In 1790 the Irish statesmen and philosopher Edmund Burke wrote that “to make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.” History has proven Burke right. After more than two centuries of enhancing and nurturing capitalism, freedom of thought, equality of opportunity and freedom of enterprise there are very few people who want to escape the United States. The same can be said for other advanced countries, that have prospered under capitalism and democracy.

The Unbeatable Spirit of America

Throughout the centuries, Americans have been imbued with a deep sense of patriotism and capitalism, entrepreneurship and risk-taking, pride for their history and gratefulness for their founding fathers. It is this love for their country that pushes them to succeed, that encourages them to freely enlist in wars waged in far away lands. It cannot be explained otherwise, the rally in defense of their country of thousands and thousands of young men and women after 9/11, for example. It is hard to find other explanations for the election of Donald Trump as President.

It is impossible to find further reasons for the American citizens’ disdain for totalitarian communism and the election of Ronald Reagan as the defender of the shining city atop the hill in the 1980s. Whenever the ideals of freedom have been threatened, Americans have made bold choices. The United States has survived this long and has indeed prospered precisely due to these elements.

The 1619 Project: an Activist Screed Against the United States

Enter the 1619 Project, an endeavor that attempts to dismantle the United States conceptually as an inherently immoral enterprise. The New York Times initiated the 1619 project last year to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of 20 African slaves in America via editor Nikole Hannah-Jones. Its aim is to “reframe the country’s history” and replace the year 1776, the founding date of the United States, with 1619. Hannah-Jones’ open essay starts with the premise that the real reason for the American Revolution was to preserve slavery. The Project consists of a range of essays, podcasts and soon even a book that rewrite several aspects of American history, by presenting the US as a nation that has racism at its core and slavery as its main foundational pillar. The author recently received the Pulitzer Prize for her work and the project’s materials have been included in thousands of school curricula across the nation.

The Many Inaccuracies and Distortions of the 1619 Project

The Project is full of historical inaccuracies, according to the major part of the historians and experts. Pulitzer-Prize winning historian and expert of the American Revolution Gordon Wood has described it as “wrong in so many ways”. The dean of Civil War historians and a Pulitzer prize winner have both described the project as an “unbalanced, one-sided account that left most of the history out,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Even in those parts that facts are true, the authors spin them in a way to suit their agenda, by removing the context and important elements. Leslie M. Harris, a history professor at Northwesters University and an expert in the history of slavery, has declared that she was consulted on the project and says she warned the authors not to publish an inaccurate representation of events.

Historian Reveals How Her Knowledge Was Overlooked Because it Didn’t Fit Project Narrative

As Politico reports, Harris stated that “Because I am an historian of African-American life and slavery, in New York, specifically, and the pre-Civil War era more generally, [Nikole Hannah-Jones] wanted me to verify some statements for the project. At one point, she sent me this assertion:

“One critical reason that the colonists declared their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery in the colonies, which had produced tremendous wealth. At the time there were growing calls to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire, which would have badly damaged the economies of colonies in both North and South.”

I vigorously disputed the claim. Although slavery was certainly an issue in the American Revolution, the protection of slavery was not one of the main reasons the 13 Colonies went to war. Despite my advice, the Times published the incorrect statement about the American Revolution anyway, in Hannah-Jones’ introductory essay. Both sets of inaccuracies worried me, but the Revolutionary War statement made me especially anxious.”

The historian Harris can hardly be called a right wing or conservative sympathizers. She acknowledges the need for revisions in history, after all. Yet, even she admits that Hannah-Jones had gone too far in trying to smear the American Revolution, which a plethora of historians agree was chiefly driven by the desire for freedom and independence. It is one of the few, if not the only revolution to have succeeded precisely due to the purity of its cause and the righteousness of its leaders. The readers of this article may know that George Washington was given the opportunity to become King after the war, and he refused it, returning instead to his private life.

The Times Rejects Requests for Corrections to the Project

Secondly, five professors from Princeton university, Brown University, City University of New York and Texas State University wrote a letter to the New York Times to issue corrections to the various essays related to the Project. The Times did not accept their request. They and other historians agree that the Revolution not only was not caused by a desire to keep slavery, but actually became a disruptive factor to slavery by arming black people to fight against the British. In fact, it were the actions of the British military that turned southern on the side of the Americans.

Furthermore, in the North, the freedom of the slaves happened after the war was over, although gradually. It was white Americans that fought and pushed for the end of slavery. Yet, the project and most of the left completely ignores such a fact. Hannah-Jones dismissed her critics and respected historians as “old, white male historians”. For someone who claims to be anti-racist, she sure seems to speak with racist and divisive words.

The Anti-Capitalist Underpinnings of the 1619 Project

Thirdly, the Project aims to discredit capitalism as a phenomenon of slavery and racism. Clearly, the authors of the project have never heard of George Fitzhugh, an American social theorist of the 1800s, who described slavery as a beautiful example of communism. Nevertheless, this aspect of the 1619 project has been debunked as well. Allen C. Guelzo, a senior research scholar at Princeton University, in an article for the Wall Street Journal shows the lies of the project regarding capitalism. The project writes that “slaves were whipped and tortured into clearing fields, planting and harvesting crops whose yields increased. Desmond, one of the authors, writes that yields increased by 400% over the 60 years before the Civil War. Every aspect of the plantation was ruthlessly rationalized to enhance profits, via vertical reporting systems, double-entry record-keeping and precise quantification. These “management techniques” became a model for a union-busting capitalism of poverty wages, gig jobs and normalized insecurity. Slavery’s violence was neither arbitrary nor gratuitous, but instead rational, capitalistic.”

Yet, according to Guelzo the numbers do not add up. New York in the north was far more capitalistic and had far more banks than the entire Confederacy region. Cotton, he explains, was the biggest commodity exported, but as a percentage of total exports and not total production. Moreover, he cites historian Erin Mauldin, regarding the chaotic and sloppy Southern agriculture before Civil War. Even railroads were built with public funds and not as a result of private investments. The increases in production of cotton, according to several historians were a result of the introduction of superior cotton varieties, which increased profitability. The point Guelzo makes is that historical facts show that what the South had was far from capitalism. Capitalism has freedom in its fundamentals. It cannot work if there is no freedom. If anything, capitalism hastened the abolishment of slavery.

Going After Abraham Lincoln

As if the attack on the founding of the US was not enough, the 1619 Project goes on to attack Abraham Lincoln, the Republican President who put an end to slavery and fought a civil war to do so. There is a conspicuous absence in the report of noting that the entire Democratic Party was against the abolition of slavery and tried to be kind to blacks only when they gained the right to vote.

Yet the target is instead the Republican President who ended slavery, a man Hannah-Jones describes as a “garden-variety racist”.  If Hannah-Jones and the Times had studied history and done their research, they would know that Lincoln’s anti-slavery inclinations were obvious. Later in its history, the US had the first widespread anti-slavery movement in the world. She takes one occurrence and makes her deductions based on that. In August 1862, Lincoln invited a committee of black men and the media to the White House and read to them a statement urging the black community to leave the United States and create a colony outside the US, which would be bought by the US Congress for them, once they were freed.

Many historians argue that it was a tactic on Lincoln’s part. The President did not have the full backing of Congress so he presented this idea to them as a bargaining chip to get support for abolishing slavery. After the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln discarded the plan and a year and a half later he was calling for black voting rights.

To fully counter the fallacy of the 1619 project it is enough to quote Lincoln himself: “I am naturally anti-slavery”. “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel,” or to quote Frederick Douglass who considered Lincoln “the colored man’s president”. Too bad that the ones trying to rewrite history are those that were on the wrong side of it. Perhaps, this is a reflection of the inner shame the left must feel for backing slavery for hundreds of years, and for using the black people decades later.

The Harmful Claims of the Project Don’t Belong in American Schools

While the examples I brought are more than enough to debunk the entire projects, there are many more inaccuracies and distortions in the report according to reputable historians. However, it is important to note that this project has been implemented as part of the curriculum in the education system, even though it has been proven false. Nobody in the mainstream media mentions its lies, nor its harmful claims which further divide society.

