Guns Race and America's Collective Psychosis by Ishamael Reed

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WEEKEND EDITION DECEMBER 21-23, 2012

It's Not the Deer, It's the Brothers

Guns, Race and AmericasCollective Psychosisby ISHMAEL REED

When I appeared on a panel with Chris Hedges during the Miami International

Book Fair, I told him and the audience that I appear in a book calledMy Ideal

Bookshelfby Jane Mount and Thessaly La Force in which a stack of the favoritebooks of writers were painted by Ms. Mount. White authors wrote about a third of

my favorites.

But I mentioned that though I read white male authors avidly, its difficult to gather

the points of view of others when both left and right opinions in the media industry

are dominated by white men. To present those points of view that are left out might

add new dimensions to the discussion of important issues in the news, for though

the media mocks Gov. Romneys alienation from changing demographics, they

suffer from the same problem.

For example, the Bank of America is in constant trouble with the law. I witnessed

the president and CEO of the Bank of America, Brian Moynihan, make his case

about foreclosures before an audience assembled by the Brookings Institution. The

audience was reverential to Moynihan who carried on like BOA was Mother Teresa.

And while the moderator, Karen Dynan, Vice President of Brookings, did

everything but wash his feet and kept completely agreeing with him, even though

millions of her sisters have been harmed by the banks policies, it took a Hispanic

representative from the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals

to ask him why black and Hispanic borrowers were steered into subprime loans by

BOA when the majority were eligible for conventional loans.

An all white panel followed the presentation by the CEO even though BOAs policies

have disproportionately affected blacks and Hispanics. No matter how brightest

and best, and no matter the degrees from Harvard, Yale, etc., when it comes to

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analyzing events from the perspective of blacks and browns, most members of the

segregated media, have a blind spot; but fortunately, many dont. Thom Hartman,

Randy Rhoads and Jay Marvin get it, which is why you rarely see them on the tube.

Apparently the corporations that ambush our eyeballs screen them out too. So do

sites like Salon and the Daily Beast.

The late Alexander Cockburn was even censored by a neoliberal site, The Nation,

which is run by a feminist, who slashed his popular column from two pages down to

one and from two a month to once a month; yet, like the New York Times Book

Review, the majority of books reviewed in The Nation are written by white men.

And the media, according to Rick Sanchez, cater to Angry White Men. Therefore

you cant bring up subjects that might alienate them. This is why Howard Kurtz,

who did a tribute to confessed rapist Strauss Kahn (who made a settlement of six

million dollars with his accuser, with little coverage from the media), and a black

female reporter can rake Chris Brown but, as a result of a non-aggression pact

between General Electric and Rupert Murdoch, cant touch Murdoch, who

approved of a cartoon showing the president as a murdered chimp and fired Sandra

Guzman when she objected. Reuters reported:

In November 2009, Guzman, who is black and Puerto Rican, sued the

Post, its editor Col Allan and its parent News Corp for alleged

discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, gender and national

origin, saying she had been fired in retaliation for complaints over

inappropriate conduct.

Who has done more damage to women? Chris Brown or Murdochs Tea Party that

wants to end food stamps, Medicaid and Social Security?

On Melissa Harris-Perrys MSNBC show, moderated by the very gifted,

intellectually, Mrs. Perry, the brothers get roughed up every week, even to the

extent of dragging in Isiah Thomass sexual harassment suit (the accuser received a

eleven million dollar settlement) into a discussion about misogyny in the armed

forces, when Thomas is not a soldier, general or admiral. He was a basketball

coach. Yet, when having a discussion of violence against Native American women,

34% of whom get raped during their lifetimes, feminists who were panel members

on Melissa Harris Perrys show, and the host herself, sought to shield white men

from shame. They got tongue-tied. The perpetrators were described as non-

Indian males. It took Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post, to identify the

non-Indians as white men.




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These are the kind of feminists who get all worked up about Chris Brown and O.J.

and the Central Park Five, but when it comes to white men, their employers group,

acting crazy, they get a pass. Theyre referred to as non-Indians. Euphemisms are

invoked.

