From The Final Call Newspaper

We Must First Be Brothers! The Black Panther Party and Organization Us work toward peaceful progress in San Diego
By Charlene Muhammad, National Correspondent
- November 29, 2022





SAN DIEGO—When the Us Organization and the San Diego Original Black Panther Party, two of the leading Black Nationalist movements in America, came together on stage at the World Beat Cultural Center in Balboa Park, it was more than symbolic.

It gave way for reconciliation and a forward movement toward empowerment. It is a legacy for future generations, documenting how Black men and youth, with bloodshed between them, can settle their differences and unite for a cause greater than themselves.

“I know God has blessed us to do it, because we’re here, after all these years. We’ve been trying and couldn’t do it, but we got it. We’re going to do it today,” said Henry Wallace V, San Diego Original Black Panther Party Chairman.

“As you know, reconciliation was one of the main principles of the Million Man March, along with atonement and responsibility. And as I wrote in the Million Man March Mission Statement, ‘it is in and through reconciliation that we can embrace, stand together, organize our community and solve the problems in it, harness our energies for maximum development and struggle to end injustice and create a just and good society,’ ” said Dr. Maulana Karenga, Chair of Organization Us and Professor and Chair of the Department of Africana Studies, California State University Long Beach, via Zoom video.

Other participants included Seba (teacher of high moral integrity) Chimbuko Tembo, co-associate director of African American Cultural Center (Us) and Seba Tulivu Jadi, co-associate director of African American Cultural Center (Us); Nation of Islam Student Minister Abdul Waliullah Muhammad of Muhammad Mosque No. 8 and coordinator of the reconciliation; Original Black Panther Party of San Diego members Ibrahim, Minister of Education; William X Upton (Historian) and Patrick Germany, Minister of Defense.

“As we said in the agreement, this is ‘an initial but important step toward reconciliation and as a model and encouragement for others. We, also, take this beginning step to help rebuild community unity and to aid in rebuilding the overarching movement to expand the realm of freedom, justice and other shared goods in our community, society and the world,” said Dr. Karenga. “And we do this also in hope that other organizations and groups with similar conflicts might find the strength and will to reconcile their differences as we have,” said Dr. Karenga.

Silence permeated the air as members collectively read the “Reconciliation Agreement Between Organization Us and the Original Black Panther Party of San Diego, California,” and it continued until the fourth and final original copy was signed.

Applause erupted when Seba (moral teacher of ancient Egypt) Tembo and Chairman Wallace stood up and bowed to each other. She extended her right hand. He clasped hers, likewise. Simultaneously, they uttered soft-spoken, congratulatory words as they shook hands with a conviction that penetrated the air.

Some attendees cried. Some held up Black Power fists. A few sat still, speechless throughout the intensely spiritual and cultural Balboa Park venue, founded by “Mama” Makeda ‘Dread’ Cheatom. Organizers thanked her, along with all who made the moment possible and agreed with it. “This is really good, we’re coming together in unity,” said Mama Makeda. “It’s really important that we keep our spiritual values that have been taught to us,” she told The Final Call.

Willie Hutch’s 1973 Motown R&B hit “Brothers Gonna Work It Out” played over loudspeakers. Later, Sam Cook’s 1963 “A Change Is Gonna Come” serenaded attendees during an intermission, while they enjoyed a scrumptious meal prepared by Mama Makeda and her staff.

The signing occurred on October 22, seven days after the 27th Anniversary of the Historic Million Man March on October 16. On that day in 1995, nearly two million Black men answered the call that came through the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam.

“I wanted to do something to show Black youth were not what Hollywood said we were. God blessed us to show Black America was not what we had been made out to be on the silver screen,” said Minister Farrakhan in The Final Call, 25 years after the Million Man March as he reflected on that day.

“So, on October 16, 1995, the capital of the greatest nation on earth and in the history of the last 6,000 years became the capital of Black America and Black people in the world. It was a day of tranquility, peace and contentment of mind never before seen in America … .”

During his Million Man March address, Minister Farrakhan laid down the eight steps of the atonement process, toward reconciliation back to Allah (God): point out the wrong; acknowledgment of wrong; confess the fault, first to Allah (God), then to those offended; repentance, which is a feeling of remorse; atonement, or to make amends and reparations; forgiveness by the offended party; reconciliation and restoration; and step eight: perfect union with Allah and with each other.

Although the call came through Minister Farrakhan, it could not have occurred, if it were not for the tremendous working in unity, with Dr. Karenga, the Black Panther Party, and many Black organizations, throughout the country, stated Student Minister Abdul Waliullah Muhammad.

