The recent events that have taken place in our country with regard to racial unrest have left many shaken, angry and frustrated. The incident in Charlottesville, Virginia in particular, has caused our nation to once again look in the mirror and question how certain members of our society find it possible to support such vile rhetoric. Unfortunately history points to the fact that this is nothing new in our nation.

 

I recently visited the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana. A 250-acre slave plantation from the 1800’s that had 101 African slaves. It was purchased by John Cummings in 1998 and transformed into an incredible slave museum. When you arrive for the tour, you are given an ID badge bearing the name and bio of a slave who lived on the plantation. Essentially, I spiritually become that slave during the tour, feeling his or her daily struggle for survival. I was Peter Barber, an eight-yearold boy ironically born in Charlottesville, Virginia and purchased for $900 (confederate money). I worked 16 hours a day in the cane fields and lived with 22 family members with only one bed in our house. My mother had 14 children, 3 from my master’s brother. My master wanted my mother to have a lot of children for the plantation. They took my daddy away one day and I never saw him again.

 

After experiencing the tour and becoming one with the spirit of Peter Barber — and seeing the brutal conditions under which he lived — it became even more apparent to me that the mission to obliterate hate is not only important when an incident is seen on CNN. It is an obligation and lifelong commitment to ensure that no form of white supremacy be remotely accepted or acknowledged. The basis of the Transatlantic Slave Trade was white supremacy. The basis for the succession of the confederate states was based on white supremacy and the preservation of slavery to further economic capitalism.

 

The Noble Brothers of MALIK Fraternity, Inc. unequivocally denounce white supremacy and everything associated with it. We call for an investigation — by the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and all appropriate law enforcement agencies — into the role of these organized Neo-Nazi groups in the death of the freedom fighter Heather Heyer. Furthermore, MALIK Fraternity, Inc., unequivocally supports the removal of all public confederate monuments and instead honor individuals like slave boy Peter Barber. We propose those alleged monuments be replaced with replicas of people who built this country under duress for hundreds of years. MALIK Fraternity, Inc. vigorously denounces the notion of President Donald Trump that there were some “good people” amongst the rampaging white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 11th and 12th. There is an old Jamaican saying, “If you lie with dogs you shall rise with fleas”. Those that marched with the white supremacists in fact are white supremacists and embrace that agenda. As citizens of this country, we demand that our representatives — both local and federal — hold the President accountable for failing to stabilize this nation.

 

MALIK Fraternity, Inc. calls on its members and good conscious human beings to embrace activism and social justice. If the righteous do not make themselves heard, they will be drowned out by the unrighteous.