Schools have been using it despite scholar warning against it. This is meant precisely for the young, for those who are still in their formative years. That is the real objective and danger. They are using a fallacious version of history to indoctrinate children. The aim is not to change anybody’s mind now and align it to their viewpoint but indoctrinate those who will become the citizens of tomorrow.

If children are taught that their country is evil, unfair and racist and if they are indoctrinated with the notion that capitalism is the source of that evil, through strongly biased versions of history such as this, then they will stop loving their country. They will be taught that the only solution is to change America. Hannah-Jones has herself stated that her choice for a model country, with the highest levels of equality is the communist country of Cuba.

Communism Has a High Cost

In an article on the Federalist, Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow in Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy, mentions Herbert Marcuse. He was a German American philosopher and sociologist who fled Hitler’s Germany and arrived in the US. Marcuse observed that America was filled with happy consumers. Capitalism was too good and that prevented revolts. He, as well as the authors of the 1619 Project understood that to make a revolution, you have to convince people and especially the children and the young adults that the country they are living in is terrible. All attachments with the past, with tradition and family must be destroyed, according to them, to give rise to a new country shaped in their vision.

There is no doubt that the vision of those behind the 1619 Project is communistic. The problem is that with communism there are many inevitable side effects we can observe throughout history, especially censorship, famine, despair and violence. We are already seeing this in the US, with big tech censoring conservatives, the cancel culture movement and the far-left fully conquering the Democratic party and choosing a figurehead as their Party’s nominee for President in order to push through a far-left agenda.

The 1776 Project

Luckily, there has been some pushback from conservatives, with the 1776 Project, and other similar initiatives that aim to defend the founding of America and its values and principles. It is a fatalistic way of presenting history by telling people of color they were born in a racist country, with racist history and racism as its core value and thus they have no hope of succeeding in this terrible capitalistic world. This is simply not true and re-victimizes people of color. Conservatives are standing against this with the 1776 Project.

American slavery ended around 150 years ago. Still, everyone talks about it. If the situation is so bad now, why is no one talking about that, instead of focusing on what happened a century ago? Why have two million African immigrants chosen to immigrate to the United States in the last 50 years if it is systemically racist? Nobody at the New York Times or in the left and mainstream media will answer that, because it exposes their rhetoric as hollow and part of an ulterior agenda.

Finding Common Ground and Unity

What America and the world need is finding common ground, uniting around the values that everybody shares, such as family, community, tradition, and finding the way to go forward through mutual empowerment. This can include improvement of capitalism and strong and objective education without indoctrination. We should disagree with each other. It is alright to do so and even fundamental for democratic society to move forward. But declaring a whole race as racist, a whole gender as exist and a whole country as inherently malicious stokes the flames of divisions and betrays a lack of desire to move forward and find unity.

If the United States falls to radicalism and neo-Marxism erasing its culture and history, then we are in for some very difficult years ahead of us. It is in Europe’s favor and honor to stand by the US as it deals with radicals. As we have seen, Europe is not immune to what ails America. With all his faults, Trump still appears to be the only barrier that can stop this madness. Let us hope he proves successful.

L'articolo The 1619 Project: a Dangerous and Misleading Rewriting of History proviene da InsideOver.

George Floyd’s violent death has triggered a wave of solidarity not only in the United States but also in Germany. It has also raised the question of whether Germany has similar problems of racism like the United States or whether individual cases are being inaccurately portrayed as a systemic problem.

Germans Protest Racism

After Floyd’s death, more than 100,000 people showed solidarity on Germany’s streets to protest against police violence and racism. These protests continue to this day. Even after the shocking Hanau attack, no such movement took place.

Germany’s Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency obtained reports or brokered agreements in 3,580 cases of discrimination in 2019. The total number of inquiries increased by 3.6 percent compared to the previous year, which in 2018 was comprised of 3,455 cases. Those affected most often reported that they were disadvantaged due to their ethnic origin in working life or in everyday life.

For example, every third person with a migrant background reported that they had experienced discrimination when looking for accommodation. In addition to discrimination on the grounds of ethnic origin, complaints regarding gender discrimination (29 percent) were received as well as discrimination based on disability (26 percent), age (12 percent), religion (7 percent), sexual identity (4 percent) and belief (2 percent).

Discrimination at Work

The most common reports of discrimination were made in connection with working life: in 2019, 36 percent of complaints related to disadvantages at work or when looking for a job. Inquiries related to day-to-day business also constituted a large bulk of the complaints at 26 percent, in situations looking for a flat, shopping, catering or working in the insurance and banking business.

As is so often the with statistics, however, these figures are by no means an accurate assessment of discrimination. After all, these are reports, not investigated or litigated facts. And on the other hand, while the number of cases does not seem to be massive, one needs to bear in mind, that usually only an infinitesimal percentage of individuals are inclined to report such incidents. Either way, however, to interpret these occurrences as systemic appears to be unjustified.

Assessing Germany’s Police

As far as Germany’s police are concerned, modern Germany has never been credibly suspected of imposing systemic discrimination nor brutality either. The only people in Germany who tend to complain about the police are neo-Marxists and criminals. Nevertheless, Berlin — notorious for being uber-liberal — has now become the first federal state to protect itself against discrimination by public authorities, particularly the police. A new law provides those affected the opportunity to take legal action. The decisive factor is the reversal of the burden of proof: in the future, it will no longer be the victim but the defendant who has to prove that the allegation of discrimination is wrongly raised. The latter, of course, is the emasculation of Berlin’s police force and thus a sad day for any law-abiding citizen, regardless of ethnicity.

The CDU, the FDP and the police union have heavily criticized the decision. Moreover, other German states have already made it clear that they will not provide police forces for Berlin (e.g. in the case of significant incidents) any longer.  SPD party leader Saskia Esken also recently received sharp criticism. She had said that there was latent racism in the ranks of the police, an accusation that not even her own party shared.

Germany is Jumping on the anti-American Bandwagon

The real issue here, however, is that discussion sparked by a genuine issue in the United States has been hijacked in Germany. It is not about racism and police brutality. It is about a general disdain for the police, anti-Americanism, and government, in general, that is the reason for the uproar in Germany.

This is not to say that racism and discrimination in Germany do not exist. It does, particularly in East Germany. However, it is by no means a systemic issue, but rather a repugnant occurrence among reprehensible individuals who are hardly even quantifiable as an ideological minority. Germany remains one of the most liberal nations in the world – to a fault.

Germany is Not a Racist Country

Germans are an open people, was last seen in 2015 when refugees were warmly greeted personally by masses of Germans. That now, five years later, that momentum has not simply stalled but reversed, is not a sign of racism. It is a sign that German kindness has been taken advantage of for too long. Expecting immigrants to adhere to laws is not racist. Opposing unlimited immigration is not being racist.

What is racist is, by definition, prejudice based on the alleged superiority of a racial group. These days, however, have not been widely seen in Germany since 1945.

L'articolo Is Racism in Germany a Significant Issue? proviene da InsideOver.

Black Lives Matter. It’s a heartfelt sentiment, a political slogan, a cynical disguise for a neo-Marxist intersectional revolution and a way for white liberals to virtue signal and assuage guilt they feel at participation in a white-led social and economic structure. But what are the roots of BLM? Who are its supporters and members? What is its core mission? What useful conclusions can be drawn about a group which is in large parts grassroots and leaderless? This report takes a closer look.

L'articolo What is the Black Lives Matter Movement? proviene da InsideOver.

The death of George Floyd continues to alter daily reality in the United States. Calls for change in the police force have reemerged and are omnipresent. While some cities are already acting, a significant change in policing cannot be expected any time soon.

Police Reform Now!

Two weeks after Floyd’s death, demands for police reform are intensifying. On Monday, the Democrats presented a legislative initiative in the House of Representatives in an attempt to strengthen nationwide police control.

