“House Negroes” Vow To Unseat Rep. Rashida Tlaib - -- We Must Resist

Richard S. Dunn – June 26,  2022

The late El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Minister Malcolm X, had always advised us about the ideological outlook of the “field Negro” in contradistinction to that of the “house Negro.” The “field Negro” identified with and expressed solidarity with his co-slaves; he was progressive, militant and unapologetically wanted to destroy the system of slavery. The “house Negro”’ on the other hand identified with his masa, despite him having to eat the masa’s leftovers or be degraded and humiliated. The fact that he was allowed into the masa’s house was good enough for him; it enabled him to escape the brutal heat and sun all day, not to mention the floggings, inflicted on the other enslaved.

The “House Negroes”

Although chattel slavery has been abolished in the United States for 157 years the pathology of the “field” and “house” Negroes still continues into this 21st century. Some in corporate America, middle-income, and even elected office, are afflicted with this severe, divisive, and politically debilitating sickness. Its most telling symptom are when we support and participate in policies and actions that contribute to our own demise, thus weakening the struggle for Black Liberation. The newest victims of this affliction are the Urban Empowerment Action PAC; a group comprised mostly of Black and some Jewish business and community leaders, and their prominent supporter Bakari Sellers. Sellers is a Lawyer, CNN commentator and former House of Representative member of South Carolina’s 90th district 2006 to 2014, and the other is Detroit’s City Clerk Janice Winfrey, now serving her 5th term in office. Winfrey have indicated that she intends to challenge Rashida Tlaib, (D-Mich.) for the newly formed 12th Congressional District, which includes areas of Wayne County including Southfield, Dearborn, and Detroit’s West side.

The Plan To Unseat Rep. Tlaib

The “vehicle’’ to spearhead this challenge is coming from the Urban Empowerment Action PAC which announced that their first target is Rep. Tlaib, for whom they plan to spend up to $1million in TV, digital, mail, radio, and print Ads to unseat the congresswoman. The published aim of this group is “dedicated to empowering urban communities to narrow the wealth gap between Black and White Americans.” The narrative goes further to say: “UEA PAC believes in part that creating real economic opportunities for African Americans requires the adoption of smart (Italics mine) public policies and…reversal of harmful  (Italics mine) public policies. To-date the PAC has not stated what they mean by “smart” or “harmful” policies. The comment seems noble and honest to all onlookers, but the background and stated positions of the parties, betrays these misleading and self-serving utterances.

The caveat is that the funding for the Urban Empowerment Action PAC, whose “aim” is to have pro-Israel Blacks elected to office, comes from a likely source. The largest contributor to this group is Daniel Loeb a $4.2 billion (Forbes) worth and Hedge Fund Manager, founder and Chief Executive of Third Point LLC, a NY based Hedge Fund started in 1995. According to Wikipedia, up to the end of June 2019, Third Point manages $14.8 billion in assets; further, opensecrets.org has reported that Third Point so far, has contributed $75,000 to Urban Empowerment Action; their largest contributor. Daniel Loeb is identified as a top influencer by State, New York, and is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations a United States Foreign Policy “think tank.” If these Urban Empowerment Action PAC detractors and “enemies” of Black people had any substance or semblance of cultural integrity, despite their noble but misleading claim of “empowerment,” they would have refused Loeb’s donation with haste; instead, they “kneel” and kowtow like the lapdogs they are by their actions.

Ignorance of History

Bakari Sellers from early on, showed his ignorance of social history, and reactionary outlook, when as student body president at Morehouse College, he attended the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) meeting; AIPAC is a pro-Israel lobbying group. It is reported that in 2016, he authored a letter that was signed by 60 Black like-minded politicians, asking the Democratic Platform Committee to keep a Statement that excluded reference to Israel as an “occupying” force in Palestine. It is obvious that Sellers and the others are so blatantly influenced and intellectually conditioned by the Zionist’s rhetoric, that they conveniently and willingly ignore the empirical facts, obvious the world over especially since 1948.

