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My 2016/20 Election Time PTSD Goes Far Beyond Trump, Etc.

10/30/2020

The Lowndes County Freedom Organization, better known as the original Black Panther Party's organizing against white supremacist terror in the mid 60s in Alabama reminds us that what's happening today is nothing new. I've had more more than a taste of that terror and all it does is make me want so much more for us than what we are being told is possible.

As the U.S. braces for this next national election in a few days, my feelings are flooded with emotions from the experiences I had four years ago. The bourgeoisie liberal side of the capitalist media has been engaging in a nonstop barrage of propaganda designed to pressure people into believing breath will stop flowing through their bodies if they don’t vote out the current empire president next week, but that’s not the focus that’s driving my swirling emotions. Popular African athletes and entertainers from LeBron to Rhianna, etc., are placing their image and work towards building up voting efforts by African youth, but that’s not what’s fueling my emotional output. Any and everyone who has a voice is telling us that if we don’t participate in this election process we have no right to talk about anything and we are the reason this capitalist exploitative society is as backward as it is, but along with the fact that this is about as worthless an analysis as you can generate, its not this dysfunctional thinking that’s energizing my memories and emotions.

Unlike the multitudes of people who besides attending a demonstration here and there and voting, do absolutely nothing to organize against oppression, my daily life consists of sacrificing everything I can to fight against oppression. The approach I commit my life to has nothing to do with the institutions of power that oppress us and because of that, most people who pass ignorant judgement against the work people like I do have no idea what our work looks like. Or, how much our work empowers even the bourgeoisie efforts they’re making. My work has to do with working with the masses of people so that they can build capacity to seize control of the forces that are oppressing humanity. This work is hands on and people oriented and has nothing to do with the nonsense beamed at us everyday by people who couldn’t identify what the lives of oppressed people looks like if you placed a gun to their head.

That’s why I don’t expect many people outside of revolutionary organizing work to understand or relate to my particular experiences from four years ago, yet this is my forum so I’m going to share them because doing so helps me process my emotional trauma which is a healthy and necessary thing for me to do. You see, my personal experiences of note started four years ago while living in the state of Oregon. I work for a labor union and as is the case come every election, a lot of the work consists of engaging around election issues. That all by itself is traumatic enough for me, but fortunately, there is usually at least a semi-people oriented ballot measure that I can mobilize my required participation around which I always do because this prevents me from having to do work for any of these bourgeoisie political parties. In 2016, there was a corporate taxing measure on the ballot and I was knocking on doors to talk to people about supporting that measure.

As the race became tighter, towards this last weekend of campaigning, we were forced to canvass in even more rural areas of the state. For most places, especially colorless Oregon, this automatically means areas where there are absolutely no Africans and potential open hostility to our presence. Often, these people would never open their doors for me. I remember one time in particular when a young white woman, standing frozen in plain view in front of the picture window, stayed statue like until I laughingly left. Well, at one house with a winding stairway in Southwest Portland, Oregon, U.S., that citadel of liberalism, a white man about 50 something opened his door and once he blankly listened to my short initial salvo, asked me to hold on a moment. He came back immediately and raised his right hand from behind the door to reveal a 1911 semi-automatic pistol. I remember eyeing the pistol and thinking “again?” as this was by far not the first time someone had pointed a gun at me for no reason. The man then said “get your black a --…” That was as much as he got out before I pushed hard against his door, knocking him backward. I bolted down the stairway and away from there. I pushed hard enough against his door that I know he lost his balance and fell, hopefully breaking some bones in the process as far as I’m concerned.

This is the very first time I’ve talked about this incident although I did make a Facebook post on our canvass page about white supemacists after this happened, but I didn’t go into detail. I was too angry. Too traumatized. Angry that I was even out there in the first place and angry that I didn’t take that pistol from that man and shove it down his throat. Angry and sick of being disrespected just for being a human being on this earth.

I didn’t have time to ponder much on that incident because within a day of that a call came out from a wonderful activist in rural Oregon who’s house had been besieged and threatened by white supremacist militia groups. These groups are much more in the national consciousness now then they were four years ago, but while they mostly exist in pictures, television, or across the street at protests to most people, my organizing experiences in Oregon gave me close and personal exposure to them. When I say close I mean having physical confrontation on multiple occasions with them. Being shot at and threatened multiple times. So, when this activist, who sustains regular threats from these people, made that call, several of us didn’t hesitate to respond.
After participating in a rain drenched debrief of the defeat of that ballot measure, I hopped in the car with others and we drove the couple of hours to this activist’s house in rural Oregon to stand guard against the numerous threats to “come and burn you out once Trump wins!” There was no calling the police for this person since at best, the police must likely had sympathies for these terrorists and at worse, they belonged to those militia groups themselves. So, while most people spent election night watching television and rehashing the results, I spent that night parked combat style across this long rural road, ready to aggressively confront anyone who was foolish enough to follow through on the threats that were issued against these peaceful people.

I’ve had multiple instances where the line between continuing a life of love and hope was blurry. Where the difference between life and death could be a moment or two. That night was yet another one. And, staying there for a few days to ensure nothing inappropriate happened, getting virtually no sleep, enjoying the presence of good comrades and wonderful animals. All of this is how I process to balance out the underlining terror.

