A leftist Howard University professor urged white allies to emulate a pre-Civil War violent radical, now used by designated terrorist organization Antifa as a revolutionary icon.
Stacey Patton, a journalism professor at the Washington, DC-based university, posted a blog post, “John Brown Didn’t Ask Enslaved People How to Be A Good White Ally.”
Patton wrote, “So when white allies ask, ‘What can I do?’ here’s the answer: Be like John Brown. Ask yourself, what am I willing to burn so somebody else can breathe?”
Patton encouraged white allies to emulate John Brown, a militant slavery-era abolitionist who orchestrated the Pottawatomie massacre. Brown and his followers dragged five Kansas settlers, many of them sympathetic to slavery, out of their homes and killed them. Brown then led a 21-man raid on a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, which was part of Virginia at the time, and now in West Virginia, bordering the Old Dominion State.
A local militia fought Brown’s insurrection, ultimately leading to the deaths of four people, including freed slave Heyward Shepherd.
“Brown didn’t need a syllabus, a think piece, or a guidebook on allyship. He didn’t need affirmation from Black folks that he was one of the good ones,” Patton continued. “He saw the horror for what it was and decided that ending this racist f—ery mattered more than being understood.”
She continued:
When they captured him, beaten and bleeding, he didn’t apologize. He said, “I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”
Just like that.
Patton then wrote that “you already know what to do” after explaining that it is “exhausting as hell” trying to guide white people into their allyship.
“Even the well-intentioned versions drag you back into the same cycle of having to translate pain into curriculum. It’s the paradox of white ‘goodness.’ They want to be seen trying, but the trying itself becomes another demand on the people that are already harmed,” she explained.
Patton continued, “We are not the architects. We are the collateral damage. You don’t ask the people choking on the smoke to explain how to put out the blaze. You go get the damn hose. You stop pretending you don’t see the flames. That’s the real answer: you already know what to do. Be honest: you just don’t want to lose the warmth that fire gives you.”
She concluded her blog post:
If you don’t want to die like John Brown, fine. But understand that somebody always does. The question is whether you’ll keep letting it be us. Will you keep outsourcing the danger. Will you keep making our suffering your syllabus. That question — “what can I do? — is another act of violence and a demand that we keep bleeding so you can keep learning. Because every time you ask us what to do, you’re really saying, you die first.
Antifa activist have used the legacy of Brown as a rallying cry for violence.
Benjamin Song, a longtime Antifa activist, was charged with three counts of attempted murder of federal agents along with three counts of discharging a firearm while shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Texas on July 4.
Song was a member of the John Brown Gun Club after he was sued by a right-wing group called the New Columbia Movement.
Willem Van Spronsen, who in 2019 was killed after he tried to firebomb a federal detention facility in Washington State, was a member of the Puget Sound John Brown Club.
Howard University condemned violence in a statement to Fox News Digital, while explaining that university staff are entitled to their own opinions, which “should not be construed as reflecting the official stance of Howard University.” Patton declined to comment on the article.
“Howard University condemns all forms of violence, particularly actions that may result in the loss of life,” the Office of University Communications said. “The University remains steadfast in its commitment to upholding and protecting the First Amendment rights of free expression. However, the views and opinions expressed by individual faculty, staff, or students are solely their own and should not be construed as reflecting the official stance of Howard University.”
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