Bilking The White Man - Fatima Shabazz, Hero Of The Oppressed

Fatima Shabazz, nee Letisha Davis, was the leader of a Congressional claque of progressive women of color and ethnicity who were the self-appointed watchdogs of America's moral direction.  They were its compass, barometer, and sextant.  They were the keepers of the flame, the guardians of the hearth, the sentinels of justice. 

Now, these women had all been born and raised in the inner city, children of dysfunctional homes and incarcerated fathers, raised by grandmothers, sisters of pimps and pushers, but who had had enough uppity gumption to get out of the ghetto. Letisha had been favored by the Reverend Isaiah Jackson, pastor of the Second AME Zion church of Brentwood, a former colleague of Mayor for Life Leon Derby who did time with him in Stillwater, but since reformed leader of the community.  

His meme was 'White Man Done It', a tag which was his alone although the sentiment in the neighborhoods that the crime, drugs, drive-bys, and lock-ups were due to white supremacy, Jim Crow, and capitalist manipulation added salience and depth to the line. 

In any case, thanks to white liberal generosity, millions of tax dollars got siphoned through the municipality to the ghetto as walkin' around money, entitlement grants, and reparations.  The City Council had voted one of the country's first Black Reparation Laws, and every black man, woman, and child east of the river received a generous 'Racial Bonus'.  Some of this money went to Letisha who, as mistress of the Reverend Jackson, benefitted from his political connections, and thanks to him was put up for Councilmember in the all-black Tenth Ward. 

It didn't take much to become elected. Governance was a weakly understood concept in Ward 10 and as long as 'generosity money' kept flowing, no one cared what the city council was up to; so without much experience or education, Letisha took her seat and did the needful, draining the city treasury for phantom 'enrichment' and 'development' programs.  Thanks to her energy and unwavering loyalty, she was reelected every two years. 

Of course, once she got a taste of the perks and benefits of elected life she set her sights far higher than the City Council, and thanks once again to the Reverend Johnson who was a de facto, honorary member of the Congressional Black Caucus, helped paved the way for Letisha's rise to national prominence. He found her a safe seat in a nearly all-black district of Maryland, poured in plenty to help her campaign, and after a hard election - every candidate knew that the gravy train was just around the bend - she won.

To add cachet and authority she became Muslim, changed her name to Fatima Shabazz, and joined the claque of progressive women of color and ethnicity in the House. 

Her sisters in the group were all like her - daughters of the inner city, ambitious women who knew how to play the race card, who had been the beneficiaries of white liberal guilt, and who were out to get theirs.  There was one legitimate Muslim woman in the claque, an immigrant from Yemen who resented Letisha for her facile, Muslim-in-a-day conversion, but quickly realized that to the white liberal establishment any association with Islam meant immediate inclusion, respect, and support. Conservative Republicans saw right through the scam-sham, but in the minority, they could do nothing to get rid of the con. 

So thanks to Letisha, her crewe, and the progressives who fawned over them, they became perennial thorns in the side of the white establishment and heroes of the progressive Left.  They were representatives of the new, diverse, multi-racial and multi-ethnic Democratic America.  Gone were the old Jewish, Samuel Gompers, Saul Alinsky Upper West Side liberals whose political allegiances were to philosophy - most had never forgotten the halcyon days of Marxist-Leninism and were still championing the lost cause of labor - and in their place were the new, young men and women of color and alternate ethnicity. 

Letisha/Fatima had found her place and her voice and became the face of the group.  A woman of particular eloquence and persuasive, gospel cadence, she was in demand everywhere.  White college students couldn't get enough of her and her finely honed message of The Militancy of the Oppressed.  She was an advocate for very stripe of social victim, beginning with the Palestinians who were suffering genocide at the hand of the Jews, the Muslim immigrants of Europe who, forced into ethnic and religious ghettoes by their white Dutch, French, and German masters, were rallying together as part of the movement for a universal Islamic caliphate. 

The black man was not only to be paid reparations and restored to full citizenship, but raised to the pinnacle of the social pyramid where he belonged.  The African American, child of the forest, inheritor of the greatness of the Ghanian, Malian, and Nigerian Empires, innately superior to the white man with a higher consciousness, genetic history, and a highly evolved tribal culture, was atop all others. 

What a great ride, chuckled Letisha and her sisters, as the donations to the charities they set up reached unexpected levels as the coffers filled to overflowing.  Thanks to some creative accounting - here the women broke ranks and hired the best Jewish CPA firm in Washington - and thanks to some very sophisticated schemes reminiscent of Enron and Bernie Madoff,  they became wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. 

The demand for their invective was insatiable.  The more they howled and attacked the white man and the 'international cabal' (read Israel and its supporters); and the more they called for the demise of white supremacy, the more donations poured in. 

They whipped the crowds to a frenzy, hopped them up, turned them from nice liberal white folk to foaming radicals.  'Hate has no home here' say the signs in liberal neighborhoods of Washington, but hate was the women's stock in trade.  The more bile, venom, and vitriol they spewed, the more the cash registers rang.  It was Christmas every day. 

Nothing in politics is without consequence, and sooner or later the radical progressive color-minded juggernaut was stopped.  Donald Trump kept rising in the polls, and conservative candidates who called out the corruption and animus of racial/ethnic hatred got more visibility. Ordinary Americans formerly intimidated by the thought of being branded racist began to shed their timidity and speak out for justice, temperance, and respect. Enough black this, black that; back to basics, Jefferson, Hamilton et al. 

It is hard to remove incumbents in American politics, so Letisha and her crewe, although increasingly marginalized by both Republicans and especially Democrats who had wised up to their shenanigans and worried about scandal and exposure, kept up the drumbeat.  They were all from secure districts, so the only hope was for them to shut up, and restive members on both sides of the aisle did due diligence; and before long the Progressive Women Of Color shut their charities, kept their own counsel, and like everyone else in Congress had to be content with bringing home the bacon.