Also on a MSNBC progressive show last weekend, there appeared another sign of

how clueless white progressives are about black feelings, a cluelessness that black

progressives have complained about since the 1920s. Liberals and progressives

appearing on Up w/Chris Hayes praised Mayor Bloomberg for his gun-control

policies. Nothing about his stop and frisk Gestapo policy, which led 640,000 black

and Hispanic men and women to being stopped in 2011 and often roughed up by

the notorious NYPD, a degenerate outfit that even Richard Prices latest effort to

pretty it up, failed. His Wire offshoot, NYC22, was cancelled. The Times

reviewer said that showing Harlem blacks engaging in stupid low level crimes wasan exhausted genre. When I said the same thing about The Wire, David Simon,

who has become the chief money-making translator of black to white America, said

that I was against him because he was a white man writing about blacks. If I spent

my time and energy writing about white men writing about blacks, screen writers,

authors of hoodie books, television script writers, bloggers, columnists, sociologists

thats all Id be doing. One of the salespersons for Precious said that it would

provide a gold mine of opportunity. Opportunity for

some whites. Cecil Brown said that a white Berkeley

professor asked him about issues in the black

community. Brown mentioned asthma. Next thing

Brown knew, the professor had received a large grant to

study asthma in the black community.

When I was in East Jerusalem in September, Palestinian

kids, having gotten all of the information about blacks

from Hollywood and CNN, asked me why all black

Americans were drug addicts. I told them that its

because our enemies tell our stories. Is this something

new? W.E.B. DuBois criticized DuBose Heywards book for Porgy and Bess and

said that if whites were depicted in the same way there would have been no ticket

sales. These ticket buyers are crazy about their Catfish Rows, and their Precious.

The Wire and films by Quentin Taratino.In a Times article it was written that in

the new revised Porgy the character Crown becomes a rapist instead of a seducer




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in order to enhance ticket sales. Who is the bigger molester or harasser of black and

Hispanic women, Crown, Isiah Thomas or men under Mayor Bloombergs

command?

Black women have complained that they have been sexually molested during

Bloombergs stop and frisks, but hey, maybe one of these clowns will rescue themfrom fire like in the movie, Crash where the star of the movie, a cop, not only

manages to cop some free feels at the expense of the black woman, but becomes a

sort of CNN hero as well.

I watched in amazement as the feminists on the MSNBC panel including the

brilliant Esther Armah, radio host at WBAI, sat in silence as New York Deputy

Mayor Howard Wolfson tossed kudos to Bloomberg, a pious pompous hypocrite,

who criticizes the president, while his police department under the leadership of his

Commissioner Raymond Kelly terrorizes black and Hispanic citizens, evenchildren. Their harassment of children even outraged Bob Herbert. Hewing to the

feminist line, the enormously talented Ms. Armah believes that only males commit

violence. I suppose that she didnt get my email, which suggested that things might

be more complicated. In it I cited Natalie J. Sokoloff, and Christina Pratts 2005

book, Family & Relationships where the authors wrote: Black women are also

more likely than their White counterparts to inflict lethal violence against their

husbands. Amy Goodman should read this book. Ms. Armah should also take a

look at the gun collection of Nancy Lanza, whose son Adam murdered 20 children

in Newtown. Do you suppose those guns were for hunting deer?

As O.J. Simpson said, they drag him into discussions that dont have anything to do

with him. Last week when discussing that not all murders are done with guns,

someone noted that O.J. used a knife. Put aside the fact that the police planted

evidence in the O.J. case, and that a serial killer, who used to party with Nicole

Simpson, has confessed to the murders and that O.J. was acquitted, during the

same time 22 Chinese kids were stabbed by a mentally disturbed person and only

one kid died. By equating a knifing with the massacre of the Newtown children,

Steve Kornacki, who is presented on MSNBC as a neo-liberal, was providing cover

for the NRA.

This holds true of all blacks, apparently. Its amazing how even when the perp of a

massacre of children is white, media were able to include black perps or

personalities in the story. On MSNBC , Dec.15, Jesse Jackson Jr.s bi-polar

condition was cited when discussing Lanzas mental illness. Other black cases




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that were brought up were the mentally disturbed black suspect who pushed a man

into an oncoming train, and the black perp of the Long Island Railroad murders. So

even when the perpetrator of a enormous crime is white, the profit centers

directive that angry white males be entertained with images of blacks fucking up is

not far from the producers minds, even on progressive MSNBC where Michael

Steele of the Republican Party migrates from show to show all day not to mentionMorning Joes three hour Republican caucus each morning.