“It was the United States government that broke the movement that would lead to our liberation. So we call to all people of goodwill, that where you can see brothers reconciling, then you and I must grow together, come together to celebrate that and to be bearers of witness of this honor that we see,” he said, referring to the COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) war against dissent, conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under Director J. Edgar Hoover, and the havoc it wrecked on the Black liberation movement.

The agreement documented that before the conflict, The Black Panther Party and Organization Us worked together in Los Angeles and San Diego in the interest of the people and the Black liberation movement. The agreement also recognized and condemned the disruptive devices and destructive role of COINTELPRO.

“Determined to join our effort to achieve and promote reconciliation as a principle and practice between our organizations and in our community, we sign this reconciliation agreement as an initial but important step toward reconciliation as a model and as an encouragement for others,” read William X and Seba Tembo.

This history was made during a two-day celebration of the 55th Anniversary of the Original Black Panther Party in San Diego for Community Empowerment, Oct. 21-22. “The people, themselves, are now rising up to address police killings, brutality and misconduct,” said Chairman Wallace, who joined the Panthers when he was 16.

“We don’t need to do the defense part of it now, and being that we are senior citizens, where we can help our people is food because the kids are still suffering from malnutrition here, in San Diego,” he stated.

“Our reconciliation and this agreement are indeed a model and mirror for those looking for a way out of circles of destructive emotions, thought and practice, a mirror for measurement of the awesome costs to those involved, our community and our movement. And it is a model of how to reach out, reconsider and transform our relations and move forward in operational unity in the interests of ourselves, our people, our liberation struggle and future generations,” Dr. Karenga told The Final Call.

In front of the dais were large posters highlighting the lives and legacies of Robert James Hutton (Lil’ Bobby), George Jackson and Jonathan Peter Jackson, Huey P. Newton and Robert George Seale (Bobby Seale), Fred Hampton, Sr. and Mark Clark, just a few of those slain in the struggle for liberation.

Bloodshed between Us and the Panthers erupted when John Jerome Huggins Jr. (23) and Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter (26), two members of the University of California Los Angeles’s (UCLA) Black Student Union and Black Panther Party, were fatally shot in Campbell Hall in 1969.

Bill Whitfield, member of the Black Panther chapter in Kansas City, serves free breakfast to children, April 16, 1969 before they go to school. Merchants have supplied food and money for the daily meals. The Panthers are a Militant Black group whose members in some cities have been charged with violent activities. The Kansas City Panthers say they keep guns only for defense. (AP Photo/William Straeter)

It was an “incident-accident” that caused a domestic dispute, Chairman Wallace told The Final Call. The FBI turned them against one another, through false information, and misinformation actually set them up with one another to kill each other, he said.

“We must lift up and honor those who died in this cause, on both sides and all of our organizations, as they thought they were doing the right thing,” said Student Minister Abdul Waliullah Muhammad in words relayed from Minister Farrakhan. “Often time, we did not see the hand of the enemy that was in our midst that created the issues that we’ve dealt with,” he said.

Audience applause grew louder as Student Minister Muhammad pinpointed that despite the enemy’s efforts to maintain division, Chairman Wallace and Dr. Karenga came together on their own accord, unified as brothers, and set an example for others to do the same.

“O you who believe, if an unrighteous person brings you news, look carefully into it, in case you harm a people in ignorance, then be sorry for what you did,” he recited from the Holy Qur’an, the Islamic holy book from Chapter 49, verse 6.

Chairman Wallace and Dr. Karenga may have just signed the historic agreement, but it occurred a long time ago, in the making for 27 years, since the Million Man March, added Student Minister Muhammad. The Minister said that this is a pledge, signed from the top, but it’s not reality, he stated.

“The reality must be what we now carry into practice, from the very top from Dr. Karenga and his team, from Chairman Wallace and his team, all the way down to every single member of the organizations to know that this is what God has called for. This is what the ancestors have called for, and you and I must honor that call and that you and I must work for unity,” added Student Minister Muhammad.

A Black History Month roundtable forum is in the works for 2023 so Chairman Wallace and Dr. Karenga may discuss their efforts toward reconciliation and future plans to help people to eradicate fear and paranoia of each other.

“The importance of reconciliation is we must learn to forgive each other,” stated Chairman Wallace. “Now, if we can do it, then others can do it, especially our brothers that call themselves Bloods and CRIPS,” he told The Final Call. He feels the so-called street gangs started off on the right path of trying to fill in the gap for Us and the Panthers, but got turned around and twisted, undoubtedly victimized by the same governmental wartime tactics used against Us and the Panthers, he pointed out.

