Another West Point scandal is apparently brewing this week on the campus of the 214 year-old United States Military Academy located 50 miles up the Hudson River from New York City. A photo of sixteen African American female cadets posing in dress gray uniform directly in front of the historic Central Barracks (built circa slavery era of 1850) with raised clenched fists has gone viral and is creating quite a stir. A West Point official acknowledged that the controversial photograph depicts a group of cadet women from this year�s senior class due to graduate May 21st and that the incident is currently under serious investigation for any violation of the Defense Department stipulation prohibiting:
Any member of the Armed Forces shall not display a partisan political sign, poster, banner, or similar device visible to the public at one�s residence on a military installation.
In recent years the Black Lives Matter group has adopted this arm and hand gesture as a sign of solidarity lending support to the many African Americans murdered since the Trayvon Martin case in 2012. The numerous high profile cases of unarmed black men killed by white policemen has given impetus to the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Off its own website it defines itself as �a chapter-based national organization working for the validity of Black life. We are working to (re)build the Black liberation movement.� It should come as no surprise that any organization advocating black empowerment especially when it began using the clenched raised fist as its symbolic gesture signifying solidarity and strength would attract illicit attention from the FBI and Homeland Security, not unlike the FBI�s long running COINTELPRO operation that illegally monitored Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement and the Students for a Democratic Society back in the 1960�s and 70�s.
During this year�s presidential election campaign, Black Lives Matter protesters attending Donald Trump rallies have recently been widely reported in the media for clashes with Trump supporters, at times erupting in violence mostly from angry Trump zealots pissed at that their uninvited party crashers. This of course comes in response to Trump making inflammatory racist statements against both Muslims and Latinos.
It was soon uncovered that �liberal� billionaire troublemaker (and key financier of Hillary�s presidential bid, the 2014 Ukraine coup, and the 2014 Ferguson and 2015 Baltimore riots) George Soros behind his MoveOn organization has hired protesters to disrupt Trump rallies across the nation. Soros and Hillary sent paid demonstrators to the Donald�s rallies pretending to be Bernie Sanders supporters. Trump�s front-running popularity and his �make America great again� mantra is resonating, tapping mostly into blue-collared white American males vehemently upset over their most powerful country on earth rapidly going down in flames while seeing themselves as its biggest disempowered victims.
In February at the Super Bowl halftime show the popular singer Beyonce�s backup dancers performing live also did the raised fist salute as part of their act paying homage to the Black Panther Party as well as to Black Lives Matter. Afterwards several dancers were photographed with the same raised fist gesture holding a banner that said �Justice 4 Mario Woods,� the latest at the time police shooting victim in San Francisco. Two days prior to the Super Bowl, Beyonce�s husband Jay-Z announced his $1.5 million donation to Black Lives Matter.
With a rate of being killed by police nine times greater than other Americans, young black men�s lives can be considered an endangered species in the current racist US militarized police state. Comprising just 2% of the total US population, African American males between the ages of 15 and 34 are being exterminated at a rate five times higher than white American males of the same age. As of 2010 the inordinate incarceration rate amongst blacks is near six times that of whites and over twice that of Hispanic Americans and the length of prison sentences for blacks is 60% longer than for whites committing the same crimes. As of 2008 people of color (black and brown) make up 58% of the US prison population yet blacks and Hispanics total just a quarter of the US population. These off the chart facts reflect a deeply racist US justice system where the nation that accounts for only 5% of the world population imprisons 25% of the total inmate population on the planet.
Though the raised fist may be considered a serious rule infraction at an institution where the rules and regulations manual is by far the biggest and thickest book on campus, (as a West Point �century man� I should know having walked the infamous �area� as punishment with rifle on my shoulder for over 100 hours due to alleged rule infractions), supporting the lives of fellow African Americans with this same pose is reminiscent of a very famous Olympic moment in history.
