Watching the news tonight, we note that the president of the Black Police Association has endorsed the expansion of race profiling, the systematic stop and search procedure that haunts young Black brothers daily. It reminds us of what the Nazis used to do to the Jews right before the Holocaust set full steam ahead. Therefore, wonder why a Black British man, an accomplished officer, would advocate that this racist and repressive policy be not simply continued but EXPANDED! Some in our Dread team say this guy must be blind, others are saying that this exemplifies the self hatred that we Black people of accomplishment are encouraged to feel...Is he just then, a victim of an oppressive system?
Whatever the case, this brother has done a great disservice to the race at large and I certainly hope he doesn't speak for the entire National Black Police Association(NBPA), which has traditionally fought against race profiling.
Keith Jarrett has stated that he didn't care how this whole issue went down with the Black Community although he knows many of them strongly disagree. This statement alone indicates the frame of mind of a man who would prefer to go against his own constituency and makeup to take a position that is not reconciliable with his own freedom and that of his children. As a departing president of the NBPA, Jarrett is indicating a need for attention for his organisation. That was the worst way to do this. He has simply shown his irresponsibility and lack of judgement. May he be remembered forever in the history of Afrikans as a defeatist blunder of a man. Those who sought the opinion of an underexposed unpopular president of the NBPA clearly had other goals. They confirmed it through the mouthpiece of David Blunkett who basically endorses Jarrett's untenable position, by saying that if the Black community is asking for this and want to cooperate than the police should not back off when dealing with Black-on-Black crime. They have found another champion for their racist irresponsible policies that will further reinforce the second class citizen status of Black Africans. It reads like a failed play script: Jarrett: "I want fewer freedoms for me and my people!" Blunkett:"This guy says he talks for the whole Black community; He says they want this, so let them have it!"
Yes, in this yet another comedic act of media infiltration by the Neo-Nazi forces upon whose shoulders this system is built, the BBC has caricaturised Jarret by giving great publicity to his views. Surely, if he, one of 'them', agrees that the police need to be stopping 'them', this excuses the entirely racist pretext for the system of race profiling. So much so that the BBC can call good old Home Secretary David Blunkett, who, true to form, then proceeds to open his clumsy grill in support of what amounts to a Neo-NAzi policy. All facilitated and rendered appropriate by Jarrett's statements. Inch by inch, the line that demarcates common humanity is blurred; it is now appropriate, even necessary, to demean this 'troublesome' impoverished Black class that has been created in the wake of failed colonial hegemony.
So, now that it took a Black man who is prepared to say what the white man wouldn't say, they feel 'safe' in saying too. We note that it always takes a weak conscience to awaken that of the majority prejudice. Jarrett is only one of a group representative of our collective shame at the very face, appearance, language and fashion of our youth. What would it take to have good old white folks regard us as ok, safe, acceptable? In truth, to those amongst us who would never admit to having such thoughts, ever, would nonetheless never unleash, through the seat of borrowed power, voiced opinions of racial segregation and cleansing. Because, let us make no mistakes, just as Black men are 6 times more likely to be stopped and searched already, the proportion of those who will also die in custody will also increase as much as the policy advocated by Jarrett will deliver sure death for all young black youth, by sight.
With new laws in the UK allowing ever-longer holding times in prison without charge for terror suspects, and now Blunkett, a major policy maker's, public endorsement for the systematically racist intimidation of the Black British population (who are paying taxes and contributing to society at large), New Labour is smelling ever-more like Apartheid South Africa. It should serve as no surprise since the same forces are at work in both instances; Britain in many ways both initiated and facilitated the massacre and disenfranchisement of Black South Africans in their own land. Now they seek to do the same in Britain. Nazism was an important and destructive force in 20th century history, and now we fear it is rearing its hideous head, and with a vengeance.
We are reminded of the wise words of Brother Bob Marley: "Give them an inch they take a mile..."
One in the struggle
The Dread Team
