Why America needs more injustice: An appeal to the uncolored citizens of the world

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

Three decades before the outbreak of the intranational war to preserve the most profitable human trafficking startup in the history of the planet, abolitionist and writer David Walker published Walker’s Appeal in Four Parts on September 28, 1829. 

Specifically addressed to “the Colored Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America,” the revolutionary pamphlet called for a spiritual, social and political uprising among Black Americans using self-reliance, education and—if necessary—violence. Aside from Walker’s hate of white supremacists (especially this guy named Thomas Jefferson), one of the underlying themes of his appeal was the redemptive value of faith. Walker did not believe in fighting hate with love. Instead, he assured his Black readers that they would one day be avenged; their only job was to resist—by any means necessary—and be ready for that great and glorious day when the brutal nature of whiteness is avenged. For Walker, nothing could be as poetically cruel as the most horrifying idea of justice he could imagine—to see white people subjected to the inhumane oppression that they created.

Let’s do it!

Using this framework, I have created a four-part proposal that could solve the biggest problems in American politics. If we have any hope of preventing insurrection, criminalizing reproductive rights, ending mass shootings and stopping the targeting of the oppressed, this is the answer. If America is really about that “all men are created equal” life, we could achieve justice and equality by taking a page out of Walker’s 200-year-old call to action and implementing it in the American justice system. 

Think about it: What’s more terrifying for white people than the prospect of being treated like they’re Black?

This is an Appeal in Four Parts, to the White People of the World, But in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America.

Preamble

My dearly beloved Caucasian brethren and sistren,

Having traveled over a considerable portion of the United States and having, in the course of my travels, taken the most accurate observations of whiteness in its natural environments (Walmart, Panera Breads and churches with choirs that use hymnals), the result of my observations has warranted the full and unshaken conviction that the unmelanated people of America are on the precipice of anarchy. Although you have avoided this reality, the current calamity of Caucasity can no longer be ignored. 

If this country is going to survive dookie-smearers storming the Capitol, white men legislating women’s wombs, guns and mobs mudstomping everyone who isn’t straight, white and engaged in stopping the steal, drastic measures must be taken. In the following four articles, I will lay out my proposal for this country to start treating white people like America has treated Black people for 400 years.

Article I: Justice for insurrectionists

Throughout the pages of white history, there are numerous examples of white coup d’etats, but you can’t foment a mutiny every time someone raises your taxes, or your candidate doesn’t win. I know y’all have been resorting to violence since that time y’all jumped Julius Ceaser in Rome’s capitol rotunda, but you can’t just go from “I don’t like Democrats” to “Let’s kill the electors” every time your candidate loses. Come on, now. Y’all can’t overthrow all the governments!
And the same goes for committees. Why do white people get committees and Black people get grand juries? In fact, a committee is just a white jury with no sentencing power. What good is a congressional committee hearing if they don’t refer you to the Justice Department? By the time y’all put on your Skechers, grab your confederate flags and start spraying bear spray, it’s too late. That’s why, to prevent this from happening repeatedly, I think America should start treating radical white extremists as if they were…well…domestic extremists.

We need a Caucasian COINTELPRO. Apparently, law enforcement agencies can infiltrate Black Lives Matter, Black Panthers, civil rights groups and every Black movement that ever existed, but somehow they can’t get undercover agents in white supremacist groups like the Oathkeepers, the Proud Boys or the Republican National Committee (Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema don’t count).
Or better yet, how about treating white rallies like Black protests? Maybe you should shoot rubber bullets into the crowd wherever two or three white people are gathered in Trump’s name (I think that’s in the Bible). Why don’t white people ever parade out one of their own to a press conference to call for peace like the cops do after they shoot a Black kid? I’ve never worked in law enforcement, but the fact that Jan. 6 insurrection was planned on Twitter, Facebook and the White House might mean that you should’ve seen it coming.

We already know Black people are more likely to be incarcerated, receive longer prison sentences and are less likely to be paroled than white people who commit the same crimes. We’re not asking you to do something you’ve never done. Just sentence Jake as if he were a Jerome. According to Time, the median sentence for the white rioters on Jan. 6 is 45 days. A month and a half for attempting to destroy the fabric of our make-believe democracy? Where are the RICO charges? If a Black kid sells two cracks (I think that’s the technical term), they’d be charged with conspiracy and sentenced like a kingpin.

Give white people some of that negro justice.

Article II: Second Amendment for First Second-Class Citizens

Often, when our dear unflavored folks respond to a mass shooting by circling the wagon around the Second Amendment,  they have no clue that the constitutionally guaranteed right to buy AR-15s is something only white people get to do. That’s because, in police parlance, white people who legally own guns are called “legal gun owners.” Conversely, Black people with guns are known as “armed suspects.”

First of all, why do we allow 18-year-old white men to buy guns when they’ve already had run-ins with the law? Have you not seen what white boys are capable of? They’re essentially gangs of young thugs who can’t even rap. Speaking of Young Thug, why isn’t there some kind of database of angry white kids that alerts law enforcement when angry teenagers start typing manifestos? Sure, monitoring their activities before they commit a crime is probably unconstitutional, but the American policing system seems to have found a way to subvert Black kids’ constitutional rights. Cops in California are able to put Black boys in the “gang database” for simply wearing a red shirt two days in a row but white kids can publish first drafts of unfinished manifestos on their racist Facebook group with no problem.    

