Who does “gun control” really help?

Dear friends,

Who does “gun control” really help? Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, who is in my opinion the greatest scholar/activists that America has ever produced, called the period from 1870 1920 “the lynching industry”. For it was during that time that African Americans in the South were lynched on the average of one person per day. What conveniently coincided with that period was the vigorous practice of all European Americans (so-called “whites”) of the South was to make sure that African Americans never got their hands on guns. Do you think that there ever would have been a lynching industry, if African Americans had guns at the time?

Of course, the same question goes to the Oklahoma City “race riot” in 1921, when scores of African Americans were murdered by both ordinary European American citizens, along with the US Army (who was supposed to be there to protect African Americans against the racist mobs). Yet, the cry for “gun control” is often heard loudly in lower-middle class African American neighborhoods. Since the overwhelming preponderance of gun ownership lies with European-American people in this country, but they are not the ones who experience gun violence on such a despicable level as African Americans do, then it seems to me that the real problem for African American people has far more to do with what I call the other half of racism, that is, “black self-hatred”, than it has to do with us owning guns.

Please remember that White Supremacy a.k.a. racism cannot be maintained, if those who control the majority of European Americans who, calling themselves “white”, continue to try and exclude us from the pursuit of “life, liberty, and happiness”, if those perpetrators of injustice must always use force. In other words, through black self-hatred, as especially promoted by the negative images presented to us through the government- and corporate-controlled media, including Tyler Perry movies and television shows, along with other cultural institutions like our churches, and schools, we then make ourselves easier to oppress/exclude, since the self-hatred is mirrored to us every time we look at another black person.

And the range of insults to ourselves includes everything from how, for example, black store clerks and the like treat us differently than they do “white” customers to drive-by shootings. Instead of worrying about gun control, it is perhaps instructive for us to join together and build genuine communities that are loving and prosperous. We already have the resources, unfortunately, because of our self-hatred, we are unable to embrace each other within the context of “we". Unite!

G. Djata Bumpus