The Land of the Free is only free for those who make the rules

The inevitable conclusion of bigotry and racial hatred is bloodshed. A fleeting browse online will confirm that history is littered with such heinous crimes. One in particular, the Holocaust, Hitler’s attempt to eradicate the Jews from Europe, was undoubtedly the darkest moment of the twentieth century. Once the full horror of the Holocaust was discovered, people demanded to know how this had happened and what sort of evil people had allowed this to happen. And here's the thing – the Nazis were evil, sure. But those that really allowed millions of Jews to perish? The ones that sat back, turned a blind eye, and took flimsy cover behind the pretense of “I don’t get involved in politics.” Put another way:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Apolitical thinking, that of “I don’t do politics” may sound superficially cool, but that’s about it. In the White community, complete disengagement from politics is a moral crime. For those in the Black community, it’s a deadly sin. The word “politics” comes from the Greek “polis” – the city, the nucleus, the pretty much everything and how everyone lives, works and interacts within that construct. Irrespective of what party is in power, every part of life is influenced by politics, irrespective of whether you believe it impacts you or not. Let’s put it another way. If you don’t take part, you get no say in the rules of the game that you have to play regardless.

Black America can ill afford not to get involved in the country’s politics. It has been fighting for its very life since 1619. And still, it goes on to this very day. Black Americans are economically disenfranchised, societally marginalized, murdered in the streets and incarcerated at whim. Mind-blowingly, Black sell-out politicians happily consent to Biden’s weaponized police paramilitaries, his own American version of the Gestapo, oppressing and killing Black Americans on a daily basis. Likewise, America’s prison population continues to fall in number and yet they still think that they can buoy those figures back up by magically grabbing Black men off the streets. Despicable actions require radical solutions. Consequently, we must politicize the Black race.

Of course, it’s not just Black Americans who are under daily fascist attack in White, male America. Women are now very much in the fight with us, courtesy of last year’s Supreme Court partial dismantling of Roe v Wade. The legal right of 160 million American women to have an abortion is teetering on the brink of oblivion. The White, male patriarchy wouldn’t want it any other way and trust us, they very much get involved in politics. In fact, they revel in the fact that so many Black and female Americans remain apolitical, no matter what injustice or indignity is further thrust upon them.

The Land of the Free is only free for those who make the rules. Therefore, we repeat - for those that don’t help to set the rules, you still have to play by the rules that others will set upon you. All great human struggles of emancipation and liberation have never, not once, been won with a shrug of the shoulders and a roll of the eyes. Sadly, those are the actions of millions of Black and female Americans who choose not to take part in how their very lives are allowed to live right now. And by that we don’t just mean voting (although that is of course vitally important too). We also mean getting politically educated, involved and organized. Get online, get your friends, family and neighbors involved, get on the streets and, most importantly, get in your oppressor’s face and get it done.

The USA isn’t supposed to be like this. Not how we are now. Sadly, it is an experiment in individual freedom that has gone horribly wrong as it was flawed from the get-go, established by slave-owning Founding Fathers who paradoxically pledged their fealty to freedom. Against that back-drop, we cannot afford for millions of our own to stand idly by while the experiment gets further and further out of control. Being disenfranchised, oppressed, incarcerated and murdered are not, to put it mildly cool. All of Black and female America needs to wake up to the reality of what is happening here. Your very life, and that of your nearest and dearest is on the line now, more than ever before.

Take part or perish. It’s that much of a simple binary choice.