Marcus, Martin, and Minneapolis – statement by UWI Vice Chancellor, Sir Hilary Beckles

The following statement is issued by Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor of The UWI, President of Universities Caribbean, and Chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission.

Martin Luther King Jr, when he felt he could not breathe came to Jamaica. When the threats to his life were constant and closing in around his neck, he took this measure to maintain his life. His visits to Jamaica’s north coast filled his lungs with the ‘freer’ air of our space. He returned to the mainland more battle-ready for the struggle to achieve the God-given right to the dignity of black life.

Island and mainland have always been a common survival space. Borders cannot contain consciousness nor isolate the intellect. Martin was retracing the footsteps of Marcus, his mentor, the incomparable Mosiah Garvey who also travelled from this north coast—his ancestral
home—to Harlem, there to dedicate his life to the struggle for the dignity of black life.

Garvey’s Jamaican voice was heard in every American community where the dignity of black life was denied. He would have flown to the side of George Floyd, and embraced his forlorn family while preparing to prosecute those who demeaned his dignity and denied his ‘livity’.
Marley, the Buffalo Soldier from this said north coast, was idolised by every African American who was empowered by ‘old Marcus Garvey’ to get up and stand up and defend their right to life with dignity.

Malcolm, socialised as an X West Indian, took up the struggle of the islands on the mainland, connecting the legacies of Marcus and Martin to the West Indian commitment to rightness, fairness, and dignity in plantation America. Where there were plantation overseers there are now police officers. Through them, black life remains prime for deletion as if on the plantation.

This Minneapolis fight was Marcus Garvey’s fight; it was Martin’s fight; it was Malcolm’s fight; it was Marley’s fight. It’s a Caribbean fight and it’s a global fight. West Indians have been in it all along. Professor Orlando Patterson, Harvard don, but bred and adorned at the Mona Campus of The UWI, told his MSNBC interviewer that what we have seen is a special breed of evil from the depth of hell. We must exorcise it, he said, and return it from whence it came.

Patterson spoke as a Caribbean scholar in America, the finest sociologist they have, on loan from us to them. His classic work, The Sociology of Slavery, shows us how history can haunt communities; how privileges from the past become the pain of the present. From that horrible history when Europeans stole 15 million of our ancestors from Africa and scattered them across plantation America—the Caribbean getting the lion’s share—shattering family bonds, the future was cast in the concrete again, in which the face of George was crushed. From that moment, when the British government in 1636, took the first step to legally classify all blacks in their colonies as non-human, chattel, property, and real estate and proceeded with their European partners to build and manage with it a global business model for 400 years, the
greatest ‘financial juggernaut’ of world history, humanity was poisoned with the toxic pandemic of race hatred.

And from that date in 1783, when Chief Justice Mansfield of England, in the Zong Trial, boldly proclaimed that the blacks in the case before him are no different from so many horses, sheep, and goats, the poison had permeated every community in the western world. It is this culture of centuries upon which the American nation is built that continues to choke the air from black lungs. The Americans won their national independence from Britain, and proceeded to retain slavery as the development model of the nation; the same model in which
the western world defined and treated black people as animals. It is the legacy of this model, embedded in a national security institution that took the life of “Big Floyd”.

It is this licence to treat animal life as dispensable that led the pack of hunters to pin a citizen to the concrete, using the knee like a blunt knife to the throat for nine minutes, while posing and posturing like a fisherman in triumph over his catch of the day for all to see! It is this cultural triumphalism of killing black prey that has caught afire the heart of a hitherto race hardened world made to participate virtually in an actual live extinction of life; typified by a dying man calling out for his deceased mother who at the moment answered her son because
she knew it was time to call him home.

The UWI, too, has heard the call of George. We wish to invoke the memory of Marcus and Martin to bring to the islands young African Americans, here to breathe before returning to the mainland fight for dignity. We owe it to Martin, to Marcus, to Malcolm, and to Marley; and to all the ruptured minds of Minneapolis.

This is our cause. Every university that stands for freedom, justice, and the celebration of human dignity must stand up like a gorilla for justice for George. Minneapolis is just another place where our eyes have detected evil, beyond hate, that has erupted from the depth of hell.
Not only the souls of black folks have been scarred forever by this latest event in the genocidal war against young black men; the soul of the world is awakened.

