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Page 2 The Skanner October 25, 2017 ® Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Opinion Did the FBI Just Declare War on Black People? Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher W Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Christen McCurdy News Editor Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Melanie Sevcenko Reporter Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2017 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com hile White men are beating Black men on the streets of Charlottesville, Vir- ginia, while a “lone” White wolf is shooting people from the Mandalay Bay Hotel, and while the word “terrorist” is hardly used to describe these men, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), under the leadership of the racist Attorney General Jeff Beaure- gard Sessions, has thought up a new way to oppress Black people. Despite the fact that there is no evidence of an or- ganized “movement,” the FBI has described Black people that have rallied for racial equality and criminal justice reform as “Black Identity Ex- tremists,” who pose a domes- tic terrorist threat to police officers. Hold up. We have seen do- mestic terror threats, though there are those of limited intelligence who cannot fathom them. The man who shot up an Orlando, Flori- da nightclub was a domestic terrorist. Dylann Roof, who worshipped with the parish- ioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. then mur- dered nine of them, was a do- mestic terrorist so highly re- garded by law enforcement, that they bought him a meal from Burger King. The man I Julianne Malveaux NNPA Columnist will not mention in Las Ve- gas was a domestic terrorist, but the FBI is manufacturing evidence to focus on African Americans, who embrace our Black identity and social ac- tivism. Foreign Policy, the magazine and website that broke the “ With the ‘Black Identi- ty Extremist’ label, the FBI has figured out another way to de- monize Black people story of this new classifica- tion of “woke” Black people, shared the FBI document on- line that links Black identity with extremism and threats to police officers. The document mentions Black Lives Mat- ter, although the connection between Black Lives Matter and anti-police violence has not been established. For the FBI to identify “Black Identity Extremists” (BIE) as domestic terrorists is to declare war on Black people. After all, what does it mean to be a “Black Identity Extremist”? Does it mean we love our Blackness and refuse to back down when we are attacked? Does it mean that we revel in our identi- ty and use every available platform (thank you, Colin Kaepernick) to lift our voices up against injustice? Why is this embrace of Blackness so frightening to melanin-de- ficient people? They prefer us silent, docile, grateful and acquiescent. They demand no such acquiescence from their melanin-impaired friends, who gleefully walk through civilized streets of places like Charlottesville and parry racist chants like “You will not replace us, Jews will not replace us!” That’s domestic terrorism. Call it like it is, instead of inventing a Black movement that does not exist. Andrew Cohen wrote about the FBI report for the Bren- nan Center for Justice at New York University and said that “there is no “BIE movement,” because it only exists in the barren minds of those within the Trump Administration that want you to believe that there is some sinister, Black www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2017 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar LOCAL NEWS BRIEFS d ay ! • L i ke u s o n F ebo m me • nts TheSkannerNews o k • learn • co in y o u r c o m m u n to y • ac it Updated daily. force out there bent on attack- ing police officers. No jour- nalists or academics have dis- covered and chronicled such a movement or its leaders. No such leaders have come forward to say they are a part of such a movement. No one has killed a cop in the name of such a movement. The only ci- tations to the movement, For- eign Policy tells us, come from “internal law enforcement writings made over the past two months.” Journalist Sam Fulwood III, writing for the Center for American Progress Action Fund news site ThinkProg- ress.com, describes the FBI report as an “ominous siren call coinciding with President Donald Trump’s penchant for stoking racial divisions in the country.” He says that “the ad- ministration views criminal- izing communities of color as a way to shield police from scrutiny and score points with a base of White voters.” We’ve walked down this path before. We can start with Marcus Garvey, who dared to dream of Black independence and paid a horrible price for it. Fast forward to the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party, and so many others identified as “enemies of the state.” Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com We Need a Values Revolution in America Jeremiah 22:1-3,4-5 The Mes- sage (MSG) “Walking Out on the Cove- nant of God” 22 1-3 God’s orders: “Go to the royal palace and deliver this Message. Say, ‘Listen to what God says, O King of Judah, you who sit on David’s throne— you and your officials and all the people who go in and out of these palace gates. This is God’s Message: Attend to mat- ters of justice. Set things right between people. Rescue victims from their exploiters. Don’t take advantage of the home- less, the orphans, the widows. Stop the murdering! 4-5 “‘If you obey these com- mands, then kings who follow in the line of David will con- tinue to go in and out of these palace gates mounted on hors- es and riding in chariots—they and their officials and the citi- zens of Judah. But if you don’t obey these commands, then I swear—God’s Decree!—this palace will end up a heap of rubble.’” O n Oct. 13, Donald Trump went before the annual Values Voter Summit hosted by the Family Research Council and de- clared America “a country that never forgets that we are made, all of us, by the very same God in heaven.” In the Bishop William J. Barber, II President, Repairers of the Breach name of Jesus, Trump vowed to “stop cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values,” but the Values Voter Summit no more represents Jesus than did the church authorities “ Trump has emboldened do not follow the Jesus I know and preach. Their values are not Christ, but cash; not grace, but greed. As the Princeton historian Kevin Kruse has chronicled in his book, “One Nation Under God,” they are the heirs of preachers, who were purchased by the rob- ber barons of the early 20th century to resist the New Deal and the Social Gospel. During the Civil Rights Move- ment, they spoke against Rab- The Values Voter Summit no more represents Jesus than did the church authorities that backed slavery that backed slavery. Ironically, Trump invoked the name of Jesus in virtually the same breath that he an- nounced his executive order to stop the federal govern- ment’s cost sharing reduction payments, which subsidize healthcare for lower-income families under the Afford- able Care Act. Throughout the Scriptures, virtually every story of Jesus admonishes us to see to the needs of the poor and vulnerable among us, but Trump vowed at the Values Voter Summit to defend those who use religion to discrimi- nate. The Christian nationalists bi Abraham Heschel and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These Christian national- ists contradict Jesus, who said that, “as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.” They serve only the interests of the wealthiest Americans and take every opportunity to deny any provision of care or encouragement to the poor. They have elected far-right extremists in the country’s legislatures, who have be- come paid puppets of a White supremacist corporate oligar- chy. Elected with the support of wealthy despots, these men (and a few women) pass voter suppression laws that make them accountable to the vot- ers. These peddlers of piety deliver huge tax cuts for the super-rich, permit corpora- tions to spew poison into the environment, and fund a mili- tary budget so enormous and sacrosanct, that American cit- izens are no longer even wel- come to know what that bud- get is. All of this in the name of the Prince of Peace. Their poisonous mix of racism and religion hurts all of us, but the irony is that it hurts more poor, White peo- ple in raw numbers. The agen- da they are pushing in Wash- ington and in state houses will hurt Southern, so-called “red” states, the worst, but at the Values Voters Summit, lead organizer Tony Perkins put on duck hunting waders and pretended to “wade into the swamp” as a man of the people. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Perkin’s Fami- ly Research Council “a hate group.” Perkins denies that Islam is a religion and regu- larly rails against gays and warns that LGBT citizens plan to round up the Christians in “boxcars.” His vice president, William “Jerry” Boykin, Jr., claims that Islam is “pure evil.” Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com nt • lo c a l n e w s • eve