“You notice every time they go to do a truce, the truce gets derailed! Well, the government ain’t trying to have them to reconcile with each other. They love our community being in a state of confusion and in fear of one another,” stated Chairman Wallace. “Let’s get back to some semblance of the ‘60s, where we donned our afros and our dashikis and we were bumping each other’s fists and hugging each other … to where I can just walk out and shake your hand, don’t even have to know you, and love you for who you are. We didn’t even have to know each other.”

(Final Call Staff contributed to this report.)

From The Final Call Newspaper

War, bloodshed and hope dim for resolution in Russia-Ukraine conflict
By Brian E. Muhammad, Staff Writer
- November 22, 2022





War and carnage continue raging in Eastern Europe. World leaders wrestle with the fallout and reality that after nine months of fighting between Russia and Ukraine, there still appears little promise of a peaceful resolution. In addition to the crisis in Europe, governments in other world regions are accumulating weapons of war and marshaling their armies.

All the preparation comes amid a time a dreaded “war to end all wars” referred to as “World War III” or “Armageddon” in the scriptures, which is ever-present on the horizon.

The turmoil can be understood in the light of scriptures and the writings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam and his student and National Representative, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. They warn that White world rule is facing divine judgment from Allah (God) Himself. White world rule is facing divine judgment from Allah (God) Himself.

For years both men cautioned the nations that the prophesied time for universal change has arrived. It’s the “breakup of an old world” of White supremacy, tyranny, oppression, and exploitation to a new world set up on freedom, justice, equality, and peace. They also warned about the dreaded war of Armageddon.



“The Honorable Elijah Muhammad defined the word ‘Armageddon’ in these words: The first three letters say ‘arm,’ and the arm is that which does the will of the mind. It is the manifestation of what is in the mind. ‘Arma’ means armies and arms,” said Minister Farrakhan, during the World Day of Atonement and first anniversary of the Million Man March, held at the United Nations Plaza in New York City on October 16, 1996.

In words that still stand true in 2022, the Muslim leader warned that the deeds of nations are moving them toward that fateful battle.

“The governments of the nations are buying arms and building armies and these armies are gathering together. Armageddon means: armies gathering together armed for doom,” Minister Farrakhan explained.

Finger-pointing after missile lands in Poland

Europe has reached a dangerous juncture that’s pushing White world rule closer to an abyss and manifest fall. There is no doubt the Caucasian world is imploding, racked with political uncertainty, dissatisfaction, anti-government protests, stifling inflation, and an energy crisis spurned by the Russia-Ukraine conflict exposing serious fault lines in Europe’s stability.

The barometer of anxiety about wider war shot to 10 in the Russia-Ukraine conflict when Polish media reported that “Russian missiles” hit the Polish village of Przewodow, near the Ukrainian border, killing two people on Nov. 15. World leaders went into overdrive to decide if the act was deliberate or accidental and where the missiles actually originated.

At first Poland, several eastern European countries and Kiev pointed the finger at Moscow. Russian defense officials refuted the charges on Telegram and dismissed the claim as “deliberate provocation.”

The initial reaction from U.S. President Joe Biden was carefully worded, touting the act as “explosions” rather than missile attacks. Mr. Biden held an emergency meeting of leaders who were gathered in the Southeast Asian nation of Bali for the G20 Summit which also included the G7 bloc of nations.

Polish and NATO officials determined the missiles did not originate in Russia but were defense missiles fired by Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected Poland’s findings and vehemently accused Russia. He called for a joint investigation including Ukraine, led by Poland and America.

“I believe that we have the right to this. Is it possible not to announce the final conclusions until the investigation is completed? I think it is fair. If someone says that this is our rocket, should we be in a joint investigative group? I think we should, it is only fair,” said Mr. Zelenskyy reported CNBC.

Though the missiles were not Russian nor deliberate, America, NATO, and Poland said Russia bears ultimate responsibility, reasoning the act resulted from Russia’s “illegal war” of aggression.

Heightened anxiety stems from Poland being a NATO country, which compels the entire military alliance to respond militarily under the Article 5 rule in NATO’s charter. That would mean World War III.

Fears of spillover into NATO countries are real, say war experts.

“It’s very dangerous,” said Dr. Gerald Horne, professor of history at the University of Houston.

Worry loomed that America—a nuclear power—and NATO could be drawn into direct combat with Russia, another nuclear power. Saber rattle about nuclear weapon use has been constant, and although always pulled back, it is a dangerous possibility sparked by a misunderstanding or miscalculation and remains high, say observers.

“By some measures, Russia has more nuclear weapons than the United States,” said Dr. Horne. “So, this is exceedingly dangerous,” he said.

