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.