So, the next day it was confirmed that Trump had won. For me this represented nothing more than what should have been expected all along. The beast known as the united snakes had been exposed for what it has always been. This isn’t to say that people shouldn’t wish to do something to stop people like Trump, of course we should. In fact, we should be willing to go much farther than just that. If we truly care about justice for the majority of people on earth, which I do, then our consciousness has to expand much farther beyond just replacing one rabid demon for another less rabid demon. That strategy is ok even as a short term approach, but for the most part, that’s the endgame for most of you. There is absolutely no plan on your part beyond that except extorting and shaming the rest of us to go along with the scam you are participating in. I wonder, wonder, wonder, why its asking so much for people to just open our minds to the possibility that we can do so much better than living like roaches, just seeking enough to survive for a few hours. No one in their right mind would disagree that we deserve much better. The breakdown comes when we start talking about the work required for us to do a higher level of organizing work. Most apparently want the short fix. They want to feel like they are doing something worthwhile when the truth is we aren’t. Its this reality that fuels my emotional trauma. Trump and everyone who agrees with him is nothing more than what the united snakes has been revealing to me since the day I was born in 1962. No surprises there. I am bewildered by how many of us are unwilling to push ourselves beyond this roach – crumb – to mouth approach. I’m not going to ever give up though. I’ll use these memories of four years ago to propel me to do more work to wake people up so that we can get out of this terror maze that people keep trying to tell us is freedom and democracy.

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A Review of the Bio "The Dead are Arising - The Life of Malcolm X"

10/26/2020

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On October 20th, 2020, the latest of many biographies about El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) was released. This 500+ page book “The Dead are Arising – the Life of Malcolm X” was written mostly by Les Payne. Mr. Payne made his physical transition before the project could be completed so his daughter Tamara Payne finished the book. I consider Malcolm X to be my spiritual and ideological father, so anything written about him, especially in this age of repeated attacks against our warriors for justice, and our militant independent movements, I make it my business to study immediately so that I can respond with an assessment. I’ve been fortunate enough to do this for (previous) books written about Malcolm as well as books written about Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Huey P. Newton, Assata Shakur, and others. I’ve been fortunate to receive significant feedback from people all over the world acknowledging the value they received from the perspectives I’ve provided so with great humility, I do the same here for “The Dead are Arising – The Life of Malcolm X.”

For serious students of Malcolm’s life, this book doesn’t offer a significant amount of new information. For the most part, the story of Malcolm’s life, originally articulated in “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” released with the assistance of Alex Haley in 1965, shortly after Malcolm’s assassination, is re-presented in this bio. These authors take pains instead to attempt to provide deeper analysis on specific aspects of Malcolm’s life that have been discussed previously. Their most intriguing focuses were on Malcolm’s childhood in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. and Lansing, Michigan, U.S. And, the most important element of this work in our view was the author’s focus on the influence of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association in the everyday lives of Malcolm’s parents Earl and Louise Little. Without dismissing the often abusive treatment Earl dished out to his wife and children, the book makes great efforts to express that pride in Africa and self-reliance and independence, staples of the Garvey movement, were widely preached and practiced in the Little household. This is important because it brings onto the surface the impact of Garveyism in Malcolm’s early development which challenges the widely held perspective that Malcolm was simply a criminal minded individual until being exposed to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam (NOI). A much more balanced analysis, as is attempted in this book, portrays the willingness of Malcolm’s family (three of his brothers and his sister all joined the Nation of Islam with him) to participate in the NOI as a part and parcel of their upbringing with Garvey’s influence. This point of view is much more dialectical and material. We are all the results of all the major influences in our lives, especially our formulative years. None of us just reach adulthood independent of our youth and form all of our life philosophy at that stage although this is often what has been suggested about Malcolm after he was exposed to the NOI while in prison. These authors also do a decent job demonstrating that Malcolm Little had a stable hold on language and writing skills long before his transformation to Malcolm X. They use his cleverly worded letters to his family while in prison requesting money and his letter to the draft board as examples of his writing skills which flies in the face of the Hollywood story that Malcolm was basically illiterate before going to prison and reading the dictionary word by word. We are not saying the dictionary work didn’t happen. We are saying, that work didn’t create Malcolm’s literacy from scratch as we have been led to believe, primarily from Malcolm’s own words in the autobiography.

Another fascinating element was the focus on Malcolm’s physical abuse of the women in his life, specifically the white woman Beatrice (who was portrayed as “Sophia” in Spike Lee’s 1992 movie) and Malcolm’s distrust of women which he struggled to advance out of up to the end of his life. Finally, the last element that we found interesting was the book’s focus on the relationship developed between the NOI and the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. Much more about this was written in this book than anything else presented on the topic. Based on eye witness accounts from people like Jeremiah Shabazz (Jeremiah X Pugh) and his wife, Malcolm is depicted as fighting internally over Elijah Muhammad’s desire to establish a relationship with the klan based on Muhammad’s economic visions devoid of any realization of who these terrorists were. According to interviews the authors conducted with Mr. and Mrs. Shabazz shortly before the minister died in 1998, Malcolm was completely opposed to carrying out these meetings because he wanted to challenge, and even threaten, the klan with retaliation for their violence against Africans. Shabazz indicated that it took everything Malcolm could muster to carry out his orders from Muhammad. Meanwhile, Shabazz is depicted as the opportunist that he clearly was. Willing and able to move forward and build quite the shameful relationship with klan terrorists throughout the south despite the fact that evidence indicates the klan never did, nor ever had any intention, of carrying out its agreement with the NOI ministers. Malcolm, for his part, was removed from these “negotiations” by Muhammad because of his clear unwillingness and desire to participate the way Muhammad wanted him too. There is absolutely no reason to doubt Shabazz’s interpretation of these events. He was one of the NOI’s most powerful ministers playing a role in the lucrative crime workings of the Philadelphia, Penn, U.S. NOI mosque during his time there. A stronghold so powerful that even the Italian Mafia in Philly had to respect and negotiate with Shabazz’s people for control of crime in the city during the late 60s. Although they started out as friends, Shabazz turned into one of many enemies of Malcolm in the NOI and its more than likely that Shabazz was involved on some level with helping plan the U.S. government inspired assassination of Malcolm X.

