Blacks and Guns

April 6, 2021

I may be treading on dangerous territory, but why aren’t more blacks buying guns and forming their own militias? Like Senator Ron Johnson, I am just asking the question. Wouldn’t that be a rational response to the world as they see it. They see police officers putting their knees on their throats. They see a rise of white supremacists whose only purpose is to maintain the power, privilege, and position of white people. Gun sales have gone through the roof. It’s not hard to figure out who politicians believe they are protecting themselves against when they pose with AR-15’s. Blacks see white people storming the Capitol while flying the Confederate flag. They see a pandemic, that was grossly mishandled by the President of the United States, killing them disproportionately. Finally, they see an assault on their right to vote in more than forty states around the country.

I would feel threatened. Blacks do have a history of taking up arms. John Brown and Harper’s Ferry comes to mind. I remember when black students, brandishing guns, took over an administrative building on Cornell’s campus. One of them, Thomas Jones, went on to be a Chief Executive Officer of Citigroup’s Global Investment Management business. I am certainly not advocating for armed insurrection or retaliation. However, in the words of Chris Rock riffing on O.J. Simpson, “It would be wrong, but I understand.”