Israel IS an occupying force! The State of Israel was founded by the forceful takeover, displacement, and occupation of existing sovereign territory. Award winning investigative journalist Alison Weir in her book “Against Our Better Judgement” cites the following: “While Zionists considered such places as Argentina, Uganda, the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, and Texas, they eventually settled on Palestine for the location of their proposed Jewish State, even though Palestine was already inhabited by a population that was 93-96 percent non-Jewish. The best analysis says the population was 96 percent Muslims and Christians, who owned 99 percent of the land.” It would be instructive for Sellers and the others to compliment this with additional references such as John W. Mulhall, CSP “America and The Founding Of Israel: an investigation of the morality of America’s role” (Los Angeles: Deshon,1995); Justin McCarthy, “The Population of Palestine..;Walid Khalid, “The Palestine Problem, an Overview and, British Mandatory Commission: A survey of Palestine..

Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey who is now in her 5th Term and had previously challenged the late Rep. John Conyers, is now challenging incumbent Rep. Rashida Tlaib for the newly formed 12th Congressional District seat. This redrawn District is heavily populated with Arab residents. Winfrey is another that has been “bought and paid for” by the Zionist Lobby and their supporters and is unashamed of her bankruptcy of history; and regurgitates the same propagandist nonsense of her benefactors. In a failed effort to cover up her real intent and satisfy her puppeteers she told Jewish Insider Newspaper she feels the City “is not being represented.” She went on further: “When you don’t support the one ally that we have in the middle east, then I feel you have another agenda, and that agenda is not conducive to the citizens of the 12th Congressional District.”

Janice Winfrey Is Missing The Point

Janice Winfrey’s ignorance and intellectual buffoonery goes even further and is an insult to enlightened Blacks when she opportunistically references her ethnicity in defense of Zionist propaganda. This is her speaking: “ As an African American woman, it angers me to my soul that you hate another group of people just because they are.” This is unadulterated hypocrisy, ignoring the facts and, erroneous. No intelligent person “hate” Jews or the State of Israel “because they are.” The opposition to Israel is because of their illegal, immoral, and inhumane occupation of Palestinian territories and their genocidal and apartheid practices towards Palestinians, expressly “because they are.” Israel has never complied with any United Nations (UN) Resolution regarding their occupation of Palestine or treatment of Palestinians; Israel had provided technical and material support to the apartheid regime of South Africa, which carried out military invasions into neighboring States, to destroy the anti-apartheid struggle for National Liberation.

Palestine has always supported and expressed solidarity with the Black Liberation and Civil Rights struggles on the Continent of Africa and here in the United States; but of course, this fact has conveniently been ignored by the Urban Empowerment Action PAC, Bakari Sellers and Janice Winfrey. It is not customary to bite the hand that feeds you. Rep. Rashida Tlaib is a person of color, she is a person of African descent, by her opponents definition, that makes her qualified to represent the District. It is narrow and fanatically nationalistic and culturally divisive to suggest that because she has Palestinian roots, she is someone else and not “Black.”

Since Reconstruction we have had thousands of “Black” elected officials including President; how significantly improved has the socio-economic conditions of Black people in the United States are? There is still an inadequate stock of affordable housing; access to quality and affordable Health Care which is still beyond the reach of many. The income and wealth gap between whites and Blacks continue to widen; there is still under funding and a lack of resources for quality Public Education; police harassment, profiling and murder are commonplace throughout the Country; mass incarceration afflicts the Black community in a disproportionate way, compared to our numbers in the population; the effects of the Pandemic are worst in the Black Community because of historical neglect and racist Public Policies.

Why We Must Support Rep. Rashida Tlaib

Rep. Tlaib’s dissenting vote on the Infrastructure Bill was correct, the agreement within the Democratic Party was that this Bill was to be tabled along with the Build Back Better Social Spending Bill, instead only one was tabled and until now the infrastructure Bill is still in limbo. By separating the Bills, it weakened the impact to make profound social changes to an already struggling domestic situation. The Build back Better Bill was short on funding to address critical environmental issues and implementing social programs.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib unwittingly earned the ire of the detractors not just because of her dissenting vote, but mainly because she has consistently taken principled and enlightened positions on the Israeli/Palestinian issue. The Zionists has “dumbdown” the media and coward politicians, through fear of being called “anti-Semitic;” a self-serving, hysterical Zionist propaganda construct, to shape public opinion in supporting their continued genocide and apartheid in Palestine. All so-called progressives and the historically and politically enlightened must come to the defense of, and express solidarity with Rep. Tlaib, and carry out consistent activism to ensure her re-election. The Urban Empowerment Action PAC and its benefactors along with Bakari Sellers and Janice Winfrey are to be put where they rightly belong; on the “scrap heap” of history, as defective and obsolete.

 Richard Dunn can be reached at: contact@makingitplain.net