Dallas, TX—On Septeber 3, 2013, a white nationalist 46-year-old would-be murderer fired bullets into the face of an 8-year-old African boy, Donald Maiden Jr, who had just celebrated his birthday. The shooter, Brian Cloninger, is being held on a 2.2 million dollar bond.
Maiden's grandmother witnessed the criminal act: Donald was outside playing with other children, went back to the home to get some toys, and just as he went back outside, the white terorrist in the pickup truck shot him in the jaw.
"He hit the ground when the guy shot him,” said Donald's grandmother, Sharon Locklin. “Then, he got up and ran to the house and asked his mom for water, and his mom saw all the blood coming out.”
Africans in the community described the impact of this terrorism on their community: “I’m coming to pick up my son from work and I come back to this," said one of Donald's neighbors, Mae Anderson. "What is going on? They say a kid mouth was shot off. I’m like, who would do this?"
CBS reported, "Maiden was in critical but stable condition as of Thursday. He still needed a breathing tube and had a plate in his jaw. He could wink and nod to communicate but could not talk. The boy was expected to have more surgeries after swelling from the most-recent surgeries goes down."
The white ruling class media reported that the police officials were investigating to "determine a possible motive," as if there could possibly be some kind of reasonable justification for a white man to shoot an 8-year-old child in the face.
The motive was colonialism. The bullets fired into the jaw of Donald Gaiden were compelled by the same white nationalism that ended the life of Trayvon Martin by the gunfire of white nationalist vigilante George Zimmerman, who was acquitted by the colonial court system earlier this year.
The shootings of Donald Maiden and Trayvon Martin are not isolated incidents. White vigilante killings of black youth have a long history in the United States and have become commonplace in 2013.
On January 11, 2013, Kendrick Johnson, 17, of Valdosta, Georgia was found dead and wrapped up in wrestling mats in the gym of Lowndes County High School. It is widely believed in the African commmunity that Kendrick was lynched by a white mob but there has not been an official investigation by the local, state, or federal authorities into his murder.
These incidents are among the many that substantiate the fact that Africans are a captured, oppressed nation in the U.S., the offenders being members of the European or white oppressor nation population.
An African man, woman or child is murdered by police, security guards, or white nationalist vigilantes every 28 hours in this country.
Every 28 hours another Trayvon Martin is shot dead on the street.
These killings are a mere continuation of a centuries-long legacy of white colonial terror waged by ordinary white civilians who function as extensions of the white power state.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela, founder of the Uhuru Movement and leader of the African People's Socialist Party, has described this phenomenon as the "White People's State," wherein the state apparatuses of U.S. imperialism and its general white oppressor nation population are united in their colonial attacks on the oppressed African nation domestically colonized within U.S. borders.
Donald Maiden, Trayvon Martin and Kendrick Johonson were not the victims of lone, dernaged individuals. They were the victims of a system built from the oppression, enslavement and colonization of African people. The white killers who ended their lives are extensions of that system.
What has changed in America since 1955, when Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African, was lynched and mutilated by a mob of white killers who were later acquitted by an all-white jury?
What has changed since 1963 when the Ku Klux Klan members murdered four little African girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama and were found "not guilty?”
What has changed since 1973 when 10-year-old Clifford Glover was murdered by police who was found "not guilty?”
Omowale Kefing of the African People's Socialist Party wrote in a piece entitled, "Justice for Trayvon Martin will be won in the streets, not in a US courtroom" that "U.S. law is a law that serves the interest of the rulers, the interests of colonialism and white power. It does not serve the interest of the African working class."
Africans have a right to resist colonial violence in all of its forms.
Justice for Donald Maiden Jr and Kendrick Johnson!
Smash Colonial Violence!
Africans have the right to resist!