The most iconic photo demonstrating the raised fist black power defiance came at the medal ceremony during the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City when the gold and bronze medal winners of the 200 meter sprint, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, bowed their heads with their raised arms during the playing of America�s national anthem. It created such a backlash of national outrage amongst many Americans (especially whites), that they were kicked off the national team. The two courageous athletes used their moment in the world spotlight to call attention to worldwide racism that was oppressing Africans and African Americans fresh off the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination just several months earlier. Despite it hurting their track careers and incurring such public wrath that it drew death threats, neither man rightfully felt the need to apologize for their bold statement that became larger in significance than any athletic event at the time.
Additionally this same gesture of the raised clenched fist became a salute symbolizing black power during the late 1960�s and early 70�s and was actually adopted as part of the Black Panther Party logo. And before that, dating back to the ancient Assyrians it has been historically used over the centuries as a sign of strength and resistance by a wide variety of groups including the suffragettes, labor unions and socialists.
In the same way the black Olympians� closed fists riled up the ire of American sentiment nearly a half century ago, that same salute adopted more recently by Black Lives Matter has triggered an avalanche of more charges of blasphemy and hellfire. Iraq veteran and blogger John Burk posting on Facebook last Tuesday that the female cadets were supporting Black Lives Matter activists had this to say about that group:
[It�s] known for inflicting violent protest throughout various parts of the United States, calling for the deaths of police officers, and even going so far as to call for the deaths of white Americans.
Burk�s condemning rant on Facebook was then shared 14,000 times. That�s how racially volatile our present day culture is. Many whites are reacting typically the same way they did to Tommie Smith and John Carlos, using the reverse racism charge accusing the black female cadets of racism for supporting Black Lives Matter with their fisted salute.
In total contrast, 2003 West Point graduate Mary Tobin feels the female cadets were merely celebrating upcoming graduation like a victorious football team holding their helmets high up in the air, �It was a sign of unity. They weren�t trying to imply any allegiance to any movement.�
In any event, West Point has not released any further details on the photo image, nor have the women in the photograph been identified by name. It�s also unknown as to exactly why or when the picture was taken although as already alluded to it�s likely in the same vein as Beyonce�s dance troop showing solidarity for Black Lives Matter. With official disclosure that the young women depicted in the picture are seniors due to graduate in less than two weeks, based on their seasonal uniform, the picture is most likely a recent one taken sometime during this spring as had it been winter, long overcoats would likely have been worn.
It came to light last Wednesday after several concerned citizens spotted the photo circulating on the internet and sent it to the Army Times. Apparently the young women had been using an anonymous messaging app called Yik Yak to express their political views.
Apparently other cadets are afraid to confront or challenge those 16 female cadets making their views so known. In this oppressive Age of Political Correctness that supersedes the First Amendment, West Point has come up with what�s called a �respect board� that when cadets are found guilty of hurting anyone else�s feelings they can be kicked out of the academy or made to repeat another year. From the insulated granite stonewalled institution an anonymous cadet source leaked this information out about respect boards:
They can be given for just making someone upset, so no one wants to get kicked out of college and lose their commission over something like this� especially since a white man in this situation is already at a disadvantage when a conversation like this starts. It�s purely political.
And so it goes when deep state tightens its tyrannical screws on an overwrought population breeding fear, distrust and paranoia in fellow cadets and fellow Americans alike, increasingly pressured to �rat out� friends, family members and peers for violating the Orwellian code of Political Correctness or for any behavior deemed strange and unusual, making conditions overly ripe for an arbitrarily arrived setup to vengefully destroy another person�s life based on lies and fabrication. So above, goes below. The totalitarian oppressors want us to finger anyone critical or disagreeing with their corrosively corrupt system, unwilling and refusing to submit to their demoralizing debasement and perverse depravity.
The West Point senior cadet sorority�s clenched fist photo is most probably mere copycat homage to both their idolized role model Beyonce�s recent Super Bowl performance while also showing racial pride, support and solidarity for Black Lives Matter. But because they�re in uniform standing in front of their barracks at a traditionally historic military bastion of conservatism, mainstream media loves to opportunistically sensationalize something out of near nothing, frothing over their stoked �controversy� by instantly turning it into yet another diversionary �scandal� that�s hardly worthy of reporting at all.