The party is calling for greater supervision of the police, better training and adjustments in the way police apply the use of force, such as choke holds. Moreover, a simplification for the prosecution of police who used lethal force unlawfully is also part of the Democrats’ approach. However, the bill is unlikely to come into effect. In reality it is merely a symbolic gesture by House Democrats, who are cognizant that their efforts have almost no chance of passing in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Reform Elsewhere

Nonetheless, changes outside the federal level are currently being conducted in several cities. In Minneapolis, where Mr Floyd was killed, the city council plans to dissolve the local police department. Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York City also presented proposals for reforming the police force in his city.

As noble as these gestures seem, they do not address the issues but instead depict America’s police apparatus as tremendously inept and unprepared for the challenges of the present time.

America’s police are imperfect. However, they operate in a system that leaves inadequate room for change. Non-Americans too often forget that the situation for police officers is not comparable to European countries. Hundreds of millions of weapons are in circulation throughout the country, often landing in the wrong hands. Simple traffic control can be transformed into a matter of life and death within seconds.

The latter is by now means an excuse for excessive use of force by the police the public has been witnessing. However, these circumstances need to be considered when contemplating the idea of how likely changes can be made.

Militarization of American Police Should Not Come as a Surprise

It is not the first time that the public and politicians have demanded changes to the police force. Nevertheless, no one has been able to make a lasting impact to this point. Instead, the police in many American cities have been upgraded to an extent reminiscent of an army, including, but not limited to armored vehicles, heavy weapons and sophisticated surveillance technology.

However, the latter is not merely a tribute to America’s proclivity to exhibit strength but levitates back to the aforementioned crucial point: Being a policeman in the United States is a highly dangerous profession. The calls for a scale-down of the police are thus not only inapt but irresponsible. The people who are the fine line between the public and anarchy deserve to be protected with the best equipment money can buy. To make it more candid: for as long as the Second Amendment remains alive and well, the police will continued to be as heavily equipped as they are today.

Confronting Real Problems in the US Police Force

Nonetheless, there are actual serious issues with the police. Training police officers in the United States is perhaps the most challenging aspect for those who want to reform the force. What many people do not seem to realize is that training for police officers varies from state to state. The training duration, for example, ranges from a few weeks to six months. Due to the differences, two officials who work in neighboring precincts may have received very different training and are thus not equally equipped for their job. Besides, not every precinct can afford further education. In such cases, in order for officers to receive or keep their licenses, they must take part in free lessons, which typically lack commitment and quality.

Moreover, training is primarily about the security of the officer, not, as in Western Europe, the role of friend and helper. For example, trainees spend an average of almost 60 hours on target practice and just 10 hours or even less training social interaction and psychological skills.

The Racial Divide

The fact that the majority of police officers in urban areas are white and have little or no experience in dealing with the population groups in their area of ​​responsibility adds another layer to the situation. This gap in relatability is compounded by the fact that one in five police officers is a former member of the armed forces and thus often trained to function in combat situations. This setup is inevitable to produce some policemen who will be rather inept in their skills.

However, even if states were inclined to adjust the conditions — and the majority of Republican states are not — another essential internal factor cannot be underestimated either: police unions.

Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed, is a fitting and yet appalling example. The union leader of the Minneapolis Police Department Bob Kroll has been a vehement opponent of all attempts to reform even in the aftermath of Floyd’s death. Moreover, Kroll called the deceased a “violent criminal” in an attempt to justify the actions (i.e. kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes) by by Derek Chauvin. This kind of union protection is not a novelty in the US. Police unions can often almost completely shield their members from legal and financial consequences in the event of severe offences, and those who released from their duties for wrongdoing can easily find a job in another precinct thanks to the union.

L'articolo American Police are Flawed, but Dramatic Change is Unlikely proviene da InsideOver.

Derek Chauvin, 44, a white police officer at the U.S Minneapolis Police Department has now been caught up in the labyrinthine issue of geopolitics involving Sub-Saharan Africa and the world’s largest economy at a time when China’s growing influence in the region is irking the Trump Administration.

The Floyd Murder’s Global Ripple Effect

Chauvin is presently facing up to 40 years in prison for murdering George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed and cuffed black man in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Chauvin, a 19-year veteran at the Police department now unwittingly finds himself thrust on the global stage epitomizing a negative racial caricature that pigeonholes the white race as being predators of people of color, particularly towards members of the black race.

With Sub-Saharan Africa being the second most populous continent on earth with an estimated population of 1.2 billion people and disproportionately black, this May 15 incident happening 14,108 km away rekindled a strong feeling, that the US under the leadership of Donald Trump has an uphill task navigating the issue of race relations globally.

Africa: Talking Truth to Power

Unlike in the past when the leadership of the African continent courted diplomacy and behind-the-scenes engagement as a strategy of resolving sticky issues revolving around the super power, this time round, the continent has embraced the unprecedented mode of talking truth to power, a probable indication of how low the fortunes of the US have sunk on the continent.

“The paternalistic attitude being displayed by President Donald Trump towards emerging nations has muddied the warm diplomatic relations that hitherto existed and Africa is following the cue by calling out an Administration that has intent of shunning the rest of the world as it perpetrates an inward looking foreign policy referred to as America First, which is unilaterally and isolationist in nature,” said Dr. Godfrey Muriuki, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Nairobi.

‘Africa Demands a Full Investigation into this Killing’

For now, within Africa, Chauvin’s sordid action is being interpreted as a manifestation of the endemic, entrenched and institutionalized racism, prevalent within US, that victimizes people of black color.

With the chairman of the African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, condemning the murder saying, “The AU Commission firmly reaffirms and reiterates its rejection of the continuing discriminatory practices against Black citizens of the United States of America.”

While, Kwesi Quartey, a top AU official saying “This is one too many. We may be black, but we are people too. Africa demands a full investigation into this killing.”

An emboldened, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo also spoke up loudly on Twitter, writing that:
“Black people the world over are shocked and distraught by the killing … it cannot be right that in the 21st century the U.S., this great bastion of democracy, continues to grapple with the problem of systemic racism.”

“We stand with our kith and kin in America in these difficult times, and we hope that the unfortunate, tragic death of George Floyd will inspire a lasting change in how America confronts head on the problems of hate and racism,” Akuffo-Addo added.

South Africa Calls for ‘Amicable Solution’

South Africa’s ruling party the African National Congress (ANC), while deploring the rising racial discrimination in the US, is calling for “an amicable solution” to what is turning out to being a racial impasse with the ongoing protests and riots.

“It’s deplorable that almost 70 years since racial segregation was abolished in America, people of color are still routinely slaughtered for the color of their skin,” the party remarked in late May.

China vs. USA in Africa

Close watchers of the sub-Saharan Africa say the change of attitude towards the US is driven in big measure by the emergency of China as the biggest trading partner in the region. In 2009 China supplanted the US as Africa’s biggest trading partner. In 2019 China-Africa trade hit the $170 billion mark which was a big contrast compared to the US trade with sub-Saharan Africa for the same period which registered $39 billion.

And there is a reason for this seismic change of fortunes. China’s approach towards Africa has eternally been trade oriented. The region morphed to became one of the top destinations for Chinese investment after Beijing introduced the so-called “Go Out” policy in 1999 which, encourages private and state-owned business to seek economic opportunities abroad.

China has for example expanded African railways across the region from Kenya in East Africa to Nigeria in West Africa; currently its building a massive hydropower plant in Angola, in addition to building Africa’s longest railway connecting Ethiopia and Djibouti; it has also built the headquarters of the AU in Addis Ababa and the West African regional bloc ECOWAS in Abuja.

US Approach to Africa

In contrast, the US has instead viewed Africa as a battlefield where it can confront its enemies, whether its terrorists after 9/11 or the Soviets during the Cold War, or presently the Chinese brands ascendancy. Invariably, other States have taken a cue from China and as a result Sub Saharan Africa has copious suitors to choose from.

An exemplar is the Africa-India trade which grown 10-fold from US $5.3 billion in 2001 to $62 billion in 2018, — making India Africa’s fourth biggest trading partner, according to the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
Russia also is readying itself to have a piece of the action in Africa.