This week, every person on the planet who carries a spirit of love for humanity has become a protesting priest. We need our prophets now more than ever. The ‘old pirate has robbed I’ once again. And yet we shall rise!

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16 Comments

  1. June 3, 2020

    Hello and good afternoon my people. Well America has lost all moral standing they had. No American president can go to the United Nation and stand at the podium and criticized any other country. Donald Trump told the American people “DONT BELIEVE YOUR EYES BELIEVE WHAT I TELL YOU”. The whole world watch how the American government killed Mr Floyd but we shouldn’t believe our eyes. We see what many police officers were doing to reporters. We saw what military police did to peacefully assembly protesters when they used tear gas and stun grenades so Bunker hiding Trump can have his photo Op In front of a Church to look tough . America spends a Trillion and a half dollars on their military every year under the pretext of being prepared to fight Russia and China but look what happened. Trump seek the military on the American public. Our eyes don’t lie. Black Americand need to seek their independence from America.

  2. Agirl
    June 2, 2020

    powerful! I needed to read this.

  3. BMB
    June 2, 2020

    I, personally, cannot fully subscribe to the, “Black Lives Matter” sentiment at this point in time; later this may change. My reason? Approximately 18 black males are killed on a daily basis in the United States by way of ‘black-on-black ‘gun violence. Unfortunately we hear, or read, hardly anything about this. If we happen across an article on it, we glance by and move on. As of late, what I’ve seen is that, “BLACK LIVES MATTER…..(ONLY when killed by a white man?)..” Until we rise up as a people a take a stand, until we rise up and denounce ALL VIOLENCE towards black people by ALL people. I will follow the movement from the side-lines.

    • DaPossieMasse
      June 2, 2020

      Only when the US legal and penal systems penalizes a black person who kills another black person with the same ferocity and viciousness as is done when a black person kills a white person, then and only then can I even begin to take your advocacy into consideration, because it is saying is if you kill your own, we can cut you some slack. Did you do understand the social dynamics that creates these conditions. Do you comparing your socialization with that of African Americans?
      Do you know anything about the living conditions in the projects, and the proximity of a police precinct relevant to these projects?

      What is unfortunate is that commentaries like yours empower and perpetuate violence against Black men. You did not even have the respect for us as a people, to say you disagree with this particular killing by Derek Chauvin. I do believe this is a special case when one should subscribe to the Black Lives Matter response. Did you not see all those White people doing the same?

    • Compere Tigre
      June 3, 2020

      And what are the statistics for white on white violence sir. I would suggest you get out of the myopia induced my how the media portrays Black people. If you do your own research you will find a very serious problem of white on white crime. Try an organization like PEW and inform yourself about it. All that glitters is not gold. You have only succumbed to the systemic campaign to full you and many of us into believing that Black is Bad.

    • Pet Charles
      June 3, 2020

      You statement on Black on Black crime forgets to mention that when Blacks kill Blacks they are arrested, charged personally by the prosecutor, and given life sentences. When White police officers kill unarmed Blacks they are often not charged or the go to a grand jury where they are allowed to tel only their side of the story and no one else is allowed. By the way, according to your line of reasoning, if a woman’s father was a drunk who came home and beat the family, then its okay if her boy freind does the same to her.

    • Jonathan Y St Jean
      June 3, 2020

      BMB, yes there is a high number of black people killed by blacks and this isn’t right, but it’s important to understand why. Have you seen crabs in a barrel? They don’t crawl over each other when there is sufficient space for them to move around. When blacks are kept down by an oppressive system, from the cradle to the grave, they are fighting for space to succeed. This can only happen where they are kept in the inner city barrel. Have you considered also that 750,000 people have been killed from opioid abuse and there isn’t as much of a decrying of the system that allows this to happen. You are right that this high rate of crime by blacks needs to be addressed but it can only happen when the “crabs” are given space to breathe and move. By educating ourselves on the history of the conditions of blacks in the American racist system, will lead to more empathy so we don’t tie-up the issue of lynching of blacks with black on black violence.

    • Just asking
      June 4, 2020

      What amazes me more is that the are people like you still out there. We thought we left you at the plantation, what made you want to leave?

