Many Black people and other minority groups feel insecure under the administration of Donald Trump. Yet the U.S. president has done little to reassure them of their safety. He has in the past refused to condemn white supremacists and in situations where he offered a condemnation, he did so reluctantly.
Concerned about the safety of Blacks in the US, former rapper, producer and DJ in the 1970s, John Fitzgerald Johnson, also known as Grand Master Jay, has formed a militia group to protect the Black community.
The Not F*cking Around Coalition (NAC) intends to carry out its activities of protecting Blacks before and after the U.S. election in the face of a growing threat from white supremacists and police brutality against unarmed Black men.
In a recent podcast, Grand Master Jay vowed to protect the rights of Black voters who may be intimidated by white supremacists at the polls. “I think that everybody needs to climb down out of their emotional tree, and remember that it is against federal law to show up at a voting place with weapons and intimidate anybody,” he said on “Run and Tell This podcast.”
“If the United States government doesn’t want to enforce that law against people that doesn’t look like us, they’re not going to enforce it against us. We have no intentions of starting a confrontation or firefight over this vote.”
According to him, the Black community feel disenfranchised by the whole US electoral system. He explained that the mission of the group is not to fight anyone who wants to vote for either Trump or Biden but to ward-off the Proud Boys and other white supremacy groups.
According to ADL, a non-profit organization that works to stop hate groups, the Proud Boys is a misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigration organization. Some members espouse white supremacist and anti-Semitic ideologies and/or engage with white supremacist groups, it added.
In the first presidential debate against Biden, Trump told the group to “stand back and stand by.” He added: “But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left, because this is not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem.”
Shortly after the debate, Proud Boys organizer, Joe Biggs, posted on social media: “President Trump told the proud boys to stand by because someone needs to deal with ANTIFA… well sir! we’re ready!!.”
For Grand Master and his militia, the president essentially gave marching orders to the Proud Boys to attack Black voters, something he and his men would not allow to happen on Election Day and beyond.
“We’re not carrying those guns for show,” he said on the podcast, adding that: “You best believe I’m prepared to die so that you and your children can have a future.”
Not F*cking Around Coalition was formed in 2017 after white supremacists marched through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, and instigated violence, leading to the death of one person and many sustaining injuries.
“This was it. We had to get serious,” Grand Master Jay told VICE News. “No more talking. No more speculating. No more ‘What ifs.’ That was when I knew race relations had gotten to a point. What were we doing here? Things are just getting worse.”
The group has two missions. The first is to form an “inter-city security force to protect Black communities and the second mission is to form an “ethnostate”, a new country that’s “owned, operated by Blacks.”