From October 23 to 24, 2019, the first Russia-Africa Summit was held on in Sochi, Russia, co-hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took place. A total of 43 heads of state or government were in attendance. Putin emphasized “state sovereignty” and willingness of Russia to offer aid or trade deals “without political or other conditions”, saying tongue-in -cheek that “an array of Western countries are resorting to pressure, intimidation and blackmail of sovereign African governments,” adding Russia was well suited to help African states .

‘S**thole Countries’

Worsening relations between the US and Africa was a condescending statement made by President Trump in January 2019 during a meeting with lawmakers in the Oval Office to discuss the terms of a potential bipartisan deal to resolve the status of 800,000 young immigrants protected from deportation by the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, where he derogatorily refereed to Africa states as “s**thole countries,” indelibly cementing the perceived American view of Africa.

When immigration from African countries came up, Trump reportedly complained, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” He then suggested bringing immigrants to the United States from Norway, a country that, many observers noted, is overwhelmingly white.

Awkwardly, Trump had announced an expanded travel ban in early February of that year, affecting nearly a quarter of Africa’s 1.2 billion people — including Nigeria, the continent’s biggest economy and its most populous nation. This helped create a lingering perception that people of Africa extraction were been singled out.

Pompeo’s Mission to Salvage Africa Ties

Seen as a last ditch effort aimed at mollifying Africa, the Trump Administration sent U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later that same month as part of his first foray into sub-Saharan Africa ostensibly to convince its leaders to shun Chinese investments and, instead, look to Washington and American companies for collaboration.

He traveled to three countries, namely Senegal, Angola and Ethiopia where he ironically offered zero investments, initiatives or assistance, sending a mixed signal of the true intentions the US has with Africa.

Ever since January 20, 2017, when Trump became arguably the most powerful man on the planet, Africa has had no reason to count the US as a reliable partner and its diplomatic representative Pompeo and his predecessor Rex Tillerson have visited fewer than ten African countries — a decline from the nearly two dozen African states visited by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who served under President Obama for four years.

Indeed, the unraveling of the Floyd incident only strengthen the perception in the minds of Sub Saharan Africans that so long as Trump is the US President, the African race remains vulnerable and discriminated against. This is not a good omen for a country that seeks to re-gain its glory in a region with some of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

L'articolo Murder of Black Man in US Strains Fragile Relations with Sub-Saharan Africa proviene da InsideOver.

Violent protests have taken at least 17 lives so far in the ongoing US riots sparked by the recent killing of George Floyd. The majority have been victims of rioters and criminals and include a number of black Americans and police, as well as black Louisville man David McAtee who was brutally shot down by authorities. Although President Donald Trump has tried to pin most of the blame for the overall chaos on the violent Antifa group — which does deserve some focus for their concerted acts of terror and sabotage, but is far from some mastermind Bond-level villain — liberals and conservatives should not make the mistake of turning a blind eye to Black Lives Matter (BLM) and black supremacists, whose rhetoric and actions have been involved in turning these protests into a bloodbath.

Reverse Racism Ridiculousness

White conservatives and liberals have increasingly shied away from criticisms of any segments of the black community. White liberals generally do this because they seem to have adopted an atavistic, borderline racist idealization of all things African-American — literally raising their arms to the sky and chanting inane, self-righteous talking points during a recent rally — and white conservatives because they have become hooked on the “Democrats are the real racists” narrative and want to prove that conservatives are the real supporters of the black community. Actual discussions of the problems faced by black America are generally framed by liberals and conservatives as “how can we use this to support our agenda or candidate?”

Of course the reality is that just as all police officers are not racist murderers and life-threatening racist attitudes do exist in various police departments, not all black people are universally peaceful, humble-hearted passive objects for white people to attach their post-religious, super-charged Whole Foods organic aisle-style veneration onto. In addition, many black Americans are socially conservative and strongly supportive of law and order, horrified by the lawlessness, drug abuse and crime that’s overtaken their communities.

The attempt by BLM and white liberals to encompass all people of color into a suffocating intersectional blanket is no less disgusting than when this is also done to foreign victims of war and injustice and racist, imperial violence, who are welcomed in only conditionally and transactionally as victim props by fanatical white leftists who embrace an incredibly skewed, harmful and culturally imperialist conception of identity, reality and the world.

It’s time to ditch the narratives and take an honest look at black identity extremism and the wider BLM movement.

What is BLM?

Officially, BLM is an “anti-brutality movement” that started after the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012. It was founded in 2013 by “three radical Black organizers — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi” according to the BLM website. They opened up over 30 chapters around the country, but the larger organization is informal, decentralized and not “official,” being more of a grassroots movement. The police killings of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling and Michael Brown have prompted mass reactions and protests from BLM, which turned violent in Ferguson, Missouri and at other times included chanted threats against the “pigs” (police).

The recent death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, MO was the spark that ignited the fire, but the horrific murder of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY in March of this year also steadily built up anger, as did a viral video of a white woman in New York’s Central Park threatening to call police on a black man and use his race against him for him pointing out she was breaking leashing regulations with her dog. Although the majority of BLM supporters and marchers are just regular people concerned over racism and police violence, the group has a pattern of steadily nurturing extremist elements and turning a blind eye to militant members and anti-white hatred fomented from its ranks.

Can You Really Blame BLM for Violent Looters, Anarchists and Racial Extremist Criminals?

As blogger Jessica Zang wrote, “We cannot confuse these people with those who are trying to peacefully enact change and raise awareness. The actions of looters have corrupted the message of those who are demonstrating without violence, and we must recognize that this should not serve as an excuse to stop listening to the pleas of the vast majority.”

The problem is that even if every single looter and violent rioter was not a supporter of BLM or any racist ideology — which is incredibly unlikely — the movement is able to pursue a double-edged tactic by not moving more forcefully to condemn violence and violent rhetoric from its supporters and those latching onto the wider protests. By being mostly peaceful but having a fringe vanguard which is violent, BLM is able to maintain plausible deniability and moral cover even as its more radical offshoots engage in aggressive behavior that increases submissiveness among many in the populace and frightens politicians from overstepping their condemnations in case their state or city comes into the eye of the storm next.

Even prominent leading BLM figures like DeRay McKesson have regularly engaged in shameful race-baiting and deflection, widening cultural, racial and political divides in the name of bringing people together. There is a major difference between saying the law should be applied equally and black people are valuable and saying that white people are inherently guilty, wicked and harmful to black lives just by virtue of being avatars of systemic racism and a white-dominated economic and political system.

Black Identity Extremism

The FBI has been warning for years that “black identity extremists” are dangerous and are a serious threat, but under the white noise of the buffoonish Trump Administration these warnings were dismissed as fearmongering, race-baiting and a “fantasy” by illustrious institutions such as the Brennan Center. How much of a fantasy does it seem like now? One might note the incident in which black identity extremist Gavin Eugene Long gunned down six cops in Baton Rouge, LA in July, 2016. What about in December, 2019 when members of the insane and aggressive Black Hebrew Israelites stabbed and shot Jewish people at a kosher deli in Jersey City, New Jersey killing three? Was it a “fantasy” back then, too?

The FBI warned that black extremist ideology “will very likely serve as justification for such violence” as targeting police and destruction of property going forward and that certainly appears to be the case. The number of white people joining onto BLM and committing vicious acts in its name also seems to have burgeoned as the cause increasingly comes to resemble, as Damian Thompson put it for Spectator USA, a “religion for woke white people.” When idiots like former Hillary Clinton campaign guy Brian Fallon call to “defund the police,” one can only look at them in amazement for the parody they have become of a sane adult as they frantically scramble to boost the latest absurd virtue signal of the most deranged elements of the left. One can almost hear people searching online for how to hire paramilitary private police forces for their suburban communities.

