I know that it’s easy, if you watch television or surf the internet much, to assume that blacks constitute a much larger segment of American society than they actually do.  Foreigners with no knowledge of America’s demographics could be forgiven for believing that blacks make up almost half of this nation’s population if American advertising and entertainment are their only sources of such information.  In both television programming and advertising, the liberal powers in both industries go to laughable extremes to portray America as the multicultural ideal, seizing every opportunity to depict any gathering of  citizens as being populated with a healthy representation of non-whites.

And with the way NCAA schools have prostituted football by exploiting black athletes with worthless degrees either unearned or in valueless degree fields such as African studies, unaware watchers of collegiate games could also be forgiven if they assume blacks to be in the majority in America based on their numerical superiority on the playing field.  Then, of course, the NFL continues the exploitation of these black athletes by squeezing the most out of them for a few short years of high pay and hard hitting, a profession that fewer and fewer white athletes are willing to submit themselves to.  NFL watchers might also assume a larger black presence in America than the reality of somewhere around 13%.

All that is by way of understanding how some people may miscalculate the true power of the black minority in America, as one of its more radical leaders appears to have done.  Malik Zulu Shabazz, aka Paris Lewis, a former head of the New Black Panther Party, who fancies himself some sort of pseudo-military field marshal, wearing five stars on the stiff collars of his olive drab uniform, has recently issued a call to arms to the black community, intoning that 2015 is the year for them to “build up their army” and “go to the gun range.”  Here’s a quote from Breitbart:

“And Mister Malcolm X, he consistently teaches us self defense,” Shabazz said. “The most honorable Elijah Muhammad continuously teaches us self defense. The honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey teaches us self defense, and  we know, our leader and our teacher the honorable Khalid Abdul Muhammad teaches us self defense.  What am I saying? Right now it’s time to build up that army. Right now it’s time for us to build up those corps, those troops. It’s time to get strong. It’s time for lifting weights and working out and going to the gun range and all of that.”

Now, I understand that Mr. Shabazz – or Field Marshal Shabazz, whichever he prefers – is stressing the self-defense aspect of preparing for racial conflict.  What I think he fails to comprehend is the true number of his forces and the rebound impact of his militant exhortations on the white people of America he would arm his black forces against.  The most radicalized and militant segment of black America to whom Shabazz speaks are mostly urban blacks living in liberal Democrat-controlled cities where legal gun ownership is severely constrained and the presence of the type of gun ranges that lend themselves to combat-style weaponry training are in short supply.  On the other hand, both such weaponry and such firing ranges are in plentiful supply in the rural areas that surround most of the liberal urban enclaves that Marshal Shabazz’s potential armed forces inhabit.  And those surrounding areas are generally populated by conservative white folks, who, as another black leader noted, cling to their guns and their Bibles while generally viewing the kind of militancy called for by Shabazz with an attitude best expressed by their equally determined forbears:

“Don’t Tread on Me.”

Personally, I’m of the opinion that Shabazz should cut back on his television-watching and maybe go spend some time on the range.  It’s a wonderful activity for tightly refocusing the mind.