Dwight Howard’s benign “Free Palestine” tweet and the responses it has generated reveals the extent to which America has become, in a sense, an Israeli plantation. You better not say anything the master doesn’t like, or prepared to get “whipped.” When Howard, an African American, dared to have an opinion, which he quickly forfeited, easing back into his “place”,” he was essentially told by many who roundly condemned his position, “Shut up nigger and keep entertaining us.” What was Howard’s treasonous act of political incorrectness? He dared to express sympathy for the hundreds of innocent Palestinian civilians who are being systematically murdered by Israeli bombs and missiles.
Howard’s treatment harks back to the darkest days of slavery in this country when Africans were illiterate non-humans who dared not express an opinion on any meaningful issue lest they be labeled as dangerous threats to the status quo. The status quo in America as it relates to the Israeli/Palestinian issue is be quiet or you will be viciously “whipped.” As for the First Amendment, it didn’t apply to slaves. Its inapplicability in “Plantation America” could not be more aptly echoed than in Howard’s retraction, “I have never commented on international politics and never will.” What Howard essentially said is, “I am not free to speak on this issue in America.”
When Howard’s teammate, a non-American Israeli, Omri Casspi, waded into the fray by tweeting out, “Numbers Don’t Lie…” no one questioned his right to have an opinion, no one demanded that he apologize, no one questioned the logic of his statement. Although he is not even an American, for him, the First Amendment is alive and well. He can speak all day and not fear any consequences. Why? His words are pleasing to the master.
And, yes, numbers don’t lie. Up to 400 innocent Palestinians are dead, 2,000 are injured and those numbers are sure to rise. Those murdered and maimed souls had no control over Hamas launching their puny and ineffective rockets into Israel and they had nothing to do with the deaths of the three Israeli teenagers. They are being brutally murdered because of who they are and where they live, but you better not say that in America. You might enrage the master.
Free human beings get tired of being treated like slaves and “Yes Massa” gets old at a certain point. Israel and her supporters in this country should understand that if you keep treating Americans like a bunch of voiceless, opinion-less plantation niggers, sooner or later there is going to be a slave revolt that they will not be able to control. The natives are already getting restless down on the plantation.
