When They Call You a Terrorist

“There was a petition that was drafted and circulated all the way to the White House. It said we were terrorists. We, who in response to the killing of that child, said Black Lives Matter.” 

The dominant theme of the book is that Black Americans are far more likely to be the victims of terrorism—particularly at the hands of the state—than perpetrators of terrorism. It might seem shocking that an activist like Cullors would be branded a terrorist simply for advocating for racial justice and equity. Yet this tactic has long been used by the US government to discredit movements that challenge the status quo. The practice of labeling and investigating generally left-leaning groups as threats to national security is almost as old as the FBI itself, which in its earliest incarnation investigated Marcus Garvey for “agitating” men and women of color.

“The fact that more white people have always used and sold drugs than Black and Brown people and yet when we close our eyes and think of a drug seller or user the face most of us see is Black or Brown tells you what you need to know.” 

Cullors details how the US government and the media spent much of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s shaping popular perceptions of criminality around Blackness. Scholarship shows that this was part of a concerted propaganda effort by the Reagan and Bush administrations to manipulate racial animus and carve out a new coalition of voters who implicitly or explicitly opposed Black empowerment. This had grievous consequences, particularly for Black urban communities that became ground zero for the War on Drugs.