Justice for Tyre Nichols and Freedom From All Forms of Violence

“25) Can a devil fool a Muslim.

26) No, not nowadays.

27) Do you mean to tell me that he fooled them 379 years ago?

28) Yes, A trader made an interpretation that they would receive more gold for their labor, which was more than they were earning in their own country.

29) Did they receive more gold?

30) No, the trader disappeared and there was no one left to speak their own language.”

-From the 1 through 36 degrees of the 120 Lessons of the Nation of Gods and Earths

I am outraged over the beating and murder of Tyre Nichols by self-hating Black police officers. The consequences of white supremacy and institutional racism have created abnormal levels of vicious acts of Black self-hatred in the African world community.

For nearly 500 years (5 centuries), and counting; racist white people launched open and closed door violent campaigns against Black people that came in the name of slavery and segregation. Their racial wars fought to permanently make African people an oppressed people forever.

However, Black people fought back against America‘s racial caste system by creating national Black liberation movements (e.g. The Civil Rights Movement and The Black Power Movement) from the 1950s to the early 1970’s. Its efforts were to win Black people equality and self-determination from white supremacy and institutional racism.

The system of white supremacy conceded a bit to the demands of Black people, but rebuilt its machine to oppressed Black people all over again by co-opting the civil rights movement and violently repressing the Black power movement.

One of white supremacy’s major engines to destroy Black America was through J. Edgar Hoover‘s FBI COINTELPRO ( Counter Intelligence Program). This US national policing apparatus criminalized, exiled, neutralized, and assassinated Black leaders and Black organization. And the other way US COINTELPRO prevented Black folks from rising from racial oppression was to neutralize Black nationalist ideologies.

Because white supremacy has not been destroyed, white supremacist operations continue to grow unchecked. It has almost guaranteed any upward climb to Black liberation. The ideology of white supremacy continues recreating a system and culture of racism that are still in place in many of America’s institutions (i.e., education police departments, music, movies, religions, government, and etc.) today.

But what is equally troubling is Black people assisting in our own demise. White supremacy and institutional racism are so powerful that some us Black folks concede to its existence.

Now I am not, in any kind of way, making excuses for misguided Black people that attack and oppress innocent Black people through Black to Black violence; but we have internalized our oppressor’s barbaric racist behavior towards one another in the Black community. I am not shocked by the disgusting and repulsive acts of Black police officers. These things happened everyday to Black people on all levels of Black life in America! For instance, In Newark, NJ, we have our own Tyre Nichols. His name is Carl Dorsey. Brother Dorsey was an unarmed Blackman shot to death by a Black Newark Police officer on January 1, 2021. Unfortunately, New Jersey’s grand jury decided not to file any criminal charges against the police officer that killed Carl Dorsey. According to Star Ledger reporter Steve Strunsky, “the grand jury concluded no criminal charges should be filed against Detective Rod Simpkins of the Newark Police Department, the officer who fired his service weapon.” (https://www.nj.com/essex/2023/)

But from education departments to police departments to social justice movements to Black power movements; we always have people of African descent collaborating and assisting the system of white supremacist oppression to help destroy any progress in Black America for freedom and independence.

We need to reread Frantz Fanon’s book, Black Skin White Mask, to get a clear analysis on the western cultural conditions that drive Black people to replace white oppression with Black oppression.

But in the meantime, we must continue to organize and rally against all forms of violence in the Black community where it rears its ugly head. All violence (i.e., senseless community violence, police violence, domestic violence, education violence, music violence, Hollywood violence, etc) must stop in the Black community.

The struggle for freedom and independence continues!

-Bashir Muhammad Ptah Akinyele is a community activist and a member of ASCAC (the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations). He is also a history and Africana Studies teacher at Weequachic High School in Newark, NJ and an active adherent to the Nation of Gods and Earths.

-P.E.A.C.E (Proper Education Always Corrects Errors)!!!

HOTEP (Ancient African Kemetic / Egyptian word for offering peace)!!!