Current day NOI members and supporters of Minister Louis Farrakhan will probably not like the way Farrakhan is portrayed in this book. He is defined as an opportunist who used the vitriol against Malcolm during 1963 to early 65 to prove his worthiness to advance within the Nation. Although the book doesn’t discuss this, we know that Farrakhan, under the argument that he was being principled, wasted no time telling Elijah Muhammad about Malcolm telling him about the babies born to Muhammad from the young secretaries. Farrakhan has spent 60 years organizing within the NOI and for that, he deserves some respect (particularly from those of us raised in the inner city who’s initial consciousness was impacted by the NOI. This is objective truth), but his treatment of Malcolm’s assassination on all levels is something he, and eventually his supporters, will always have to answer for.

What I did not like about the book was its depiction of Malcolm’s political work after leaving the Nation of Islam. Similar to how U.S. scholars discuss the work of Kwame Ture – focusing exclusively on his U.S. work in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Party, ignoring is 30 year work in Africa in the All African People’s Revolutionary Party – these authors do very little work investigating Malcolm’s Pan-African work during that last eleven months of his life. The most lacking, although not surprising, element of this book was its depiction of Malcolm being disappointed after his first meeting with Kwame Nkrumah, the then president of Ghana (and later, the founder of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party). This focus is premature and unnecessary. The Paynes make a point of indicating that Nkrumah was unwilling to make a statement publicly supporting the African struggle in the U.S. like Malcolm wanted him to do because that would constitute meddling in U.S. internal affairs which would open the door for the U.S. to meddle in Ghanaian affairs. Of course, anyone who knows anything about this history knows that the U.S. was already deeply meddling in Ghanaian affairs in their efforts to overthrow Nkrumah’s Pan-African socialist government. The U.S. had sabotaged Ghanaian trade relationships, undermined Nkrumah during the Congolese crisis, and worked to sabotage Nkrumah’s Pan-Africanist allies in Guinea and Mali. Nkrumah was well aware of this sabotage and this is why he agreed to meet with Malcolm in the first place. Its important that people recognize how rare and unheard of it is for a standing president of any country to meet with an “unofficial” representative of an opposition force from another country. Especially the most powerful country on earth. At that time, Malcolm didn’t even have a strong opposition organization behind him. It was basically just him and his ideas, yet despite U.S. officials openly warning Nkrumah not to entertain Malcolm, he did, on multiple occasions. This is hardly the actions of a man who doesn’t wish to get involved as this book suggested. And, Nkrumah did much more, he asked Malcolm to stay on and live in Ghana while warning him of U.S. government efforts to assassinate Malcolm. Clearly, U.S. intelligence sources knew of this offer. And, all of this is detailed in the 1990 book of Nkrumah’s letters from Conakry, Guinea, where Nkrumah lived out his life after the U.S. illegally overthrew his government almost one year to the day after Malcolm was assassinated. These interactions between Malcolm and Nkrumah make much more sense in explaining why Malcolm would call meeting Nkrumah “the highest honor of my life” in his autobiography than the effort by the authors of this bio to suggest not much came from his interactions with Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, etc. Malcolm writes in his diary that when visiting Guinea to meet Ture he was assigned military guard, a driver, and an assistant. Not exactly the treatment provided to someone who doesn’t want to “get involved.” Just by virtue of that, Nkrumah, Ture, and others in Africa were clearly thumbing their noses at U.S. imperialism. Unfortunately, the authors of this bio, and many others, don’t get this because they have no honest focus on Malcolm’s Pan-African work. The work which we believe caused the U.S. government to instigate and encourage people within the NOI to carry out the assassination. This book struggles to connect the U.S. government directly to Malcolm’s death, but serious students have discovered these clear links long ago. As Nkrumah’s warning to Malcolm illustrates, like his poisoning in Egypt and the refusal of the French government to let him enter that country, Malcolm was on the run and he knew it. And this pressure was not strictly because he was exposing the hypocrisy of Elijah Muhammad. That may have been enough for the overzealous and committed followers of Muhammad who genuinely believed him to be the messenger of Allah, but for U.S. imperialism, Malcolm’s work in Africa, his growing influence in the U.S. civil rights movement (clearly, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s move from non-violent direct action to Black power was heavily influenced by Malcolm X), and his respect from revolutionary elements in Cuba and elsewhere, were seen as a grave threats by U.S. imperialism. This book, like so many others, completely overlooks this critical aspect of Malcolm’s legacy.

As I continue to study these materials, my position is consistently reinforced that the best works on this history come from those who actually participated in it as activists and organizers. Books, even biographies, by people like Kwame Nkrumah, Kwame Ture, Assata Shakur, etc. Everyone should always read everything, but the class perspectives of the African petti-bourgeoise – who are forever committed to upholding capitalism despite whatever topic they embrace – will forever expose you to only a slight portion of the real story of what’s needed and taking place to bring about real liberation from this backward system.

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The African (Black) Petti-Bourgeoisie has Always Been a Problem

10/21/2020

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The narrative consistently advanced by the capitalist system for quite some time has been designed to condition us to believe that the working poor and the lumpen-proletariat (criminal class) are unacceptable elements within the African world (and every other world). The system has worked overtime to develop theories that criminalize those two classes of African people and there are more than enough people inside and outside of those class elements who thrive to advance these backward concepts. These theories are always advanced using a limited analysis that superficially analyzes the problem without including the capitalist system in that analysis. In other words, as it relates to the African working class, the theory advanced is that poor Africans are that way because we don’t have a strong work ethic. They maintain that we are lazy and wanting nothing more than to collect crumbs that fall off the table from the capitalist system. For the African criminal classes, perennial prison time folks, street organizations, or gangs, etc., the theory advanced is that these folks are pure evil, plain and simple.

