James Byrd to Brandon McClelland: in amerika it’s always the same old shit

An amerikan story.

i was a young one when James Byrd was dragged from the back of a truck in Jasper, Texas, 10 years ago.  i remember hearing it pass on the television and thinking to myself, even in that tender age of uncritical consciousness, “well, what do you expect?  this is amerika.”

This is amerika.  i can easily state the long history of evil that is not only characteristic, but constitutive, of the united states, but it isn’t necesssary.  The past is alive and well and any even superficial anaylsis of contemporary us foreign and domestic policy will confirm this.  More fundamental than policy, however, is the amerikan ethos, the driving spirit of its culture: ruthless consumerism in an imperialiast rat race that values profit above human life.  Oh, and just to be clear, amerika and white are synonymous, amerika being the national formation of white supremacy, enacted through white people.

But i digress.

Ten years ago, as a youth, i told myself “this is amerika” and continued on with my day.  This morning, i awoke to an email advertising how amerika is still amerika. (gotta give it credit for its consistancy and commitment to principle).

10 years later and 250 miles north of the small Texas town where James Byrd was brutally murdered in classic amerikan fashion, 24 year-old Brandon McClelland was also killed.  How did he die?  Demonstrating another characteristic of the amerikan MO, unoriginality, McClelland, too, was dragged to his death by two pick-up driving honkeys in Paris, Texas.

Some of you may have heard of Paris last year when it made national headlines after 14 year-old Shaquanda Cotton was sentenced to 7 years after shoving a hall monitor.  This ruling came from the same judge who had given a 14 year-old white girl, convicted of arson after burning her parents’ house down, probation just three months prior.  amerikan justice.

Because there was an apparent “friendship” between the victim and one of the lynchers, the courts are talking about moving the case forward not as a hate crime, but as a hit and run.  This, of course, is to be expected.  Why?  Because this is amerika.  And, as Gil Scott-Heron tell us, “it ain’t no new thing.  It ain’t no new thing.  It ain’t no new thing.  In amerika, it’s always the same old shit.”

The same old shit.  Of course, some will say that there are bad individuals, but that doesn’t condemn an entire race (notice amerika=white and the negroes who love them).  But when “bad individuals” become the rule, and not the exception, it’s safe to proceed as i have.  And proceed i will.

Brandon McClelland was murdered by two crackers who came back and poured beer over his body.  Beer cans and fragments of Brandon’s skull were left at the crime scene for days afterwards.  Major news outlets didn’t pick up the story and the lynchers are most likely to be chargd with hit and run.  This is what i mean: it is all so common.  It is all so natural.  There is nothing abnormal about this story.  It is always the same old shit.

My people, and by my people, i mean Black people, we can’t survive here.  This place is not for us.  Try and try as we may, the result will always be death and destruction.  In amerika, it’s always the same old shit.

And i don’t wanna hear a word about Barack Obama.  i’m serious.

RIP: Brandon McClelland.  Let’s get Free, ya’ll.

-amari