Flipping the Script

As Paul Mutsaers writes, in many ways BLM is a movement designed to change the individual focus of America’s “legal culture” to one of group concerns and grievances. The horrendous murders of Walter Scott, Philando Castile and many other black Americans have made frantic headline news for weeks, while the numerous brutal police slayings of white Americans (including unarmed white Americans) often go unreported and get filed away as just another statistic, although the massacres at Ruby Ridge and Waco in the 1990s managed to shock society as a whole nonetheless.

As Vox notes, black Americans are around three times more likely to be shot by police as white Americans. Despicable, get out your pitchforks. But wait, what is the rate of black American violent crime compared to white American violent crime? Well, 52 per cent of homicides recorded in the data between 1980 and 2008 were done by black Americans, who make up only 13 percent of the population.

Recent statistics are no more promising.

As Wall Street Journal reported, “In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.”

This passage should give pause to even the most outraged protester.

The Media Lies, People Die

It is understood that analysts and academics attribute this to social and economic problems as well as racial injustice of the past, but to not even mention higher black crime rates when talking about why so many black people are arrested or end up in tense situations with police is unconscionable journalistic fraud that should be disqualifying. Black Americans are being killed across the country in these riots, but the mainstream media doesn’t seem overly concerned about them. Are they “collateral damage” to the righteous expression of anger? The current riots have seen over 700 arrested and 132 officers injured in Chicago alone. 

The vast majority of black homicides are against other black people, something which the media tends to dismiss and rarely covers, as each murderous bloodbath of a weekend between black gangs rolls around in Chicago, often catching innocent passerby in the process. Where was the national uprising of outraged safe space saints when beloved (white) teacher Cynthia Trevillion was hit by a stray bullet while walking to dinner with her husband in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood? Where was the international media outrage about gang violence killing innocent people in American streets and often never being caught or held remotely accountable? That’s right: nowhere to be found apart from local and city news and among Trevillion’s devastated family, friends and former students.

What about looters being let out of jail the next day in New York due to bail reform laws? Or gunmen and rioters released from jail in St. Louis the night after staging a horrifying kill zone that took down four cops? Does that sound fair to people of any ethnicity? It sounds like criminal negligence and the fall of a republic.

Mainstream Media Hypocrisy and Incitement at All-Time Highs

How would CNN and CBS react if groups of peaceful, mostly white protesters assembled to rally against the lockdown? We already know, since it happened the last few weeks in Michigan and cable news was so breathless in its condemnations of the anti-lockdown protest and its “dangerous message” that they looked like they needed respirators. Yes, but many of the protesters had big weapons. Right, and did they fire them? Did these “anti-science rubes” engage in running street battles leading to multiple cops shot such as happened recently on the streets of St. Louis, MO? Imagine if even one white protester had discharged a firearm during anti-lockdown protests: the level of media hysteria would have started these riots against non-mask-wearers more quickly than the death of George Floyd was used to start this uprising.

Is BLM a Step Toward Black Pride and Black Rights?

Many pencil-armed Antifa members and BLM advocates with posters of Malcolm X on their wall seem not to realize that X would despise the way their main boost is coming from white establishment figures and how they are simply the biggest tools of the multinational capitalist system out there. Do you think X would want LA Mayor Eric Garcetti to bow down before him while “protesters” destroy black-owned businesses? Would he want Garcetti’s approval and veneration? Really? Certainly, early in his life X did advocate violent revolution, but he did so in the quest for black pride, separatism and nationhood, not as part of a journey to unleash anarchy and ruin the existing structure of society that could have been transformed into black communities based on strength and independence. Among its philosophy, BLM points to being very inclusive of everyone including white people who will accept everything they say as Gospel as well as accepting of queer and transgender people and globalism. How very intersectional.

X would have been repulsed by the fusion of social liberalism and black nationalism, just as Che Guevara would have gaped in disbelief at the socially liberal, pink-haired college kids talking about how gender isn’t real and wearing his t-shirt without understanding anything about his actual worldview apart from its economic portion.

The 2016 targeted murder of five Dallas police officers that injured nine others by New Black Panther and African American Defense League supporter Micah Xavier Johnson wasn’t a step toward black nationalism or black pride and independence: it was a horrifying act of terrorism that probably fueled race-based hate in the hearts of many white people and worsened the divide between white police officers and black citizens. Chances are that even the militant X would be repulsed by the constant victim-narrative coupled with nameless looters and rioters who sully the whole message for justice they are ostensibly seeking. Even if it is only 1% of protesters or less it speaks to the wildness of a mob and an inability of the group to control or discipline those who jump on the bandwagon or decide to head out for some late night looting and cop shooting.

All the property destruction, killing of black people like retired police officer David Dorn and the many police and civilians being injured — including by acts of police brutality in the case of McAtee — is not advancing the interests of the black community, but it would also be erroneous to imagine that most of the violence is not also being done by black extremists and is all attributable to dangerous — but pathetic — Antifa agitators and their rainbow-haired freak comrades, insane intersectional imbeciles, Maoist muppets and pathetic communist college miscreants. These people are certainly present and even dominating in some white-majority areas, but to think they are the main driver of the protests is as yet unproven and seems unlikely, although the danger of feral cats and brainwashed extremists should not be underestimated.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day the failure of authorities and particularly liberal governors to protect their cities as well as silently accept the sudden 180 degree turn on social distancing and quarantine is absolutely alarming.

As Leon Wolf put it recently of the enormous suffering people have endured under lockdown only to see now that apparently it was not mandatory: “God, I hope people are held responsible for this somehow.”

Did anybody excusing the violence and mass-spreading of COVID-19 around the United States — and other parts of the world — stop to think what black people think about black and white BLM extremists and anarchists unleashing hell on their businesses and community? This shouldn’t be a conservative talking point, it should be common sense: unfortunately much of the media has shut off their critical thinking as the price of career success at legacy and new media propaganda outlets.

The thing which should scare people is a future scenario in which a real authoritarian and dictator who doesn’t just want to sit back and blame others for a national crisis or go on a silly photo op with his generals comes into power: 1933 didn’t happen in a vacuum.

L'articolo Does #BlackLivesMatter Really Care About Black Lives? proviene da InsideOver.

America is on fire. Many urban areas have been overrun by protests that have turned violent along with looting, arson, assault and property damage to vehicles, businesses and infrastructure. Riots first broke out May 25 following the death of 46-year-old George Floyd, a black man who was pinned down to the ground by white Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin for 8 minutes and 46 seconds after having been accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill in a nearby pharmacy.

The Current Situation

Rioting in Minneapolis has now ceased, but cities across the United States are ablaze and crammed with protesters, agitators and looters from Philadelphia and New York to Portland and Salt Lake City, with one man shot dead in Louisville, Kentucky and various reports and footage of attacks on police, and tense police driving through protesters and tasing a young black couple in their vehicle. Burning city halls and streets littered with burned-out husks of vehicles have dotted the evening news for the past week. The US National Guard was called in by a number of states this weekend and there were around 5,000 arrests made by police. There are charges of third-degree murder and manslaughter against Chauvin who was fired on May 26 along with attending officers Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and Alexander Kuen. Floyd’s family’s lawyer calls the death an act of “premeditated murder.”

This is Not a Drill

In the 2004 film Man on Fire, Denzel Washington plays a former special forces operator called John Creasy who vows to get revenge on criminals who committed an atrocity against the family he was being paid to keep safe. In 2020 America on Fire — which is not a movie — a mass of people of many grievances and agendas are being driven by blind rage at the system. They are smashing the commercial structures that no longer employ 40 million Americans and opposing the police who they associate with racist violence and brutality. There are various groups involved in the ongoing unrest in the United States, despite the attempts by various media and political sides to frame the current situation simplistically. As Murtaza Hussain of the Intercept noted, “lots of people apparently want to condemn the protests and maybe even crush them but only after they’ve labelled them as having been corrupted by some ideological group they’re more comfortable posturing in opposition against.”

