At ‘Unity in the Community’ rally, many calls to action

A rally to promote unity in the community and voter registration took place at Stotzky Park yesterday afternoon.

Featured speakers included James Banks of Southampton, multicultural affairs coordinator at Suffolk County Community College and cofounder of the African-American Educational and Cultural Festival, Kyle Braunskill of Flanders, executive director of Safe Harbor, a prisoner re-entry mentoring program and founder of A New Day, a nonprofit that works with at-risk youth, Benjamin Gilliam of East Hampton, of the Aboriginal Asiatic Indigenous Moorish Sovereign Empire and Jahveed Kahn of Riverhead.

Riverhead Supervisor Yvette Aguiar presented the group with a Juneteenth proclamation issued by Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week.

Riverhead Councilwoman Jodi Giglio, Councilwoman Catherine Kent and Councilman Frank Beyrodt attended the event.

Brookhaven Councilwoman Valerie Cartright, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for New York State First Senate District and former Riverhead supervisor Laura Jens-Smith, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for Second Assembly District were also in attendance.

The African-American Educational and Cultural Festival staffed a table for voter registration.

Organizer Eric Williams introduced the speakers, opening with Gilliam, who spoke at length about the Moorish Sovereign Empire, and urged black residents to “know your history.”

Gilliam, who identified himself as a Shiite ayatollah, said blacks must understand that the Moorish empire stretches across the globe and included the lands we know as the Americas 50,000 years before white men arrived on their shores. Moorish sovereign citizens are not subject to the laws of the United States or any other government, Gilliam said.

The Moors own the lands, he said. “It’s your land. It’s your ancestors’ land,” he said.

Braunskill urged people to scrutinize what they believe to be true and examine the actions they take based on those beliefs

“A lie means nothing unless you believe it,” Braunskill said. “If I tell you a lie that you believe, that lie becomes your reality. From the time we were little somebody’s been teaching you things — the media, your family, society. Ninety percent of what you do is learned behavior. You don’t give it no thought — but you do it,” he said. “It’s learned behavior. But is it right?”

Perspective is everything, Braunskill said.

“Now we have to do something different. We have to hold ourselves accountable. When someone messes up your food order, you flip out. When you let yourself down, you make excuses. Hold yourself to the same level of accountability you hold everybody else to,” Braunskill said.

“There’s no more time for us to live in mediocrity — because we’ve been taught it, because it’s OK…

“This moment— this is history, this whole season of life. Someday, when you get older and you’re talking to your grandkids and they’re going to ask you about what happened in 2020. They’re going to ask you what you did,” he said.

“Maybe today’s the day where you’re actually triggered and it’s pivotal and you changed.”

Braunskill said all people must take responsibility for themselves and hold themselves accountable for their own actions. When you don’t take responsibility, when you blame others, you give them responsibility for your life and that leaves you powerless, he said.

“We’re black folks. We make the best of everything,” Braunskill said. “Instead of making the best of everything we gotta be the best today,” he said.

“We can replace the racism and we can replace the system of white supremacy with social justice,” Banks told the crowd.

Banks said white supremacy isn’t just “the KKK and the skinheads.”

“We gotta look at who’s controlling the narrative,” he said.

Banks, a college professor and social worker, recited a litany of white control: wealth, government, military power, media, education, publishing, professional sports.

“I’m not against whites,” Banks said. “I’ve lived with them most of my life. But they control the narrative. They come from segregated neighborhoods and schools. There’s an unspoken pact.
They are supposed to sustain their white supremacy. It’s not your neighbor I’m talking about,” he said. “It’s the people who run things…

“The time has come for us to unmask the dictates that hide the subtle foot on our necks,” he said. “We have to fight back against those who have the foot of white supremacy on our necks,” he said.

“The time has come to understand that black lives matter does already mean all lives matter.

“The time has come to transform this planet from planet Earth to planet love… to not only see the light at the end of the tunnel but to be the light at the end of the tunnel,” Banks said.

The event also featured a barbecue and music by Trevor Hardin and DJ Phil.

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti