clearly that absent legislation - say it with me - they were being oppressed. But don't tell Mike. His head might explode.

The bodies of  James E. Chaney,  Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner are found. These three had been among the hundreds of Freedom Riders registering would-be voters in the south when they went missing on June 21, 1964.

1965:
Bloody Sunday - State troopers attack peaceful protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Fifty marchers are hospitalized.

Voting Rights Act of 1965 is passed, making it easier for Black folk in the south to register and actually vote. Poll taxes and literacy tests are deemed illegal.

1967:
Thurgood Marshall beoomes the first African American to ascend to the Supreme Court.

Loving v. Virginia - the land mark anti-miscegenation case - is decided. Preventing interracial marriage is deemed to be unconstitutional.

As a friend of mine put it as I was lamenting my inability to write this list in 1000 words or less, her offering to Ditka would have been merely this: "You blind, ig'nant, clueless effer, since you can't read and can only handle pablum, watch 2 or 3 episodes of Black-ish and hush". So clearly, the preceding 1000 words are not for Mike. They're pretty much for everybody else BUT Mike. Mike is beyond the reach of information. 


I can live with that. 

Part two (the next fifty years) in a few days. 

The fuller context

It's dangerous to see things in isolation. When you focus entirely on the present issue, you fail to recognize how that issue connects with a larger narrative that is toxic or otherwise dangerous. So here's my fuller context. This is the lens through which I see and evaluate the Dove moment.

In the same moment that Dove is suggesting that a little soap will whiten Black folk up, the FBI has determined that "Black identity extremism" is a thing, a thing worthy of FBI scrutiny.

Dove (and its marketing department) does not stand as some lone sentry in the policing and hatred of Blackness, Black self-acceptance, and declaration of its worth.

In the same moment that the patriotism of Colin Kaepernick and others is roundly questioned because they would dare to demand equal treatment under the law, a White man MASSACRES 59 and yet there is more outrage at BLACK men kneeling than there is about a WHITE man buying 33 guns in a single year.

In the same moment that the FBI, Jefferson Beauregard Secessions, Dick Spencer and the Alt-Reich declare their intent to target and harass Black people who would dare to consider themselves equal, Dove is but the tip of a long spear.

In the same moment that VP Pence is stomping out of a Colts game cuz men took a knee, White nationalists marched again in Charlottesville to protect a statue to a traitor, and the House of White has had more to say about the former than the latter. Let that marinate in your soul a moment.

This my friends, is White supremacy on steroids. Indeed, some might say it's White supremacy in a 'roid rage.

But this, this is America in 2017, where it's absolutely necessary to be mindful of the fuller context.

What's the fuller context? 'Intelligent' human beings entirely misrepresenting - or entirely ignoring - the cause for protest because it doesn't comport with their view of the world.

What's the fuller context? People finding ways to make the dead victims of extra-judicial murder the cause of their own deaths.

What's the fuller context? Being routinely referred to as subhuman mongrels, porch monkeys or just n*ggers the minute yt folk don't get their way, cuz yunno, their way must always prevail. We are not entitled to a way.

What's the fuller context? The FBI's COINTELPRO operation; the MOVE bombing; the assassination of Patrice Lumumba; the FBI's attempts to smear (and urge to suicidal action in) MLK Jr., so this move by the FBI to claim that Black identity extremism is dangerous is neither new nor is it even imaginative. [Parenthetically, I feel compelled to point out that this is the same FBI that routinely tweets supportive MLK thoughts every third Monday of January....chew on that some.]

What's the fuller context? The DOJ's focus, under Secessions (yeah I spelled that right) on bringing deliberate harm to POC. 

In the grand scheme of things, Dove is a nothing really. It's just one of a series of nothings with which POC are told they shouldn't concern themselves. The trouble is that these nothing micro-aggressions lead to very-much-something macro-aggressions like Secessions is trying to pull. Micro-invalidations lead to macro-invalidations like voter suppression, voter intimidation and gerrymandering such as the Republicans have pulled over the last ten years. White rage (based on erroneous notions of a Divine Right to Run Shit) leads to tiki torch-carrying dimwits, public intimidation and death, as Charlottesville proved some weeks ago.

So yeah, Dove ain't nothing to trouble your pretty head about.

Carry on.

Oh and for those who say Dove's history is a good one..........