US built on slavery, colonialism: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Penny Hess, chairwoman of African People’s Solidarity Committee in Florida, to discuss a shooting that killed 9 African Americans in a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: First of all, I do understand that we are expecting rather President Barack Obama to address this shooting as well. What do you think he will have to say?

Hess: Well, I cannot answer for President Barack Obama because he is empowered to be white power imperialism in black face. So he is there to support imperialism, his wars have been greater than even George Bush beforehand and he is responsible for this conditions inside the US in which African people are shot down every day.

And I just want to say that I am a member of the African People’s Solidarity Committee and we are under the leadership of Chairman Omali Yeshitela and African People’s Socialist Party, and we express our most profound solidarity with the families and victims of this brutal assault and with the African community in general, and denounce this white violence against African people, and we understand that this is just one more example that shows that African people inside the US are colonized, that we see colonialism of the African population, that there are two Americas, that America is built on slavery, it is built on genocide, it is built on colonialism and theft of people’s resources and wars of occupation and exploitation all around the world and inside this country.

So it is not a simple question and saying racism or ideas in people’s heads. This is a system in which the entire white population has benefited from the oppression and enslavement of the African people and the ongoing conditions which African people face.   

Press TV: Fox News seems to disagree. They claim this was an attack on faith and had nothing to do with race. What do you make of that?

Hess: The shooter had on patches of African countries when they were under colonialism, Zimbabwe, what is now Zimbabwe, when it was called Rodija South Africa when it was under apartheid regime. This was the church that was founded by Denmark Vesey who led an uprising almost 200 years ago to the day of this attack against the white oppressors in this country.

This is part of white people who want to control white people, white power and act as an arm of the state. There is the police who were shooting down Africans everyday in this country and there is white people carrying out violence as well.

This is in our history in lynching, in convict leasing and the whole history inside this country. We call on white people to take a stand in solidarity with African people’s right to resistance and to black community control of the police and call on right people to carry out the days in solidarity with African people. They can go to uhurusolidarity.org if they want to take a principle stand and rectify our relationship to the African community and build a movement for white reparations not white murder.

AHK/MKA

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