Today, on Democracy Now, Amy sat down and spoke with “Princeton University professor Cornel West and Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party about the current state of Black America.” What I found most memorable in said conversation was when Carl Dix spoke about Buffalo Soldiers and warned against being one. Intriguing;
“[T]he Buffalo Soldiers were the black, mostly former slaves who joined the Union army during the Civil War and played a key role in defeating the Confederate army and ensuring the abolishment of slavery through their military victory in the Civil War. […] But then the United States government took the Buffalo Soldiers and sent them out west and had them fight in what is called the ‘Indian Wars,’ which was actually carrying out genocide and the theft of the land from the native inhabitants, while black people were being re-subjugated in conditions of near slavery as sharecroppers. So here you have people oppressed by this system put into the military and then sent off by this system to oppress other people for the system. […] Well, that was my message. Don’t be a modern-day Buffalo Soldier. Don’t let this system, which continues to oppress and exploit you, along with oppressing, exploiting many other people, turn you into a mindless killing machine and send you off to help them tighten their oppression on somebody else, while they keep oppressing you and others like you…”
As it just so happens, with the above quote, Carl was speaking about an absolutely brilliant article he wrote for The San Francisco Bay View back on December 17, 2008, “Don’t be a Buffalo Soldier;”
“DON’T DO IT! Don’t sign up for America’s wars under the leadership of “commander in chief†Barack Obama and carry forward the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers. Instead get with a cause that’s in the interest of humanity and is something worth fighting for – making revolution to wipe imperialism off the face of the earth!”
Check it out…