The Sordid Legacy of Margret Thatcher.. What We Should Never Ever Forget

The funeral of former British prime minister Margret Thatcher took place in the UK today, one day after the Boston Marathon tragedy.. We talked to long time activist Lee Jasper former senior advisor to the mayor of London and co-chair of BARAC & National Black Members Officer for the Respect Political Party in UK about her legacy..

Lee noted that there’s been an all out attempt to lionize Thatcher and remake her similar to the way Ronald Reagan was remade and sanitized. They gave her full military honors which caused quite a bit of controversy.. They also expected to have the streets lined with millions. Thatcher’s funeral drew less than 100 thousand people. More folks came out in the streets of London for the funeral of former IRA (Irish Republican Army) leader and hunger striker Bobby Sands then they did Thatcher..

During our conversation Jasper broke down the alliance Thatcher forged with brutal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and later Ronald Reagan to enact neo-Liberal policies that continue to this day…. He talked about how Thatcher made it a priority to try and break the unions and severely economically cripple working class people. He also spoke about her outright hostility toward Black people..

Jasper talked about the policing policies Thatcher oversaw including one called SUS  (Stop and Search) where thousands of Black people were jailed simply on police suspecting they did a crime..They now have in place a policy that was the prototype for Stop and Frisk.. Lee explained Thatcher’s brutal policies along with her refusal to have investigated a racially motivated fire started by a white supremacist where 13 Black teens were killed led to a major riot in 1981 in the Brixton section of London. Police enhanced the SUS laws and more than a 1000 people were detained and hemmed up by police.

We also talked at length about Thatcher’s foreign policies and her support for white supremacist leader Ian Smith who presided over Rhodesia before it became Zimbabwe.. She talked about her seeing Nelson Mandela and the ANC in South Africa as terrorists. The woman was grand hater of Black liberation.

Lee Jasper Gives us the breakdown on Margret Thatcher

It’s with that in mind that Jasper expressed disappointment in the praise that President Obama showered on Thatcher considering the intense dislike many had for her and how divisive she was.. . Of course we should not be surprised considering that strong ties Thatcher had with Reagan and Obama’s repeated praise for the man we once called ‘The Gipper’.

Also during our interview we talked about the tragedy in Boston and how Londoners had to deal with constant bombings during the hey day of the IRA, … Lee expressed condolences to the folks in Boston and then talked about how it led to widespread fears resulting in intrusive and harsh laws..One of the laws that emerged was the precursor to what we now know as one that allows for indefinite detainment of what we call enemy combatants. He talked about the type of stigma and brutality heaped upon the Irish by police during that time and how many were deemed to be that..

Check out the Hard Knock Radio interview by clicking the link below..

Not Every Artist is An Artist..Some Are Lapdogs & Spokespeople For Oppression

In response to Beyonce telling women they are B–tches and to bow down and Rick Ross rapping about date raping someone, there are some who tried to explain that we should leave such artists alone and that they have FREEDOM of SPEECH.. Lets get a couple of things clear..

If you are pushing oppression and have multinational corporations with million dollar budgets and vast resources, promoting destructive messages then YOU ARE NOT an artist.. What you are is a worker…You are a lackey for corporate interests and should be seen as such.. You are no different then Ronald Reagan when he used his acting skills to be a spokesman for General Electric..In this case you are a spokesperson for oppression. Your creativity and artistic talent is being pimped out for repression not liberation..

Spokespeople and workers for oppression look for huge paychecks, cheap fame and an ostentatious lifestyle so they can bury their shame, ease their guilt and distract us from the fact that their souls were sold and their principles forever compromised. A corporate lap-dog will make excuses for having their talent and art be marketed for young minds and used destructively. They’ll tell you about the importance of ‘sales’ and ‘staying relevant’ or how parents should raise their kids.. These are corporate talking points all designed to avoid responsibility.. It doesn’t change their wrong doings of spreading corporate poison and using ‘art’ as the validating vehicle

This is not about telling artists they don’t have freedom of speech or there is one particular party line they gotta adhere to..This is about waking up folks and making it very clear who’s imperialistic interests some who call themselves artists are furthering..It’s about shining a bright light on the deep pocketed nefarious forces behind the work being hawked to the masses..

Are you in the business of saving souls or selling souls? Are you leading us on to the plantation or off? Time will tell the side you choose to represent…

Davey D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwFN9f8q5g0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHnUFpCeGxQ

Earlier when I posted this.. I got an insightful response from former BLA (Black Liberation Army) leader and former political prisoner Dhoruba Bin Wahad..Here’s what he added to my remarks..

I think maybe we should understand how the status of “Race Music” has been transformed in America by a combination of technology, social change, and the corporate globalization of culture. Once “Black” music, R&B, Jazz Gospel, Blues etc, were separate and apart from white corporate and popular music personified by “Tin-Pan Alley” top song listing.

In the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s Our music was patronized and confined (segregated) to our community therefore it reflected our communal reality (faults and all). But after the upheavals of sixties, the rise of the white Hippie “Love Generation” , the urbanization of white supremacist power to control inner city Blacks, mainstream White culture subsumed it’s Black sub-cultural counterpart. This process at once depoliticized Black music, dummed it down to nursery rhyme like songs (almost every popular Rap track, gangster, or “Dirty South” song sound like nursery rhymes appealing instantly to the adolescence generation that was never really taught what growing up means- but more importantly changed the nature of community musical introspection into gross expressions of sex, violence, money, and the values of misogyny.

