The Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society condemns the shooting of Jacob Blake III, the great, great, great, great, great grandson of Brassa Nchabra who was given the slave name George Blake.
Two hundred fifty years ago, the young Brassa Nchabra was kidnapped, chained and trafficked across the Atlantic and enslaved in the American colonies, starting the cycle of violence against a Binham Brassa (Balanta) family in what would become the United States of America.
The latest episode of senseless violence against this Balanta family occurred on August 23, 2020, when unarmed Jacob Blake III was shot multiple times in the back by police officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin. His three young sons, also Balanta descendants, were in the car and witnessed their father being shot by the police.
Previously, on August 6, 1999, it was the Chicago police that attacked another member of the Blake family, Anthony Ras Nathaniel Blake, cousin of Jacob Blake III, for sitting in a parked vehicle at a beach along Lake Michigan. During that incident, several officers drew guns while placing Mr. Blake in the same position as the late George Floyd.
The name Balanta is commonly translated to mean, “those who resist” and the Balanta people are known for their unique society in which there are no leaders, chiefs or kings and each man is the sole and effective social and political unit. Balanta people are free people. Historically, Balanta are known for resolving conflict by migrating or “walking away”.
Jeffery Robinson, a deputy legal director with the American Civil Liberties Union, said regarding the shooting of Jacob Blake III, “with each of the seven shots fired, the police department made their intent clear – they believed they had the right to kill an unarmed Black man for the crime of walking away from them.”
The South Carolina Slave Code of 1740: AN ACT FOR THE BETTER ORDERING AND GOVERNING [OF] NEGROES AND OTHER SLAVES IN THIS PROVINCE
"V. If any slave who shall be out of the house or plantation where such slave shall live or shall be usually employed, or without some white person in company with such slave, shall refuse to submit or to undergo the examination of any white person, it shall be lawful for any such white Person to pursue, apprehend and moderately correct such slave; and if such slave shall assault and strike such white person, such slave may be lawfully killed."
HOW MUCH HAS REALLY CHANGED?
When my great, great, great, great, great grandfather Brassa Nchabra was kidnapped and illegally trafficked from his homeland to South Carolina in the 1760's, the law said that if he left his house or plantation without being accompanied by a white person, he must submit to questioning by any white person, and if he refused, it was lawful to apprehend him and if he resisted, to kill him.
On August 23, 2020, my cousin Jacob Blake, also the great, great, great, great, great grandson of Brassa Nchabra, while attempting to make peace by breaking up a fight within his community, left a house. A white man given the status of "law enforcement officer" attempted to question him and when he refused and defended himself, the white men with the status "law enforcement officer" attempted to apprehend him and shot him in the back seven times.
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 1740 AND 2020 FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF THE BLACK MAN IN AMERICA? IT IS COMPLETELY UNNATURAL FOR A BLACK MAN TO SUBMIT TO A WHITE MAN SIMPLY BECAUSE WHITE PEOPLE USE AN INSTRUMENT CALLED "LAW" AND DESIGNATE A PROTECTED STATUS CALLED "WHITE" IN 1740 AND "LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER" IN 2020. HOW DID WHITE PEOPLE GET SUCH AUTHORITY? WAS IT BY SPIRITUAL VIRTUE AND MORAL MERIT OR WAS IT BY CONQUEST AND THE ORGANIZED POWER OF VIOLENCE? IF IT WERE NATURAL FOR BLACK MEN TO SUBMIT TO WHITE MEN, THERE WOULDN'T BE ANY NEED FOR USING LAW AND FORCE TO COMPEL IT.....
If you change the wording of the South Carolina act, the essence is still the same.
"V. If any [black person, especially if he has a warrant or criminal record] shall be out of the house or place of employment, without some white person in company, shall refuse to submit or to undergo the examination of any white person [invested as law enforcement officer], it shall be lawful for any such [law enforcement officer PROTECTED BY QUALIFIED IMMUNITY] to apprehend and moderately correct such [black person]; and if such [black person] shall assault and strike such [law enforcement officer protected by qualified immunity], such [black person] may be lawfully killed."
SLAVERY AND WHITE SUPREMACY STILL EXISTS IN 2020 AMERICA EXCEPT THAT NOW THE WHITE SUPREMACIST WILL EVEN INVEST AND EMPLOY BLACK LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS FOR THE BETTER ORDERING AND GOVERNING [OF] NEGROES AND OTHER SLAVES IN THIS PROVINCE . . . (Oh wait, they had black slave patrols back then, too!)
What we are talking about here is state sponsored, legal genocide. They create a special status in law, formerly "white" and today "law enforcement officer" that allows them to kill with impunity.
The Balanta B’urassa History & Genealogy Society in America sees the shooting of Jacob Blake III by police officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin as an example of the violence of the system of white supremacy and racism that uses deadly force to compel free black men and women to obey an unnatural authority. The same violence committed by the unnatural authority against Brassa Nchabra two hundred and fifty years ago is the same violence that was committed by the unnatural authority against Jacob Blake III today.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II, states that genocide means any of the acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group;
The history of the Blake family in the United States of America began with the forcible transfer of Brassa Nchabra to the Blake family in the Carolinas. The family was then held in the condition of slavery until Jack Black was emancipated in 1853 and the rest of the family was emancipated after the civil war. Since then, six generations of the Blake family, along with all the descendants of the 6,534 Binham Brassa (Balanta people) that were trafficked from their homeland across the Atlantic to the United States between 1761 and 1815, have lived in ignorance of their Balanta ancestry. THIS IS CALLED ETHNOCIDE. Nevertheless, they they have survived conditions which have created the racial health and wealth gap.
It is now time that the violence being committed against the Blake family and the Balanta people in the United States must stop, that the police officers involved in the shooting of Jacob Blake III be prosecuted and punished, and that crime of Genocide and Ethnocide against the Binham Brassa (Balanta people) in the United States be fully investigated and punished according to The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
