The NRA Says Blacks Need to Arm Against the Man?

You know the man is out to get you, and the only way to fight him is to buy a weapon, right? According to Russell Simmons, writing for the Huffington Post, this is what the NRA is promoting in their new ad focused on the black community. What would Huey Newton say about all of this?

Just recently, the NRA has placed their bulls-eye on the heart of Black America with their new advertisement starring some black guy with a Yankees hat! Like Black guys wearing Yankees hats can have any success in this world! But with all seriousness, I find the message of this new video by the NRA deeply troubling, where the guy in the Yankees hat is advocating that our people arm themselves and fight the government (all under the banner of the NRA). Quite hypocritical of them, as during the Civil Rights movement, when the government was overtly oppressing our people, the NRA was quick to pressure legislatures across the country to get the guns out of the hands of the Black militants who were ready to fight back. I guess those weren't the "well-regulated militias" they had in mind when they read their version of the Second Amendment. But, now that we have a Black president, and we have made great progress in creating a more equal playing field in America (although we still have much work to do), the NRA is encouraging us to pick up guns again and start poppin'. With smokescreens and a barrage of bullets, the NRA is intentionally playing into the fears of very few people. Very, very few.

Our communities know that our problems do not mirror the same problems of many communities across this country that have experienced mass shootings. We are not plagued with random school shootings or sociopaths with dreams of amassing more assault weapons than the military. Our set of problems are quite different and need to be handled quite differently. To create more hysteria and confusion about our relationship with our government is what the NRA would like to do. That is fear-mongering at its finest and a distraction to the real problems that our communities face. We can't be scared any longer. While other communities are holding tight to their guns, we're dealing with a gun violence epidemic in our communities. We know the danger of taking up arms, and we know that guns weren't invented to protect us -- they were meant to kill us.

Read Russell Simmons' entire article at the Huffington Post.

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