People of color resist the march to war

By John Price

New York City— “I’m dreaming red, white, and blue in full coloration,” said Piper Anderson, a 22-year old performance artist and activist. She repeated this curious line more than once as she stood on stage last Sunday and gracefully delivered her poem to a standing-room only crowd of anti-war activists at Pier 63 on the Hudson River.

Anderson’s poetic vision of Old Glory is not exactly what one might expect given the sea of red, white, and blue that has waved feverishly across New York City, and throughout the country, over the past two weeks. To the contrary, Anderson is one of thousands -- perhaps millions -- of Americans who have largely gone unheard by mainstream media, but who are deeply concerned by the unquestioning patriotism and fervor of war that has followed the Sept. 11 disaster.

Two days after the unprecedented terrorist strike that left 6,453 people presumed dead, stripping away the blanket of comfort and security of the world’s wealthiest nation, Anderson penned a poem about voiceless people of color across the globe, their struggle against grinding poverty and oppression, and the role of US foreign policy.

"We Americans don’t face the same obstacles that others face,” said Anderson, who moved from North Philadelphia to Brooklyn over a year ago. “I can sit in Starbucks and sip Cappuccino, or wear Gap jeans that are made in a sweatshop far away and never think about the reasons for poverty and oppression around the world.”

"Flag waving has a lot to do with fear,” said Anderson. “When White folks get angry they vent and attack people of color indiscriminately. If you’re not wearing or waving the flag then you’re one of the enemies.”

Anderson also believes the role of the US government in the oppression of other countries is not only hidden by the everyday privileges and distractions of American life but is now “veiled by the American flag” in the aftermath of the terrorist strikes.

“Many Americans never pause to think about the role of our own government in the suffering of people who live on other continents,” said Anderson, who provides training in “anti-oppression facilitation” at Freedom Academy High School in Brooklyn.

Last Sunday afternoon, the freestyle artist read her untitled poem at a political rally organized to show solidarity with oppressed communities of color, including Arabs, who have been widely persecuted and terrorized in the political aftermath of the disaster and whose homeland plights have been generally ignored by the American public.

The peaceful anti-war gathering at Pier 63, attended by some 500 people,was organized by a large and rapidly growing human rights coalition called ActNow to Stop War and Racism (ANSWER).

Many anti-war proponents, including ANSWER activists, say the media’s insistent images of war as the only response to the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes has been a veritable marketing campaign that has packaged and sold the idea of war to an angry, grieving, and emotionally vulnerable American public.

The media has largely ignored the glaring reality, say activists, that many voiceless people throughout the world have legitimate grievances against the United States government, and that if America is going to be an imperial power then it is time to face up to the realities of being an empire. The ANSWER coalition -- which flatly condemns the terrorist strikes -- opposes war, and promotes progressive change to US foreign policy in the Middle East and in other areas of the world. It is comprised of over 100 grassroots organizations, including the Vieques Support Campaign, the Mumia Coalition, Veterans for Peace, and the International Action Center.

The coalition, formed in response to the nation’s rush to war, is represented by organizations throughout the country and as far away as Argentina, Spain, Haiti, Belgium, Germany and Canada.

Although it has received scant attention --some call it a “media blackout” -- hundreds of anti-war protests have been taking place across the nation from New York City to Austin, Texas. Indeed, as America readied for war, Washington, DC police were on duty Sept. 29, as thousands of anti-war protestors brought their message to the nation’s capitol.

Simultaneous protests of support took place in New York, Boston, and several other cities. “Although people have some understanding of US policy and what is going on in the world, most people are influenced by media,” said Anderson, who believes that “the struggle against war and against white supremacy are linked.”

Anderson is concerned about “misplaced patriotism” and is dismayed that Blacks and other people of color are being told -- by whites -- that “race can’t be an issue right now.”

“We need to be more conscious than that,” said Anderson, who believes that such sentiment “only undermines our struggle.”

Many anti-war activists believe that America’s spontaneous military response is haphazardly rooted in profound grief and relentless denial. Calling for war and wrapping America in red, white and blue while ignoring the underlying causes of the Sept 11 terrorist strikes, say activists, is not the formula for security or justice but for continued disaster.