War-wearing countries

Besides miscalculations potentially plunging Europe into all-out war, weary discontent is rising among the European populace. People are upset with governments supporting a foreign war while debilitating inflation decreases food and fuel security at home.

Minister Farrakhan had described such a circumstance as dissatisfaction and a “universal cry for justice” against tyranny and inequality.

The Civil Unrest Index 2022 report released by Verisk Maplecroft, a United Kingdom-based firm that watches such trends, predicts that out of 198 countries, the risk of social unrest will increase in 101 countries due to the global economic crisis.

According to the firm, supply disruptions and the war triggered disruptions causing record inflation in many countries. Data covering the last seven years revealed that the last quarter of 2022 shows the world is facing an unprecedented rise in civil unrest, in the largest number of nations since the firm released the index in 2016.

The impact is clear across the globe, with popular discontent over rising costs of living due to rising food and energy prices, appearing on the streets stretching from Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Volatile anti-government demonstrations erupted from France to Romania, with workers demanding better salaries to keep pace with rising costs. In Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, protesters are urging the government to redo fiscal policy to mitigate unaffordable fuel and food costs.

The protests show the big talk and swag of western leaders about backing Ukraine and breaking Russia is detached from a growing unwillingness of the European street to bear the weight of war. Observers predict suffering from the economic and energy crisis will worsen as winter sets in. Analysts expect Europe will experience a winter of discontent.

Some see America as a culprit in their dilemma. The Biden administration led the charge in urging European leaders into the “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions on Russia, widely seen as a major cause of the energy crisis. The leaders are going with the program. “But the people are in the streets … saying this doesn’t make any sense,” said Dr. Wilmer Leon, political scientist and host of “Inside the Issues” on SiriusXM Satellite radio Urban View 126.

“So, there’s this growing chasm between the interests of the people and the interests of the ruling political elite,” said Mr. Leon.

Others criticize America for the financial and material resources afforded Ukraine amid its own skyrocketing costs of living and looming recession. The dissatisfaction expressed in Europe will soon be expressed in America as the leading benefactor of arms and aid for Ukraine. Europe’s unraveling is the fall out of America instigating Europe’s headlong alienation of Russia, while Europe was heavily dependent on Russian energy.

“We going to see who’s alienated when those White folks in Europe start getting cold and start getting hungry and asking their leadership: We’re following the United States down this rabbit hole for what?” said Mr. Leon. “Explain to me why we’re doing this,” he said.

With America in the center of the fray, Dr. Horne said: “This crisis is also exposing … some of the weaknesses of the Black American leadership, which oftentimes is not focused on foreign policy.”

“It’s been quite disastrous,” he argues. “Given the fact that Black Americans are tied so closely to the Democratic Party … the leadership and organizations oftentimes don’t focus on foreign policy,” Dr. Horne expressed.

This allows war-hawks to dominate policy and push America into World War III, meaning the extinction of humanity, not to mention people of African descent.

“I think that the problem with the Black community worldwide … is viewed as the anchor of a Democratic Party which wages war by proxy in Central Europe,” said Dr. Horne.

There is a perception that the GOP is not as sold on Ukraine, with some lawmakers even “posing as avatars of peace,” he added.

Earlier this month, incoming House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) stated he supports Ukraine, but not issuing a “blank check.” The Democratic Party, overwhelmingly supported by Black people, is perceived as the party of war.

“That does not help us in the international community where our African brothers and sisters obviously are not interested in World War III … so our policies are inconsistent with what our community needs,” added Dr. Horne.

President Biden asked Congress for another $37 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine on Nov. 17. Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that more than three-fourths of the $40 billion approved by Congress earlier this year for Ukraine has already been disbursed or committed.

“Billions of dollars of our tax money is going to Ukraine,” Dr. Horne told The Final Call.

America has not found a magic Dollar Tree with an infinite sum. Every dollar that’s going to Ukraine is fewer dollars for K through 12 education and healthcare. “When our leaders don’t focus on the Pentagon budget, which soaks up most of our tax dollars, they’re basically saying, it’s okay,” said Dr. Horne.

Minister Farrakhan warned during his World Day of Atonement message that this most destructive of all wars is at hand and the “window of opportunity’s very narrow,” but perhaps can be averted if the nations will hear the Word of Allah (God).

“In fact, we have entered into the door of this great cataclysmic war that will take down almost all of the human family of the earth,” said Min. Farrakhan. “In fact, this time period is prophesied to bring about such destruction, that it is written in the Bible that if these days were not shortened for God’s elect sake, no soul would be left alive on earth,” he added.

