JTown Times Opinion: Raise your clenched hand and fist with me. Or are you racist?
Greg Tepper
22.3.22
“If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight.” – Tommy Smith, 1968 Olympics
Do you know propogandist populist fist as a political statement originates with Marxist rebellion and the destruction of the capitalist system. It was both inspiring to action and threatening to those not of revolutionary thought.
But ofcourse every good revolutionary must threaten he who threatens the revolution.
Remember the Mexico City Olympics, 1968? Or at least learning about it? American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos won gold and bronze. They bowed heads during the anthem and raised fists in protest of the plight of the “Negro” in America.
It is important to be knowledgeable of terminology used and when it changed to understand social currents and era timelines.
The athletes also used symbolism in socks and zipper and adorning jewelry to remember black Americans, blue collar workers and those murdered in the Middle Passage.
“If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight,” Smith said.
Smith spoke of understanding during a time of great American social unrest and confusion as a generation raised in racism rebelled against those maintaining it, utilizing civil disobedience and non-violence as taught and endorsed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Australian Peter Norman also took part though not fist raising. He, like his fellow Olympians, wore a human rights badge. Rights were seen as human.
The three did not signal moral superiority by virtue nor scream racism at every hurdle as is so common in today’s climate.
Black Lives Matter uses fist symbolism differently and does use intimidation tactics. This isn’t surprising in understanding it’s ideological roots.
BLM cofounder Patrisse Cullors publicly announced that she and cofounder Alicia Garza are Marxists who were trained in ideological theories.
She told Dazed in a 2018 interview that she spent a year , “reading, anything from Marx, to Lenin, to Mao,” at the Labor Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles.
Wonderful human beings to emulate considering the tens of millions they murdered.
The LCSC states on it’s site that it works, in part and through developed intersectional targeting to “develop campaigns and demands that help build a revitalized world united front that can stop the rising tides of war, racism and imperialism, the ecological crisis and the growing police state.
Our work often challenges both major political parties and takes on the organized Right.”
It’s director is Eric Mann, a member of the 1970s revolutionary group Weather Underground.
The Weather Underground was a division of SDS, Students for a Democratic Society. First known as The Weathermen the group worked against perceived American imperialism. It was founded in 1969 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
In 1970, under the name “Weather Underground Organization” it declared war on the United States of america. It conducted violent attacks against interests of the United States government and was declared a terrorist organization by the FBI.
Their attacks included bombings of the United States capitol, the Pentagon, and the State Department.
An admitted leftist organization even if with omission of such admittance, one must give credit to the organizations for its honesty and Cullors for hers as well in stating influences, ideology and policy goals.
Why is this important? A generation three removed from Vietnam may be ignorant of who Tommy Smith is, who the Black Panthers, a Marxist-Leninist Black power organization founded by Bobby seale and Huey P. Newton, was.
The Black Panthers had political goals ensuring protection of black Americans, which today would be considered equal protection under the law, from police brutality.
They utilized open carry patrols and had community outreach programs to feed children and assist the sick and were operational until the early 1980s. They also promoted class struggle in the true spirit of the dialectic.
The generations today who one can assume to be uneducated about struggles of the 1960s and ’70s could find in Black lives matter hope in ending what is called “systemic racism” through political activism.
The problem is the mantra often espoused on social media and through other voices that if you are not with black lives matter you are a racist.
The linguistics of the discussion today very much match those so well known by anyone who has read The Communist manifesto and studied history and ideology.
The problem in giving full backing and support to BLM is that one is also giving their support to an organization run by the far left whose ultimate goal is an overthrow not only of what they call “systemic racism” but also and ultimately of the free market system in the United States.
BLM has spoken about what it defines as a connection between capitalism and racism.
This though not openly stated can be safely assumed, though all assumptions including this one hold they’re very nature nature as assumptions, danger in being incorrect. But what is life without humor?
It is important to remember that the in raising the fist as BLM does one is not only supporting equal protection under the law and fighting racism but is tacitly supporting Marxist leninist anti-American revolutionary organizations.
When social pressure is exerted to affect people’s behavior in sharing imagery such as the Black fist or any other fist or any other imagery then the imagery itself becomes a weapon.
As we see Russia’s aggression in Ukraine we must remember that true communists, true marxist, those committed to ideology are using language and imagery to manipulate.
The next time someone in a position of power in such an organization speaks openly and publicly regarding race and the American system, take out a copy of the Communist manifesto and look back to what we learned in high school and college during and after the Cold War.
Substitute race with class. Substitute identity with proletariat. Substitute intersectional with brotherhood. Play The language game yourself because the educators did not teach us history or language.
And maybe next time someone asks you to display imagery and if you refuse asserts that your refusal means you are a racist, you can be unafraid in responding, “I am not you cowardly Marxist.”
Considering our history and what communists and marxists did to us throughout the 20th century and our beliefs in Freedom and equality of man we Jews must fight Marxism whenever it rears its head and wherever it wages battle.
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