You needn’t travel more than inches from your present location to find someone willingly advancing those backward notions about our people. Now, we fully acknowledge that no element of our people is without responsibility for this problem. The criminal class of African people are determined to prey off of our people instead of becoming a part of our communities to help solve the challenges that keep them outside and exploited. Working class Africans are not class conscious. More of them desire to integrate into the capitalist system on some level instead of fighting against it to build something better. Still, these contradictions are understandable because as the lead in sentence indicated, the masses of people in the world today are held hostage to capitalist propaganda regarding how the world looks and functions. The primary objective of this propaganda is always to prevent us from realizing the truth about this system.

What that truth tells us is the masses of working class Africans, and even the criminal lumpen African classes, are not the primary problems adversely impacting our people. The masses of all working people are slaves to the capitalist system. As long as they stay disorganized as a mass, they aren’t in a position to do much of anything besides work for the master and accept the oppression meted out against them on all levels from the system. And, the criminal class only exists because having such a predator class is an intrinsic part of the capitalist system’s workable apparatus. The lumpen class serves to keep our communities off beat and disorganized. This serves our enemies. So, the criminal class exists to keep us off balance and that’s why every police and judicial apparatus in operation today everywhere is set up to ensure criminal activity among the African masses continues. For example, the mass infusion of drugs throughout African communities everywhere from New York City to Rio De Janero, Brazil, has played a vital role in squashing political militancy and movement building.

Its clear that those class elements are not the reasons African people are held back. The true culprit is the African petti-bourgeoisie class. This is the class of people who rose up into positions of prominence on the backs of the African masses (those working class and criminal class Africans). It was our social movements for justice that pushed the ruling capitalist classes to concede and create programs that would generate an African petti-bourgeoisie that would serve as the shock troops to protect the capitalist system. Most of the people who represent the African petti-bourgeoisie class today i.e. those working in politics, the judicial system, business, entertainment, sports, etc., were never on the front lines fighting for anything. They just benefitted from the sacrifices of those who did fight. People like Ice Cube, 50 Cent, and Charles Barkley cannot for one second be confused with Roberto Clemente, Muhammad Ali, James Baldwin, or Nina Simone. The capitalist system is all about creating protections for the elite who make up the benefactor classes on top of this system. The entire purpose of propaganda like the U.S. is the world’s leading democracy and place for freedom is created, designed, and promoted by the bourgeoisie class through every educational, faith based, and business institution in these capitalist societies. The role of the African petti-bourgeoisie is to take those messages and use their positioning to advance those concepts so that they take hold among the masses. The petti bourgeoisie do this because again, the way the system works, exploiting the masses for those on top, benefits them in their new found class position. The more stable the capitalist system, the more stable their individual existences. None of this means we should not pursue university educations and the things the petti-bourgeoisie have exploited. The masses of African people are not stupid. They sacrificed for these positions because they understand we need the skills and education. They expected that those who occupied the positions would use those positions to advance the masses. And, history demonstrates they have the correct interpretation. People like Kwame Nkrumah, Assata Shakur, Franz Fanon, Patrice Lumumba, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Kwame Ture, Huey P. Newton, etc., were all on the path to becoming (college) educated and representatives of the African petti-bourgeoisie. Those warriors committed class suicide and rejected the invitation into the petti-bourgeoisie class. This is exactly what makes them so different from the petti-bourgeoisie who are actively holding positions within the system and speaking from a standpoint of working with and supporting the capitalist system.

Its critical that we as African people understand that the African petti-bourgeoisie will always choose their class interests, which are in line with the interests of the national bourgeoisie and the capitalist classes, over the interests of the masses of African people. Regardless of what people look like, the petti-bourgeoisie has as its primary function the responsibility of protecting the capitalist system. The African petti-bourgeoisie, as primarily a portion of the liberal capitalist elite, understands (better than the other bourgeoisie/petti-bourgeoisie class elements) how important it is to talk about, and even create policy, around widening the petti-bourgeoisie among the African masses. A few of us will get admissions to college. A few will get business capital. A few will get petti-bourgeoisie jobs. This is their strategy and it works consistently because the lack of class consciousness among the African masses makes it easier for our people to accept the most limited level of crumbs available. In fact, for most African people, the allure of someone like 50 Cent or Kanye is the chance that one day we can be in the same position they are in. At least financially. The most egregious element of the African petti-bourgeoisie is that these people have consciously made decisions to elevate themselves above the interests of the masses of African people.

What more and more Africans are realizing now is that individual access to positions within the capitalist system has never translated to progress for the masses of people. The only way the masses will ever progress is by collective organization against this system. This requires the masses of people getting involved and playing a part in building movements for their liberation. No one else will ever do this for us, Especially the petti-bourgeoisie who shamelessly accept the positions we won for them while turning around and instantly betraying our collective interests for their own individual advancements.

When the African petti-bourgeoisie was much smaller, this was probably much easier to identify. Today, there is a growing African petti bourgeoisie and with people like Barack Obama and Akili Dangote leading the way, an emerging presence of Africans within the bourgeoisie classes as well. The role of genuine African revolutionaries who can never betray the African masses is always to state clearly that the African petti-bourgeoisie act against the African masses. Their positions within this system result from the struggles of our people and therefore, those positions, whether as a pro basketball player, or governor, corporate CEO, etc., those positions do not belong to the individuals who occupy them. For collective progress, we shouldn’t even want those positions. Instead, we should want a mass movement that challenges the core of this exploitative system. The work is necessary for African revolutionaries and all revolutionaries and serious activists to engage the important work of advancing class, nation (race), and gender struggles to make crystal clear who are our friends, who are our enemies, and what steps we need to make to ensure real progress that we control is taking place. For us as revolutionary Pan-Africanists we point back to the discussion raised earlier in this piece about our revolutionaries who rejected becoming a part of the petti-bourgeoisie class. This process of class suicide needs to become institutionalized. This can happen through a mass political education program such as the one utilized within the All African People’s Revolutionary Party and other organizations. Mass political education designed to convince our people to use our skills, and knowledge for collective advancement and not individual rewards. The position doesn’t belong to us individually. The petti-bourgeoisie, no matter how much we wish to be inspired by their symbolism, like their music, their game, or the way they talk, they don’t speak for you. They never have and they never will.