In a message early this year, the Minister explained that the war of Armageddon starts with a Messenger of God teaching people the truth. Then people fall on either side. “If you disbelieve the truth then you will continue in your way,” he warned.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad described the current time as terrible. “It is a very dreadful time that the populations of the earth are now living in,” wrote Elijah Muhammad in his monumental book, “Our Saviour Has Arrived,” published in 1974.

On page 212, He compared the motion of change to the fall of ancient Babylon, a wicked nation of the past destroyed for its evil.

“ ‘At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth is moved, and the cry is heard among the nations.’ Here the Bible teaches us, and we see today, at the fall of the old world, there is a great noise of war, the fighting of war, the destruction of nations, towns, and cities and the killing of their citizens,” wrote Elijah Muhammad, referencing the biblical book of Jeremiah 50:46.

“There is disagreement and confusion of the heads of nations,” he further wrote.

Mr. Muhammad explained this is the time for the destruction of an entire world. However, America is first for her record of injustices done worldwide, and domestically to the Black once-slaves and Indigenous Native American populations, that still goes unanswered.

The Earth, land, and sea are set in battle array. Every type of deadly weapon is fashioned and is now being used against man and man. The nations are reeling from the corruption their hands have shaped.

“There cannot be any peace for man under these conditions,” wrote the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He warned that the actions of the world leaders have angered God and His chastisement is now present.

From The Final Call Newspaper

Abused Black women and girls are not seen as victims in the American judicial system
By Anisah Muhammad, Contributing Writer
- November 15, 2022





Ashlyn Griffin was a few weeks pregnant with her second child when a domestic violence incident occurred. On June 5, 2020, the Black mother fired two shots at her boyfriend, Brandon McCray, during a dispute at their home in Bulloch County, Georgia. In the eyes of her family, friends and supporters, she killed her abuser. In the eyes of the court of law, she was found guilty in February of one count of aggravated assault and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.

According to The Georgia Virtue, in 2018, Statesboro, Georgia, police charged Mr. McCray with aggravated assault for beating Ms. Griffin while she was pregnant with their first child. “At the time, he choked, strangled, and then kicked Griffin in the stomach,” the publication says.

The mother of two has been incarcerated at a women’s facility in Georgia and is seeking a new trial, according to updates on a GoFundMe page started by her mother, Tina Griffin.

“Now the State of Georgia wants to add my daughter’s name to the long list of women who went from being abused in the home, to being abused and imprisoned by our justice system, just for defending themselves,” Tina Griffin argues. “Why do Stand Your Ground laws only seem to apply to certain men in this country? Meanwhile, women like my daughter are not allowed to defend themselves, even when violently attacked.”



The story of Ashlyn Griffin is not an anomaly. Black women and girls all over the country are fighting for their lives in the court system for killing their abusers. Too often, victims of domestic abuse and sex trafficking are criminalized and penalized when they take matters into their own hands.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam has always instructed Black women and girls to fight back against abuse. “We don’t like to see men abusing women,” the Minister stated in a message, “Save Our Girls: A Nation Can Rise No Higher Than Its Woman.”

“The Honorable Elijah Muhammad gave us a law that no man strikes his wife. How are you going to beat the woman that produces your future? Men should be ashamed to abuse women, but most men who beat and bruise women, yet want sex with them the same night they beat them. Men want to beat women like they are inanimate objects, like trees or a lamppost that a dog will lift its leg to; like women do not have feelings,” the Minister stated in another message titled, “Abuse of the Female.”

“Do you think after you beat up a woman that she really wants to give herself to you? Why would you want to take pleasure from someone to whom you have given so much pain?”

Racial and gender disparities

Stand Your Ground and self-defense laws are not applied equitably to Black women, and they are not designed to protect survivors of domestic violence, says a March 2021 report by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, titled, “Stand Your Ground Laws Increase Gun Violence and Perpetuate Racial Disparities.”

“Most violence against women is perpetrated by a known acquaintance or partner and occurs in the home. Stand your ground laws do not apply to violence that occurs in the home between two people who live together. Likewise, the self-defense statutes that apply to domestic violence situations in the home make it hard for victims of domestic abuse to successfully claim self-defense,” the report says.

“Under stand your ground, often women who can prove that they have been repeatedly attacked by their partner are not afforded the same self-defense protections as someone (usually a White man) who shoots a stranger in public and claims self-defense. This is especially true for Black women who face both the gender and racial discrimination that is rooted in the criminal justice system.”

In a February 2020 briefing report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Ahmad Nabil Abuznaid representing the Dream Defenders testified on how women in domestic violence situations are disproportionately impacted by stand your ground.

