If the Marching Shoe was on the Other Foot
Carol Chehade
There are various types of violence. At least two were exhibited on October 15, 2005. The first type of violence is the intent to provoke and the second type of violence is the reaction to that provocation. The intention of the Nazis on that day was not to march with the intent to heal race relations. They protested with the intent of provoking the age-old wounds with salt from the very earth upon which they marched. Unlike the bad old days of the Nazis, today’s Nazis rarely strike with the first physical punch. They are smarter than that now. No rights to white supremacist groups means that they no longer have the same rights to lynch any black person who annoys them. Instead, like boxers they will talk, march and inflame until the other boxer takes the first physical blow. Meaning, the Nazis did not come into a black community to heal our dysfunctional relationship with race. Rather, they came to exploit our weaknesses in confronting this spreading racial wound. And anyone, black or white, who calculatingly spreads an infectious and deadly wound, especially when presented with the opportunity of dissecting it, is guilty of violence.
Do I believe the black neighborhoods must uplift themselves? Of course, but uplifting self also requires understanding external issues that helped whip the self into the pit of depression, poverty, illiteracy and fragmented families. The black community where the march took place reacted to that provocation, as they should have, but not by exploiting the stereotypes of criminalization that they are carrying in a racist society that handed them the baggage of institutionalized racism then blames them for not carrying that load with a Sambo-like smile. To my black brothers and sisters who took part of the riot, know thyselves and the history that helped shape what it means to be both an African and an American. Reacting to provocation should have taken a more Machiavellian shape. A shape that uses the exact legal rights the Nazis took to march. Instead of rioting, a counter march should have been organized. The type of march that flips the script onto the very people who supported the marchers and condemned the reactors.
Imagine this: A black-dominated march to peacefully express the disdain for a plethora of issues facing struggling communities. This march would NOT take place in the neighborhoods that suffer these struggles. Instead they would be done in neighborhoods that help perpetuate these inequities through ignorance and indifference. Let’s say a wealthy, mostly white neighborhood whose protected communities lock out the realities of the outside by keeping “undesirables” out of their white-gated paradise. Thus, perpetuating a universal ghetto mentality that refuses to understand what exists outside our respective backyards. These marchers would carry Black Pride signs, demanding black rights and questioning both themselves and others as to why the inequalities still exist. Let’s make it interesting. There will even be poor whites, who see that their rights are also linked to those of poor blacks, also marching along in solidarity. I will even be easy on your imagination and make compromises. Instead of black militants, these marchers will simply be politically moderate black people. If we are to follow the precedent of the Nazis, then the Black Rights March would be perfectly consistent and legal. Yet, we know better and anyone who understands even an ounce of race relations knows that the outcome of black demonstrators in a white area would make the Oct. 15 riot look like a school yard scuffle.
The Nazi march was symbolic of many of the barriers we have yet to overcome for a better democracy. The Nazi marchers are not simply a bunch of individuals who hate black people. They have consciously affiliated themselves with one of the world’s most notorious political terrorist organizations which systematically exterminated millions of lives- both black and non-black. All black riots in our history combined have not killed nearly as many whites as white supremacists alone have killed blacks. I can not think of any other terrorist organization that would have been allowed to march in the United States. Yet, this isn’t about their right to march. Rather, it is about recognizing and acting upon our right to act and react intelligently.
There will be other marches by the white supremacists. The Nazis frighten me less because they are so overt about their issues. What frightens me more is that the Nazis are simply fanatical expressions of the various levels of racism both personalized and institutionalized. The Nazis demanding white power from a system built upon that tenet is redundant. Furthermore, if blacks are supposedly lazy, crime-prone and ignorant, then how can they possibly be powerful enough to thwart white rights?
It bothers me less that the Nazis feel they can march down streets where they do not live, socialize or work and bothers me more knowing what the outcome would be if the roles were reversed. If racial arrogance can be perpetuated by the Nazis, then it should be able to be applied by any other group that feels the same without worrying about the double standards in terms of consequences.
In fact, I think it’s actually smart to march in the problematic areas with which you are having problems. After all they can’t hear you if you do it somewhere else. If I wanted the President to hear me out, then I would march in Washington D.C. The underlying problem lies in the fact that the Nazis are one of many groups that do not understand the root of oppression. The fact that we have black areas and white areas is a major sign of oppression. One of the biggest indicators of an undemocratic society across the world is the apartheid like separation of ethnic groups, religions and genders: Tutsi/Hutu; Hindu/ Muslim; men/women. Through dividing human beings, a plethora of crime and corruption rules the segregated terrain. Militias, rebel groups and gangs flourish in damaged societies as a way to gain some imagined sense of power and turf. They can be as disastrous as rebel groups in Chechnya, killing thousands of citizens or as tragic as gangs in Toledo’s poor neighborhoods lost in understanding as how to organize their voice.
In an increasingly elitist system, neither poor whites not poor blacks can afford to turn to violence, especially because neither group has money to militarily fight any group without getting themselves killed first. It is akin to Palestinian throwing rocks when the other side has missiles. We must be intelligent enough to understand where our power would better flourish. Not through a trigger reaction toward violence, but through triggering our understanding that we have power which we are entitled to exercise. Yet, like anything that is not exercised, our power weakens until we forget how to implement what we own- our rights.
White supremacists, like some blacks who turn crime inward into their own communities, clearly do not understand power. Instead the races are too busy dividing themselves from one another until they cannot see the damage disunity creates. The step before racial unity requires dismantling lies about who we think we are. In other words, selling us White Pride would be honest if the majority of Nazis were, indeed, white. To my Nazi brothers and sisters, if you want to see your real enemy, you must also know thyselves first. White supremacists do not even understand that despite all of their White Pride signs, they were never considered white by the system of elites who simply use them as conscripted foot soldiers in order to keep all that fiery anger from pointing at the real enemy that oppresses their rights. In fact Hitler’s hierarchy considered anyone not fully Aryan as inferior. Groups like the Polish and Irish were deemed low on Hitler’s racial hierarchy. Ironically, the swastika and the term Aryan have roots in India, but that is a history lesson for another time.
If we look deeper, the Nazis aren’t demanding what is already in place- white power. They are really demanding to be seen as white by a system that has deemed them as not white enough. Blacks just remind white supremacists that they are not far behind blacks on the hierarchy and, certainly, nowhere near the small elite. As a result, it is easier to take out anger on those who you can see versus taking it out on a system you do not even understand, let alone see. The further one is from being legitimately recognized, the louder their screams are to prove that they are worthy. How often do you see a person from the Vanderbilt family screaming white pride? It’s a given they are accepted, poor whites are still trying to fit in. October 15th was simply the offspring of an event that happened in 1676, known as Bacon’s Rebellion. In it, poor European indentured servants and African slaves were in the midst of organizing themselves in a class struggle against elites. The elites saw this and immediately divided them by re-naming these poor European indentures servants white. Thus, giving these otherwise powerless servants a false sense of unity with the white elites, who saw these renamed groups as pawns.
So the next time a white supremacist group takes out a permit to march in someone else’s neighborhood, join them by marching in any neighborhood with whom you want to air out your issues. Underneath the racial smokescreen, we may find out that we have common interests.