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As Usual, Most of Us Miss the Point On Ice Cube & "Platinum Plan"

10/15/2020

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Rapper/actor/entertainer Ice Cube has worn many hats throughout his professional career. He started as a so-called gangsta rapper with the impactful group NWA in the late 80s. Then, he joined forces with Dr. Khalid Abdul Muhammad and the Nation of Islam to become a hardcore Black nationalist rapper in the early 90s. That phase devolved into him making several high profile records with Mac 10 and WC as the “Westside Connection.” Records that were part gangsta, part party animal. Finally, he moved into mainstream motion pictures.

Most recently, he rotated back into the struggle for African self-determination with many public statements supporting protests against police terrorism. And, in the last several days, its been exposed that he worked, at least on some level, with the administration of the current empire president to help create and/or support the regime’s so-called “Platinum Plan.” The alleged purpose of this plan is to supposedly uplift the African community within the U.S. with more promises of capitalist advancement for the African masses.

Most Africans are attacking Ice Cube for working with Trump’s people, but this is an understandable, yet extremely subjective and superficial analysis of the real issues here. What most Africans, and everyone else, will refuse to do is actually study this so-called Platinum Plan. Most of us will instead rely on sound bites from the capitalist media and celebrity culture. Most of us will never actually read and assess the plan itself.

And, studying this plan, and any plan that is supposed to improve the conditions of the African masses, at the very least, requires us to study it in great detail so that’s exactly what we will do here because whether its Ice Cube or Mickey Mouse, our people have to develop increased political sophistication so that we can read through the lines and properly understand what’s being beamed at us. This is particularly important when you are talking about the Democratic or Republican Parties, both of whom Malcolm X beautifully exposed for us over 50 years ago, although most of us will never study his analysis as well.

You all need to study this so-called plan. The basis of it are promises to provide three million new jobs for African people. To create 500,000 African owned businesses by increasing capital in African communities. A promise of $500 billion in capital. Higher policing standards (whatever that is supposed to mean). A Second Step program which is supposed to address criminal justice system reform “while ensuring our communities and streets are safe.” There’s other statements about support for African churches, immigration policies that protect U.S. jobs, and healthcare.
Let’s break down each element here.

Three million new jobs: You have the last four years to provide ample evidence for how this regime, (and all the other ones to – we are neither Democrats, nor Republicans, nor Americans) manipulates employment data. For them, millions of new jobs that pay minimum wage, offer no benefits, and have no job protections is a bragging right. The truth is there is no where in this country where quality jobs defined as livable wages, affordable healthcare, and safe work conditions are increasing. What is increasing are service jobs with low wages, no healthcare, and no stability. These types of jobs serve the economic interests of the bourgeoisie like Trump and he and those in his class have a history of creating these types of low level jobs. Anyone with even a cursory perspective on this question would understand clearly that the jobs these people are talking about creating will do nothing to improve the collective conditions of African people.

500,000 new African businesses and $500 billion in capital: Whenever a plausible suggestion for providing healthcare for people or rehabilitation efforts, eliminating houselessness, etc., there is immediately an outcry from reactionaries demanding to know “where the money will come from?” Yet, some of you believe that this level of capital will be invested in African communities to permit us to independently develop. A quick study of history will reveal to us that this concept, and all these bogus concepts in this so-called plan, are not new. In the 1960s, in response to hundreds of urban rebellions, the Nixon administration with the support of McGeorge Bundy and the Chevron Foundation, wrote the script for Affirmative Action as a vehicle to create an African petti bourgeoisie that would have class interests that led it to protect the capitalist system. This was accomplished. And with that accomplishment its important to recognize that the goal of Nixon, Bundy, Rockafeller and all those folks 50+ years ago was never to uplift the African masses, although that’s the same rhetoric they used then. It was to do exactly what they did, create an overseer class of Africans. Today, even if you believe the numbers they are committing to, this is still their objective. Whether we recognize it or not, the level of mass protests always rock the capitalist ruling classes to their knees. They will always do whatever possible to control and mitigate that militancy. Expanding the African petti bourgeoisie is again their answer. The question you have to ask yourself is if after 50 years ago, there is no clear pathway for the masses of our people to advance through this model, why would you believe this go around will be any different?

Criminal Justice Reform, etc.: By reform if you mean reducing the systemic inequities in this racist system (and if reform doesn’t mean that then what’s the point), you are living in a fantasy world if you actually believe this plan is going to make that happen. This mass incarceration system is based on the same exploitative model that built capitalism. Releasing a handful of people is great because they all need to be released, but as long as there is a capitalist system, there will be people incarcerated on a mass scale and the overwhelming majority of those people are going to be African and Indigenous. Also, this talk about protecting and keeping jobs in the U.S. is laughable. These people want you to believe that poor immigrants are the reason jobs are not available. The truth is corporations have benefitted from the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other trade tariff agreements to move their operations overseas because its more profitable for them to do that. The capitalist assault against organized labor along with the refusal of unions to embrace actual political education, has weakened unions and made them revenue motivated entities. This has done more to create conditions where jobs can leave this economy than anything else and the crafters of this so-called plan are 100% in favor of gutting unions which leaves no voice and protection for workers.