“In a recent analysis of FBI homicide data prepared by the Urban Institute comparing stand your ground and non-stand your ground states and examining the use of stand your ground laws in cases involving women defendants, 13.5 percent of cases where a White woman killed a Black man were found justified, whereas in contrast only 2.9 percent of cases where a Black woman killed a White man were found justified,” he said.

Tameicsha X, chief financial officer of the organization Silent Crimez out of Dallas, Texas, is a witness to those statistics. In middle school, she was sexually harassed by a boy on a school bus multiple times. One day, she brought her mother’s Swiss Army knife on the bus with her and attempted to stab the young man. When school officials found out, she was expelled from the school and sent to an alternative school. The boy suffered no repercussions for his actions, even after assaulting another girl on the same school bus.

“Yet, here we are, again, blaming the young Black girl who was assaulted, who tried to defend herself,” Tameicsha X expressed, referring to ongoing cases in the news. “So, this has been going on for years. It didn’t start with me. It won’t stop with these young ladies. But it’s like we’re not seen. We’re not heard. And then we get penalized when we try to protect ourselves because no one else will.”

In Iowa, Pieper Lewis, a Black teenager, was recently ordered to pay her alleged rapist’s family $150,000 and was given five years’ probation. She was only 15 years old when she killed her alleged rapist, Zachary Brooks, in 2020. She argued in her plea agreement that she was sex trafficked after running away from an abusive home environment and had been raped repeatedly by Mr. Brooks.

One of her former teachers raised more than $500,000 in a GoFundMe to help the teenager pay the $150,000 in restitution, to remove financial barriers in pursuing college or starting her own business and to give her the financial capacity to explore ways to help other young victims of sex crimes.

“This is a Black girl who clearly was being trafficked, and the juvenile court judge asked for it to go to the adult court. We just don’t even see Black girls who have experienced this harm as children,” said Dr. Sydney McKinney, executive director of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, to The Final Call.

She commented on the “adultification” of Black girls, especially in cases like Pieper Lewis and Chrystul Kizer. “We have to ask ourselves, why? Why do we have a criminal legal system that refuses to see Black girls as Black girls?” she questioned.

At 17, Chrystul Kizer killed the man she said forced her into sex trafficking. She is now facing a life sentence in Wisconsin. In July, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that the now 22 year old will be allowed to argue self-defense as a direct result of being trafficked.

“Police and other agencies do not see Black women as victims because oftentimes, we’re fighting back. So, we’re not seen as a typical victim like a White woman would be seen, because we’re not cowering in a corner waiting to be assaulted. We’re often fighting back. We’re talking back,” said Crystal Muhammad, lead advocate of The Asha Project.

The Asha Project is a culturally specific organization based in Milwaukee that deals with victims of sexual abuse, domestic violence, sex trafficking and elder abuse. Ms. Muhammad sat in on Chrystul Kizer’s case, which occurred in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The man who abused Chrystul Kizer, Randall Volar, was already under investigation for child sex trafficking and child pornography, and he recorded the abuse of the teenager. He was also abusing about a dozen other underage Black girls at the time.

“Under the law, she was a child, and they convicted her and sentenced her to life in prison,” Ms. Muhammad said. “That’s being overturned now in the Supreme Court case, but she still has to go through the trial, which is crazy. Because we’re not seen as victims. We’re just seen as someone that if we react, we’re the perpetrator, now.”

She noted that Black women are often dehumanized and are not seen as soft, feminine beings who require protection.

“We are the opposite of White femininity, and therefore we are not afforded that same kind of recognition of the kind of harm that we experience,” Dr. McKinney said. “We’re treated differently because we are not perceived as the ideal victim, or deserving victim, or even a victim at all, really.”

Problems with law enforcement

For Danielle X Perkins, founder of Silent Crimez, the way Black women are viewed goes back to the Constitution. She stated when Black women and girls kill their abusers, law enforcement explains it as them having depression and anger issues. Meanwhile, White women, she said, get more attention, more repair, more counseling and more safety.

“A doggone dog has rights. Dogs have rights. You hit a dog, you in trouble. You don’t feed the dog, you’re in trouble. You put the dog in an unconditional or unsafe environment, you get punished for that. But the Black woman does not get the same treatment,” she expressed.

To Ms. Perkins, the first mistake made by law enforcement is not listening.

“When a woman has shot her husband or her boyfriend or just anybody and they ask the question, ‘Well, tell us what happened?’ And she tells her story of how he had hit her or he choked her or hurt the children and they hear her but they don’t listen to what she’s telling them. They go straight and jump into the core of the conversation, which is the murder,” she said.

