When Black Bodies Become Agents of White Supremacy
WORDS: DA'SHAUN HARRISON | ART: FAYE ORLOVE
White supremacy maintains itself by using Black bodies to push and reinforce its ideals.
If Black American bodies -- bodies that have endured some of the most egregious abuses in history -- can be used to delegitimize struggles for liberation, then white supremacists can make claims that oppression no longer exists. The interconnectedness of struggles for liberation around the globe can be separated when/if white supremacy can weaponize the identities of people who have been at the crux of global domination. The term “black-on-black crime” has been used to demonize and delegitimize the Black Liberation Movement. While the harm Black individuals encounter during daily survival are frequently used to justify the flawed concept of “black-on-black crime,” the audacious nature of white supremacy to use Black bodies to further an agenda for systemic eradication [of people and total movements] is the true “black-on-black crime”, in that Black bodies become agents of the machine -- white supremacy.Black people have been the moral compass in regards to political and social issues in America since the beginning of Black existence here.Such a machine constructs institutions like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which is the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group on Capitol Hill. Its biggest role is to ensure the funding of the gradual genocide of the Palestinian people. What is not well-known is how AIPAC has recently recruited Black politicians and students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities in an effort to collude with the ongoing domination of the Palestinian people. I, too, have been asked to sit on this side of the table–the side that is recruited so AIPAC can reach its Black quota and push its political agenda. However, once I made it clear that I fully supported liberation for Palestinian people, I received a phone call from a Black employee disinviting me from last year’s AIPAC Conference. Through this experience and the more recent event (read: drafting) of Bakari Sellers and fifty-nine other Black politicians signing a letter to undermine Cornel West’s attempt to endorse Palestinian freedom, the conclusion can be made that Black bodies are only useful when needed to undermine the struggle for freedom. Cornel West is not alone in the commitment to Palestine’s liberation. This fidelity has been a long-standing relationship with Black radical tradition; wherein Black radical thinkers and leaders have not only faced opposition from White bodies but from Black bodies at the behest of white supremacy. [caption id="attachment_2210" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]

We see that white supremacy requires anti-blackness to be clothed in black face (read: drag) in order to maintain itself.Sellers and many other Black politicians and political leaders have been called by AIPAC to serve as political representatives of Black pro-Israel bombast. In his letter, Seller emphasizes that Clinton, as First Lady, US Senator, Secretary of State and then a presidential candidate, "has long understood and nurtured America’s ties with Israel." He quotes her saying that "the alliance between our two nations transcends politics" and that the US and Israel "are both nations built by immigrants and exiles seeking to live and worship freedom, nations built on principles of equality, tolerance, and pluralism.” Sellers also echoed Israel's pinkwashing -- the presenting of a state as queer-friendly in order to dismiss its violent reputation -- propaganda, presenting it as a beacon of LGBTQIA+ rights and feminism. White supremacist tools like Sellers don’t only exist in the dark halls of DC; they also exist in the seats that hold power over our cities. Peachtree-Pine is the largest homeless shelter in the southeast region, housing hundreds of people a night. Some of Atlanta’s oldest neighborhoods are those surrounding Turner Field: Summerhill, Mechanicsville, Peoplestown, Pittsburgh, and Grant Park. So it is a wonder, with sixty-seven percent of Atlanta’s council being Black, serving under a Black mayor, why the council (specifically Kwanza Hall) would introduce an ordinance to shut down Peachtree-Pine and build a police precinct in its place; and why the city would sell Turner Field to Georgia State University without a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), thusly displacing the Black residents surrounding the stadium. From City Council meetings being shut down to the ongoing fight against gentrification through #TentCityATL -- made indefinite after the March Against Gentrification -- residents have made it a point to resist white supremacist policies even and especially when they are being pushed by Black politicians. [caption id="attachment_2213" align="aligncenter" width="787"]
