"The Radicalization of Black America"

 

That's the title of a very thought-provoking article by David Cole in Taki's Magazine.  He draws an analogy between religious intolerance and social intolerance.  (I hasten to emphasize that he's not speaking of the broad mass of Black people in America, or anywhere else:  he's addressing the radical fringe, those who prefer to riot and burn down and destroy rather than seek constructive solutions to their problems.  Sadly, that radical fringe appears to be in control in many American cities right now.)

According to Younes/Morton, imams who knew that there’s nothing in Muslim law or theology that commands believers to kill infidels who depict Mohammed, purposely spread the lie that such a commandment exists, because it was a falsehood that could spawn a deeper hatred of Westerners, a greater willingness to kill, than something banal like “Their generals are bombing some villagers.” That message is less effective because Muslims like killing Muslims, too, and different varieties of Muslims war with each other every day. But the Mohammed cartoons, that was unifying. It spoke to a common identity shared by all Muslims, be they Sunni, Shiite, Arab, Asian, black, or white.

. . .

“Something sacred to you—the thing that is the very core of your identity—is being profaned and disrespected by people who value their ‘free speech’ rights over your right to protect what is hallowed. Your identity commands you to take up arms.” That’s an argument that stirs passions and engenders hate.

. . .

Once you understand that principle, everything we’ve seen in the U.S. regarding blacks over the past few decades becomes instantly explicable. Black Americans have the highest levels of self-esteem of any racial or ethnic group in the country, yet arguably (on average) they have the fewest accomplishments to back up that narcissism. What a perfect group for leftist “imams” to target with the message that it’s your skin that’s sacred. Your holy skin makes you valuable, not your accomplishments. Those who speak disrespectfully of that skin are blasphemers; it’s your duty to eradicate them.

Essentially, blacks are their own Mohammed. They are their own sacred icon, their own holy prophet. They may be Christian, Muslim, secular, whatever. But they must all fight to protect their hallowed skin from disrespect from infidels.

This is the talking point that crafty race-hustlers are using to radicalize as many blacks as possible.

There's more at the link.

Cole followed that article with another titled "The Curse of Aaron", in which he uses a character in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus to illustrate his point.

Aaron is a black guy who torments, well, everyone. He’s the lover and consigliere of Tamora, the Goth queen who marries the Roman Emperor Saturninus. Aaron is firmly in the catbird seat; he has the ear and affection of the empress, who dominates the weak and ineffectual emperor. Aaron’s got power, riches, and babes. And yet…he’s unsatisfied. Material success is not what matters to him. He despises the whites, foes and allies alike, and he’s driven by a compulsion to destroy their society. He arranges brutal rapes, horrific mutilations, and sadistic murders (he even tricks Titus into cutting off his own hand). He foments the unrest that will eventually bring down his own house. Aaron is, in the words of Titus’ brother Marcus, the “chief architect and plotter of these woes.”

. . .

Why the anger and hatred? By not answering that question, Shakespeare has inadvertently given us the most relevant 21st-century black character of any playwright in history. A character living in a society in which he is afforded all possible opportunities, while—even as he takes advantage of those opportunities—he harbors nothing but hostility toward the majority population, even if he can point to no specific reason why they deserve such enmity. His very identity is based upon hatred of whites. There’s no tidy origin story, no specific wrong that’s being avenged or injury that served as a catalyst for the rage. There’s just an angry black man who looks gift horses in the mouth and yanks their teeth for pleasure. A black man who finds more satisfaction in being at war than he does from achieving success.

A black man who feels entitled to that war, even if he cannot name a single concrete reason why he should be.

Behold the black New York Times and Washington Post and MSNBC journalists and the black Biden administration officials and the black Hollywood producers and the black athletes and academics who live lives that would make most people green with envy, yet who seem to find fulfillment only in antiwhite, anti-West rage.

. . .

For the leftist blacks, whites, and Jews who view themselves as shepherds of the black community, Aaron is the ideal, the goal of all the social engineering and propagandizing. Perpetually furious, blindly hateful, vengeful though not for any wrongs actually incurred, unmollified by opportunity or success, and obsessively focused on “tearing it down” while having no idea what to replace “it” with.

Again, more at the link.

As I said earlier, Cole is talking about the radical leaders of extremist Black movements, not the broad mass of their followers.  When it comes to such radicals, I have to agree with him.  I've seen it as a prison chaplain, and as a pastor.  Such leaders tend to whip up emotion and unthinking nihilism in their followers, using that to justify every new extreme.  Demagogues and "community organizers" know that even though their arguments have no logic or reason behind them, emotion can override that deficiency.  (I almost said "trump" it, but in today's political climate, that name would only make things worse!)

I highly recommend reading both of Cole's articles in full.  They're thought-provoking, and defy political correctness in an attempt to understand the reality behind the violence and savagery we're seeing on our streets.  They certainly shed new light on what motivates the leaders of BLM and Antifa.

Peter