[quote][i]“I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.”[/i]
[center]- Muhammad Ali[/center][/quote]
[center][img]http://baku-panda.org/images/pmk/boondocks.gif[/img]
[b]B L A C K • P O W E R • F I ST • B E G I N S[/b]
[i]part ii[/i][/center] 

[b]The Town of Woodcrest, Maryland[/b]
[i]The Woodcrest Mall[/i]

Obi-Wan Kenobi said, [i]your eyes can deceive you.[/i] But how are we to know when we are presented with real truth or the interpretation of a politically driven media that had made itself into a propaganda pimp?

Noam Chomsky was a Jew from New York, and he’d spent a lifetime trying to get people just to ask themselves that one question. It was one that he’d been asking ever since the United States had gone to Vietnam, decrying Communists while conveniently overlooking what was happening in Cambodia -- a place that U.S. media sources were curiously quiet about, particularly given the scope of the massacres and intellectual genocide that was taking place under the Khmer Rouge as a direct result of the political turmoil taking place in Vietnam.

Most people were more likely to be able to recall sports statistics from 1975 than to recount any details of the Khmer Rouge, even if they remembered hearing anything about it at all. And that was another part of the question posed by Noam Chomsky. There was the illusion of truth, and then there was [b]distraction[/b]. It was classic slight of hand. Get people to look over here. Discuss Babe Ruth’s batting average and pay no attention to the dictator behind the curtain.

Not surprisingly, Noam Chomsky was arguably one of those most hated Americans since Jane Fonda visited Hanoi.

To the left of the bookstore was a crowd of young professionals wearing [i]Obama[/i] and [i]Believe[/i] t-shirts, holding signs that read: [b]Freedom of Speech: The Right Not To Read[/b] and [b]CHOMSKY: You Lie![/b]

To the right of the bookstore was an older crowd wearing a mixture of Reagan, Bush, and McCain paraphernalia, NRA hats, and holding signs which offered parallels between Noam Chomsky’s beliefs and Communism. And Anarchism. And Socialism. All the great devil’s that America’s greatest generation had credited themselves with destroying.

It was one of those signs that a protested lowered to block the path of the big-haired youth who approached the narrow pass between the two groups.

The sign was painted red, with a big black cross painted across Noam Chomsky’s face. Grabbing one corner of the sign, the boy moved the sign out of his way. “Excuse me, sir, I’m trying to get to that bookstore.”

[i]“Beat it,”[/i] the man wielding the sign barked harshly, sneering down at the youth.

[i]“Fuck your attitude, man.”[/i] 

That voice had George Washington University graduate student written all over it. Turning his head, the young boy saw a young woman who looked like a law office intern. [i]“See, this is the problem with the Republican Party. You don’t know how to just [b]talk[/b] to people like they’re, ohmygod, [b]people[/b] or something,”[/i] the short-haired, college loan crusader tossed at the older man, before stooping down so that she could peer at the afro headed youth at eye level. [i]“Hey, sweetie, can you come back another time? [b]L[/b]iberals [b]I[/b]n [b]E[/b]mancipation have declared this a special Free Speech Protected Zone. You know? You have the right to keep that shit to yourself and stuff,”[/i] the girl remarked with an astonishingly straight face for someone who'd just spoken against the very ideas she was claiming to uphold.

“Free speech protected zone?” Huey echoed, each word working in tandem with the next to voice the underlying context: [i]How stupid are you really?[/i] As though to verify that question for his own morbid curiosity, the boy blurted aloud, “Do you have any idea how much damage that concept does to free speech?”

[i]“These little shits don’t know what free speech is,[/i]” the old man barked from behind the black youth. [i]“And, [b]spoiler alert[/b], free speech isn’t free. Or didn’t they mention that little detail in your political science debates? You want the right to free speech? Where were you in Saigon? Where were you in Desert Storm?”[/i]

From behind the young woman, a guy in a faded U.S. Marine Corps t-shirt raised a hand. [i]“I was in Baghdad. Were you?”[/i]

[i]“No one cares about Iraq,”[/i] the man barked derisely. “[i][b]C[/b]onservatives [b]A[/b]gainst [b]N[/b]on-[b]C[/b]itizen [b]E[/b]nabling [b]R[/b]adicals was protesting here first. Take your right to assemble somewhere that gives a damn!”[/i]

Turning to look back over his shoulder, the black youth looked up at the old, cantankerous man with a look that have been pity. “You realize that by protesting their right to protest and assemble, you’re directly undercutting your own political position... right?”

[i]“I have the right to protest their right to protest, just like I have the right to own as many fully automatic weapons of my choosing,”[/i] the man snapped back angrily. [i]“But that right is for [b]American people[/b], not those Dream Act hippy-immigrant motherfuckers. Their right of assembly ends at my ears, and I’m sick of hearing it.”[/i]

“So who gets to choose which ideology is right?” the boy posed rhetorically.

[i]“We’ve got the guns don’t we?”[/i] the man retorted with a snort, leaning back to pop the NRA supporter pin on his hunting vest.

[i]“Oh, here we go with the guns again,”[/i] the G.W. grad student opined dramatically with a sigh. [i]“You know, that is exactly why our Founding Fathers totally supported gun control.”[/i]

[i]“You know what your problem is...”[/i] the old man began, stopping himself in mid-tirade as he realized something was out of place. Or, rather, that something was missing. In particular, the black youth that had been there a moment ago. [i]“Hey, where’d that kid go?”[/i] the man demanded.

Turning her head, the grad student pointed out the back of the afro-headed youth, now framed in the doorway of the bookstore. As he passed over the threshold, the boy was greeted by the latest books by the Rev. Al Sharpton, Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh. Ignoring all of them, the youth tucked his hands into his pockets and headed toward a lonely Jew who sat alone at a table waiting to sign copies of a book that no one would buy.

Shrugging her shoulders, the grad student turned back toward the old man. [i]“Eh, he’s black. It’s not like he can [b]read[/b] or anything.”[/i]

---

The snap of a camera lens captured a black and white image of the young boy as he tried to reason with the old man.

Another caught on film a black youth offering another point of view to a grad student.

A third caught the boy shaking hands with the supporter of un-popular ideas. 

With the right spin, that was all tantamount to material support for terrorism.

And they would ensure that it got the right spin.