Anyone who watched the 2019 Academy Awards Ceremony could not help but notice a big emphasis on the African-American Community and its history. Meanwhile, as the Oscar Ceremony was taking place, the US Central Intelligence Agency began highlighting the film “Black Panther” on its twitter page. Back in 2016, the world saw a performance at the halftime show of the Superbowl that paid homage to the Black Panther Party. A naive leftist prefers to say “look, we have made so much progress” and “look what the movement has accomplished.”
However, those with more political depth realize that the major US TV networks, Hollywood, and the CIA have not simply awakened to become more racially conscious. In reality, a sinister manipulation of the Black Power movement and racial resentment is being carried out in order to serve the interests of certain sections of the US power structure.
Black Power in the Old & New Cold War
The year of 1955 is rather pivotal in the history of African-Americans in the United States. It is the year that Emitt Till, a young Black man, was brutally murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. It is also the year when the Montgomery Bus Boycott demanding equal access to public transportation began in Alabama, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became a national figure.
1955, when talk of changing the treatment of African Americans and enacting civil rights legislation was finally allowed to permeate the national conversation, was also shortly after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, but prior to the rise of Khrushchev at the 20th Party Congress in 1956.
The Soviet Union had utilized the image of Emitt Till’s mutilated body for propaganda purposes, showing the USA to be hypocritical in its critique of Communism. The Soviet-aligned Communist Party USA had long stood alone in championing African-Americans, and many prominent black activists including W.E.B. Dubois, Paul Robeson, Claudia Jones, and Bayard Rustin had been associated with it.
The northern wing of the Democratic Party began openly championing civil rights in the hopes of improving the image of the United States around the world, and securing the loyalty of Black Americans to the US power structure. There was intense fear that African Americans would side with the Communists in the event of a national emergency or invasion, and these fears intensified when Robert F. Williams “Radio Free Dixie” began broadcasting calls for Black revolution into the southern United States from Cuba.
The northern liberals clashed with the southern “dixiecrat” wing of their own party, as well as the Republicans. The power of television was key in swaying public opinion in opposition to Jim Crow system and in favor of the Federal Civil Rights and Voting Rights laws passed in the early 1960s.
However, after the Civil Rights laws were passed, Black activism escalated. Martin Luther King Jr. began advocating economic reforms and organized a “poor people’s campaign” prior to his assassination. Civil Rights activist Stokely Carmichael began openly championing the concept of “Black Power” and the political empowerment of African Americans. The Black Panther Party emerged as a Marxist-Leninist organization, putting the Black movement into the context of third world anti-colonial uprisings.
The “Post-Racial” Era
The Nixon administration enabled the FBI to crush the Black Panther Party and the more militant elements of the Black nationalist movement, whereas his predecessors under Kennedy and Johnson had favored a more conciliatory approach. However, Nixon also enacted affirmative action policies in federal hiring and beginning in the 1970s, and efforts to include Black Americans in TV programs, government jobs, and other previous un-penetrated areas took place.
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, the mantra of the US government became one of “getting over racial divisions” and “learning to be colorblind.” Both Democrats and Republicans echoed a mantra of anti-racism, though Republicans tended to use “dogwhistles” about “forced bussing” and “welfare mothers” in order to win the support of resentful whites.
Figures like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton operated on the margins of the Democratic Party as public figures championing their people within a broader, liberal coalition. Various Black conservatives also emerged, such as US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
The Obama Presidency seemed to be the climax of the mantra of “post-racialism.” Barrack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Campaign involved the widely hailed “More Perfect Union” speech that seemed to argue that racist whites and resentful Blacks both had legitimate grievances, but Obama would make “one America” where all would live in harmony and prosperity.
However, by the time Obama had left office, racial strife had reached levels unseen since the 1970s. The murder of Trayvon Martin, the rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, the slogan “Black Lives Matter” and the rioting in Baltimore, Maryland, showed that the Obama presidency failed overwhelmingly in its stated goal of creating “one America.”
Trump’s Presidential Campaign in 2016 specifically pandered to whites who feel that the Obama administration and the Black movement is a personal affront to them. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party ran TV ads linking Trump to the Ku Klux Klan and White Supremacists, and the allegation that Trump is fascist, Nazi, or white nationalists seems to be a prevalent theme among left-wing TV programming and media.
Spike Lee’s World View
The film “Blackkklansmen” directed by Spike Lee was widely celebrated at the 2019 Academy Awards, and Lee’s acceptance speech was seen as a pivotal moment in the ceremony. Lee’s film tells the story of a young Black police officer who works as an informer, spying on Black radicals in Denver, Colorado. The officer then begins infiltrating the KKK, and speaking with Grand Wizard David Duke over the phone,.
