Recently, real life super minion and former Milwaukee Sheriff David A. Clarke took to Twitter to express his views on Colin Kaepernick, calling him an opportunist for stepping out and risking his livelihood to bring light to police brutality and oppression.
Let me repeat, he called Kaepernick an opportunist.
But anyone can tell you that Kap has used his own funds to enrich the lives of the disenfranchised in communities across the country. He has not used the people for personal gain, nor has he called upon the names of the bloodied and fallen in some contrived battle cry.
He has done nothing but give of himself amid the very real possibility that he may not play professional football in the NFL ever again due to his kneeling during the playing of the national anthem to shed light on police brutality and social inequity.
David A. Clarke, Jr. on Twitter
When I see Kaepernick in the hood mentoring young black males on making better lifestyle choices then I will know his sincerity. Opportunist
As one may have guessed, Sheriff Clarke was immediately dragged all over the digital dimensions of social media by fans of Kap, as well as enemies of neo-fascism. Admittedly, these days words dont carry the weight they should due in part to contemporary societys very short attention.
Currently, American politics is confusing and disingenuous on purpose. Thus, it becomes increasingly difficult to discern what is truth and what is angrily spewed vitriol meant to confuse facts and blur clear thinking.
For the state-sponsored public servants and spokespersons of color who readily blame their constituents for issues that are the result of generations of social engineering via Jim Crow, Red Lining, the War on Drugs and the historic culling and criminalization of black, brown and red boys, names like house negro, coon and traitor are often rained down upon them with such readiness and fervor that these insults dont even pack the same offending punch that they may have had just a few short decades ago.
Just recently, former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain wrote a letter supporting Housing and Urban Development secretary Ben Carson titled House Negros Stand Up!
If being called a house Negro is what some of us must endure for succeeding in this nation and thinking for ourselves, then let all of the house Negroes stand up and be counted, Cain wrote on his website.
He went on to say this word that many multi-generational black folks believe is synonymous with race traitor is one of the names you get called by other black people when you are a success at something, and you do not buy into black groupthink, or act and say what they want you to say.
The part where he said house negro is one of the names other black people use against you when you are a success at something is laughable and desperate, simultaneously. In this paradigm, to claim house negro as some badge of honor, is to say that Harriet Tubman was wrong, that Malcolm X was wrong, and that all other black souls that died battling against the leviathan of American racism were cancerous outliers that threatened the purity of an otherwise perfect experiment.
At one time, to call someone a house negro was somewhat risqu and cutting-edge. However, with maturity I have come to learn that there are levels to everything. In the weeks, days and years that are behind us, anyone who did not adhere to a very hardline version of blackness would fall into that category once reserved for those whose loyalties and actions placed them at odds with what I understood as blackness or negritude.
Today, with so many different languages, customs, cultural norms and realities encompassed within the African diaspora, I realize that simply disagreeing with reparations or not knowing the hidden history between law enforcement and black men in America does not automatically relegate an individual to the proverbial catacombs of coonery. But, as Ive stated earlier, there are levels to this.
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The term Black Power may not have the same impact on an African brother who was raised under a dictatorship headed by a black despot, or a brother from the Caribbean who grew up in societal disarray as the result of a military coup in which both sides were black. These individuals have witnessed negative forms of Black Power and would understandably have a different understanding of the word than others.
However, from the standpoint of the descendants of African slaves in America who have been historically locked out of political, economic and societal power structures due to race, Black Power is still a rallying cry for the simple fact that there is a lack of it.
Similarly, an individual who grew up in a country in which law and order were lacking due to a crumbling or corrupt municipal infrastructure would likely be in favor of a militarized police force.
Indeed, perspective always matters.
This is why it is very important for those with a platform to remember that there is a great difference between misunderstanding the dynamics of institutional racism, and purposefully acquiescing to it for personal gain.
Clarke, the former Sheriff of Milwaukee County is a registered Democrat, but you wouldnt be able to tell. Originally appointed to his position, he has been one of Donald J. Trumps most rabid supporters, but his track record of what appears to be black-on-black hate is quite extensive.
Indeed, when one sets himself up as a black buffer to white societal norms, it is a curious undertaking at the very least. At the most, a treacherous one. Why? Criticism becomes traitorous and dangerous when we begin to measure your own people using the logic of individuals who would readily see most Black people gone.
Heres Clarkes track record of anti-black demagoguery and dogwhistling:
“Let me tell you why blacks sell drugs and involve themselves in criminal behavior instead of a more socially acceptable lifestyle: because they’re uneducated, they’re lazy and they’re morally bankrupt. That’s why. – 2015
He also called noted journalist Marc Lamont Hill, a black man, a jigaboo via Twitter. This delighted his right-wing fan base.
David A. Clarke, Jr. on Twitter
I am tired of this jigaboo telling black people who they should be, what they should do. He’s a lackey for Democrats https://t.co/XRI5bEPo0F
Black Lives Matter, like the overwhelming majority of American activist groups created by the descendants of slaves, is a think-tank that has been demonized by the right wing since it emerged on the national stage. I cannot say I agree with every move made by BLM, but the former Sheriff seems titillated by the very thought of calling them out.
Clarke has called BLM a hate group, calling for their targeted eradication. He has even gone so far as to urge the Southern Poverty Law Center to include BLM as a hate group.
David A. Clarke, Jr. on Twitter
Before long, Black Lies Matter will join forces with ISIS to being down our legal constituted republic. You heard it first here.
In conducting interviews and writing stories about activist-minded athletes and the impact they may have, juxtaposed against athletes who do not agree with the assertion that there is a historic war on black bodies, I have come to realize that name-calling and blaming only serves to further entrench philosophical opponents in their respective idealism.
However, when you look at Sheriff Clarke – a black man who was registered as a Democrat, appointed by a Republican governor, who allowed a modern day Gulag to fester under his watch, who praises Donald J. Trump and who makes it a habit out of targeting black progressives – how is it possible to see anything else but a coon?