Sathya Callender from Atlanta is a victim of abuse turned domestic violence advocate. Though she did not fight back, she knows what it’s like to be in Ashlyn Griffin’s situation.

“Do I agree that she should be in prison? Absolutely not. Because now what if he would have took her life? Then what would you have said to her parents or her family? What if she didn’t defend herself? How would that look?” she questioned.

She is now the founder of the nonprofit organization Scars of Survival Inc. and releases a monthly magazine highlighting survivors of domestic violence. She explained that abuse often starts emotionally, mentally and verbally before it escalates into the physical.

“My abuse didn’t start off physical,” she said. “He started off controlling me, calling me names, keeping me from family and friends, saying nobody liked me, nobody loved me. I started believing it. I was in bondage.”

Ms. Callender believes that law enforcement needs to be retrained and that police departments need to have a domestic violence task force. She said she has helped almost 300 families since 2016 and has not heard one good thing about someone calling law enforcement in a domestic violence situation.

“Even when it comes to getting a restraining order, if you go and try to get a restraining order, they’re going to ask you why. And if you say something like well, he threatened to take my life, sometimes that’s not even enough. They want you to have more,” she said. “But here’s the thing. Why would you give a person a restraining order when something severe has happened? A restraining order should be there to prevent something worse from happening. That’s why they’re getting a restraining order, to keep the person from harming them any further.”

Legislation and accountability

Those interviewed by The Final Call agreed Black women need to make their voices heard and Black people need to hold lawmakers and courts accountable.

Ms. Callender wants to get a law passed that would help people like Ashlyn Griffin. She said society needs to become more educated about domestic violence and advised those in abusive situations to leave a paper trail.

“You got to start a paper trail because a lot of times when it comes to defending yourself or fighting for yourself within the justice system, people want to see that paper trail. They want to see the evidence,” she said. “And I feel like if enough evidence is shown and proof is shown of this is what happens when we’re calling the police, this is what happens when X, Y and Z, I think that will start something and help to change things.”

Ms. Perkins was born in the 1980s and witnessed domestic abuse. Her mother was physically abused by her father, and she herself was physically abused by her father and verbally abused by her mother.

“I learned that the loophole is the community and the care,” she said. “We have to learn to care and learn to open our doors. If we see something or you know something, you say something.”

Dr. McKinney and the National Black Women’s Justice Institute are working to advance survivors’ legislation. “That’s legislation that allows judges and prosecutors to take into consideration the kind of harm that Black women and girls who are survivors of gender-based violence experience … taking that into consideration as a mitigating factor during sentencing,” she explained. “And hopefully, helping people understand that rather than punishing people who have experienced harm, that we should be supporting their healing.”

She is also a proponent of attacking the larger social structures that create the conditions in which Black women and girls suffer.

“We can start changing them and create the world that we all want, where Black women and girls can thrive and are joyful and don’t have to be fearful of the harm that they may experience in their homes or in their communities and Black girls don’t have to be afraid of the harm they may experience going to and from school,” she said.

“We can create that world together. But it means that we have to first acknowledge what’s happening so that we can start figuring out what the solutions are, and then our community leads in the creation of those solutions.”

From The Final Call Newspaper

Politics, Self-Interests and the 2022 Midterms 

An unapologetic Black Agenda is the best and only answer
By William P. Muhammad
- November 15, 2022





Reflecting deep political divisions after the closing of Election Day polls, results from the 2022 midterm elections have yet to determine which party will control the U.S. House of Representatives. Vote counts incorporate absentee and mail-in ballots in districts too close to call, and a U.S. Senate runoff election between incumbent Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, is scheduled for December. Whether the Republicans were any closer to flipping the House remained to be seen. At Final Call presstime, Democrats had 204 seats to Republicans 212, with several races still uncalled in the House.

For the Republicans to win the majority, it takes 218 seats. The Democrats maintained control of the Senate with 50 seats with the Republicans now at 49, according to AP. Even if Mr. Walker unseats Senator Warnock in December, making it a 50-50 tie, Vice-President Kamala Harris, would have the tie-breaking vote, giving Democrats the majority.

Regardless of the outcome of the elections on the national level, how Black folks will most likely be impacted is a real question.

Dr. Wilmer Leon, a political scientist, syndicated columnist, and host of “Inside the Issues” on SiriusXM Satellite radio Urban View 126, told The Final Call that the inability of Black America to produce and maintain an unapologetic Black agenda has allowed the two-party system to dictate the affairs and trajectory of Black America. He argued that the election outcome will change little for the masses, although more Black faces are seeking high offices today.