We can go on and on, but the point is this issue is so much bigger than Ice Cube. This is a question of our lack of political sophistication and our weakness in accepting any random capitalist approved celebrity as our mouthpiece for advancing our people. When we do this we continue to demonstrate how easily we are willing to be chumped by this system. Some of us want these things to happen because we are really just concerned about our individual ability to get ahold of some of those dollars that could potentially be invested so that we can build upon our personal business, etc., desires. These people should be viewed as parasites on our people no different than pimps, drug dealers, etc. For those of us concerned about the masses of our people, we know that no capitalist plan is ever going to be the solution. If that was true, it would have happened a long time ago. Stop looking to celebrities and everyone else to be our voice. That has simply never worked for us. Until you see this as your responsibility to get involved and get serious about understanding these issues on deeper levels than the superficial basis we are talking about them now, we will continue to be political chump footballs for everybody who has access to the glitter and lights this system provides to them at your expense.

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BLM, the NBA & Serious Analysis on Class & Race Politics

10/13/2020

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This past Sunday the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team from the National Basketball Association (NBA) won the league championship. The 2019/2020 NBA season was reshaped, along with everything else, by covid 19. As a result, a season that typically ends in mid-June extended through October, the month the NBA season usually kicks off.

The covid influenced season, and social unrest that has also plagued this society during these last several months, was punctuated by NBA players, who are almost 80% Africans, using their platform to demand justice against police terrorism against African people. The way the players facilitated their voices was in using their Players Association, their union, to demand that the league – which is made up primarily of right wing billionaire owners – openly express their support for player sentiments previously expressed. The league did this primarily through having the words “Black Lives Matter” painted on the courts used for games in the covid protected arenas nicknamed “the Bubble” that all games were played once the reason resumed in July. Players were also permitted to wear jerseys that displayed slogans like “I can’t breathe” or “Say her name”, slogans generally connected to the Black Lives Matter movement, on the backs of their jerseys where their names usually are.
The Laker championship culminated with a television rating share of 5.7 million viewers which represented the lowest documented watched NBA Finals game ever. Typically, ratings are in the 20 million people range. Most television sports pundits are crediting the loss in viewership to the masses of white basketball fans who own politics that oppose the Black Lives Matter movement, whatever those people believe that movement to be.

The overt racism displayed by white people towards the messages articulated by African and white athletes in all sports supporting African people against police terror, has impacted me in ways I never imagined possible. I love basketball. Especially NBA basketball. Over the years, many people have tried to throw shade at me for this. Their claim is that revolutionaries cannot love NBA basketball. These are people who smoke, toke, drink, whatever they want to bring balance into their lives. None of those things I do. Instead, I watch a game, or at least portions of a game, every so often. This past NBA season, I probably watched no more than about five or six games in full so I’m not trying to hear those critics, but what was strange was how the social upheaval impacted this process. I actually found myself hoping the Lakers would win. This is overwhelmingly shocking. I’m a life long Sacramento Kings fan. My Kings are almost always a bad team, but that’s my squad, ride or die. No Kings fan ever wants the hated Lakers to win anything. Yet, the soaking racism, so apparent at the NBA in general, and LeBron James in particular, made me want him to win no matter what, even if he is playing for the Lakers now.

Besides my personal realities, the NBA announced after Sunday’s game that the measures enacted over the summer will not be continued for the 2020/2021 season. This is clearly a move to get the perceived loss of white fans back. And, it will work because most people in this society operate on an extremely superficial lack of memory. A few clever promotional moves and no league efforts like those displayed this summer, plus good basketball, will definitely get a lot of those shameless people back in front of their televisions, if not this next season, surely not long after that.

The above is not that difficult to figure out. Capitalists are obviously experts at deceiving and manipulating the people in this society. As Malcolm X told us decades ago, the American propaganda machine is so strong that during World War II it got us “loving the Soviet Union and China and hating Germany and Japan. After World War II, it got you hating the Soviet Union and China and loving Germany and Japan!” What’s much more interesting is the method in which bourgeoisie nationalist politics came to undermine genuine sentiments of struggle among the NBA players. During the month of August, players, reacted to the brutal assault against Jacob Blake in Wisconsin when police shot him seven times in the back, by deciding to not play. The players of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team refused to take the court for their playoff game. Their bold action influenced African tennis player Naomi Osaka to boycott her match. The Women’s National Basketball Association cancelled games (it should be noted that the women’s league has been the most militant in all of sports in speaking out against social injustices). Even traditionally conservative Major League Baseball cancelled games that day in solidarity. This was an unprecedented militant work stoppage. A strike. A demand for better results. Back to the NBA, players met to discuss whether to cancel the entire season at that point and respected players like LeBron and Kawhi Leonard were leading that charge. Then, the usual sabotage of the bourgeoisie nationalist circuit stepped in. Barack Obama encouraged LeBron and other players to not strike, but vote. In our view, that development did more to lead the way for the NBA to officially abandon its support for African people than anything that has happened in the last couple of days.

The role of the bourgeoisie is always to redirect and defuse genuine militancy. The African bourgeoisie, most clearly represented by Obama’s presence, exists specifically to control the African masses. The broader (white) bourgeoisie, leaving the African bourgeoisie to quell the African masses, can focus on the white masses to ensure they continue to believe that the interests of capitalist America are always the same as theirs. You can see this happening as people who couldn’t name a book about China’s history, let alone read one, if you put a gun to their head are now trying to compare the protests in Hong Kong to the Black lives matter movement. They are claiming that Africans like LeBron are silent on Hong Kong which they are arguing is a contradiction. Nevermind that there is no analysis of the Britain’s colonial relationship to Hong Kong and the agreement Britain signed with China to return Hong Kong to China (where it rightfully belongs) in 2047. No discussion about the fact the decline of capitalism is clearly the reason for any reduction in life for people in Hong Kong, not the imminent return to mainland China which isn’t even going to happen for another 27 years.

The point tying all of this together is the imagery of the NBA over the last couple of months has been nice, but as is always going to be the case in capitalism, they will always give you little concessions, but eventually, its always going to be back to business as usual. This will continue to be the case until people start getting serious about getting involved in ongoing organizational work to build capacity to fight back against injustice on a protracted and ongoing basis. Otherwise, again its like Malcolm told us. “You been bamboozeled!”