US officials and the media, however, have offered the barest, most simplistic explanations for the cause of the recent terrorist strikes, leaving many Americans with the belief that the Sept. 11 attacks were merely random acts of hatred against Americans or inexplicable assaults against the “American way of life.”

“Americans are asking, ‘Why do they hate us?’ They hate our freedoms,” explained Bush in last Thursday’s address to the nation. “They stand against us because we stand in their way,” he added.

But not everyone is buying the thin explanations. Many have argued that the Sept. 11 attacks are best explained by a probe into US foreign policy that has brought genocidal levels of death and destruction to people of color around the globe, including Arabs.

Indeed, whether one looks at the continual blockade and air bombardments against Iraq, or the US government’s virtually uncritical support to the Israelis in their national oppression of the Palestinian people, or any number of other places in the Middle East and elsewhere, it is hardly difficult to conceive that the US government may have created its own ferocious enemies.

The 6,453 American citizens who are now missing and presumed dead may very well be the horrendous cost of US foreign policy.

Within days of the Sept 11 tragedy, the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service reported that a number of Black residents in the nation’s capitol, “although stunned at the level of attacks in New York and at the Pentagon, did not seem to be surprised that such international frustration with the US government exists at such passionate levels.” One resident interviewed by the NNPA News Service candidly characterized the disaster as “chickens coming home to roost.”

“The fact of the matter is, that when people who feel that their quest for justice has been ignored by those they feel responsible for their plight, there is going to be a problem,” said Elombe Brath, chairman of the Harlem-based Patrice Lumumba Coalition.

“There needs to be a people-to-people dialogue,” said Brath, “so those of us who live in the US have a better understanding of not just what a small cell of brooding, dispossessed individuals did to our loved ones and friends, but what another small group of greedy, well possessed individuals have done to the world.”

Ewuare Osyande, chairman of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Black Radical Congress, believes the best patriotic act is not flag waving “but examining and challenging US policy and our actions throughout the world.” Osayande also cautioned that African-Americans need to be “careful and wise” in reflecting on the impact of misplaced patriotism on the Black struggle.

“The fever pitch of patriotism can easily write off our agenda and wipe out the advances that have been made in the ongoing struggle against oppression and white supremacy.”

Azure Thompson, 26, who arrived in Manhattan from Howard University in Washington, DC just two weeks before the terrorist attacks, said that although patriotism “might be useful to some as a healing process to deal with the grief of loss,” it may also become a smokescreen that shrouds the Black struggle for days on end.

“We can’t forget that the United States and Israel just walked out on an unprecedented global discussion on racism and reparations,” said Thompson, referring to the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa. The conference ended just 72 hours before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“There is the risk that many of these kinds of issues that are important to our struggle will eventually get swept under the rug,” said Thompson, who is troubled by the nation’s rush to the battlefield. Thompson added that many critical concerns facing Blacks and other communities of color -- such as AIDS, racial profiling, the prison-industrial complex, and the unprecedented call for reparations -- now seem “frozen in the aftermath” of the Sept. 11 tragedy. Others have likewise expressed concern that America’s newfound patriotism -- which Thompson calls “temporary pseudo-unity” -- and the country’s march to war may result in the erosion of the Black struggle and the elimination of freedoms.

“Blacks share the pain not only from having lost our own in the disaster but for knowing the history of terrorism,” said Dave Daniels, an organizer with the Harlem-based December 12th Movement.

African-Americans have hardly forgotten that the Ku Klux Klan, the nation’s oldest and largest terrorist organization that grew out of the hatred many white Southerners had for Blacks in the aftermath of the Civil War, is responsible for thousands of murders of which very few have ever been brought to justice.

“Historically, we know the pain of terrorism,” said Daniels. “We know the pain of our ancestors, and the pain of our loved ones being lynched, and the pain of not knowing which brother will be the next Amadou Diallo or Patrick Dorismond,” he said, referring to recent Black victims of New York’s police brutality.

“We are still seeking justice for these and many other horrors,” said Daniels, who attended WCAR.

Source: New York Amsterdam News