Chiraq is not an offensive title for South Chicago because it misrepresents our conditions, it is offensive because it is wholly accurate.
Both South Chicago, Illinois and the nation of Iraq have some direct overlaps:
1. They are two areas occupied by people living under a repressive and hostile governments.
2. Both areas were subject to illegal policies and an ongoing propaganda campaign to paint it’s inhabitants as violent, unlawful, and a danger to God-fearing (White) Americas. The US is committing Human Rights Violations in both areas.
3. Both areas are blamed for draining the tax dollars of the (White) American taxpayers when in reality the White Elite extract more wealth from the region and the conditions of the people than they input.
4. Both regions are under a corrupt military occupation which, instead of making the people safer, they increase the danger for the lawful residents as they create a criminogenic and violence inducing environment.
5. Both regions have had their birthrates disrupted by the Neocolonial assault they are subjected to.
6. Both regions are saturated with contaminants that were placed there by industrial capitalism in the case of South Chicago, and by Military Invasion in the case of Iraq; these pollutants harm the people and their future generations. #EnvironmentalRacism #DepletedUranium
7. The men in particular face crippling unemployment and mass and unjust incarceration. While incarcerated the men are physically and psychologically tortured and sexually degraded. Those who return to the communities then begin to attack and sexually abuse other vulnerable members of the community because they are denied any treatment or healing for their traumas.
8. They are set upon by corrupt political and religions leaders who are from the same race/ethnicity of the oppressed, but these leaders serve the interest of the oppressors. They offer false solutions that only further oppress the people.
9. The oppression of the people provokes them to blame and attack each other instead of focusing their energies and aggression against the true enemies.
10. Their areas are flooded with weapons and drugs to fuel the internal conflicts and prevent the community from effectively organizing for security and development.
11. Liberal White Saviors flood their areas to teach them how to live under oppression, or how to individually escape the direct oppression, but never do they ally with the oppressed to end the overall oppression which is: White Domination.
I’ll stop there but there are many other overlaps, because the Systems of White Domination have not changed their fundamental methodology in almost a century.
So when you see Hipsters wearing ‘Chiraq’ tee-shirt, it’s not even a matter of White people appropriating Black vernacular, it’s so much worse than that. They are mocking yet another one of their countless genocidal atrocities. It’s like when they wear Native America headdresses, they love to mock and demean their conquest.
Understanding give clarity, clarity is essential to effective Revolutionary Organizing. Understand the Enemy. Understand the Conditions.
Forward.
