<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="container font-size5 content-width3">
<div class="header reader-header" style="display: block;"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.theroot.com/theres-a-secret-government-document-called-the-race-pa-1823929370">https://www.theroot.com/theres-a-secret-government-document-called-the-race-pa-1823929370</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">There’s a Secret Government Document
Called the ‘Race Paper’ and It’s Probably Being Used to
Monitor Black Activists</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Michael Harriot - March 20,
2018<br>
</div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div class="moz-reader-content line-height4" style="display:
block;">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div>
<p>When civil rights groups forced the government to
release information on how federal law enforcement
agencies monitor the scary collective of black bogeyman
activists classified as “black identity extremists,” the
groups noticed a repeated reference to one specific
document.</p>
<p>Although it is top secret, the government has confirmed
its existence. We know it is nine pages long. We even
know the name of the document. Yet no one knows what it
says, who wrote it or what it is about.<br>
</p>
<p>It is called the “Race Paper.”</p>
<hr>
<p>In 2016, two civil rights groups—the Color of Change
and the Center for Constitutional Rights—along with the
Kramer Law Center, filed a Freedom of Information Act
request for documents concerning the FBI’s surveillance
of groups related to Black Lives Matter.<br>
</p>
<p>In response, the government released a trove of
documents including emails, reports and memos showing
that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security
have been tracking the activities of people involved
with Black Lives Matter since the Ferguson, Mo.,
uprisings, even issuing memos on the nonexistent danger
of “Black Supremacists” to local and state authorities.</p>
<p>The documents revealed how federal agents shaped the
narrative to create a new class of terrorists called
“black identity extremists.” The FBI talked about a “<a
href="https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/03/FBI%201035-1037.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">history of violent
incidents</a>” (pdf). The Department of Homeland
Security sent a memo to officers across the country
warning about a black “day of rage” that never happened.
<a
href="https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/03/DHS%20I%26A%20-%20%27Lawful%20White%20Supremacists%27.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">One bulletin</a> (pdf)
even mentioned that black activists posed a threat to
“lawfully organized white supremacist events.”<br>
<br>
Included in the files obtained by COR and CCR were
several emails between employees of the Department of
Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence Analysis. In
<a
href="https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/03/IA%20269-70.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">several of those email
chains</a> (pdf)—all discussing the investigations of
black organizations—the officials mentioned something
called the Race Paper. The correspondence contained
attachments with drafts of the document asking for
feedback, suggestions on structure and in-person
meetings.</p>
<p>To be fair, DHS actually included the mysterious Race
Paper in the documents received by Color of Change and
the Center for Constitutional Rights, but the copy was
redacted. I’m sure you’re thinking, “But they have to
leave out names and identities,” which is true. But the
Department of Homeland Security redacted every single
word. There are no dates, no names—not even punctuation.
DHS essentially sent the <a
href="https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/03/IA%20508-516%20-%20Race%20Paper.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">civil rights groups
nine pages of black paper</a> (pdf).</p>
<hr>
<p>If you’re wondering how many “black identity
extremists” have been captured since the federal
government began monitoring these dangerous Negro
radicals, the answer lies in the case of Christopher
Daniels, who many believe was the first and only person
to be arrested using the FBI’s BIE mandate.</p>
<p>Known as Rakem Balogun, Daniels was arrested on Dec.
12, 2017, when federal agents stormed into his home.