In Florida, Democrat Maxwell Alejandro Frost will be the first member of Generation Z elected to Congress, after winning the open seat for Florida’s 10th Congressional District. Generation Z refers to those born after 1996. The 25 year old who is of Haitian, Cuban and Lebanese ancestry will succeed Democrat Val Demings, who is Black and vacated the seat to run for Senate.

Ms. Demings lost her bid to unseat incumbent Republican Senator Marco Rubio. For the first time, voters in Maryland elected a Black governor. Wes Moore, former head of Robin Hood, an anti-poverty group and a best-selling author, was elected the country’s third Black governor after Reconstruction.

Across the nation, 36 states held gubernatorial elections but only a handful of them featured Black nominees: Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Deidre DeJear in Iowa, Yolanda Flowers in Alabama, Chris Jones in Arkansas, and Moore—all Democrats, and all but Mr. Moore were defeated, reported Politico.

The numbers of Blacks seeking or attaining political offices on local, state or federal level will not make a difference if Blacks are relying on politics alone, note observers.

“There isn’t a Black Agenda, so it means absolutely nothing,” Dr. Leon said of the hype and pressure soon to descend upon Georgia voters to support either the Black Democrat or the Black Republican for the runoff election slated for December 6. “Politically, there is no ‘Black Agenda’ so this really, from that perspective doesn’t mean very much.”

In the wake of a contentious Trump Administration, its nomination and subsequent seating of a solidly conservative Supreme Court, and its string of recent decisions overturning decades of precedent connected to Fifth Amendment protections and Affirmative Action, the need for a proactive and unapologetic Black Agenda cannot be stressed enough and requires a serious shift of priorities and thinking.

“First of all, what has to change is the people’s perception or perspective of our leadership because without pressure from the people, then there’s no motivation for the leadership to change, so what I think we have found, politically, there was a time when the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus) was called the conscience of the Congress, well now I think they are found to be unconscious,” Dr. Leon continued.

Billions of dollars have been allocated by the federal government to launch foreign interventions and to punish smaller nations, particularly those in Africa and the Caribbean, for pursuing their own sovereign interests, he explained. An example of Black political leadership’s failures can be found in the CBC remaining silent on issues that harm Africa and those of the Black diaspora, argued Dr. Leon.

“It’s incumbent upon those “who are being led” to create the ground swell to change the leadership. I think we have gotten the paradigm flipped and we keep looking for the leadership to lead, no, leadership really follows the expressed interests and the will of the led,” he said.

Nearly 50 years ago, the Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, warned on page 37 of his watershed book, “The Fall of America,” that Black people must be aware of opportunists, who seek political office for personal gain, while being mindful of the price for failing to unite in the name of a collective self-interest seeking the betterment of the whole.

“There are Black politicians who would like to use their Black people for selfish greed and will throw them behind any crook with money,” Messenger Muhammad said in his 1973 book. “Black politicians of this type have sold their Black brothers to suffering and shame for self-elevation with a crook. If the present party (Democratic) remains in office, you know the answer. If the Republican party takes over, you should know the answer,” he said.

Nation of Islam Southwest Regional Student Minister Dr. Abdul Haleem Muhammad, of Muhammad Mosque No. 45 in Houston, told The Final Call that regarding socio-political issues, Black people must become more proactive than reactive and that he agreed creating, maintaining, and protecting a national Black agenda is of vital importance if meaningful change is to truly occur.

“It’s not what Black people should be doing at this time, it’s what Black people should be doing leading up to this time, which is setting an unapologetically Black Agenda, of what we want, based upon what we believe, and at that point, we have a criteria by which to judge who to vote for and what to vote for and the means by which to hold people accountable after we voted for them,” Student Minister Muhammad noted.

“At the core of that agenda is a divine solution that expresses itself in political, economic, and social means, and that divine solution comes from God Himself through the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan,” he added.

Regarding America’s partisan divide, over which party will control the U.S. Congress, and Georgia’s December runoff election for the Senate, Student Minister Muhammad stated that Black people must define, develop, and vote their enlightened self-interest while understanding that the electoral process is not just to vote for voting’s sake, but that it is a tool to articulate and implement a collective interest when properly wielded.

“If you don’t know what your own self-interests are, not the Republican self-interest, not the Democrat self-interest, but what is our enlightened self-interest of the Black community and who is going to represent it?” he asked. “If we don’t know it, it’s like voting for Satan or the devil and you’ll wind up with hell from either choice. The young people do not want unfulfilled promises, what they want is substance, and want a substantive change, not a symbolic one and not an empty one,” he said.