We could easily remedy America’s obsession with killing machines by treating armed white people as if they are Black. To be clear, I am not suggesting we treat white people with guns as if they were armed Black people; that would be unconscionable. I am proposing that we treat them as if they are just regular, unarmed Black people, like Philando Castile or Jordan Davis. 

You know…George Floyd Black. Breonna Taylor Black. Ahmaud Arbery Black.

Article III: A Great Theory to Replace the Great Replacement Theory

Among the whites, there is a preternatural instinct to believe in the inane conspiracies promoted by Fox News, Marjorie Taylor Greene and other not-so-bright white nationalist mouthpieces. We would never denigrate the people who believe that Hillary Clinton is using a pizza parlor to run a child sex ring from her email server. However, we have found a solution to unhypnotize the low-IQ people who believe in QAnon, Mexican rapist caravans, dead voters, South American vote hackers, spontaneous Chinese virus combustion, 5G COVID chips and the Gay Agenda.

Why not replace those conspiracy theories with actual conspiracies?

Instead of projecting anti-white racism on The 1619 Project, what if we told them there was a secret cabal of white women who controlled the textbook industry to make kids believe the South won the Civil War? Maybe we could convince the people who want to “stop the steal” that there is a nationwide voter suppression effort that used restrictive laws and racially gerrymandered districts to control election outcomes. Instead of searching for Hunter Biden’s stolen laptop and “2000 mules,” we can ask them to search for the mysterious undervotes in Georgia’s 2018 governor’s race. What if we told them the medical industry was actually in cahoots with the government to control the population? It’s called the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Or the East St. Louis radiation experiment. Or the North Carolina eugenics program. Or white doctors.

Perhaps you can convince Tucker Carlson to talk about it. 

Article IV: Make America Pro-Life Again

Speaking of great replacement theories, I propose that we take a drastic step to ensure that all women are in control of their bodies:

We need a Christian, conservative, “pro-life” movement.

We wouldn’t be stripping women of their reproductive rights if we simply adhered to the conservative principles of “small government” and less regulation. If we truly believed in conservative principles, we wouldn’t allow disproportionately white state legislatures to regulate women’s wombs. Why can’t we keep big government out of vaginas like we want to keep them out of schools, healthcare decisions and our gun closets?

Instead of blaming ungodly leftists for ruining America, I believe we can return reproductive rights to the citizens by acting more Christian and asking ourselves: “What would Jesus do?”

Instead of using the law to impose his religion on people who didn’t believe what he believed, he would probably try to improve the Black maternal mortality rate, the Black child poverty rate, Black people’s lack of access to health care or underfunded majority-Black schools. He wouldn’t stop teachers from telling children that gay couples and trans children exist any more than he tried to make Pontius Pilate stop working on the Sabbath. If the pro-life movement was genuinely concerned about the life of a child, wouldn’t they be appalled that nearly half of LGBTQ youth have considered suicide?

 I know what the Supreme Court said, and there’s probably not a scripture that says we shouldn’t use the law to legislate women’s bodies. To be fair, the only Bible verse I know about using the law to legislate women’s bodies goes something like: 

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him: “Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?” 

John 8:3-5

I can’t remember what comes next. 

He probably told them to go ahead and cast their stones.

Admittedly, I haven’t read the whole Bible. I only read the parts where some dude went around feeding the hungry, healing the sick and helping the poor. Maybe I didn’t get to the part where Jesus condemned people for extramarital sex and spit on people who advocate for high taxes. I only saw where he said they would go to heaven. But the guy I read about would probably be called a gangbanger who hung out with disciples because he had an absentee father. Plus, he spent a lot of time protesting and telling oppressed people that their lives mattered. 

That’s right…Jesus was woke.

Maybe we should try some of these tactics in America. If the great founders of a Christian nation can believe that slavery was morally wrong while owning slaves, perhaps it is possible to believe that abortion is a sin and also that people have the right to choose. If God-fearing Christians are cool with living in a country that allows gun ownership, the consumption of alcohol and the death penalty—all of which are sins that kill people—why can’t they tolerate women controlling their own bodies? If white Americans actually worked to spread the truth, acted like Christ, and truly valued life, the evangelical Christian pro-life movement would cease to exist.

Then again, that’s probably what Jesus would do. 

*****

I know this proposal sounds harsh. I may even be accused of fostering anti-white sentiment. So, to make it more palatable, instead of using my own words, I will conclude with a little cultural appropriation:

I speak Americans for your good. We must and shall be free I say, in spite of you. You may do your best to keep us in wretchedness and misery, to enrich you and your children, but God will deliver us from under you. And wo, wo, will be to you if we have to obtain our freedom by fighting. Throw away your fears and prejudices then, and enlighten us and treat us like men, and we will like you more than we do now hate you,* and tell us now no more about colonization, for America is as much our country, as it is yours.

 *You are not astonished at my saying we hate you, for if we are men we cannot but hate you, while you are treating us like dogs.

Treat us like men, and there is no danger but we will all live in peace and happiness together.  

Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America, Written in Boston, State of Massachusetts, September 28, 1829

Michael Harriot is a writer, championship-level Spades player and host of theGrio Daily. His book, Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America, will be released in 2023.

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