  4. Ulric Lestrade
    June 2, 2020

    The organized cruelty of the white supremacists has been remarkably successful for over 400 years. The brilliance and cunning that they have used, and continue to use, to keep black people back and to keep them down makes for a case study in human suppression and cruelty.

    A major contributor to their success is getting their members and supporters elected to public office particularly at the local level. Much of the cruelty against black and brown people takes place at the local level.

    As black folks in America we need to increase our participation in local politics because the opposition is formidable. Unfortunately, the police allow themselves to be used by racists to, effectively, take over the job of the slave master. Of course, it is a minority of police officers who engage in the brutality and unnecessary killing of black men, but that minority is tainting the fine profession of law enforcement.

    I am afraid that this racial situation will erupt one day in extreme…

  5. Sense out of nonsense
    June 2, 2020

    blah blah blah. Let’s deal with black people’s attitude towards sexual conduct, marriage, commitment, education, violence and drugs how about that? 70% out of wedlock birth rate while studies show that single parent homes are one of the leading indicators of failure, drug abuse, violence etc. Why do we have politicians trying to keep people locked into race, promoting division, sexual deviancy and immorality instead of encouraging people to turn away from all those things which are destroying the black community. No amount of affirmative action, civil rights etc will make things better unless BLACK PEOPLE make themselves better.

    • Afflicted
      June 2, 2020

      One issue at a time please, no group is perfect either, so pick an issue and be a leader. Many many of us will be with you.

    • Compere Tigre
      June 3, 2020

      Now ask yourself why and go and educate yourself.

    • DAPossieMasse
      June 3, 2020

      Alas…. alas,I feel really sorry for what seems to be with people who do not know what they talking about. If it is one thing I have found with “many” Dominicans. These individuals: They do not read, they do not do the research, they do not study social issues or social justice, and just run their mouths. They act smart, but do not have the scholarship or research to substantiate their senseless statements. Yet, this one is trying to make sense out of nonsense, and even having the nerve to post that “70% out of wedlock birth rate while studies show that single parent homes are one of the leading indicators of failure, drug abuse, violence etc.” Tell us from where you got this statistics so we can look it up ourselves: The definition of research. But just by writing this foolishness, you sound so smart.

      PLEASE TELL US FROM WHERE YOU GOT YOUR DATA. “No amount of affirmative action, civil rights etc” How many Dominicans are so successful in America because Dr. King died? Alas!

    • Not good
      June 3, 2020

      You just described white people. You don’t have to be stuck watching fox TV to regurgitate their views on DNO stories. Millions of whites are addicts on meth, heroin, cocaine, crack, oxycontin, so many other drugs they just call them all opioids. Instead of hunting them down and throwing them in prison like they do Blacks, Trump and your white supremacist gang lobbied congress for $8 billion to “treat” them for opioids; all while sending their police to black communities to hunt weed and crack users. White people have a whole music genre called Country music dedicated to exposing glorifying sexual conduct, marriage, infidelity, low commitment, violence and drugs how about that? 30% out of wedlock birth rate (millions of whites more than the entire Black population). Your beloved Foxtv keeps that from you claiming you don’t read. Your white supremacists gods are out there causing mayhem.

    • Jonathan Y St Jean
      June 3, 2020

      Sense out of non-sense, how can you want to put the responsibility on black people to make themselves better and they are not being given the resources to do so? An understanding of the racist system in America with implicit bias, where blacks without resources can only focus on the now needs, and the oppressor continues to put obstacles in their way of them moving forward, will help broaden the narrow view that it’s only black people who can help themselves. The powerful God saw it fit to send help in the person of his only son and didn’t take the view that it’s only sinners who can help themselves. The powerful units of American society controlled by whites have to do like God and help the blacks to help themselves. We were given so-called freedom from slavery without resources. How can a man save himself by his own bootstraps when he doesn’t even have a boot, much less a bootstrap.

    • DaPossieMasse
      June 3, 2020

      Boss alas. When the colonizers and slave owners and masters left their children in charge in the Caribbean, boy did they do a perpetual number on some of us!!!!! Dem man just cannot shake off the effects of being owned had on people of African descent.

      Alas we.

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