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White/Right Fascists & Police Together is as Old as the Sun Rising

10/8/2020

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Today the so-called Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced it had uncovered a plot by white/right terrorists to kidnap the elected governor of the state of Michigan; Grethen Witmer. She is a Democratic governor who had been targeted by the empire president. As a result, in the eyes of the white/right, she’s seen as the devil. And, although we would have an extremely difficult time believing the FBI if they said the sky was blue, in the current political landscape in this backward society, despite who makes the report, its not hard at all to see something like this happening.

The white/right has a history of seeing practically everyone who doesn’t fit neatly into its version of history i.e. white, male, ideologically committed to the ideals and practices of the bourgeoisie, as the devil. So, if they, with their extremely warped and dysfunctional perspective of the world we live in, can see a bourgeoisie woman politician as the epitome of evil to the extent that they would contemplate kidnapping her, you can imagine what the white/right thinks about anyone standing up and fighting for African liberation.

The relationship between these violent white/right forces and police across this country is attracting a lot of attention of late. There are now pretty consistent reports circulating of the extent (wide) in which violent white supremacists have joined police departments all over the country in large enough capacity to greatly influence the ideas and practices of these departments.
Many people are interpreting these latest revelations about these connections as something new or something that must be exposed and addressed. The foundation behind this naïve perspective is that the existence of white supremacists in police departments is new, or at least negligible. And, that its therefore something that can be fixed through some legal and legislative means.

We have news for these people. This connection isn’t new, its woven into the fabric of this capitalist system. Its absolutely absurd for anyone to try and pretend that this country has represented anything else except fascism, white supremacy, and violence to enforce both since these lands were viciously stolen from the Indigenous people’s of the Western Hemisphere. And, while that theft was being consolidated, it was being helped by the systemic enslavement of African people kidnapped from Africa and scattered across the Western Hemisphere to work as animals for approximately 350 years. The very industrialization process that created the capitalist system was built on this exploitation. Of course, the capitalist system wishes to convince us that none of the above happened. Instead, they seek to revise the history of their exploitation. Turning it on its head, to suggest that this country is the citadel of freedom, democracy, and justice for all of humanity. Most people today, even those who consider themselves progressive, believe some if not all elements of this lie. This explains why so many people actually believe that the U.S. was a force against fascism (against Hitler) in World War II, while the U.S. enforced fascism against the African and Indigenous masses in this country during that same period. The fascism was even enforced against colonized troops who served in the U.S. military during World War II. Its as if its possible for the people who stole your house and held you hostage to hire others to go out and attack other fascists and for that, your robbers are called heroes. With this dysfunctional thinking posing as solid ideology in this society, we should understand why any rational person could actually believe that these problems are fixable without changing this entire backward system the only way it can be properly changed, through a revolutionary process.

Without that, what we are left with is the brutal history of this savage country. A history that originated police departments from the slave patrols in the Southern U.S. and the city patrols in the Northern U.S. Both were created to terrorize African and Indigenous peoples and keep us “in our places.” And, the existence of this terrorism was institutionalized to such extent that the Second Amendment of the U.S. constitution was written in large part to ensure those slave patrols were able to arm themselves in order to commit their terrorism against us with greater capacity and effectiveness.

Understanding and accepting all of this ill refutable history is very important because with this level of consciousness about the true history of this society, you are better prepared to understand how police and white/right terrorists have always been not only side by side, but usually, one and the same. History is full of examples here. Obviously, the very function of those slave patrols and city watch units, and their eventual transformation into police departments is the first prime example. Then, all you have to look at are the multitude of tragic incidents to see this. In 1964, sheriff deputies in Neshoba County, Mississippi, U.S., captured, kidnapped, and turned over three civil rights workers to the Ku Klux Klan. It was confirmed that the sheriffs themselves were klansmen. Of course, those three youthful workers were viciously murdered and the control these white supremacists have over the judicial and institutional apparatuses were employed, as they always are, to ensure no one was initially convicted (and even once the federal government was forced to make the crimes federal cases due to pressure from the civil rights movement, the convictions were still light in nature).

Another example is the tragic leftist rally which took place in Greensboro, North Carolina, U.S. in 1980 (the 40 year commemoration of this incident is upon us now). In this case, local police, at a minimum sympathetic to white/right terrorists and at worse, active members, allowed a caravan of armed white supremacists to drive into the rally, sponsored by leftist socialist groups like the Socialist Workers Party, and shoot up the participants, killing multiple people. When we say “allowed” what we mean is the police had full intelligence about the mission to attack those rally participants well in advance of the incident.

With this history and backdrop, and there are countless other examples we could cite, no one should be shocked, as so many apparently were, when that 17 year old terrorist in Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S. was permitted to shoot and kill two people and then walk peacefully past the police carrying the murder weapon in plain view. And, spare us the argument that he was defending himself. This was the same argument used in Greensboro in 1980. These backward defenses used to justify white/right violence reflect the ill refutable truth that no one can point to any time in the history of this country when this bourgeoisie society and all its institutions i.e. media, churches, government, etc., had ever not taken a position of defending the system over the oppression experienced by the masses of people. No time in history is this true. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. W.E.B. DuBois, Rosa Parks, all were public enemy number one when they were alive and practicing their efforts to challenge racial and class oppression. Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) at 24 years old was treated nationally in ways that make Osama bin Laden look like a public saint today. And the only thing Kwame was guilty of was telling the truth about this system. So, no “whitewashing” of history today with how the establishment acts like King and the others are, and were always, respected for their work changes these truths.