The only non-racist white person in the film is Jewish. At one point, he tells the Black officer that observing the Ku Klux Klan has forced him to truly reckon with his Jewish identity. The Black officer is able to move up in the police force through his work against the Klan, and is able to punish a particularly racist officer who had earlier mistreated him.
The message of the film is pretty simple. Black people face a huge threat from lumpen, impoverished white people who are inherently racist to their core. The answer is for Blacks to get jobs inside of the government, cooperate with federal agencies and Zionists, in order to fight off the imminent threat poised by impoverished whites.
The film is the height of anti-populism. The notion that the poor whites could be allies against the capitalist ruling class, a common theme in Marxist and Leftist rhetoric from times past, has been completely abandoned. The notion is that all victories for Black people come at the expense of poor whites and vice-versa. Black people should prove that they are more effective allies for the Federal government and Zionists than low-income whites are. The hope is that the federal government can be purged from a kind of racist conspiracy from within that has damaged it.
This worldview very much explains the thinking of certain factions of the American ruling class. They see Trump’s rallying of low-income whites and his opposition to globalist trade deals as a threat. They likewise see Trump’s support among Immigration officers, local cops, gun owners, and other sections of society as dangerous.
The hope of one section of the ruling elite, is to use the Black community as a battering ram, to beat down Trump’s right-wing populist movement, and secure the ruling of international corporations.
Just as Trump has used poor whites and their grievances and vehicle to push the agenda of his backers, Trump’s rivals see Black people as their own vehicle, to beat him back. As Hollywood and the CIA give voice the grievances of the Black community while demonizing poor whites as “fascists” seems to be fully on board with this project.
The War Against Black Nationalism
However, one key barrier in recruiting the Black movement as foot soldiers for a section of the American ruling elite has been Black Nationalism. While Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and other “civil rights” leaders have been accepted by US media, Minister Louis Farrakhan has always been scorned. He is deemed to be Anti-Semitic, “hateful” and “reverse racist.” The Nation of Islam, the New Black Panther Party, the All African People’s Socialist Party, the Uhuru Movement, and other Black Nationalists see the US Federal Government and capitalist system as their enemy.
So, at the same time that Hollywood, CIA, CNN, and other mainstream voices celebrate the very issues they have organized around for decades, they are simultaneously opening up an attack on these Black Nationalist leaders. Minister Louis Farrakhan was subject to an all-out attack following his “Savior’s Day” gathering in Detroit in 2017. Leaders of the anti-Trump women’s march were criticized by CNN and other outlets simply for attending the event and listening to Farrakhan’s words. Farrakhan’s recent visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran was also utilized to unleash scorn on him.
Black Lives Matter Inc., a non-profit linked to George Soros, has been established, it seems, almost for the purpose of pushing Black Nationalists and Communists out of the spotlight.
Let us not forget that the movie “Black Panther,” celebrated by the CIA’s tweets on Oscar Night 2019, featured heroes who team up with the CIA and fly drones. The villain in Black Panther is not a white racist, but a Black radical named “Killmonger” who seeks to unleash a global anti-colonial revolution.
Much like Spike Lee’s recent film, the message of Black Panther is that the hope of African-Americans lies in proving themselves to be effective tools within the US government apparatus.
Class Solidarity: The Missing Element
Low-income whites and Blacks in the United States have been effectively whipsawed against each other. The message from the establishment, both its left and right wings, is that they should compete for the affection of the ruling elite. Whites and Blacks should both prove that they are best cops, soldiers, and loyalists in order to win the affection of the ruling class, and be enabled to use the government to suppress the other.
Trump supporters tend to advocate policies that would crush African-Americans. Democrats increasingly tend to see low-income whites as “entitled” and “arrogant” people full of white privilege who deserve to be poorer.
To even use the phrase “white working class” is considered to be “fascist” by liberal activists. To acknowledge that racial discrimination or worse conditions exist among African-Americans is met with disgust among Trump supporters.
At one point in US history, the message of populist forces was not that whites and Blacks could only gain at the expense of the other. Rather, the message was that racism and the repression of African Americans was a tool of the ruling capitalist class. The message was that white workers would advance their own conditions by aligning with the Black workers.
This Marxist-Leninist interpretation of the Black question in America has largely been replaced with theories of “White Skin Privilege,” post-modernism, and identity politics. As a result, two big sections of US society seem to be being mobilized to be even more hostile to each other, both used as pawns in a fight among an elite, which gains from the expense of both.
Robert Smith is an independent American researcher and analyst that specializes in social psychology and conflict resolution. He writes especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
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