Thomas Manning: Broken Arrow open letter

This is an open letter to President Biden, Vice President Harris, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, minority leader of senate Mitch McConnell, and minority leader of the House Kevin McCarthy. We have a “Broken Arrow” situation throughout the United States against African Americans! The Broken Arrow situation is caused by White supremacist groups targeting African Americans.

“Broken arrow was the code sometimes used during Vietnam War when the ground unit had been overrun. It was a cry to send all available assets to help. In some circumstances, this could include calling down fire on one’s position. The History.com website says the military also uses the term “broken arrow” to describe an incident in which a nuclear weapon is lost, stolen, or accidentally detonated. In either case, broken arrow describes a dire situation for the home team”.

Buffalo, New York, is the latest tragedy of a planned attack upon African Americans. The White supremacist murderer stated he chose this specific location in our community to show that we are not safe anywhere. Therefore, we are calling upon the Federal, state, and local governments to provide all available assets to help African Americans protect themselves against future White nationalist terrorist attacks. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI has stated that the greatest domestic threat to America is White racist groups. The FBI’s 2019 Hate Crime Statistics Report Racial/ethnicity/ancestry bias showed that 48.5 percent of victims of crimes are motivated by offenders’ anti-Black or African American bias. In response to the latest incident, the House has just passed an insufficient hate crime bill that establishes offices and inquiry committees. This bill does not provide the necessary protection that we need in a confrontation with an armed domestic terrorist. The bill passed — the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022 — will next go to the Senate for consideration, where its fate is uncertain.

It should be noted that this congress can act on measures for foreign and domestic issues it deems worthy of its efforts. The anti-Asian hate-crime bill passes Senate 94-1, with only Republican Sen. Josh Hawley voting against it. Senate minority leader Mitch ‘McConnell’s wife is Asian American. Senator McConnell voted for the bill and got all but one of his fellow Republican Senators to support the bill.” Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer stated Thursday the bill told Asian American communities that “their government is paying attention to them, has heard their concerns, and will respond to protect them.” Not one member of Congress has put forth an anti-African American hate crime bill as they did for the Asian community. Why not? There are three African American Senators. We can only conclude that not one member of Congress is paying attention to African Americans, has heard our concerns, and is willing to respond to protect us.

There are over four hundred million guns in American households. It is far too late to be talking about gun control to solve the problem of domestic terrorism. African Americans now find themselves much like the Ukrainian people who have been attacked without cause by Russia. Ukraine said we need to be “armed” to defend ourselves and so do we. It is too late to seek gun control in Russia to protect the Ukrainian people. White supremacists do not care about gun control, as evidenced by the shooter in Buffalo who went on social media and spoke about how he obtained his semi-automatic rifle against the current laws and modified it to a fully automatic weapon.

We have mainstream media like FOX and Tucker Carlson promoting White supremacist conspiracy theories such as the replacement theory daily. We have current and former political figures embracing and promoting the big lie of 1/6. Politicians across the country have incorporated parts of the 1/6 efforts to overthrow the government of the United States into their campaign efforts for election or re-election. Major Corporations like Toyota, American Airlines, UPS, Grumman, Boeing, General Motors, Ford, Walmart, PNC, Johnson & Johnson, Comcast, General Electric (GE), Pfizer, Home Depot, Gap, AT&T, and JetBlue, stated they would not fund political candidates who supported the 1/6 efforts to overthrow our government and reneged on their promise.

I call Broken Arrow!

The United States has supported the Ukrainians with every asset they need to defend themselves and fight for freedom. We, African American citizens are demanding that every available asset be provided to allow us to defend and protect ourselves against the White nationalist in this country. Moreover, we demand that our government act with the same speed with which Ukrainian support was provided! We summarily reject the notion of a committee to study these demands as we come in the spirit of the Ukrainian President Zelensky who said, “don’t come with empty hands”.

During the attack by the White supremacist in the Tops supermarket, a store employee called 911 for help as she hid and could hear the gunman approach. The 911 operator insulted the caller demanding that she “speak up”. The 911 operator then hung up on the store employee. This story is emblematic of what takes place when the African American community calls for help from our political leaders. They hang up the phone on us! This is emblematic of what America does to our community. They will eventually call us back only after our loved ones have been murdered. Recent polls suggest that 75% of the African Americans feel unsafe and that they or a family member could become the next victims of a White supremacist attack. Therefore, what we are asking for is the right to protect ourselves and our loved ones. These rights are firmly grounded in the United States Constitution.

In direct response to the “don’t come with empty hands” statement, our government provided 70 billion dollars of immediate aid. President Biden then told the American people that we would support the Ukrainian people until victory is achieved. This cost would be extremely costly, but we will provide it! We the African Americans demand no less immediate support in our time of need. The leaders of both Democratic and Republican parties have traveled thousands of miles into dangerous war conditions to personally deliver their messages of support to Ukraine and its citizens. We await the same support and demonstration of support for African American citizens.

We are asking that every African American be granted immediately the right of concealed carry of handguns. Moreover, we are asking that you do not come with hands in providing the assets we need to protect ourselves. To begin with, this would include weapons, ammunition, and training. In addition, two states (Texas and Ohio) have recently enacted laws granting every adult the right to bear a concealed handgun without encumbered state or local regulations. The right to concealed carry is needed by African Americans in every state for our immediate protection. While these concealed carry rights have been enacted in two states they are not always practically extended to eligible African Americans. In fact, when we do exercise these rights to bear a concealed handgun legally and lawfully, we are far too often confronted and even shot by law enforcement officers across the country! Therefore, the Anti hate African American Bill must include the 1-2-4-5 mandatory training provision for every law enforcement officer.

The 1-2-4-5 Constitutional training provision will be required training of every law enforcement officer failure to retrain and maintain annual six-month certification would include the loss of their pensions and qualified immunity.

The most recent attack in Buffalo has made clear that these White supremacists are not acting alone! They are the greatest threat to our domestic safety. We as a country can no longer live with our heads in the sand when citizens’ lives are in immediate danger. The immediate actions called for in this letter are just a first step in addressing the main threat of domestic terrorism. These are the words of an African American citizen who has served his country and is a member of the Republican party. I have a wife and adult children that live in this country whose lives are in immediate danger from White supremacists as they go about their everyday lives. Please do not tell me you understand and come to me with empty hands.

PS Just 10 days later a gunman entered an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and murdered 18 students and two teachers. The response was typical of our national leaders except for Senator Murphy of Connecticut. Senator Murphy begged the 50 Republican senators to support sensible gun control like a background check. Not one Republican will vote for gun control background checks. Now I know we have the support of 50 Republican senators who believe citizens should be armed to protect themselves. We have two African American Democratic senators who can support and pass federal legislation to allow African American citizens to carry concealed carry for their personal protection.

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