(By Andy Chipus_Shutterstock)
Submitted by Phillip Ghee
Dear, Black Lives Matter
and Affiliated Organizations
Firstly I would like to thank you for being at the forefront of an awakening moment that has revived the Social Justice and Social Conciseness Movement. However in this praise of you I do fear that your accomplishments may either implode or in the least become faded as time moves on.
I feel obligated to offer this gentile criticism and I would hope that it be accepted likewise. Black Lives Matter, I fear that you might be on the path to becoming a One- Directional, one-Dimensional organization. Now don’t get me wrong, you do and have done such uno-paths quite superbly. However, looking at the State of some of our more impoverished areas, I would hope that you would take a page out of the notebook from the Black Panther Movement of the past.
Like you The Black Panther Party arose out of a need to protect Black bodies from the cruelty and injustices thrust upon them by inherently racist and oppressive regime. The fist of that regime was the Policing Forces who throughout this nation used that fist, as well as gun, with impunity.
However in a relatively short period of time the Black Panther Party reached out to embrace protect the communities of which brutalized individuals came from. The Party offered school lunches, domicile assistance, education etc. etc. Read your history books (if you can find true ones) if you were not there. Equally important, The Party sought to maintain order within the community. They offered rehabilitation for citizens who had gone astray. They injected order into the community; as well as embraced they admonished and if needed even patrolled the community.
Now Black Lives Matter is in possession of a purse that the Black Panther Party probably couldn’t even imagine. Yet look what they accomplished in a few, heavily harassed and thwarted, years.
It’s time to spread your wonderful wings BLM. I know this is something that must entered into in carefully implemented staging (sadly that’s how we do it these days) rather than a band wagon approach. May I suggest that you select a few, maybe not so notorious areas but, heading in that direction, locales and make an efforts to go full blown multidimensional. Connect with the forces already in place, serve as liaison, establish community based , action groups which operate under the flag of BLM. Maybe one day, after establishing successes, you could even make it to my hometown, Baltimore.
Stay Strong BLM but mostly Stay Long,
Phillip Ghee 1/25/2021
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