I’m frustrated.
Really frustrated.
Seven people were murdered out here in Washington over the weekend and there’s absolutely nothing that will probably be done about it. Furthermore, the majority of the people were probably black. I’m also frustrated that Sean Bell, another black man was killed, and nothing truly effective was nor probably will be done to prevent that from happening. I’m frustrated at the nameless black women who have murdered, beatened and raped, but yet and still we both in the community and in this country stand by and do nothing.
It’s safe to murder Negroes.
This title was pulled from a sermon supposedly preached by the Rev. Dr. Vernon Johns the fiery predecessor to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. Now not much is known about the life and sermons of Johns, but it was documented by Taylor Branch in Parting The Waters his first civil rights tome in 1988 and by the made for TV movie “The Vernon Johns Story” that he preached this particularly incendiary sermon, resulting in being arrested mid-sermon by Montgomery’s finest, and ultimately resulting in the removal of him from that pulpit.
Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Played brilliantly by James Earl Jones, the script has Johns saying “that last week, a man was fined for shooting a rabbit out of season. A rabbit is better off than a Negro, because in Alabama, niggers are always IN season.”
Again, sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Well, if it doesn’t, let me help you out a little bit.
From referencing the opening paragraph about my frustrations, its quite clear that for the majority of my life, if not all of my life we’ve gotten stuck in a rut, so to speak. It’s more like a trench or canal by now because we’ve been digging this hole deeper each day; we keep on shaking the same trees expecting different fruit. We shake orange trees expecting apples to fall from them. We wait season after season, thinking we’re doing a new thing when winter gives way to spring and we see a new crop, but yet and still we expect apples to fall. Rather than do the harder task of searching for an apple tree or finding apple tree seeds and planting our own apple trees, we do the easy thing over and over and over again–shake orange trees expecting apples.
Another way of saying it is to stop barking up the wrong tree–but I know how blacks are and their dogs, at least I think I do…
Whether or not the killers of the seven people slayed here in DC this last weekend of May were black or white, police officers or not, the end result is that seven people are dead and we really live in a society where there is no outrage about the systems in place that engender the culture of violence that breeds violence. No one is being moved in any substantive way. We watch the 10 or 11 o’clock news and 35 minutes later by the time one of the late-night talk shows is on, we’ve moved on with our lives. We sleep well at night! We don’t loose any sleep over it! We live, move, operate and breathe in a society and a world where it’s safe to murder Negroes.
It’s safe because we do nothing.
In the movie the writers had Johns comparing the “stand-by nature” of blacks to the “stand-by” nature of the crowds at Jesus’ crucifixion. Although the Christian faith is based on a crucifixion and the need for the crucifixion to take place, but we need to remember that this was nothing more than a public lynching Roman style and that it was Jesus’ words on the cross that transformed the lynching into a crucifixion. But to those surrounding the cross, this was nothing more than business as usual.
The seven killed this weekend, Sean Bell’s death, and the countless number of blacks who have HIV/AIDS and are dying daily, the gang violence, the silent suffering of black women suffering from the hands of pimps and who prostitute themselves to put food in their children’s mouth have all become business as usual and WE all stand by! It’s as if we stood by while Pontius Pilate allowed for the execution of an innocent man named Jesus and said nothing.
Clearly, I’m on a soapbox with this blog, and doing a lot of venting, but I’m quite sure that I’m on to something regardless if it makes people uncomfortable or not; or whether or not one has a problem with me using Negro as I did in this blog. But this blog was to call attention to some more of our societal ills, and to, yes, continue the incendiary flame in the tradition of a Rev. Dr. Vernon Johns, or a Dr. Martin Luther King or a Dr. Jeremiah Wright. Honestly, if that makes Barack Obama uncomfortable enough to place his presidency over Providence–to each his own. At this point in the game, I think Trinity should go for broke and Moss III might as well just steal this as a great sermon title (before I do, I already got my scripture and verse ready) and just preach till he can’t preach no more and just buck politcal correctness and just stand where God is telling him to stand; he definitely won’t do any good by pandering to the gods of MSM.
If you think I’m off the mark, feel free to leave a comment, something intelligent and worthy of a response. If you think I’m dead on, leave me a note as well, I could use the encouragement because it’s times like these when you feel like you’re out there alone in your thinking.
Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL
Joshua Lawrence Lazard 
I heard about the killings in my hometown and it almost didn’t surprise me. I think that it happens so much that we have become apathetic to the issues that matter the most. Issues such as black on black crime. police brutality, the achievement gap and HIV/AIDS are only a number of issues that we need to address in the heart of the black community. Sure we have blacks that have made it to great positions, but so many forget the community that needs their support, not only financially but socially and spiritually.
We should be protesting in the streets across the country after the Sean Bell decision. Its funny because DC was one of many cities that caused a ruckus after King was assassinated. It was one of the costly riots ever. Now only small sects of us still riot and carry on the fight that has not been won. And it wont until we learn to love one another.
That was a brilliant post. I often become frustrated because in my hometown, black men and women continue to fall victim to the cycle of poverty, drugs and violence and no one seems to care enough to do anything about it.
Hello there! {waves}
It is open season on black men ….and UNARMED black men and black teens are being murdered all over this country…the local community usually has a tiny little memorial with a few hundred people lead by a church leader and then they go home crying and DO NOT follow up that memorial service with concrete actions….
And now the murdering of black men and black teens is escalating…
Black men and black teens continue to carry on their daily activities as though they are not in danger at all and that America is a land of the free where the police officers are there to protect (and not kill) them….
I too am dismayed…but I am dismayed at the naivety of our black men and black teens and at the lack of collective action of the black community in addressing the legalized murder of black people at the hands of city-paid police officers throughout the country…. I am not saying all police…but I am saying there are plenty who have murdered and have NOT faced criminal action for their deeds.
We must BLOW THE TRUMPET!
Lisa
http://blackwomenblowthetrumpet.blogspot.com
when you negroes start acting like civilized humans then the police will not shoot negro criminals.when you stop acting like racists scum,get off the dole,and work like the rest of us maybe we will respect you.why are you blaming the police when you negroes kill more negroes than anyone you also attack and murder more white people than than whites murder negroes.you have no reason to complain you are the ones that took to the welfare state and turned your neighborohoods into cesspools of filth and crime.
Yep. And it’s 2013 and still no progress. Of course you know about Trayvon, armed only with snacks and the intent to watch a basketball game, was enough to justify his killing by an overzealous want-to-be cop. The System constantly reminds us that black life is cheap. Ironically Vernon Johns gives a reason for our lack of progress – “.. everywhere I go in the South the Negro is forced to choose between his hide and his soul, Mostly, he chooses his hide. I’m going to tell him his hide is not worth it.”