How the media co-opts the Afrikan Struggle
The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.
Malcolm X
This quote has been used quite a bit recently given the empire’s media coverage and stance on the atrocities and genocide of the Palestinian people. But I ask us to take an even deeper look at this quote in the context of how the amerikkkan media is an integral component to the amerikkkan system operating as a whole. And more specifically focused on how the media is able to help co-opt Afrikan revolutionaries, their politics, movements and legacies.
December 1st marks the anniversary of Mrs. Rosa Parks arrest in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to adhere to racist Jim Crow laws. Now that is the extent of what most people know about Mrs. Parks but her contribution to our people’s liberation struggle is much more profound than simply refusing to give up a seat and challenging Jim Crow. Mrs. Parks was a staunch advocate for Afrikans inside the empire. From organizing to defend the wrongly accused including the nine Scottsboro boys, falsely accused of rape to her work focused on voter registration, youth outreach, and even pursuing legal remedies for Afrikan victims of white brutality and sexual violence. Because of her and her husbands’ politics, the Parks were forced to flee Montgomery and the South altogether and relocate to Detroit in order to find sufficient employment to live. While in Detroit, the Parks’ still faced employment and housing security problems coupled with growing health complications, likely from the burden of going to war with the empire. This did not stop Ms. Rosa from getting active! While in Detroit, her work in the Afrikan struggle inside of the empire indicates her steadfast commitment toward our people. Ms. Rosa actually worked on prisoner support, co-led the Detroit chapter of the Friends of SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and was active in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War years. And even at age 74 was able to open the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development, which educates young people about the struggle for civil and human rights and is still open today.
This is not what the media gives us of Mrs. Parks though is it? Mrs. Parks was a political prisoner, an organizer, she was actively working against the empire, YET her life has now been co-opted by amerikkka, and therefore the media, to fit the narrative and agenda necessary for amerikkka to persist. While Ms. Rosa fought for Afrikans to be treated as human beings inside of the empire, empire has used the media to convey to us that “Black history is American history” and our People’s historic struggle against empire is somehow something that should make us proud to now be accepted into the empire if we are willing to sacrifice just enough (read: our people). Congresswoman Terri Sewell (D-AL) is pushing for the Rosa Parks Day Act. The bill would make Dec. 1 a federal holiday commemorating the arrest of Rosa Parks. But how many holidays can they give us y’all? MLK, Juneteenth, Rosa Parks Day too; sure why not? Who isn’t for it? I mean it’s not like majority of the Afrikan people, who are often forced to work service jobs as a means of survival, will see much of a change because of this holiday and yay #representationmatters but won’t this be yet another symbol of “progress” from the empire without changing any material condition of Afrikan people?
Representation matters and elections matter because that’s what our ancestors fought and died for right? Again, this is how the media has deceived us. We should study and learn from those who were organizing Afrikans to vote when they say things like …
“I’ve never voted in my life in the democratic party and I’ll never vote in the democratic party. It’s racist and it’s capitalist! To the core! This is understood. And I shed my blood! I shed my blood for the vote, now, I want to make that clear. Some people get confused.The vote for me has never been the road to liberation. It’s only been a means of organizing my people.” — Kwame Ture
“Black folks never fought and died for the vite we fought and died to be left the fuxk alone by kkkracks” — Dhoruba bin Wahad
“ we can only use the vote as a means to organize our people.” — Jamil Al-Amin
The same #representationmatters representatives in congress, your state legislature or city council members are the same ones signing off on genocide, voting against human rights, and pledging loyalty to the amerikkkan empire which was convicted of 5 counts of genocide in October 2020. These are the same kkkoons signing off on bills that criminalize ski masks in Philadelphia, or tap dancing for massa on a stage to keep the slaves in line. The media covers what is necessary to keep the slaves preoccupied and unfocused on what they are subjected too as to keep them subdued. The media can and has convinced us that being accepted into the amerikkkan empire is the goal instead of our collective liberation.
And that is exactly how Chairman Fred Hampton Sr’s legacy and politic has been co-opted by empire’s media as well. Chairman Fred was a dynamic leader even in his early years, so much so the FBI began surveillance on Fred while he was only in high school. This surveillance and subsequent conspiracy to neutralize him took many shapes including false charges and multiple arrest. Ultimately culminating in the planned execution of as many Panthers as possible in the early morning December 4th raid where Chairman Fred and Captain Mark Clark were martyred. After his assassination, Fred’s rainbow coalition was co-opted into electoral politics and away from community control of resources to ensure the people’s needs were met. Fred Hampton’s politic was largely left out of the hollywood adaptation of his assassination, and Indiana University history professor Jakobi Williams argues that Hampton’s coalition and death led to the election of Obama. This is how legacies are co-opted!
The amerikkkan media is a tool of the amerikkkan empire; which is why you see the Obama’s producing movies for Netflix. Their latest film “Rustin”, is another example of amerikkkan neo-kkkolonial propaganda. Bayard Rustin is no hero or supporter of Afrikan Liberation,; in fact he was a staunch critic of Malcolm X and Black Nationalism, a Zionist, and worked with the government against the anti-war movement. Rustin was a house nigga whose job was to keep the slaves in line, just like Obama; this is how the media is able to manipulate our people’s understanding of history.
This is how we as a people fall for the traps set up by the amerikkkan empire. While a gang of us are caught up in the debate over hiphop lyrics between Dee-1 and Rick Ross, Meek, Jim Jones and the like — others are focused on Diddy and Johnathan Majors, this is all intentional. The media is picking up and covering whatever fits the agenda for the money to keep coming in, which means creating the necessary content to keep the slaves content. It would serve us well to begin to move away from amerikkkan media and remember why it is so important for us to understand amerikkkan media as another key component to the continued success of the amerikkkan empire and actively work against it.
