Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

White Chechens Open New Vistas of Repression in America
24 Apr 2013
🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

The Chechens are coming – and they're white! Like other pale-skinned immigrant groups, they appear to be flourishing. Only in America could lightly armed youngsters “represent a threat so awesomely dreadful as to spread fear up and down the great megalopolis stretching from Boston to Washington.”

 

White Chechens Open New Vistas of Repression in America

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

“The whole nation has been set up for a new round of domestic repression.”

The United States of America has collapsed into a phantasmagoria – an inverted world conjured up by imperial minds to fool the home population of the planet’s only superpower into believing they are under siege by virtually everyone else on Earth. The formula has worked too well, rendering the society so brittle, so anxious and afraid, it resembles a madhouse in a fortress that is trying to turn itself into a prison.

Once again, white America (and lots of assimilated non-whites) shows it has absolutely no capacity for introspection – only for projecting its own insanities on others. The New York Times for Sunday, April 21st, speculated that the suspects in the Boston bombing were motivated by “echoes” of “plots from the past” in their ancestral Chechnya, in the Caucasus region of Russia – but, in reality, the scenario was purely 21st century Americana. Where else could two young men with small arms and improvised explosives – if the charges are true – represent a threat so awesomely dreadful as to spread fear up and down the great megalopolis stretching from Boston to Washington?

If the two young Chechens were set up by the U.S. government, as their mother says, they are not the only ones. The whole nation has been set up for a new round of domestic repression. It has already begun, with the stripping down of Miranda warnings for persons arrested by police and the lockdown of whole sections of greater Boston, where the authorities treated white neighborhoods as if…well, as if they were Black.

In our post-911 world, we might expect that the events in Boston would lead to drone strikes or invasions of other countries to avenge American “honor.” But Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation, which retains its nuclear arsenal, so that won’t do. Besides, it turns out the FBI was in much closer touch with the older brother than any Russian officials – so, maybe the Russians ought to be the ones asking the questions. These were, after all, American citizens.

“Some have blonde or red hair.”

We hear a lot of talk about naming the surviving brother as an “enemy combatant,” but – a combatant for whom? For Allah? You can’t launch airstrikes against God. The Americans have to be careful about trying to tie their prisoner to the Chechen Islamist fighters who have made such a name for themselves around the world, since many of them are allied with the same gunmen the U.S. has financed and armed in Libya and Syria. In the end, there seems to be no enemy for Washington to punish – except American society, itself.

In this regard, the Chechen brothers’ ethnicity opens new vistas of domestic repression. Many Chechens are white – I mean, really white. Wikipedia describes them as “exhibiting traits typical of European and Caucasian peoples.” Some have “blonde or red hair,” with blue eyes and “typically pale skin.”

Does this mean that white people will lose their immunity from being arbitrarily accosted by Homeland Security? That would certainly be a sea change in American life. But, in the enemy-filled phantasmagoria that the United States has become, anything is possible.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130424_gf_BostonBombing.mp3

More Stories


  • NY Panther 21
    Dhoruba bin-Wahad
    55th Anniversary of the NY Panther 21 Case
    03 Apr 2024
    The trial of the New York Panther 21 was the moment in the Black liberation movement that ushered in an era of intensified state repression and violence and increasingly aggressive tactics…
  • Uhuru
    Penny Hess
    Chairman Omali Yeshitela, Uhuru 3 put state on trial in fightback against bogus charges
    03 Apr 2024
    Three members of the Uhuru Movement were recently indicted on charges related to operating as "unregistered foreign agents." This attack has huge implications for free speech everywhere.
  • Bassirou Diomaye Faye
    Abayomi Azikiwe
    Senegal Elects New President
    03 Apr 2024
    After months of social unrest, the youngest leader in the West African state’s history will take office pledging a progressive program.
  • Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black and Brown Coalition for Palestine Meets with South African Foreign Minister
    29 Mar 2024
    We hear from a Black and Brown coalition in Chicago about their meeting with minister Naledi Pandor of South Africa and their mobilizations for solidarity with Palestine.
  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio March 29, 2024
    29 Mar 2024
    This week we hear about how the latest round of sanctions are harming the people of Cuba, and how they are responding. But first we talk to members of a Chicago Black and Brown coalition about…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us