A Note on Narrative Building

Political talking points and narratives are constructed constantly, especially surrounding controversial and chaotic events that leave the public wanting straightforward answers. This fits well into politicians plotting how to exploit tragedy for political leverage. Almost immediately the Trump Administration and key supporters latched onto the idea of spoiled white agitators in “antifa” and well-funded hard-left agitators being behind the main acts of violence and instigating the destruction, tying into longstanding theories about George Soros and leftist oligarchs being behind attempts to destroy the United States and collapse the Trump government. Antifa, or “anti-fascist” is a loose umbrella of socialist, communist and anti-capitalist groups with roots in Stalinism.

Liberals, meanwhile, became disillusioned by the destruction and also sought a group to blame that would fit more neatly with their ideological proclivities. After all, communists and antifa have long made it clear that “liberals get the bullet too” and that kind of militancy isn’t exactly reassuring to Sally Soccer Mom in surburban St. Paul, and neither is the idea that a group they sympathize with — namely black people facing discrimination and economic abandonment that is egged on by jackal media and political operators — could also have numerous members of their community who would commit violence and property destruction.

Is Antifa Really Behind This?

The simple truth is that despite obvious instigators and hard-left groups the violence is mainly being driven by people who are angry over the death of George Floyd, poverty and police brutality and boosted along by a some determinedly menacing pencil-armed neo-Marxist white kids with too much time on their hands. The attempt to pin this all on antifa and the claim that they are going to be categorized as a terrorist organization is clearly based on political expediency rather than a pragmatic countermeasure. As Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller put it, “Antifa is terrible and all, but my guess is they’re responsible for a small fraction of the violence and looting going on.”

What About the Racists?

For their part, some suburban liberals found a new scapegoat in the white nationalist bogeyman: this upheaval was somehow a plot to make black people look bad by white racists and Russian agents. Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, Governor Tim Walz and others promoted the idea that most of those damaging the state were from elsewhere, which turned out not to be true. Ellison has previously promoted antifa and was formerly a member of the black nationalist Nation of Islam which has long called for black separatism and violent resistance of the white-dominated societal structure.

To be sure, there is a contingent of peaceful protesters and concerned citizens, along with a smattering of hard left communists and antifa and several riot-curious far right accelerationists and white nationalists, but this last number is miniscule as far as the evidence goes. Despite bizarre attempts by some in the mainstream media to claim the majority of damage is being done by white nationalists, racists and Russian-linked provocateurs trying to accelerate the downfall of modern, multi-racial America by striking at its fault-lines, there is no proof of more than a few white nationalists, militias and Trump supporters working their way into the upheaval. There is seemingly no end to blaming Vladimir Putin for everything that happens in the United States, which is, arguably, one of the ongoing political and media delusions and deflections that has led to this violent moment.

Fox News has been chased down and insulted by mobs, several Trump supporters were surrounded and pushed back to a building with one having his Trump hat burned as the crowd screamed “F*** Trump!” and several white nationalists who did try to infiltrate a protests were tracked and then turned into a bogeyman by antifa and left groups who claim these people are everywhere. Apart from Nick Fuentes and some “boogaloo” types popping up for photo opportunities, the violence does not appear to be orchestrated by these young internet racists. It is particularly odd to see the media blaming Trump for the vandalizing of CNN headquarters in Atlanta, for example, when this was done by a crowd who clearly despises the President and his supporters as well as CNN and mainstream media.

Where’d All the Good People Go?

There are still plenty of good people. Some protesters have restrained and delivered violent agitators to police and others have done their best to stand up to violent looters and agitators. But at the end of the day what is happening in America’s cities is a social problem more than anything else. Trust has broken down and year by year Western civilization is reverting into Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature: every man and women for themselves.

The bottom line here is simple: American society is breaking down. Look for rural communities to increasingly fortify themselves against the cities, protecting their food sources, businesses and streets from outsiders through force of arms and even vigilante patrols. There is plenty of blame to go around and deep-seated problems to reference, however now the situation truly is spiraling out of control. The United States is well on the road to becoming a failed state. Economic meltdown, the COVID-19 pandemic that is still decimating the country and an enraged uprising have come together to form the perfect storm.

Certainly, economic, racial and political aspects have all had a major role in leading to this situation, but at the end of the day the sound you hear is the social fabric tearing apart from Houston to Los Angeles. It’s the frustration boiling over, and whichever agendas and extreme groups may try to use that frustration for their own purposes it would be a mistake to think that the situation itself is entirely engineered or delusional. After all, the media and many politicians continually trying to place the motivation for unrest and problems on anything other than the actual causes of those problems is a big reason why we are in this position today.

Whatever exactly is going on, Jelani Cobb of the New Yorker put it aptly in noting that “you know we’re in uncharted territory when something happens in Minneapolis and they’re setting cars on fire in Salt Lake City.”

L'articolo America on Fire proviene da InsideOver.

An abhorrent act of violence motivated by hate shocked Germany this past Wednesday. In the city of Hanau, in the state of Hesse, nine people were fatally gunned down in successive attacks on three bars. All victims are individuals with a migrant background. Six more people were injured, one of them severely. According to the Kurdish community of Germany, four of the fatalities were of Kurdish origin, while five of the fatalities were said to be of Turkish origin.

Details of the Hanau Attack

The first shots were fired at around 10 p.m. on Wednesday. First, the perpetrator shot a shisha bar on the outskirts of downtown Hanau, then a café bar a few yards away. Afterwards, he drove to another bar and opened the fire again.

The suspect is a 43-year-old man from Hanau with German citizenship, as Hesse’s Interior Minister Peter Beuth confirmed on Wednesday. In addition, the perpetrator possessed several weapons legally as he was a sports shooter without any prior police record.

Hours after the crime, police discovered the body of the alleged killer in his apartment, who, by that time, had committed suicide. The body of the 72-year-old mother of the suspect was also found in the apartment, whether or not the gunman also killed her has yet to be confirmed. The police also searched a car on the property, possibly the perpetrator’s getaway vehicle. Weapons and ammunition are said to have been found in it, according to reports.

By now, Germany’s Attorney General has taken over the investigation in the Hanau case. The decision was made early in the morning on suspicion of a terrorist act that was confirmed later in the day.

The Suspect’s Manifesto and Beliefs

The suspect had published video messages and a manifesto online, Attorney General Peter Frank confirmed. In addition to appalling worldviews and absurd conspiracy theories, these materials contained profoundly racist and misogynist beliefs. The investigators also found a video in the apartment. The recording, which the man published a few days before the crime, contains confused theories in English including a “personal message to all Americans,” taken in a private apartment. In it, the man claims there are underground military facilities in the United States where children were being “mistreated and murdered” and where “the devil was being worshiped.” He then urges American citizens to “wake up and fight”!

The video does not contain a reference to an impending act of violence in Germany. The Federal Criminal Police Office and the Hesse State Criminal Police Office are now investigating with special commissions. While no further suspects are currently in custody, the authorities have made it their priority to establish whether or not the killer had supporters or was part of a more extensive network of white supremacists.

Merkel: The Motivation was Racism and Hate

Chancellor Angela Merkel was shocked by the events and gave a statement where she officially declared “hatred of people with a different origin, belief or appearance” as the perpetrator’s motive. Federal Interior Minister Seehofer also emphasized that the perpetrator acted out of racist motivation.

After the murder of local politician Walter Lübke and the attempted massacre in a Jewish synagogue in Halle in October 2019, the Hanau murders are the latest shocking act with a racist background within just fifteen months in Germany.

Politicians from all parties expressed their empathy and condolences to the victim’s families. Many also attended a public gathering in the evening. Calls for prevention of these cases were immediately made, especially towards oversight on the Internet, where many white supremacists communicate on well-known sites and seemingly find like-minded people. However, no concrete measures for countering this threat have been made public so far.

L'articolo Racist Murders Shock Germany proviene da InsideOver.

The armed assault that targeted a kosher grocery store in Jersey City on December 10th seems to be embracing anti-semitic traits, even if local authorities are still not keen to label the incident as such. As more details emerge, the initial hypothesis of a drug deal gone wrong appears to be replaced with a terror plot with a clear and precise target, the convenience store on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, right in the middle of an area populated by approximately 70 families of Yiddish speaking Hasidic Jews. The attacked store is next to two Jewish learning centers (a yeshiva and a Beit Midrash).

