writerexpress's Blog

Lately, there has been a great display of anti-Black hatred in the United States of America. There have been many nooses placed in different cities and in different institutions to let Black people know that there still is a great deal of hatred for us in this society. We thank Allah (God) that Genarlow Wilson, the little Brother in Georgia, has been set free; he should never have been jailed in the first place. We are, again, saddened that Mychal Bell has been re-arrested on something flimsy, just for the judge over his case to say to the Black people that came to Jena, La. to see about the Jena 6 that your protest means nothing. And, as this increase in violence and bloodshed and police murder of Black people is beginning to mount again, I thought that I should take a subject that I hope you will be patient with me on, called “Justifiable Homicide: Black Youth in Peril.”

The recent arrest of rap artist T.I., some flimsy set up, and the fact that it took $3 million to bail the young man out—and he murdered no one—are types of messages I want us to reflect on. Our young people pose a threat to the society, and I am not sure that our young people understand why Black youth are, in fact, a threat. The sad thing about our young people is that we, as their parents, have not shared with them the horror of what we and their grandparents have come through in order to give birth to this present generation. In that sense, as parents, we have failed our children because they are not aware, not only of an ancient struggle, but are unaware of a price that so many have paid so that these youth can go to fine universities; can go to a restaurant of their choice or stay in a hotel of their choice. They don’t understand the price.

I recently had a conversation with the legendary Harry Belafonte, who many young people probably don’t even know. Brother Harry was lecturing at Howard University, and he said the thing that hurt him was that our young people did not even know the recent struggle in the Civil Rights Movement. And that is why a movie could come out called Barber Shop, and Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. could be made light of, shocking the older people in the audience while the younger people laughed. It is not their fault; the youth have not been informed. The sad thing is that we expect the enemy to inform them when it is our duty and our responsibility to, but we are so busy chasing a dollar. We are so fascinated by the material strength of America that we have failed to sit down with our children and teach them the horror of what Black people have suffered in America and throughout the world at the hands of a wicked oppressor.

There are no Armenians who don’t know the horror of what happened to their people from the Turks in the Ottoman Empire. There are no people who have suffered indignity that are not aware of the road that they have trod to get where they are. There is no Jewish child that does not know about the Holocaust. It is incumbent upon a Jewish parent to tell their children what makes the Jew the strong person that he or she is today and what they came through. They not only tell their children, but because of their control of media and their power, it is we who also have to learn about their suffering so we can have sympathy for them. But when we know nothing about our own suffering, this is the reason why we have no sympathy for ourselves and for one another.

I do not want you to think that I am trying to teach hatred; that is beneath the dignity of a Muslim, or a Christian or a believer in God. But to teach the truth that might produce hatred, that is not my fault. If the truth of something makes you dislike it, then that is not “teaching hate”—that is teaching truth.

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According to the dictionary, the term “justifiable homicide” means whatever is justifiable is excusable. It is excusable because it is justified by the principle of justice. The term “homicide” means the murder of one human being by another.

Whenever you put these two words together, “justifiable homicide,” there has to be a body of persons in a deliberative process that determines on the basis of fact, that the murder of a human being is excusable by the principle of justice.

Since we have been in America, we have been under the domination of a power that during slavery did not have to justify the murder of our fathers. They didn’t have any group of people to look at facts. The slave-master had the power of life and death on every Black person outside of the principle of justice, with no regard for the life of the Black male or female that was being put to death.