What Happened to Our Great Black Civilizations

Race, Rats and Revolutionaries

 Race, Rats and Revolutionaries:

Flippin’ the Switch on the Snitch Myth

                                       Min. Paul Scott

“Can’t win a debate, so they sponsor every threat to me.I wonder if Agent 800 is standing’ next to me?”

                  Young Lords - Immortal Technique

One of the greatest leaders in Black America was assassinated today. Minister Marcus Hampton was shot seven times at point black range as he stood before a packed auditorium in Chicago. Although there were thousands of eye witnesses, because of the no snitching code of the streets , the assassin , William Roberts aka Agent 666, simply walked to his car , cashed his informant check at the Stop and Go and headed on his way to kill another Black leader….

The release of the movie Judas and the Black Messiah is sure to create some conversations around the role that FBI informant William O’Neal  played in the assassinations of Chairman Fred Hampton and Mark Clark of the Illinois Black Panthers on December 4, 1969. But the bigger question is what have we learned from these murders and how do they impact the African American community in 2021 ?

One of the worst things you can be called in the hood is a rat. This label, as well as the anti-snitching movement, has led to the deaths of countless numbers of Black men and women. Although, “snitching” is usually a term used when a 10 year old little girl is hit by a stray bullet and no one says anything because of the no snitching code of the streets , we must take a critical look at the historical root of the anti-snitch mentality in the Black community.

Let us begin back during chattel slavery. According to Dr. Claud Anderson in his book,  Black Labor, White Wealth, there used to be something called meritorious manumission. This allowed enslaved Africans to legally obtain their freedom by performing “ good deeds” for massa, which included snitching on fellow slaves.

During the early 20th century , there were even rats in Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvment Association, including James Wormley Jones, also known as Agent 800. (Read The American Directory of Certified Uncle Toms by  the Council on Black Internal Affairs)

It must also be noted that ,during this period , not all informants were Black. According to the March 21, 1993 edition of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Joel Spingarn, one of the early white leaders of the NAACP worked for the Military Intelligence Division and obtained a list of the 32,000 members of the association on their behalf.

During the Civil Rights Era , it must never be forgotten that Malcolm X’s bodyguard,  Eugene Roberts, the man who attempted to perform CPR on the dying leader at the  Audubon Ballroom,  was really an undercover agent with the Bureau Of Special Services and Investigations. According to Karl Evanzz in his book ,The Judas Factor  , BOSSI  was “an ultra secret unit of the New York Police Department created by Percy Foxworth, then head of the FBI’s New York bureau.”

However, Roberts and O’Neal were not the only snitches during the Civil Rights/Black Power Era. Kenneth O’Reilly in his work , Racial Matters, states that the FBI had at least 7,500 known “ghetto informants” who would go around the hood trying to dig up dirt on black militants.

Even in the Hip Hop Era, as much as rappers talk about snitches, few  mainstream artists mention the government and law enforcement surveillance of  entertainers from Paul Robeson, to Tupac Shakur.  (Read John Potash’s book , The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders)

Although, the FBI’s COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program)is supposed to be a thing of the past, the late researcher Steve Cokely, always warned us to be on the lookout for “Now-INTELPRO.” Unfortunately, it may be another decade before all the surveillance information surrounding the protests of the post Trayvon Martin era  is revealed.

Since America has yet to really fess up to this dark side of her history, many White folk can’t conceptualize the innate distrust of the police by African Americans . What is most alarming is , without  historical context , the idea of “no stitching” has been used to allow some Black people to be willing accomplices in our collective genocide.

But the eternal question is,  if we can’t trust the police, what is the alternative  so we can make our communities safe  so our children can play outside?

It all boils down to communal responsibility. Those who murder other Black people should be pointed out and ostracized by the total Black community instead of protected. They should be disowned , so much so that their own grandmothers won’t let them in the house for Sunday dinner. They must become such pariahs  in the black community that even the young cashier at McDonalds will throw their money back in their faces yelling “YOUR BLOOD MONEY'S NO GOOD HERE !” even when they try to order a Big Mac.

