THE BROTHERWISE DISPATCH, VOL.2, ISSUE#16, JUNE-AUGUST/2015
This is the third round of our ongoing dialogue with the founder and head of ONE PEOPLE’S PROJECT, an invaluable anti-racist organization that exposes functional political connections, counters biased media coverage and traces any financial support which binds racist mainstream neo-conservatives to grassroots fascist networks; thereby disclosing the underlying ideological unity of ‘whiteness’ as a functional socio-ontological construct of lived relations between ruling power elite and bewildered herd.
Brotherwise Dispatch- As someone whose organization, ONE PEOPLE'S PROJECT, consistently confronts the naked violent brutality of western imperialist power against human ‘being’ practiced by ‘white’ supremacist organizations and neo-fascist hate groups; what stands out or what differentiates the savage murders of Cynthia Hurd, Rev. Clementa Picnkney, Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Daniel Simmons, Rev. Depayne Middleton Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Myra Thompson, Ethel Lee Lance and Susie Jackson by Dylann Booth from other recent murders of Black people by ‘white’ supremacists?
Daryle Lamont Jenkins - Simply put, they could not ignore it. There have been other cases in recent years they have been able to avoid discussing, such as when Keith Luke killed a 20-year-old woman and a 72-year-old man in Brockton, MA in 2009, or when Kevin Harpham of the White Supremacist National Alliance tried to bomb a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade in Spokane two years later, but this one, as we kept dealing with one racial attack after another and with the #BlackLivesMatter campaigns addressing each and every one, hit us when we have been growing weary of it all and it hit us hard. There is this right wing page on Facebook that I post on regularly, sparring with the folks there, but for a few days I just could not do it. I didn't want to hear their excuses, their deflections, their downplaying, none of it. And I think this was raw and naked enough for everyone to say, "You can't apply the usual narratives. Now everything we have been saying has led up to this, and we are GOING to have a resolution!”
BD - Do you feel that focusing efforts on taking down the confederate flag that flies on the rooftop of the South Carolina Capitol building is an appropriate emancipatory response to this oppressive ‘racist’ murder? What else might you suggest?
DLJ - Taking down the people of authority that promote the flag and the divisiveness that comes along with it! That might be a little esoteric, but to nuance it more, I'll explain it like this: Fifteen years ago one of the groups that was in the forefront of the fight to preserve that rag was the White Supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, the very same group that inspired Dylann Roof. There are a lot of politicians and others in positions of power that count themselves among that group's membership. The president of that group has given money to campaigns for Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Rand Paul and others. They all say they will either give back or donate the contributions, but Rand Paul and his father Ron have been called out for taking them in the first place years back and they weren't as compelled as Rand is now to rid themselves of those donations. Repeatedly, elected officials and other conservatives have been hobknobbing with this group, and that's a testament to their character. Since they can't distance them we need to distance them OURselves!
BD - Would you classify this savage multiple murder as an act of terrorism, or a hate crime? What do you think the difference is and why does it matter?
DLJ - I don't see why both won't apply, to be real about it. And let us not forget assassination, as State Sen. Clementa C. Pinckney, the pastor of Mother Emanuel, was among those who was killed. It matters because anything else would be downplaying the severity of the killings. This was an attempt to uproot and change society to a type of society that was rejected generations ago - somewhat. That was the declaration from Dylann Roof himself at the church and in his manifesto. If there is anyone not recognizing that, it is out of pure ignorance, period.
BD - For the uninitiated, just who are the Council of Conservative Citizens and what ties do they have to any mainstream political figures and organization?
DLJ - Council of Conservative Citizens (C of CC, or CCC) is a White Supremacist organization founded out of the White Citizens Councils of the fifties and sixties by Citizens Council field organizer Gordon Lee Baum, who actually just died on March 5. Their membership includes a lot of elected officials and academics, many of whom we would be familiar with. Trent Lott got in trouble for being an honorary member of the group, and there have been parole officers in Passaic, NJ and a prosecutor from upstate NY that attended the 2006 conference put on by American Renaissance, a White Supremacist publication edited by Jared Taylor, who was a onetime CCC board member and currently the designated spokesperson for the group. Here's something that was really a kick to the head. Jared Taylor was one of a number of White Supremacists who attended an event featuring Ann Coulter - a supporter of the CCC who has defended them in one of her books - at the National Press Club in Washington, DC the very same night that Dylann Roof went to Mother Emanuel Church to kill Black people.
BD - How often does your organization, ONE PEOPLE'S PROJECT, have to directly counter the grassroots moves and confront the political machinations of the Council of Conservative Citizens? Describe any memorable confrontations that immediately come to mind.
DLJ - In recent years, much more than that, we have the street Nazis that fight you at the clubs or hold protests on courthouse steps. And not just under the name of the CCC. They have many different organizations but the same people, many of them associated with the CCC or are a part of them. So there's National Policy Institute, Youth for Western Civilization, Robert Taft Club, HL Mencken Club, and American Renaissance which is a publication. They have shifted much of their efforts from the streets to the conference halls where they can network and organize, and they can do it often without any interference from those opposing them because we are outside, and with a good deal on anonymity for their attendees. They want political power and posturing with swastikas and fascist symbols in front of a courthouse and a phalanx of police do not give you that. But Rep. Steve Scalise is the House Majority Whip, and 12 years ago he spoke at a conference sponsored by one of David Duke's organizations. No posturing from him, just networking got him there.
So yeah we have more than our share of confrontations with this crowd, and we have done our damage. We have shut down the American Renaissance Conferences in 2010 and 2011, so they have moved into the woods of Tennessee, holding their conferences in the conference center of a state park just outside Nashville, away from where people would travel to protest. I actually was able to go inside this year because it is a public facility and talk with some of their attendees, in particular one of their allies of color who was Cuban and Puerto Rican. A speaker from the 2010 conferences actually sued me in Oklahoma for shutting the conference down, but there was no jurisdiction and even though they have a default judgement there isn't any real compulsion to satisfy the judgement unless they file in Pennsylvania. That speaker, who was an Italian American that claimed Native American lineage via his stepmother - don't ask - died two months after getting his judgement. But there needs to be more of an effort to oppose and confront these conferences. The National Policy Institute holds conferences in the DC area, their last one during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February where right-wing activists and politicians from all over the country get together. NPI had the conference at the National Press Club and they will have another one there on Oct. 31, and after what happened last week, they cannot and should not go under the radar the way they have been doing anymore.
This has been another one of our BROTHERWISE FIVE interview series, during which The BROTHERWISE DISPATCH interrogates intellectuals, artists and activists with five probing questions to the delight of our readers.
On behalf of Daryle Lamont Jenkins and The BROTHERWISE DISPATCH,
Peace.
-A. Shahid Stover
(this interview of Daryle Lamont Jenkins for The BROTHERWISE DISPATCH was conducted by A. Shahid Stover through email correspondence from June 22th - 25th of 2015)
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