According to the latest reports by CNN, the attack did not generate as a consequence of a shootout between two criminals and undercover police near Bayview Cemetery, as initially stated. The two armed individuals were filmed by surveillance cameras while “calmly exiting the van and firing into the store with long guns”.

Jersey City Department of Public Safety Director James Shea told reporters that although there were several other potential targets available, the killers picked that specific store. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop claimed: “We do feel comfortable that it was a targeted attack on a Jewish kosher deli”.

However, just five hours after the shooting, Mayor Fulop had stated that “there was no evidence that the episode was terror-related”, while Jersey City Police Chief Michael Kelly had claimed that “there was no indication that the shooting was a hate crime” adding that a pipe bomb was found inside the U-Haul vehicle used by the attackers.

The reason why authorities are still reluctant to label the assault as “anti-semitic” is because the motivation of the attack on that specific site is still unknown, as exposed by Shea.

On Wednesday local authorities released the names of the two attackers, identified as David Anderson and Francine Graham. Mr. Anderson appeared to have a connection with the Black Hebrew Israelite Movement, although the extent of his involvement in that group remains unclear, as exposed by the New York Times.  It also emerged that Anderson had posted anti-Semitic and anti-police content on social media.

The Black Hebrew Israelite Movement was founded by black Americans claiming to be descendants of the ancient Israelites; the group has no connection with mainstream Judaism and has been indicated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

The mystery of the initial version

The criminal hypothesis did sound unusual already at an early stage as it was unclear why two individuals involved in a drug deal gone wrong would steal a vehicle and drive for approximately one mile just to attack and barricade inside a convenience store. The two killers were also heavily armed and targeted the police and anyone else passing in front of the store.

However, the initial version did indicate that police detective Joe Seals – who was killed in the exchange of fire – had approached the two assailants, who were inside a U-Haul van at a cemetery near the kosher market because the vehicle had been linked to a murder over the weekend, according to law enforcement officials. Additionally, it was cited that surveillance footage showed the killers shooting the detective and then driving away and ending up in front of the kosher market where they parked and entered the store while firing, the official said. As investigations moved on, a later version indicated that there was no shootout with undercover police near the cemetery and that the two assailants calmly drove and picked the targeted site. This option raises a further question: who killed Detective Seals and under which circumstances?

The Black Hebrew Israelite Movement

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a non-profit organization specialized in legal rights, had warned back in 2008 about the danger of an extremist branch of the Black Hebrew Israelite Movement (BHIM) preaching black supremacism and spreading anti-semitic propaganda: “such groups believe that Jews are devilish impostors”. The SPLC also pointed out how most members of the BHIM are not anti-semitic nor do they preach violence but it is rather the activity of limited groups within the movement, something which was previously confirmed by a 1999 FBI risk assessment report.

The BHIM doctrine asserts that African Americans are God’s true chosen people, the real descendants of the Israelites and not the Jews, “as commonly believed today”. They also believe that only black people will be saved on the Day of Judgement.

However, even if the general ideology is the same, organization and modus operandi may change within the different groups forming the movement. Among the groups indicated as extremist and supremacist by the Splc there are the Israelite School of Universal Practice, the Nation of Yahweh and the Israelite Church of God and Jesus Christ.

The Movement’s presence was initially strong in the black inner-city hoods of the East-Coast, but it later spread to other states such as Oklahoma, Florida, Missouri and Nebraska. Several members of the African-American community in the East Coast of the United States contacted by InsideOver believe that the Black Israelite Movement is a growing phenomenon within their communities and that it is also a matter of concern as they only contribute to an increase of tension among the population.

An interesting fact that is not related to the Jersey City attack, but that is yet worth mentioning, is the harassment of a Jewish family, while onboard a London subway line, perpetrated by a black male while reading a Bible. The verbal assault was caught on video and posted on YouTube at the end of November.

The individual quotes parts of Revelation 2 and 3: “And behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie” with intimidating manners and accuses the Jews of being “impostors”, of “having stolen his heritage and having funded the slave trade”.

Even if such events can still be classified as isolated cases, it is a phenomenon that should be kept under constant and careful monitoring as it could further spread and turn violent in a phase of strong social and economic distress.

L'articolo The Jersey City Attack and the Black Supremacist Lead proviene da InsideOver.

Great Britain has always been the land of opportunities and a melting pot of cultures. Has the Brexit vote unveiled hidden thoughts latent before and now more openly expressed? Is Britain now becoming a racist society? 

Malcolm X, in 1965, visited Smethwick, not far from Birmingham because that town was perhaps the most racist place in Britain. One year before that visit, the Conservative MP, Peter Griffiths, had been elected on the shameful slogan ‘If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour’. As a reaction to that election, Labour came to power for the first time in the last 13 years. Not in Smethwick however, where the Tories won the most racist election campaign ever fought in Britain.

Four years later, on 20 April 1968, Enoch Powell, a Conservative MP, gave a speech to the Tories Political Centre in Birmingham, that strongly criticised mass immigration. Powell, in his famous “Rivers of Blood” speech, warned his audience of what he believed would be the consequences of continued unchecked mass immigration from the Commonwealth to the UK.

And what’s happening now? After the Brexit vote, this political campaign is showing fear and rising racism accusations inside the main parties. Boris Johnson has been repeatedly accused of islamophobia and sexism; Jeremy Corbyn of antisemitism and, more recently, of anti-Hinduism.

“The Conservatives and Labour had both moved to the extremes and it was only the Liberal Democrats who now occupied the liberal centre-ground of British politics,” former ex-Tory MP Heidi Allen explained. Feeling isolated and uncomfortable inside parties they didn’t recognize anymore, some moderated and centrist MPs just left. Some of them decided to stand down, some others joined the Liberal Democrats, as Heidi Allen and eleven founding members of Change UK did, this year.

Jeremy Corbyn is accused by his rival to be a dangerous socialist who would wreck the British economy; while on the other side, Boris Johnson is considered a populist, a wicked capitalist who just wants to enrich the richest and doesn’t care about the poor people. And what about the other candidates collecting gaffes and being forced to apologize or resign because of what they said or wrote in the past or during this snap campaign?  Labour and Tories spokesmen explain that hundreds of candidates have been selected in a short space of time, as a consequence, it has been impossible to check all their past behaviours, statements or skeletons in the closet.

Corbyn’s accusation of antisemitism

Jewish groups have accused Corbyn, a far-left politician, of allowing a massive rise in anti-Semitism within the ranks of the party that was once considered the natural home of British Jewry.

The Labour Party has been investigated for institutional racism by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission as it ‘suspected’ the party had committed ‘unlawful acts’ in its handling of the anti-Semitism crisis. A formal inquiry into reports of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party was also launched earlier this year, in May.  The party has constantly claimed it is ‘implacably’ opposed to anti-Semitism in any form.

But, first of all, Jewish people are pointing out Corbyn’s positions during the last four years. They don’t forget and don’t forgive the self-proclaimed “friendships” with representatives from Hamas and Hezbollah when inviting members for a parliamentary meeting in 2009, but also questionable associations with Holocaust deniers and anti-Zionists. Since becoming Labour Party leader in 2015, Corbyn has been criticized as an outspoken critic of Israel and campaigner for Palestinian rights and has been accused of turning a blind eye to the resurgence of anti-Semitism within British politics and the party itself.

All the efforts to respond to criticism have been judged as weak and not persuasive enough. Corbyn has been repeatedly lambasted for his failure to tackle antisemitism within Labour. As an example: in 2018, the party received 863 complaints of anti-Semitism but took action in only 101 of those cases. This is definitely considered to be an insufficient effort.

