Thread by @antiracistsouth

Excerpts from Robert L. Allen’s book, “Black Awakening in Capitalist America” in relation to the current #StopCopCity movement:

GENOCIDE and the infrastructure for mass imprisonment as a countermeasure against Black rebellion.

🧵🪡

The fear of open violence against Black communities dates back generations— since the end of enslavement, the white supremacist State struggled to contend with what they saw as “surplus populations” who needed to be contained, commodified and/or eliminated altogether.

Listen to the echoes of Hitler’s 1932 speech and how much it sounds like contemporary right-wing fascist officials like Kemp, Landry, DeSantis… even Biden.

In the context of geopolitical challenges to U.S. hegemonic imperialism, the “domestic front” must be controlled.

The push to build Cop City must be understood in the context of an ongoing “domestic arms race” which is fueled by both “surplus” military equipment from U.S. imperial wars abroad AND growing influence of corporate weapons manufacturers looking for “new markets”. #StopCopCity

Flashbacks of so-called “progressive mayors” attempting to reassure Black communities that: no we are not waging war on you (while cops murder Black and brown children regularly and militarized state forces occupy Black communities)… *watch what they do, not what they say.*

“This is revolution, and people have not become aware of that… This is not just mob or gang fights. It is a question of the survival of OUR* cities.”

*emphasis added.

Those in power knew the struggle for Black Liberation is a guerrilla resistance to U.S. domestic warfare.

When I read this my jaw dropped. If you look at Nixon’s 1971 “War on Drugs” it lays the legal framework for the expansion of *targeted, anti-Black* mass incarceration.

THEY DIDN’T NEED CONCENTRATION CAMPS— they already had the prison system.

The PIC is a tool for genocide.

And still, the possibility of camps for mass detention to put down rebellion continues to be possible escalation in the 500+ years long genocide of Black & Indigenous people. There are legal grounds for it. The FBl (at the time) was tasked with deciding who should be detained.

“If we are not prepared to make the investment in human resources that is required, we will be forced to increase our investment in the police, national guard & army. And possibly- it can happen here- we may be forced to resort to concentration camps and even genocide.” 👀

Federal funds for “extra training, planning and cooperative arrangements with other LE agencies, special units, preparation of guidelines for personnel, acquisition of equipment, and public education aimed at reducing community tensions and grievances.”

Sound familiar?

“More and more militant leaders (white as well as black) are likely to be arrested on charges of conspiring to bomb, assassinate, & otherwise engage in illegal activity, even where there is very little evidence to substantiate these charges.” 👀

#StopCopCity