Until we address the true meaning of the word “snitch,” we will continue to have members of the Black community suffering under this deadly code of silence, without even knowing why.

Min. Paul Scott is the Durham NC based Black Messiah Movement. He can be reached at P.O. Box 15123 Durham NC 27704 or (919) 972-8305. His website is BlackMessiahMovement.com

Are You a Judas or a Black Messiah ?

Calling for a Black Cultural Revolution !

Death to Mumble Rap

“Many of you are educated/open your mouths and speak”

Still # 1 — Boogie Down Productions

It was billed as the largest black rally in history, as over two million people gathered in Washington DC to express their outrage over George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The keynote speaker was Ty Codeine who was supposed to give the crowd their marching others to execute the next phase of the revolution. However, after a long rambling rant by the rapper, the confused men in the crowd started swingin’ on each other and the women took out their smart phones and started doing the Bussit Challenge…

Believe it or not, there was a time when you could ,actually , understand the words that were coming out of your favorite rapper’s mouth. But times have , definitely, changed . Now, after hearing the latest mumble rap, you don’t know whether to fight, head for the nearest exit, or hit the floor and commence to twerkin’.

While some may just write this off as overly nostalgic hatin’ by someone still stuck in the 80’s, an AARP card ain’t got nothin’ to do with this discussion.

We must remember that even in the earliest days of Hip Hop, the 16 year old rappers were more articulate than the rappers today who are pushing 30. If you go back and listen to any record by the young Funky Four Plus One More you can understand every single word they are articulating without the use of an urban dictionary.

We can never forget the conscious rap era of the late 80’s when rappers in their early 20’s were breakin’ down complex social and political ideologies with crystal clear clarity . But today, even following a year of the most political unrest in American history, the average rapper is still talking about swipin’ his grandma’s sleeping pills and chasing them down with cough syrup.

Aside from rap, remember that Lil Bobby Hutton of the Black Panther Party was only 17 when he was murdered by the cops and Fred Hampton was only 21.

So, this has absolutely, nothing to do with age but everything to do with a certain mentality.

But let’s be clear ,as Dead Prez would say, “It’s bigger than Hip Hop.

When we are talking about “mumble rap” we are not just talking about music. We are talking about the whole drugged out, degrading culture that rides with it which is darn near every challenge you see on Instagram these days.

Now, how did we get here?

You can blame my generation for selling Hip Hop out to the corporations for the mighty dollar.

Facts.

You can blame Hollywood for dumbing down a whole generation and making black ignorance a social norm.

Facts.

You can even blame an educational system that has systematically orchestrated a curriculum that has us exactly where we are today.

Facts.

All these thingd are true. But the bigger question is how do we fix it ?

This is ,perhaps, the most important Black History Month that we will ever encounter. Black culture is at a crossroad and this February is either going to make us or break us. Therefore , we are calling for a Black Cultural Revolution. We must use social media to counter every negative image that we see on Facebook, Twitter , Tic Toc, IG, etc with something positive. In other words when you see someone cutting the fool on Facebook instead of putting a smiley face emoji in the comments , suggest a good documentary to watch about black culture. Rather than slippin’ in the DM of a sista doing the Bussit Challenge trying to shoot your best shot, tell her she’s a queen and give her a blast of knowledge and a self esteem boost. And when your favorite mumble rapper tweets out his next single, respond with a book he should read instead of retweet.

This is how we turn a negative into a positive and not only celebrate Black History Month but fight for a brighter Black Future…

Oh yeah..one more thing… #deathtomumblerap

Min. Paul Scott is the founder of the Black Messiah Movement. He can be reached at minpaulscott@yahoo.com or (919) 972–8305

Website BlackMessiahMovement.com

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