Originally Posted by Gmahogany.
I'm always happy to expand/expound, Mr. Kunjufu. You are going to be sorry you asked me to,lol.
A lot of the young men in the 70's and 80's who would have been the prime age for community activisim, a la the young men who started the Panthers and other community organizations, were instead indoctrinated into lives of crime, by people like Lucas, and Tookie Williams. Instead of protectors of the community, they became predators in the community. If you look at the origins of even gangs like the Crips, they originally had a community/political bent. People like Tookie Williams who had the intellect,charisma and leadership ability to get people to follow/emulate them CHOSE to go another route. Williams was a youth counselor at one time, and according to the people he worked with, was able to get young men to do whatever he asked them to do. That's why when all of the controversy about his execution was jumping off, I was one of the few Black people who was not getting all hysterical about it. I'm for the death penalty in some cases, especially for Black people who willfully CHOOSE to be predatory in the community, when they could have just as easily used their powers/gifts for the good of the community. I didn't shed a tear when they executed Williams. THe sooner we stop coddling/protecting parasites, the better off will all be.
The same qualities that it takes to be an activist, challenge oppression are helpful to those who choose a life of crime(and have any success with it), as quiet as it's kept: intelligence, initiative, daring, fearlessness, willingness to have your blood shed, or shed other people's blood, etc. People with leadership qualities know this and use it to their advantage, whether they mean the community good, or whether they mean it harm. I see Lucas, and Williams as willing participants in the destruction of the community. THeir intelligence,ingenuity, resourcefullness could have been used another way, if they had wanted to use them another way, or at least in another community. Don't shit where you eat, as the old saying goes. Other organized crime outfits make it a point not to do their dirt around THEIR people/families/wives/children. That element in our community thinks nothing of bringing that right to us, and we think nothing of alibying, excusing, coddling, providing safe haven for them, in return. We reap what we sow.
There are people who will tell you that the government purposely allowed the proliferation of guns and drugs into the BLack community,tolerated, encouraged gangs, as a RESPONSE to all of the civil unrest and activism of the 60's. Better an anestitized, passive, self destructive community than an active,alert,political one, prone to protest and civil unrest. It's no different than the fact that the government systematically sought to discourage/squash college campus activity, in myriad ways, after the turbulence of the 60's. I"ve had WHITE professors tell me that, at more than one university. wHEN the National Guard shot and killed WHITE suruburban college students who were PEACEFULLY protesting the VIetnam war, at Kent State, back in the day, they were sending a warning to current and future students, and it worked, to a large degree. Anyone who thought they were playing, knew at that point that there were quite serious. Political activism on college campuses almost became non existent for a couple of decades, behind that, and has yet to really recover from it.
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