TIM HAYES'

One of the things that has really bothered me in this crazy election year. has been the way so many people become victim to the “bandwagon” mentality. If something becomes popular with enough people to reach a certain “critical mass” then it becomes something many people think they just have to do, or think, or at least try to say they believe in. I mean you can’t be considered “hip” or cool unless you embrace certain ways of seeing things or making certain “talking points” a part of your normal conversation.No matter how stupid..if enough people think it’s cool ..you say it too..Among many Black people this had lead to a type of anti-intellectualism . You shut down critical analysis because it just “ain’t cool” any more.One of the ways this manifests itself in today’s world is the “I’m tired of hearing about slavery” crowd..I consider this a childish and backward rejection of a part of our history that still affects us more than any. While I understand why one would say this, from my experience to make such a statement has more to do with ones sense of “racial self esteem”..As Important as it is to study the complete Black Historical experience..from pre-history to now. We still are being influenced by the experience of slavery as a people ..and as a nation… I was a part of that generation that while maybe not the first but certainly was the first in mass to begin to study and research Black History beyond the time of slavery. Fifty years ago we were making pilgrimages to west Africa, saving up to go to Ethiopia, Somalia, Seeing sites in the Middle East. I went to Algeria, and Israel , and Tunisia as well yes Egypt. in search of Black History before slavery. I wanted to find out as much as i could about Moorish history and religion. Important stuff, true. What this all lead me back to is that we still don’t have a really complete understanding of the psychological impact of slavery. or the long lasting pathology that causes us as Black people to act out is some ways over and over in generation after generation. I’m tired of hearing people say “I don’t want to see any more movies about slavery.” Well true there is a lot more to our story than that……a lot more. And I would like to see more films and published studies on Pre-slavery Black history. But we have only scratched the surface of the peculiar institution of slavery. So yes I’m looking forward to another film that deals with slavery…but this one..called “Birth of a Nation” deals with a part of the slave experience most of the films have stayed away from….Rebellion…so it may turn out to be a good film….and it may not. But that anti-intellectual bullshit about “I don’t want to see another slave film” will not keep me out of the theater..to see the trailer use this link.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIlUerVomDE

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As I begin writing this it is Sunday morning. All the news shows on TV are doing stories on the Dallas police shootings..and just as I was getting my coffee the kitchen radio tells me that there have been several incidents of “police ambush”…This sends a horrible chill up and down my spine….for reasons I will get into later. First let’s set the stage. In the last few days seemingly back to back we have had a Black man shot, on camera, lying down, subdued with two huge white men on top of him and suddenly he is shot several times. Then the next morning we see a video of a desperate Black woman with a baby in her car. And next to her is a Black man in a Bloody shirt, and as the scene goes on we see a policeman still pointing a gun inside the car as the woman, who remarkably managed to remain calm tells us and the now screaming officer that she thinks her “boyfriend” is dead. For me it seems just hours later that I find out that while I was sleeping  ( I’m on a lot of meds because I am dealing with a cardio/pulmonary condition ) What at first seemed like several gun-toting people had shot more than several police officers during a “Black Lives Matter” rally ..killing at least five. .I am in my mid sixties….we have been here before.        The years 1969 and 1970 were some fierce times. Police brutality and abuse have led to the formation of the Black Panther Party a few years before. The Party started out as a reaction to police brutality and cruelty in the extreme..And yes, the police were what we in those days called “trigger happy”..I feel compelled here to say that even in those days there were police officers who felt bewildered by the behavior of their fellow officers. And in the part of the country where I lived every year you would hear about some officer who “broke the code” and complained about excessive force used by some other officer…most of the time these people ended up leaving the force. We began to hear about these “whistle blowing”  cops less and less…I now assume that it does not happen any more..The Black Panther Party in the beginning would follow police around, and when the police stopped a driver or confronted a citizen for any reason we would observe the situation and make sure the police followed procedure. This alone could be called a revolutionary action…in case you don’t know…..it got a lot worse. As the years went on the government began to position itself more and more in opposition to the BPP. We began to be raided ..ambushed and murdered at an alarming rate….and as time went on partially out of frustration but we know now partially because of people planted among us for the purpose of agent provocateur. There came to be people who wanted to declare “war” on police…punish them for every incident of abuse….Now let me say here that this is NOT a history of the Black Panther Party…I’m just setting the stage to tell you about how some very specific events came to happen. By late 1969, I began to meet people..some had been in the BPP at some point often having been thrown out…but even more who had never been a part of the Party. People who were trying to form underground armies..and Police assassination brigades.  And yes …some people who I knew or had met actually carried out some of these actions..the most spectacular was when police were called to an address and got there and picked up a package in the room and it exploded. I was told later that this was an “initiation”..There are many of these people still being hunted by the government today…This is the memory that sent waves of fear through my body..Because I remember what happened after that…it became open season on Black activist of all kinds. I lost many really good friends and many people including myself went into exile moving to Cuba, parts of Africa and the Middle Eastand to South America …..some live there still ..in places I won’t talk about….did it make police behave any better toward citizens ? …..no…What it taught us is that when you live inside the cruelist most violent country in the world ..that society will spare no expense to preserve the status quo…and will throw both caution and morality out the window..to crush what opposes it. These actions brought down on even peaceful “non-violent” activists The full wrath  of American Law enforcement. Well over a hundred people were killed who had NOTHING to do with any police ambush action..No little brigade of nuts who hate cops and start shooting them, ambushing them will succeed at changing the behavior of what we used to call the “Occupation army” of the oppressor…Okay that’s just one small part of what needs to be said before the idea to some how to retaliate against the police takes hold of some poor soul…it’s a road we have traveled down before…and I remember the consequences too well. There is more to say about the events of the last few days …For instance what’s broken with our police force and how or can we fix it…That’s tomorrow

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