According to Foreign Policy, the feds seized two
firearms and a book—<em>Negroes With Guns.</em> At
Daniels’ detention hearing, FBI Special Agent Aaron
Keighley said Daniels came across the FBI’s radar when
they noticed him in the coverage of a police brutality
protest on the conspiracy website InfoWars chanting,
“Oink, oink, bang, bang,” and “The only good pig is a
pig that’s dead.”</p>
<aside><a
href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/30/is-a-court-case-in-texas-the-first-prosecution-of-a-black-identity-extremist/"
target="_blank">
<figure><source media="(max-width: 599px)"
data-srcset="https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--jtvCOKnt--/c_fill,fl_progressive,g_north,h_264,q_80,w_470/annlieflbeelbgpzmvxq.jpg"></figure>
</a></aside>
<p>At the Austin, Texas, rally, Daniels carried his
firearm, which is legal in the state. He is a founding
member of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club and Guerrilla
Mainframe, groups that promote open carry, Second
Amendment rights, weapons training and community
service. Shortly thereafter, the government began
tracking Daniels.</p>
<p>The agency cited Facebook posts where Daniels expressed
admiration for Micah Johnson, who killed four Dallas
police officers in July 2016. Officers from the Joint
Terrorism Task Force interrogated Daniels’ friends and
their family members. Finally, after Daniels visited
Detroit for a firearm training event, the FBI burst into
his home and arrested him in front of his 15-year-old
son.</p>
<p>So what did the government black-extremist hunters
charge Daniels with? Terrorism? Was he planning a
massacre? Was Daniels about to jump-start the
long-awaited race war?</p>
<p><a
href="http://truthoutdocs.cloudaccess.net/documents/053117cb/3-17-mj-917_stickney_12-15-2017.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">According to a court
transcript</a> (pdf), Daniels was arrested because he
pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge
in 2007. Daniels’ conviction prohibited him from owning
a firearm.</p>
<p>That’s it.</p>
<p>In fact, the only evidence that the FBI offered for
Daniels being the subject of 25 months of federal
surveillance was his anti-police rhetoric on social
media and a few chants at rallies. In 25 months of FBI
monitoring, Daniels had not engaged in a single act of
violence against an officer or another human being. When
the judge asked Keighley if Daniels resisted arrest, the
agent replied that Daniels hadn’t. Keighley admitted to
the judge that Daniels had never said he wanted to harm
a police officer or stated that he planned on doing so.</p>
<p>But here’s where the term “black identity extremist”
and the Race Paper meet.</p>
<p>In 2008, the FBI introduced a <a
href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/docs/guidelines.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">new class of
investigations called “assessments”</a> (pdf). Under
this policy, the federal government can investigate
anyone as long as they fall under the category of
someone thought to be a threat to domestic security.
With assessments, a person can be surveilled even if
there is no “factual predicate” (evidence that the
person intends to commit a crime).</p>
<p>See how it works? The FBI created a class of devious
black terrorists, made up a scary narrative and
empowered themselves with the right to investigate
anyone who fit the description. Christopher Daniels was
a threat because he is a black man with a gun and
sometimes calls cops bad names.</p>
<p>This is your black identity extremist.</p>
<hr>
<p>On Monday, COR and CCR filed a <a
href="https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2018/03/Dkt%2055%20-%20Pl%20Mem%20of%20Law%20DHS%20Race%20Paper.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit against the
Department of Homeland Security</a> (pdf) demanding
the release of the blacked-out memo.<br>
</p>
<p>“Black and brown activists and the public in general
should not be left to speculate as to why DHS prepared a
document called the ‘Race Paper,’ circulated multiple
versions of it, and called for in-person meetings to
discuss its contents, but now fights to keep every word
from seeing the light of day,” said Omar Farah, senior
staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
“But given the long-standing and unconstitutional
pattern of state surveillance of Black-led political
movements, it bears repeating that [the Freedom of
Information Act] is about transparency, not protecting
government agencies from embarrassment.”</p>
<p>“Black communities know all too well how poisonous this
kind of surveillance and intimidation is for social
justice movements,” said Rashad Robinson, the executive
director of Color of Change. Robinson added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>During the civil rights era, agents with the FBI’s
COINTELPRO program vigorously sought to discredit and
destroy Black leaders and movements while they did
nothing to address the injustices our communities were
protesting. We can’t allow the FBI to essentially
operationalize COINTELPRO for the twenty-first century
without a fight. Up until recently, we’ve known very
little about the government’s surveillance of our
communities. But by forcing the disclosure of more
information about these surveillance efforts,
including our demand today for the full and unredacted
“Race Paper,” we can better understand these attacks
on Black activism and fight to prevent a new
generation of Black activists from demonization,
incarceration, intimidation and punishment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So what, exactly, is the Race Paper? Here’s my
hypothesis:</p>
<p>Maybe it’s a compilation of surveillance that will be
used to blackmail leaders in the Movement for Black
Lives like the FBI’s effort to discredit Martin Luther
King Jr. and leave “the Negroes ... <a
href="https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/17079/what-were-the-fbis-motives-for-wanting-to-discredit-mlk"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">without a national
leader of sufficiently compelling personality to steer
them in the proper direction</a>.” Perhaps it is a
21st-century version of COINTELPRO’s goal to “<a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/apr/04/preventingtheriseofamessi"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">prevent the rise of a
black messiah</a>.” It might simply be the FBI
bragging about how they continue to sow discord, as they
did when they bragged about their efforts to destroy the
Black Panther Party with “<a
href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-fbis-war-on-civil-rights-leaders"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">shootings, beatings and
a high degree of unrest</a>.”</p>
<p>While these may sound like conspiracy theories, they
are all verifiable documents from FBI correspondence.
This is what they do. Whatever the Race Paper reveals,
you can be sure it won’t be anything new.</p>
<p>They’re rooting out anybody black.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>