Not only were blacks cited during a discussion of a crime committed by a white

man, Africa was also cited. Somalia came up. S.E. Cupp, a conservative member of

a panel on The Cycle, said on Dec.18 that when she thinks of a violent country she

thinks of Somalia. On the same date, Joy Reid of The Grio,partially owned by

NBC, chose Mogadishu. Arent these women who have access to millions of viewers

obligated to mention how the weapons got to Africa? The World Policy Institute

issued a report that concluded Finding 1 Due to the continuing legacies of its

Cold War policies toward Africa, the U.S. bears some responsibility for the cycles of

violence and economic problems plaguing the continent. Throughout the Cold War

(1950-1989), the U.S. delivered over $1.5 billion worth of weaponry to Africa. Many

of the top U.S. arms clients Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan, and Zaire (now the

Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC) have turned out to be the top basket

cases of the 1990s in terms of violence, instability, and economic collapse. In the

1950s, I remember conservatism being represented by heavyweights like Hugh

Kenner, but Ms. Cupp? Sarah Palin?

Also, given the chance to vote, I suspect that those citizen of countries where

millions of women and children died as a result of invasions by American armed

forces might think of the U.S. as a place to think of when thinking about violence,

and as much as we might lament the terrible slaughter of the innocents in

Newtown, I was wondering as I watched the president whether he weeps when he

hears about the deaths of thousands of children in countries occupied by forces

under his command or the Palestinian kids who get massacred on a regular basis.

At least the Newtown murder has begun a more serious discussion of the NationalRifle Association and its ownership of Congress, but omitted from the discussion

are the racist and anti-Semitic remarks that have been made by NRA board

members. When David Sirota got blasted for suggesting that white men be

subjected to racial profiling since the typical mass shooting perpetrator is a white

man, you can imagine what would happen were some of the black media faces to

suggest such a thing. Theyd be accused of reverse racism or playing the race




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card.For a profile of the NRAs board members, you have to go to

http://www.meetthenra.org/issues?field_issue_value_many_to_one=Race.

Once in awhile, the truth sneaks through despite the efforts of Chuck, Chris, Chris,

David, and Dan, Luke and Joe to obfuscate. Michael Moore told Piers Morgan that

the nation is armed because whites with guns want to use them on black people.Morgan interrupted him. Morgan must have read the memo from CNN executives,

one of whom told Rick Sanchez that Race sells. These armed whites have a

fantasy that was portrayed in Robert Crumbs brilliant though offensive cartoon

When The Niggers Take Over America.

Theres another source that reveals what is on the minds of those who have rushed

to the gun stores when President Obama was elected and when he was re-elected.

Do you think that these millions armed themselves because volunteers were

requested to diminish the over population of deer? Maybe Im not surprised thatthe media havent paid more attention to The Turner Diaries, the novel manifesto

that inspired Timothy McVeigh who blew up the Alfred E.Murrah Federal Building

in Oklahoma City on April 19,1995;a shoot-out between the FBI and a Neo-Nazi

that took place outside of Pullman, Washington. Buford O. Furrow, who shot kids

at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in 1999; Richard Poplawski, who

murdered three Pittsburgh policemen in 2009. None of these killers suffered from

Aspergers. In William Pierces book, the Jews get The Cohen Act passed. They

take away the guns and the Negro police enforce the act. As a result blacks assault

whites. They even commit cannibalism. The big obsession of the book is race-

mixing.

Senator Diane Feinstein has promised to introduce legislation that will ban assault

weapons and if it passes, black Attorney General Eric Holder will enforce the

legislation. It is because of the paranoid fantasy, this collective psychosis, one that

the media are scared to mention, that the nation will never get rid of assault

weapons and more Newtowns will happen, and even deadlier ones than the

Newtown massacre.

Ishmael Reeds latest book is Going Too Far. He is the publisher of Konch at

http://ishmaelreed.net/. Konch goes monthly in January.


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Guns Race and America's Collective Psychosis by Ishamael Reed