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Hate Speech Scrawled on Plaque at African Burial Ground National Monument 

 

Someone scrawled “KILL N------” on the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York this week, thirty five feet from the headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE and the FBI.

The racist graffiti showed up shortly before noon, Thursday, on the burial ground of 15,000 free and enslaved Africans.

The burial ground sits directly across from 26 Federal Plaza, a block away from the federal court house and a stone’s throw from City Hall. The street is closed to traffic by checkpoints and crash barriers and patrolled around the clock by federal police, as well as the NYPD, the Parks Department and private guards.

A bare expanse of grass with just a few explanatory signs, the Burial Ground attracts passers-by and Thursday was a glorious day.

Which is to say, someone, most likely in broad daylight, beneath half a dozen surveillance cameras, felt confident enough to write KIlLL N------- perfectly clearly on what has got to be one of the most highly policed blocks in the world.

Who?

Will we ever know? A picture of the defaced plaque was sent to the Public Advocate’s office and to a City Councillor. A call was made to the Hate Crimes Task Force, which transferred the caller to the NYPD. The federal police are aware of the situation, I was told.

From Donald Trump Jr. to the Republican Congress, conservatives waited no time at all to start calling the survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School fake.

The fake-victim story spread fast and furiously because it’s familiar. Alex Jones, who runs the mad website, Infowars -- where Donald Trump appeared as a candidate -- said the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was rigged to benefit gun-snatchers. After a gunman killed 58 people in Las Vegas last year,  scores of videos turned up on Youtube claiming the victims were hacks.

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When you think of the Protestants, anarchist politics might not spring to mind. But for the 17th-century diggers, direct action was a divine mandate. Planting vegetables on public land as food prices surged, they sought to create a new sort of economy, one that advanced collaboration and equity in a fundamental sense. Their calls for land redistribution quickly irked local landowners, who called on the army to intervene. The anti-gentrification movement of their time, they suffered beatings, attacks from local gangs, and arson attempts -- all at the behest of the lords and landowners who were right then busily enclosing and privatizing public land. As these relentless attacks carried on, the diggers split off and were ultimately evicted. But their legacy continues.

Fast forward 3 centuries, to the 1960’s, and the Diggers in San Francisco were distributing free food to the people who needed it. As Danny Goldberg reminds us in his book, In Search of the Lost Chord, the diggers participated in the Be-In’s that took place 50 years ago this summer. Inspired by the 17th century radical Brits, they didn’t believe in money or commercialism - and they also provided free legal aid and a healthcare clinic that’s still around today. The same period saw the Panthers run free breakfast, health, and dental clinics. An integral part of their plan to meet peoples’ needs while changing the world. Which all leads me back to New Economics. For the first diggers it was a spade, for the second a spoon; what’s our new politics serving up for the people today?