It’s the Fall of 1942 on a dusty road on the island of Guadalcanal. A Japanese soldier is on foot patrol outside of base camp, and he comes upon an abandoned American jeep. But it’s not abandoned. Suddenly he’s face to face with two American soldiers who burst forth, pointing their guns. Each side knows what is at stake, kill or be killed. It’s a war, and there’s enormous racial hatred on both sides. The Japanese soldier instantly weighs the odds, and says to himself “well, if I’m going to die, I’m going down fighting. Maybe I’ll take one of these gaijin with me”. He knows that his chance of winning is 1000 to 1, but he lunges for the American soldier’s rifle. That’s the Battle of Guadalcanal mindset.

Had it been a confrontation between American and German soldiers, there could have been a surrender. Soldiers on both sides had some expectation that they could be taken as a prisoner of war, and when the war is over, they could be freed. That didn’t happen on Guadalcanal. There was no common cultural understanding regarding the concept of surrender.

The “kill or be killed” battlefield mindset was the mindset that Ahmaud Arbery had towards rural White Americans. That’s why Arbery resisted and fought for the rifle despite impossible odds that he would prevail. He believed that if he froze and surrendered he’d be quickly killed, so he might as well fight. 

Most people think the debate is over the conduct of the two White guys. What’s to debate? They were completely wrong to confront Arbery, and that Georgia law giving vigilantes the privilege to perform citizen arrests has got to be repealed. There’s nothing left to debate except Arbery’s conditioned response.

Millions of Black Americans have been similarly conditioned. I can tell by the comments on social media. “Oh, I would have done the same thing”, one said. “I’m so glad someone had the courage to fight back”, said another. Others have commented that he’s a hero for fighting back. Hero? He’s dead and he didn’t even save himself.

Another commented that given that state of race relations in the South, how can one expect a Black man to react otherwise. That was the perspective of an intelligent Black man in law enforcement, Mensa-level, who wants more than anything to see racial problems diminish. I’m speechless.

Black people have been fed a steady and unrelenting narrative that the KKK is rising, that racism is increasing, and that there’s millions of dangerous gun-toting, tobacco-spitting, Trump-voting, Confederate flag-waiving rural White Americans ready to hunt them down and slay them mercilessly. That’s the narrative.

This has gone way too far.  People have really been sold a racial hate narrative.
Despite a few high-profile incidents, race relations in America are nowhere near the level of the Battle of Guadalcanal. It hasn’t been in over 90 years.

Don Lemon, Rachel Maddow, and others have been pushing this narrative for years. It’s entirely for political purposes, and it intensifies with every Presidential election cycle.

The motivating issue is pro-Choice and pro-LGBTQ concerns. These pundits and politicians, and thousands of everyday activists on social media, want as many Black people as possible to be fearful of Whites and Republicans, in order to lock in their Democratic vote. That way candidates who are pro-Choice and pro-LGBTQ can win elections. In the process, a whole lot of folks are being terrorized and used for their votes.

The phenomenal level of stress, hopelessness, and depression that is being planted into the minds of Black Americans is of no concern to those manipulating their votes. The more fearful they are, the more likely they’ll vote. They are constantly fed the narrative that the rural White American is the enemy. This is Exhibit A in the Bahai position that politics is inherently divisive. In some ways, it’s worse than the Jussie Smollett hoax.

Are there racist rural White Americans?  Absolutely. Now show me some crime stats. What kind of violent crimes are rural White Americans regularly committing against Black people? When was the last lynching of a Black person? I saw a video of delivery guy who was stopped trying to leave a gated community in Oklahoma. Unacceptable, but was there a violent crime? Was there any crime? If that racist crap in Oklahoma is the worst thing happening, things have clearly improved.

Around 1912, Blacks were ethnic cleansed out of Forsyth County, Georgia. Innocent people were jailed or lynched, and others got the message. Over several decades, millions of Blacks fled the South. In the suburbs of New Jersey, Blacks were locked out of buying homes in White neighborhoods as recently as the 1980’s. Is anything similar happening today? Nope. Sociologists have taken public opinion polls for decades. Racism by Whites continues to decline for decades. Granted there was a major bump in the road from 1985 to 1995, but the bigger picture has been progress. The best proof is that mixed race relationships and marriages are way up, along with public acceptance of them.

To present a narrative that race relations are deteriorating is simply toxic to our politics and to our entire society. Folks who follow my blog know I despise hate mongering of all kinds. I criticized Donald Trump when he referred to certain foreign countries as shit holes, and again when he lambasted Baltimore. I’m consistent, and I’m fair.

I personally know at least 15 people who are pumping up this narrative on social media. About a quarter of them are devoutly pro-Choice, another quarter are obsessed with global warming and support a New World Order, and a full half are passionate supporters of everything LGBTQ. They know the political equation, and they know they have to instill hate and fear into the minds of Blacks to motivate them to vote their way. What they are doing is a form of terrorism.

I am attempting to imagine the level of terror that Blacks are enduring from decades of conditioning, but I am probably not completely grasping it.

WHO IS COMPLICIT IN THE DEATH OF AHMAUD ARBERY?

Ahmaud Arbery is needlessly dead, and all those reporters, pundits, politicians, and social media kings that pushed the racial hate narrative are complicit in his murder. 

I’m disgusted that people are being indoctrinated with hate and fear in order to manipulate their vote. And I’m even more disgusted that an innocent man died because a political narrative being forced upon Black America conditioned his hopeless response. As soon as he fought for the rifle, he was doomed. Even in the remote chance that he overpowered the McMichael son without being shot, and got control of the rifle, the McMichael father was there with another rifle.

Surrendering is an entirely unacceptable level of social dynamics between unarmed Blacks and armed Whites, but at least he would have lived. If someone points a gun at me, I freeze. It doesn’t matter if it’s a policeman, a thug robbing me, or two White Southerners. I’m not going to feel insulted that my social status is temporarily reduced by my surrender, because preserving my life is the priority. I’m not thinking this is the Battle of Guadalcanal.

The narrative is so powerful and so consuming that millions of people are eager for any event as proof. That’s why there’s been an explosion of hate crime hoaxes. They want to prove racism, and then weaponize the event for use as proof positive in the political arena. That way even more people can be sold the narrative, and the cycle continues, and affects voting patterns. And when good proof goes years without coming, there’s always a Jussie Smollett to fabricate a racial hate crime.

The hate mongering narrative has to end. It needs to be exposed for the terrorism that it is.