During the printed, Seales claimed that “when he was in office, Barack Obama raised the bounty on her head to $2 million,” an announcement that simplifies a fancy law-enforcement course of into presidential motion.

In actuality, the FBI added Joanne “Assata” Chesimard to its Most Wanted Terrorists listing in May 2013, and the overall reward for info resulting in her seize was $2 million — $1 million from the FBI and $1 million from New Jersey authorities.

Amanda Seales On Barack Obama & Assata Shakur

Seales used the 2013 itemizing to pivot from grief to a broader critique of political energy and activism. “If black communities implemented more concepts of black radicalism, we would be better off,” she stated.

Seales argued that organized, identity-based empowerment has traditionally confronted systemic pushback. Her remarks echo documented examples of presidency surveillance and disruption of Black actions, together with COINTELPRO, which focused Black political organizations within the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies.

Seales additionally questioned why modern progressive leaders haven’t adopted equally disruptive methods, highlighting the obstacles Black organizers face in navigating political energy. Her commentary — candid and at occasions profane — framed the 2013 bounty not simply as a law-enforcement motion however as an emblem of political hostility towards Black dissent.

Interpreted a technique, Seales’s feedback function a provocation, connecting a particular law-enforcement motion to a historic sample of state suppression of Black activism. Interpreted one other method, her phrasing conflates institutional selections with presidential intent.

Either studying underscores the contentious legacy of Assata Shakur and fuels ongoing debate about state energy, exile, and the bounds of political dissent.