Hence acting and behaving as backwards Niggers is acceptable.. authentic, the “Hood”. What we used to call “country” (Gold grillwork dressing like a clown in a bad circus act, is now glorified in videos and on stage) because the money corporate America can generate from ghettoized entertainment serves not just they’re bottom-line, but also the promotion of American values, mystique and material wealth – and most importantly the place of the Black man/woman in the overall scheme of things, we have the artists we do today making millions.

I may be wrong, but the last time I looked, white youth were the major consumers of Hip-Hop music and related paraphernalia. White girls don’t consider themselves “Bitches” in the street sense of that odious term – so what Beyonce says in this respect doesn’t resonate with them – what resonates is her outfits and style, so its not unusually for folks to admire stylish assholes, or that an entire generation of young Black women in the “Hood” have raised and are raising a generation of Shanniqa’s and children named after their Moma’s favorite perfume or club drink or luxury car. What does it say about one’s class status and values when waking up in a new Bugatti is a dream come true?

The NRA Says Blacks Need Guns for Protection in a New Ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDjp66NdiNY

I found this latest ad from the NRA (National Rifle Association) featuring a Black man named Colion Noir stating that African-Americans needs guns to protect themselves to be intriguing on a number of levels.  He talks about how the government  which has a history of racism will not be there for us, hence protecting one’s family is on us..

A couple of things to think about..In the ad Colion mentions the racist government but then tells us how the proverbial hood thugs ‘Ray Ray‘ and ‘Pookie‘ got guns and that President Obama and the govt wont be there to protect us hence.. He says its best we get our guns..

To a degree some of that may be true, but lets look at the sleight of hand Noir and the NRA pulls..While many African-Americans need protection from inner city crime, they also need protection from the government that also terrorizes Black folks..

Colion Noir

In the ad Noir omits and redirects an important part of history, by inferring that the racist US government allowed white supremacist groups like the KKK to come after us.. Let’s keep it real many of those folks in wearing those hoods were police and government officials.  In their height during the 1920s when Black folks were being lynched left and right, the Klan was a major force in politics..

Black folks if they were to use guns to defend themselves as suggested in the ad, would have to do so against the police and many within local and national government.. That would include mayors and governors who referred to us as ‘niggers‘ while standing before us with state troopers preventing us from attending segregated schools or voting.

When civil rights advocates like Fannie Lou Hammer spoke about being dragged off buses and beaten for trying to register folks to vote in Mississippi, it wasn’t hooded KKK members doing the beatings.. It was the state troopers.. If guns were needed for protection it was against those troopers.. What was the NRA’s take on incidents like that in the 1960s?

What was the NRA really saying with this Noir ad and how does it stack up with their historic actions in the past when gun laws were passed by the government to disarm militant Black groups like the Black Panthers Party for Self Defense?  In 1967 after the Black Panthers following the letter of the law, armed themselves and began patrolling their neighborhoods to make sure the police would cease brutalizing  law-abiding citizens, the Mulford Act of 1967 was passed in California to disarm them..

The person who pushed for that law the hardest was lifetime NRA member then Governor Ronald Reagan who is quoted as saying “We will never disarm any American who seeks to protect his or her family from fear and harm.” ..Well a big middle finger to Reagan and the NRA who stood silent when the disarming of Panthers, SNCC and other groups happened. Having a slick ad with an African-American talking about Black history and racism while neglecting the racism of the NRA and its most visible members when it was needed most is the height of disingenuousness..

Over the past 40+ years since the Mulford Act was passed where we’ve seen a sordid legacy of police in Cali shooting, killing and brutalizing, African-Americans, the NRA has been nowhere around to offer comfort, resources or solutions.. Where was this nice NRA ad with Colion Noir when unarmed Oscar Grant was shot point blank in the back  by an out of control BART cop?  Where was the NRA when the infamous Riders scandal and the Rampart scandal were jumping off in Oakland and LA? How was the NRA helping citizens who needed to protect themselves from a tyrannical government represented by the police?

Where was the NRA when John Burge was torturing Black folks as a Chicago Police commander?

In Chicago, a city with one of the strictest gun control laws in the country, where was the NRA during the reign of terror of Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge? Between the years 1972 and 1991 over 130 African-Americans some as young as 13 were tortured.. (note not beaten.. tortured) by this Burge and his men.. You can read about that HERE ..The 135 cases is what’s been documented, many believe its was hundreds more.. When Chicagoans made their plight known, where was the NRA? Where was ads like the one with Noir? Nowhere to be seen..

We can go on and on citing police brutality incidents on unarmed citizens and the NRA being ghost.. So why are they visible now? Did they have a change of heart or are they walking a razor thin line in terms of how they describe the enemies African-Americans neeed to protect themselves against? Yes many folks in the community have to deal with crime.. Pookie and Ray Ray do cause problems.. I’m not sure if shooting them is the answer, but if it is as the NRA suggests, then we have some other enemies to get at as well.. Will the NRA be standing with us the next time an unarmed Black youth is shot and killed by police? Will they have an ad advocating we protect ourselves or will they remain silent like they did in the past?

written by Davey D