Ain’t no statute of limitations on genocide!

by Shaka Shakur

Article II of The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on Dec. 9, 1948, states that “genocide” means any of the following acts, committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such:

  • Killing members of the group.
  • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
  • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
  • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
Hands-Still-Up-art-by-Steven-Winston-web-300x229, Ain’t no statute of limitations on genocide!, News & Views
“Hands Still Up!” – Art: Steven Winston, 513304, Chippewa Correctional Facility (URF), 4269 West M-80, Kincheloe MI 49784

It is amazing to me to hear the cries and complaints from Euro-Amerikans about so-called racism by New Afrikans or Blacks, racism against white people, reverse racism and all of the other nonsense they were spreading while at the same time attending Donald Trump rallies by tens of thousands and then voting for him as he spews some of the most reactionary, racist, xenophobic bigotry coming from the mainstream.

Why is it that white folks in large numbers feel threatened by Black pride? Why is it that when we are pro-New Afrikan/Black, to love our own culture and heritage, we are automatically branded as being anti-white? Let’s examine this impulse, this ego defense mechanism on the part of white folks a little.

Breaking news: You do not get to dictate to us when and how we can be Black or express our Blackness. You do not get to shape, mold and put our Blackness into a little safe box and allow out for sports and other select occasions in order so that you may feel comfortable. Those days are over with and we will scream that Black Lives Matter during your Super Bowls, your Grammys, your malls of Amerika and whenever, wherever we choose to do so.

It is not our fault that you have been lied to your whole life. It is not our fault that you have been given and taught a false history that has been whitewashed. A false history that has given you a God complex and led you to believe that you’re superior, that you have a right to dictate and to define the “other,” i.e. other people’s culture, other people’s reality, and if expressions by the “other” don’t conform to your sense of privilege, your sense of hegemony, then you arrogate to yourself the right to revoke these expressions!

It amazes me how cavalier and dismissive, how nonchalant white folks can be as they tell us New Afrikans, “Oh, slavery was a long time ago and people need to just let it go and get over it. We are all Amerikans now!” (When they can’t even let it go with the O.J. Simpson case!) How self-righteous, sanctimonious, and arrogant!

Who gave you the right and the authority to determine a time frame on our pain and suffering? Who gave you the privilege and the audacity to put a statute of limitations on the murdering, on the lynching, on the burning at the stake, on the starving and drowning of tens of millions of Native/Indigenous and Afrikan people?

To have such power must be intoxicating! To have such privilege as you go about your life to flippantly dismiss the destruction and murdering of whole nations as you so blithely brand us all Amerikkkans must be a euphoric feeling!

Why is it that white folks in large numbers feel threatened by Black pride? Why is it that when we are pro-New Afrikan/Black, to love our own culture and heritage, we are automatically branded as being anti-white?

Who told you that I wanted to be a fuckin Amerikan? Did you ever consider that Black folks never wanted to have second class citizenship imposed upon them/us? Did you ever think that New Afrikans did not want to be “amended” into a Constitution signed by a bunch of slave owning racists who clearly weren’t including the rights of Afrikans into its structure and writing?

Of course, you never considered the possibility that not only do we just want to be free, but that we want to be free to decide what we want to do as an oppressed, colonized nation. No, you never considered this because, in your warped mind, you still think this is solely your land and that you’re the dominant and far superior being, culture etc. with the sole right to structure and dictate the narrative and discussion. Well, you don’t.

No rapist wants to be confronted by the victim raped by his kkkrimes. White folks have a problem dealing with the truth, dealing with historical facts. We are sick of educating you, trying to teach you to look into the mirror, to feel our pain.

Uncle-Du-Matters-of-Color-web-300x84, Ain’t no statute of limitations on genocide!, News & Views
“Uncle Du: Matters of Color” – Art: Ruben Beltran, 10A3301, Sullivan CF, P.O. Box 16, Fallsburg NY 12733-0116

All your lives, you’ve been lied to about your great forefathers. From birth to adulthood, you’ve been bombarded with revisionist history, with statues, plaques, monuments and stories of white greatness, of white superiority. The fearless settlers, pilgrims and pioneers. People, it’s the 21st century! Not only do you need to fact check that shit, but you no longer get to dictate and dominate the narrative.

You accuse us of reverse racism because we hold a mirror up to your face and show how you have either been a direct participant in genocide or the direct beneficiary of genocide. How many of you have knowingly and intentionally basked in your white skin privilege for the crumbs from the master’s table, from your daddy’s table, while genocide and imperialist, institutionalized racism rages all around you?

Like the proverbial murderer with blood still dripping from your pale fingertips, you scream: “I didn’t have anything to do with it!” I’m an Amerikan just trying to make Amerika great again! While you secretly feel nostalgia for the good ol’ days when the niggers knew their place!

Contrary to what you’ve been told or taught, you’re not superior. Despite your God complex with which you have been indoctrinated, you do not get to dictate or narrate our story so that you can keep your history. You do not get to tell us what the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army were and what they should mean to us. You do not get to dictate to Beyonce or Kendrick Lamar how and when they can express Black pride or Black pain.

You accuse us of reverse racism because we hold a mirror up to your face and show how you have either been a direct participant in genocide or the direct beneficiary of genocide.

And, while you’re trying to use reverse psychology – how many white folks have been and continue to be lynched by Black folks? How many educational institutions run, owned and operated by Black folks refuse to teach or allow entry to white students? How many Black banks, real estate companies, etc. refuse to give loans to white folks? How many Black landlords and realtors refuse to rent or sell housing to white folks in certain areas?

How many white communities do Black folks gentrify? How many white kids and adults are disproportionately railroaded into the prison system with far longer prison sentences by Black prosecutors and Black judges? How many white people are disproportionately brutalized and/or gunned down by Black police officers?

There can no longer be business as usual, no spaces free from the chant “Black Lives Matter!” while Euro-Amerikans dance, shop and play on top of the corpses scattered across this land. People must decide on what side of history they want to stand, they must make a choice as to whether or not they wish to allow genocidal oppression to continue in their name and with their consent.

Do you wish to be complicit in such oppression in order to continue to be bribed by the crumbs and privileges from the capitalist table or do you choose to stand on the side of freedom and justice for all people and humanity?

People must decide on what side of history they want to stand, they must make a choice as to whether or not they wish to allow genocidal oppression to continue in their name and with their consent.

Like you’ve been telling us for 400 plus years: Shut up and quit crying and deal with it. Cuz I’m here to tell you that there ain’t no statute of limitations on genocide!

Black Lives Matter Behind the Walls!

Shaka Shakur, New Afrikan Liberation Collective

Send our brother some love and light: Shaka Shakur, 135647, WVCF, P.O. Box 1111, Carlisle, IN 47838.