Your system is the problem and the fact you can’t tell the white/right from these institutions that routinely brutalize our people clearly illustrates this. I became clear on this 40 years ago while growing as a student activist. At the time of the Greensboro incident, my mentor at the time – Brother Kehinde Solwazi – said something to me that summarizes this entire scenario. He said “the KKK and the white supremacists are for those of us foolish enough to move to the suburbs. They got the police for the rest of us!”

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Driving Through the "Heartland", Trump 2020 & the Pandemic

10/4/2020

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Over the last 12 days I drove across seven states to visit my daughter. Here, I’m going to share some very interesting observations from that experience. First, most of the states I traveled through seem to functioning as business as usual as it relates to the pandemic. Restaurants are operating and serving people inside. I can’t speak to bars since I don’t go to them, but one thing I did notice is that most people, I’d say a consistent 70%, were wearing masks. Whether it was restaurants, gas stations, hotels, etc., this was overwhelmingly true.
I’m not one to advance anecdotal evidence about anything. I prefer data, but in this instance, I think anecdotal examples are important because they indicate trends. Especially in states like Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas where support for the current empire president and his dismissal of the corona virus is strong.
Speaking of the empire and the presidential election, outward support for him is dominant in these states. “Trump 2020” signs are everywhere. On properties, vehicles, and businesses. In fact, I drove through four actual Trump caravans. I’m talking about dozens of vehicles with people with signs, flags, the U.S./Confederate ones, even some swastikas. People with guns in states that permit open carry. In one instance in Texas where road work required drivers to stop, these people came up to my vehicle waving confederate flags. The woman walked up to my open window and yelled an apparent question towards me. “Do you support our president?!” I responded in absolute monotone fashion. “I support Malcolm X when he said I’m not a politician, I’m not a student of politics. I’m neither a democrat, nor a republican, nor an American, and got sense enough to know it!” At that I deadpanned her while she struggled to digest my response as she slowly walked away from me without further comment. I’m still not sure if she processed my playing NWA’s “F - - k the police!” while she was standing there in front of me.
Something else that struck me was my constant interaction with service people in gas stations, hotels, etc. I stayed in six different hotels on the drive to and from and I alone, and while with my daughter, ate food from a number of establishments. There were ample opportunities to engage people with questions about how things were going with people’s patience towards them. This question came to me because in many instances, places were forced to close doors and provide drive through and/or walk through services only because of their staff being overwhelmed. My experience working in labor has taught me to observe work conditions on all job sites. I repeatedly observed short staff situations so I made it a point to ask employees about this. What I heard from people in restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and coffee shops is that most people are patient and calm, but there is unquestionably a definite uptick in rude and impatient people.
I experienced the latter before my trip even began. In checking out my rental car here in Sacramento, I was forced to wait in line for an hour despite my prepaying my reservation. Also, once checked in, I had to wait another hour for my vehicle to be ready. The two representatives who were forced to attempt to serve all the people in line explained that their increased cleanliness requirements made cleaning the vehicles a much more detailed process. While waiting in line, I observed a number of people displaying overwhelming impatience. There were constant complaints being aimed at the few staff people. And, this was such a constant that I intervened multiple times with people, chastising them for blaming the workers instead of the bosses who decided to staff so sparingly despite the clear necessity for increased personnel. The irony of that reality was that these people, mostly older white people who probably support Trump more than not, expressed the type of impatience that makes it impossible for me to believe they would tolerate and cooperate with being pulled over to the extent that they constantly claim Africans pulled over by police should do. If they couldn’t even manage to stand in line and wait their turn, which most of them clearly struggled with, you cannot convince me that they would exhibit patience in the face of being pulled over with any level of demands being made against them.
Other contradictions I observed was the institutionalized reduction in wages that is accepted as the norm in most of these so-called “right to work” states. The normalization of the $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage as an acceptable wage has forced these states to reduce prices as a business necessity. Gasoline was routinely below $2.00 USD a gallon. I stayed in five star hotel rooms for less than $70.00 USD a night. I mean really nice hotel rooms. And, finally, I had the opportunity all week to observe my daughter, a PhD student who teaches undergraduate courses, engage in virtual class with her students. Anyone who claims that doing so virtually is easier for instructors than in person classes doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about. Especially for instructors of small students. I thought of Kindergarten teachers who are forced right now to instruct five and six year olds who have never been in a classroom setting before, not to mention sitting in front of a computer to have that experience.
The essence of what I am left with from my experience is as is always the case, the people expressing opinions about the impacts of a real or imagined virus on social media are very much detached from the day to day realities of most everyday people. This capitalist economy is not equipped to prioritize people’s needs and this pandemic is not the cause of that. Its simply a method of exposing that contradiction for all who desire to see it. People focusing on the virus/pandemic and/or the election are missing the point also. The real element here is this profit over people system of capitalism. Its inadequacies and the clear courage and character of all the people I encountered who do the best they can everyday to try and navigate through this backward system with care and respect for all they come in contact with while they receive low pay, no benefits, and very little else except abuse. In one exchange I had with some of those people in the rental car line an older white woman in front of me (who had complained multiple times in a matter of minutes about the situation), turned to me and said “how do you have such patience?” My response: “it’s the capitalist system you all love so much. This is exactly what it looks like. So, to me, you either work to create something better and give grace to people like the staff members who are doing the best they can with little support, or you shut up.” To that woman’s credit, from that point forward, which was at least another 25 minutes in line, she did cease her constant complaining. At least to the level that I would be aware of it.

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My 2016/20 Election Time PTSD Goes Far Beyond Trump, Etc.

A Review of the Bio "The Dead are Arising - The Life of Malcolm X"

The African (Black) Petti-Bourgeoisie has Always Been a Problem

As Usual, Most of Us Miss the Point On Ice Cube & "Platinum Plan"

BLM, the NBA & Serious Analysis on Class & Race Politics

White/Right Fascists & Police Together is as Old as the Sun Rising

Driving Through the "Heartland", Trump 2020 & the Pandemic

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