After threatening federal authorities with weapons, and surrounded by other angry White men waving flags and guns, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy shot off his mouth. This time he derided the Negro people for their lack of productive ways and their addiction to welfare and violence.
The rancher who has been grazing cattle on federal land for a decade without paying a dime “seemingly placed the land rights conflict on the backburner by questioning whether African Americans were better off as slaves in a New York Times report,” noted Rt.com, following up on a widely reported story.
“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”
Mr. Bundy’s words are beyond insulting and play into White America’s myth of happy-go-lucky-picaninnies instead of the sadistic, destructive, dehumanizing reality of the sick system that was slavery in America.
He also ignores centuries of White privilege and programs, from Homestead Acts and free land giveaways out West to G.I. Bill benefits, farm subsidies and general freedoms denied Blacks and programs that purposely and directly excluded Blacks. Not to mention laws created and terror campaigns enacted to drive newly-free slaves back onto plantations and into prisons where they were leased out to White landowners and White corporations like railroad companies. Then there is the destruction of Black towns and communities, like Black Wall St. in Tulsa, Okla., and in Rosewood, Fla., where Whites simply decided to destroy thriving Black enterprises and municipalities.
But instead of issuing statements and calling on Republicans to repudiate their brother, maybe we should try a different tactic and tell Mr. Bundy he can stick his words and sick mentality … down his throat.
Let’s make Mr. Bundy choke on his words by sacrificing some of the $1 trillion a year to build and control our own communities. Let’s make Mr. Bundy repudiate his words by taking control of our children and creating opportunities for them. Let’s make Mr. Bundy retract his statements by using every tool we have to beat back White supremacy, including withholding our money from the stores and products owned and offered by his Caucasian brethren. Let’s make Mr. Bundy die in his rage by showing one another the love, the respect, and the honor that he will not show us. And let’s do it because we love one another and really don’t give a damn about what he thinks.
(Final Call editor-in-chief Richard B. Muhammad can be reached at [email protected]. You can also follow him on Facebook and @RMfinalcall on Twitter.)
