Alt-Right Keeps Killing as Dallas Activist Held as “Black Identity Extremist”

The post Alt-Right Keeps Killing as Dallas Activist Held as “Black Identity Extremist” appeared first on It's Going Down.

In the first few days of 2018, a flurry of news stories have been published about continuing acts of violence carried out by the Alt-Right and white nationalists. In just the span of a few weeks, the Alt-Right has been linked to an attempted anti-Black terror attack on an Amtrak train in Nebraska, the murder of two parents in Virginia, a plot by a former police officer in DC to help the Islamic State and unite them with US based neo-Nazis, and a deadly shootout with police in Denver.

Yet at the same time in Dallas, Texas, an African-American activist, Rakem Balogun, who has spent the past several years organizing mutual aid programs as well as teaching community members about their 2nd amendment rights, since December 11th has sat behind federal bars. Balogun’s arrest came after police raided his home on a search warrant for a firearm. Further still, Balogun has according to his supporters, been listed by the FBI as a “Black Identity Extremist,” or (BIE), and continues to be held without bail on the charge of Unlawful Possession of a Firearm, according to supporters who spoke to IGD. 

Guerilla Mainframe, a community group that Balogun was a leading member of, put out a statement about his arrest which wrote:

December 11, 2017, early on Monday morning, the FBI and ATF kicked down the door of Rakem Balogun after following him for over two years issuing a warrant for a charge of alleged illegal possession of a firearm. Rakem Balogun is leading member of a pro 2^nd amendment group named Guerilla Mainframe and Geronimo Tactical, based in Dallas, TX. The organization advocates publicly for the right of Black people to legally carry weapons as part of their 2^nd amendment rights. 

Rakem Balogun remains in federal custody, without bail for a charge of allegedly being a “Danger to the community”… This is unheard of in modern legal proceedings for a charge of this type to not warrant an opportunity for the accused to not post bail. During the arraignment hearing held last Thursday, the US District Attorney stated that they have been watching the Guerrilla Mainframe and other Black political groups for years.

Guerilla Mainframe notes that the push to label black liberation organizers and broadly the Black Lives Matter movement came after the shooting of police officers in Dallas, Texas in July of 2016. The shooting occured in the middle of a Black Lives Matter demonstration, called in the wake of the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. 25 year old African-American Micah Xavier Johnson, who was killed during the shooting, was later identified to be a veteran from Afghanistan who after his release from the military grew angry at law enforcement for continued police murders. According to the local news, Johnson after he was released from the army became a member of the New Black Panther Party, (no relation to the original Black Panthers), but was removed from the organization according to leadership after 6 months.

Ten days after the shooting in Dallas, Gavin Long, another African-American veteran, shot and killed three officers in Baton Rouge. Later videos were found showing Long to align himself with the far-Right sovereign citizens movement, which had long been linked to deadly attacks on law enforcement. 

In the wake of both shootings, the far-Right and the growing ‘Blue Lives Matter’ reactionary push back against Black Lives Matter, promoted the false notion that BLM was “killing police,” much as they would go on to do with ‘antifa.’ Then in August of 2017, the Southern Poverty Law Center penned “Return of the Violent Black Nationalist,” and that same month, the FBI produce a document entitled, “Black Identity Extremists,” which attempted to cast an even wider net against black organizers and radicals who they saw as “anti-white” or “anti-police.”

As Guerilla Mainframe wrote:

The F.B.I. report detailing the perceived BIE threat specifically discusses the shooting of Dallas police officers in July 2016. The document was prepared by the F.B.I Domestic Terrorism Analysis Unit, and has shown an effort to criminalize political organizers with progressive ethics. The police authorities presented no evidence to tie Mr. Balogun or his organizations to the Dallas killings, but invoked them to paint a broad brush on the danger of Black organizing. The Trump administration has made their desire to derail black organizers through declarations and actions crystal clear. If you demand accountability for illegal police violence, you are now subject to surveillance and potential arrest.

Wanting to know more about how the label of “Black Identity Extremist” is being used against Balogun, It’s Going Down reached to someone involved in the Rakem Balogun Defense Committee via the Huey P. Newton Gun Club Twitter. They wrote:

The ongoing surveillance of our membership before and after the 2016 Dallas shootings, and now the denial of bail because Rakem is allegedly a “threat to the community,” all point to the BIE classification being the underlying motivation for the arrest. Rakem has never made any specific threats to [law enforcement], nor taken any action that would allow them to tag him with a BIE charge.

What it does is create an environment where protected political speech, the 2nd Amendment and right to assembly taken together is enough for the federal government to keep someone incarcerated without bail. The actions by the US District Court in Dallas creates a clear double standard based on race for 1A and 2A rights. Where is the White Identity Extremist classification?” 

Members of the Rakem Balogun Defense Committee told IGD that in court the State is attempting to make the argument that there is a connection between the Dallas shooting and groups that Rakem is involved in, as well as his ongoing community organizing. They stated that there is no connection, that the Dallas shooter was never a part of the Huey P Newton Gun Club or other such groups, and that attempts by the State to make a connection amount to grasping for straws. 

It’s clear that both the State and local police departments are hoping to use the label of “Black Identity Extremist,” to cast a wide net that can be applied to a wide variety of groups, movements, and associations, just as some local police departments have attempted to sue Black Lives Matter, and repression and rhetoric ramps up against pipeline protesters, anarchists, and antifascists.

Meanwhile, as the FBI locks up community organizers, in the last month, the Alt-Right has been linked to a series of murders, shootings, and attempted acts of actual terror. In rural Nebraska, a man was apprehended by the FBI for planning to carry out a “terror attack” on an Amtrak train in an attempt to “murder black people.” The 26 year old arrested, Taylor Michael Wilson, was carrying a business card for the National Socialist Movement (NSM) at the time of his arrest, and also was found to have attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. In late December, a DC police officer was also found guilty of trying to give aid to the Islamic State (ISIS), in an effort to unite them with neo-Nazis in the United States, and was found to have neo-Nazi “SS” tattoos.

Meanwhile in Virginia, just before the turn of the year, a 17 year-old boy shot and killed his girlfriend’s parents, after they forbade her from seeing him after mowed he mowed a swastika into a field. According to the Huffington Post, the 17 year old murder suspect, Nicholas Giampa, became radicalized online in 2017, and was fond of interacting with and sharing posts from Identity Evropa, Automwaffen, and Vanguard America. Lastly, Matthew Riehl on December 31st, shot and killed a Sheriff’s Deputy and wounded four others after a shoot out over a noise complaint. After the shooting, which also led to Riehl’s death, it was discovered that he was a fan of the Alt-Right and Donald Trump. 

The State puts people like Rakem Balogun in cages because it fears people getting organized in their communities. This is as true today, as it was when J. Edgar Hoover called the Black Panther Free Breakfast program one of the most dangerous threats to the American State in the late 1960s. Meanwhile, American police have already killed 14 people since the start of 2018, as the Alt-Right continues to add to their own body count.

Alt-Right Keeps Killing as Dallas Activist Held as “Black Identity Extremist” SOURCE: itsgoingdown.com]]>