On the other hand, someone who clearly showed all his disappointment was Israel Hayom. The publication said that almost 50% of Jews living in the UK state that they will leave if Corbyn wins the general election. A recent poll by the Jewish Leadership Council, a British-Jewish advocacy group, also found that 47% of British Jews would “seriously consider” emigrating if Corbyn is elected Prime Minister. Some 87% of British Jews believed Corbyn to be anti-Semitic, and 90% said they will not vote for Labour, the poll found.

Corbyn answered that British Jews “have nothing to fear” if his party wins the December elections and he becomes PM. “Anti-Semitism and racism is an evil within our society. I’ve done everything to confront it throughout my life, and will always do so,” Corbyn told the Guardian.

British Rabbi to boycott Labour

According to the Jewish Chronicle, prominent British Rabbi Jonathan Romain has taken the unprecedented decision of urging congregants to vote against Labour warning that a Corbyn-led government “would pose a danger to Jewish life as we know it,” He did this by sending a letter to all the families who are members of his congregation at Maidenhead, a large market town in Berkshire with an estimated population approaching 58,850. “This has never happened under any previous Labour leader … so the finger of responsibility really does seem to point to Jeremy Corbyn. I am therefore suggesting we should each put aside all other considerations and vote for whichever party is most likely to defeat Labour in whatever constituency we are in – even if we would never normally vote for that party,” the Rabbi wrote.

After this personal plea, a few days ago, the Rabbi also decided to write a letter which was published on the Daily Mail. “I have never written an article like this before,” he explained adding that he has always avoided being political and has never been in the business of taking sides. But, this time it is different.  “Few can be blind to the fact that, if Corbyn gets into No. 10, we will have a PM who is at worst anti-Semitic and at best content to tolerate anti-Semitic behaviour.” According to the Rabbi, Corbyn, during his mandate as Leader of the Labour Party, has allowed antisemitism to spread like a “fast-growing cancer”. He also admitted that other British political parties have their “failings”, but Labour’s accusations on antisemitism were first called four years ago and have never been addressed properly, yet. The Rabbi regrets that receiving 673 complaints, of antisemitism in ten months, they dismissed only 12 members. Not enough. As a conclusion, he writes: “We must not let Corbyn’s Labour Party poison the values of this great country,” clearly meaning: vote for whomever you wish but don’t vote for him.

On the same days, a key Shadow Cabinet ally of Jeremy Corbyn was involved in an antisemitism accusation after claims he had sung the Beatles hit “Hey Jude” changing the original lyrics and saying “Hey Jews”. This behaviour was supposed to take place during a coach journey in March 2018. Corbyn confirmed Labour was probing the allegations claimed by the Buzzfeed website. Talking to Twitter, Mr Carden categorically denied everything about it.

Last, but not least, come the WhatsApp text was widely spread to the UK Hindus urging them to vote against Labour accusing the party of being “Anti-India” and “Anti-Hindu”. The message said that Corbyn’s party is now the “mouthpiece of the Pakistani government”, as a consequence, all the Indians still voting for them are officially considered traitors to their ancestral land, to their family and friends.

Tony Blair plays his game 

Last February, Jewish MP Luciana Berger blamed ‘institutional’ anti-Semitism and decided to quit the Labour Party to join Change UK. “For anyone who might look to play this down, the threshold to initiate this process is extremely high. That the Labour Party has even met the evidentiary threshold is damning,” she said.

Luciana Berger decided to stand up as a candidate for the Lib Dems; after announcing her decision, former PM, Tony Blair, condemned the fact that she had been driven out of their party over Corbyn’s failure to tackle the whip and wished her “very well” at the polls.

Blair was later involved in an unpleasant statement. A Labour candidate for Pudsey in West Yorkshire compared celebrating his death to cheering the death of Adolf Hitler. Later, she apologized for causing offense.

Tories’ accusation of racism and sexism

Are the people that voted for Brexit asking for a monocultural country? Based on the perspective that xenophobia and racism have always existed but to some extent, the matter has never been addressed, Brexit has had an evident impact on this issue. Racism has never disappeared even if people have thought it; xenophobia has increased and becoming an independent nation is what Brexit voters claimed.

More importantly, even though the issue of Brexit is set to dominate the December vote, many Jewish voters, even those opposed to the Conservative vow to take Britain out of Europe, feel they cannot vote for Labour.

Which alternative do they have? Labour’s strategy is to point out that Johnson is himself a populist, Islamophobe. After the exodus of more moderate Conservatives, the party has become more extremist and is now led by a man accused of being a racist. Johnson is still facing this accusation after in a newly unearthed 2007 book, “The Dream of Rome”, he wrote that the religion has left Muslim countries “centuries behind” the Western world.

Last year, he said that full-face veils should not be banned, but it was “absolutely ridiculous” women chose to “go around looking like letterboxes and bank robbers”. He has always defended his words adding that the backlash against them was just a “confected indignation at his strong views on Brexit”. According to a research conducted by the monitoring group Tell Mama, Islamophobic incidents rose by 375% due to the fact that  his words were repeated by racists abusing Muslims on the streets and online.

Accusations of a rising politics of hate and divisions are still staining this snap political campaign. “The climate for British Muslims in the Conservative Party is hostile”. Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, former co-chair of the Conservative Party (2010-2012), lawyer  and member of the House of Lords, attacked her parliamentary colleagues for failing to deal with alleged Islamophobia within the Conservatives and called on the PM to hold an independent inquiry saying she was shocked that her colleagues didn’t understand that issue and didn’t take it seriously.

“What really disappoints me in all of this, is that we’ve quite rightly been calling out the Labour for all the allegations of racism within their ranks, we seem to be able to see that form of racism and yet we singularly fail to deal with the Islamophobia and racism within our backyard,” she said interviewed by Channel 4.

There’s also another issue going on inside the Conservative Party. Some of the most senior female Tory MPs decided to quit, others were forced out or decided to stand down at the general election because they claimed the party was changing. “There’s definitely a whiff of toxic masculinity around at the top of the Tory party, at the moment,” a senior Conservative said.

As a consequence, the party that returns to the Commons after 12 December will be very different: more right-wing, more hardline Eurosceptic and quite possibly, let’s say, more male.

When the Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd decided to quit the cabinet and resign the Conservative whip in solidarity with Tory MPs who had had the whip removed for opposing a hard Brexit, she explained that she could not stand by while “loyal, moderate MPs were purged from the party.” She also condemned Mr Johnson’s language claiming that it was dangerous and could incite violence against opponents. She described him as part of the “cult of the strongman” that is sweeping the world, referring to the so-called “alpha male thing” she was warning about, before Johnson became leader.

A recent poll for the centre-right think tank Onward found that only 8% of young women would vote Conservative, compared with 22% of young men.

This could also explain the reason why the Tories are now trying to ensure that more female candidates are parachuted into safe seats, at the last minute.

A strong leadership would not guarantee victory

One novelty in this election is the appearance of high-profile independents and switchers, most of whom are strongly associated with the Remain cause. That’s why, ignoring half the electorate, whether they are Remainers, women, Jewish, or member of every kind of minority could be dangerous for every party now trying to recover its lost support.

As usual, the result of this election will be determined by the performance in individual seats rather than the national vote share and this is the reason why things may get even more complicated. The first-past-the-post rule will guarantee the victory more then the big leadership and Brexit will be its driving force.

According to the most recent poll published by YouGov (2-8 November), Tories are on 39%, 13% ahead of Labour on 26% followed by Lib Dems on 17%.

Without a majority in the House of Commons, Boris Johnson  could struggle to remain PM if the opposition all combined forces to defeat him, even if Labour wins fewer seats. Labour perfectly knows it doesn’t even need to win many seats to send Jeremy Corbyn to Downing Street. But we should not forget sources said that up to 20 Labour MPs would act immediately after polling day to ensure that Mr Corbyn has no chance of leading a government supported by other parties.

Nigel Farage has announced he will no longer fight 600 seats across the UK as his party will stand down against the 317 seats the Tories won at the last elections. The Brexit Party’s decision not to stand in Conservative-held seats superficially seems like good news for the Tories, elsewhere it is not clear whether this decision would end up helping Labour or the Lib Dems.

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