Meanwhile, the verdict is still out on how West Point will choose to punish these young women just a few days short of graduation from their prestigious institution. Undoubtedly whatever the consequence, it will only provide more cannon fodder for yet more battle lines to be drawn from all sides. Divide and conquer has been the winning formula for the ages by oppressors throughout history to successfully keep the masses fighting amongst themselves and thereby forever oppressed and controlled.
During this election year after decades of elitist social engineering gone berserk, that ruling strategy has divided Americans against Americans like never before in this lame duck year of the first black American�s Manchurian presidency, after the �hope-promising� uniter treasonously turned Trojan horse divider. By meticulous, orchestrated design, in 2016 the ruling elite has created a multitude of artificial �wedge issues� fragmenting a deeply troubled and divided American populace into polarized warring camps. The elite�s neocon puppets invented a fake war on terror based on deep state sponsored false flag terrorism in order to straightjacket America into blindly accepting life without constitutional liberties on a hokey, false promise of security under New World Order�s tyrannical enslavement.
Utilizing their favorite divide and rule weapon of mass destruction, pitting people, groups and labels against each other, Democrats are set up to mutually hate Republicans (when both parties have been so thoroughly corrupted, co-opted and controlled by the same elitist interests), conservatives are busily bashing liberals, whites are fighting blacks, Americans are hating immigrant populations from both south of the border and now Middle East refugees, Christians versus Muslims, pro-Zionist Israel-Jewish lobby versus the rest of the world labeled �anti-Semites,� emasculated males versus hardened angry females, LGBT fanatics versus everyone else, mind-controlling Political Correctness Nazis versus dwindling free speech exercisers (and the PC Nazis are definitely winning). Pick a North Carolina bathroom of your choice and persuasion.
The horrific effects of all this manufactured fragmentation is tearing us all apart, breaking down what little civil society we still have left, completely confusing, frustrating, alienating and angering an already disenfranchised, on edge US as well as global population amidst mounting pressures of survival, scapegoating and the ever-widening chasm between rich and poor decimating a disappearing middle class.
While the elite�s bent on killing us with its eugenics-sustainability UN Agenda 21, it now has us distracted by a West Point black sisterhood, totally dumbed down into such disempowered oblivion that we�re reacting to the world around us irrationally, pointing the frenzied finger at each other rather than recognize the naked cold truth that we�re all squarely being targeted in the human genocidal crosshairs of the same handful of mass murdering, Satanic worshipping psychopaths that�s been diabolically ruling the planet for centuries.
As a postscript, this week on Tuesday the US Military Academy made the decision not to punish the young women, concluding it was merely an impromptu celebratory gesture of unity and solidarity for making it through the rigors of cadet life the last four years. So graduation awaits them on the 21st of this month as it should. The Academy concluded also that the fisted salute wasn't related to Black Lives Matter which I am not so certain is true. But to allow them to go unpunished and graduate, West Point had to deny any association with the black empowerment group that is political in nature. The bottom line, the upset in some reacting as if the cadets are aligned with a militant racist group and the media bandwagon hyping to fan the volatile racist flames making a big deal out of nothing did not prevail, and that's a good thing in these times of manipulated polarization and divide and rule conflict.
As a postscript, this week on Tuesday the US Military Academy made the decision not to punish the young women, concluding it was merely an impromptu celebratory gesture of unity and solidarity for making it through the rigors of cadet life the last four years. So graduation awaits them on the 21st of this month as it should. The Academy concluded also that the fisted salute wasn't related to Black Lives Matter which I am not so certain is true. But to allow them to go unpunished and graduate, West Point had to deny any association with the black empowerment group that is political in nature. The bottom line, the upset in some reacting as if the cadets are aligned with a militant racist group and the media bandwagon hyping to fan the volatile racist flames making a big deal out of nothing did not prevail, and that's a good thing in these times of manipulated polarization and divide and rule conflict.
Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique military experience entitled �Don�t Let The Bastards Getcha Down.� It examines and focuses on US international relations, leadership and national security issues. After the military, Joachim earned a master�s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In recent years he has focused on his writing, becoming an alternative media journalist. His blog site is at http://empireexposed.blogspot.co.id/ Joachim is also a regular contributor to Global Research, Sott.net and LewRockwell.com. Feel free to contact me at nandrtal[at]hotmail[dot]com
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