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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 2021)
Page 2 The Skanner Portland & Seattle January 13, 2021 ® Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 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 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. ©2021 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Opinion The New Terrorism, Like the Old Terrorism I am at Ground Zero. My law degree cannot protect me. My fancy address can- not protect me. My radio appearances and Zoom book tour cannot protect me. I check with, and for, my daughter against this mad- ness as we all should the way the Black Power Movement taught me. On the 24-hour cable televi- sion there are many referenc- es to how the situation is com- parable to the burning down of the White House during the War of 1812. But my refer- ence point keeps going back to 1925, when the Ku Klux Klan marched down Pennsyl- vania Avenue, showing their power and allegiance to a segregated capital city and a segregated United States in broad daylight while hooded, hidden. What happened Wednes- day [January 6] was neither hooded nor hidden. It was as open as the bar- ricades that the Capitol po- lice yielded — or invited. While victims of Jim Crow, COINTELPRO, and now Black Nkechi Taifa, Esq Lives Matter attacks as Black Identity Extremists were at home or at work, celebrating “ civilized, they came, they climbed, they smashed, they terrorized. And they were al- lowed to do that because they were white. The double-standard here is too obvious to repeat. So let me just say this: this country has never forgiven H. Rap Brown for merely mouthing “Burn, Baby Burn,” or the Black Panthers for peaceful- ly protesting with their legal This country has never forgiven H. Rap Brown for merely mouth- ing “Burn, Baby Burn,” or the Black Panthers for peacefully pro- testing with their legal arms at the Sacramento State Capitol. So how fast will these people be forgiven? an incoming U.S. Senate that now might provide some fi- nancial relief to those on food lines or about to be evicted, a mob of white privilege bla- tantly stormed the Senate and the House. Making the Klan look arms at the Sacramento State Capitol. So how fast will these people be forgiven? As fast as, say, Abner Loui- ma is now forgiving those who terrorized him? As fast as the survivors of Charleston had forgiven Dylan Roof, now seen as the canary in the coal mine, trying to warn us what was coming? I hope Jacob Blake will be slow to forgive as he deals with a lifetime of pain be- cause he dared turn his back on American authority. America loves forgiveness, because then it can get on to the business of forgetting. Those who are shocked to see the American flagpoles as weapons have very short memories. Ask any Black Bostonian about the flag as a weapon. Since we are talking about memory: President Woodrow Wilson, president during that KKK march, openly praised the Klan not unlike the way the current President has praised these latest terrorists. So what is new, really? “I know how you feel.” It’s a new low for a country that was founded by genocide and slavery. Nkechi Taifa is the author of the new memoir, Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice.
