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Don't Let White Supremacy Use You Against Asian Communities

3/25/2020

There’s a disturbing trend of racist attacks and characterizations against Asian people as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Of course, the worthless leaders of this empire are doing everything they can to fan the flames around this by referring to the pandemic as the “Chinese virus.”

The entire capitalist world stretching from Europe to the U.S., Canada, Australia, and of course – occupied Palestine – are all societies built on settler colonialism and institutional white supremacy. Anyone who knows even the slightest thing about any of that is not surprised by European racism against colonized peoples. Those who study and organize deeper around the subject are also aware of the fact institutional means even the communities targeted by institutional white supremacy are subject to people within their own communities adopting the posture of the white supremacist system against others within the colonized landscape.

An example of the latest is the responses coming from the African (Black) communities around these attacks against Asians. Lots of us are indicating a complete lack of empathy towards these attacks. Our rationale for this troubling mindset is the degree of anti-African sentiment and practices that exists within Asian communities.

Its not my intention or responsibility to defend Asians who practice white supremacy against African people. It’s a very complex history and situation. From the ever growing and contested presence of China throughout all of Africa, to the long standing tensions between inner city African communities in the U.S. and Europe and Asians who own and operate businesses within them, these issues have a long history. I myself grew up in an inner city community dominated by Asian grocers who despite the fact they depended upon our patronage, and watched us grow, consistently treated us in a criminalized fashion. So, without question, different segments of the Asian community in its relationship to Africa and Africans have much work to do.

African people also have much work to do regarding this question. First, we have to learn how to develop tools of analysis that extend beyond viewing everything through our trauma lenses. Everyone everywhere has an opinion, but very few of us are doing any scientifically based study and organizing around any of these questions. This shows in the shallowness of our perspectives.

First, like the African community and every other community, the Asian community isn’t monolithic. There are Chinese, Japanese, Koreans (North and South), Vietnamese, Hmong, Filipinos, etc. Many of us who grew up in those inner city communities lived right next door to Filipino families. Families that experienced similar hardships that we did in those communities. This is important to note because in 2020 its clearly no longer acceptable to have a simple race analysis of anything. Without question, Africans (and everyone else) needs to learn how to adopt a class analysis to guide our interpretation of what happens in this world. Its that class analysis that helped me realize that in the community like the one I grew up in, although the bulk of the businesses were Asian run, whenever other communities – whether Arab or even those Africans who established businesses – none of them ever had a sterling record of quality service and respect for the community. I was accused of stealing and mistreated by an African grocery store and it didn’t feel any better just because the people dehumanizing me look like me. In fact, it felt worse. The point is the reasons for this are driven by class conditions as well as racial ones.

In my view, the Asian Beauty Salon owners who mistreat Africans are the same as those African preachers who meet with and support the current empire president. They are the same as the multitudes of Africans running around here, like Kanye West, Bill Cosby, and plenty of other African celebrities, Faith leaders, politicians, and everyday people, who are criticizing African people and blaming us for our suffering conditions. I’m not going to single out Asians while ignoring my own people who betray us because I have a class analysis. Those people have nothing in common with us because their class interests align with this power structure, regardless of their race. For instance, have you ever wondered why the perception of China and Chinese people, Japan and Japanese people, isn’t exactly the same as the perception of the Philippines and Filipino people? Vietnam and Vietnamese people? The latter people don’t have the same prestige as the former Asian people do they? Why? Because the power of the countries dictates the respect the people within them receive. Since Africa is weak, that’s why we suffer the way we do.

This capitalist system is built on dehumanizing African people because for capitalism’s sake, Africa must be dehumanized. This strategy of ensuring everyone dumps on Africa/Africans is the only way the imperialists can ensure no one dares humanize us because once that happens, it can no longer be possible to mistreat us on a systemic level. And, once that’s not possible, the system that steals our human and material resources cannot function. In order to continue to perpetuate this system, every aspect of how everyone is educated in this society is geared towards dumping on African people. Again, even other Africans learn this. Look at the fallout from the Colin Kaepernick led protests against police terrorism. You couldn’t even count the number of Africans who lined up to parrot the capitalist system’s condemnations of the protests so that those Africans could gain favor from the master. If this is systemically how this society works, and there is endless evidence to confirm it is, why would Asians or anyone else be expected to behave differently?

Richard Pryor had an iconic (and now ironic) comedy routine in 1973. It was during the time when many Vietnamese who were aligned with the reactionary powers in Vietnam, who were losing the war, were coming to the U.S. In Pryor’s routine, he joked that the Vietnamese were lined up as they entered this country and “taught how to say the word n - - - - r so they can become good citizens!”

African people should know better than anyone that we don’t need to let ourselves become frontline troops for white supremacy. Its critical at this time that we remember that we really don’t know where coronavirus originated from. Most of you agreeing with the term “Chinese Virus” are operating based 100% on information you are receiving from the system that has lied to you your entire life. A major tactical reason that white supremacy works so well against African people is because the system continues to keep us disunified and our lack of unity makes us easy targets to pick off and oppress. Imagine if we as a united people, from Kenya to Kansas City, refused to take the bait and told the capitalist world “we have our issues with our Asian kin that we will continue to work out, but we refuse to let white supremacy use us as fodder against them.” Our ability to learn to adopt healthy platforms like this will begin to build the dignity that will prevent systemic white supremacy from being able to subjugate us as easy as it does. Pan-Africanism is the objective that brings that dignity in place for us and with that forward advancement in our path, we can end our own suffering. That will never happen as long as we are being played by the people stealing everything from us.

Its time for us to say no to white supremacy. We should decide not to adopt their racist line against Asian people. Doing so does nothing to advance us as a people. Besides, we shouldn’t be willing to help them do anything to anyone because no one knows better than us what happens in that scenario.

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30 Days to Lift Social Distancing is a Death Sentence. RESIST IT!

3/25/2020

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In the midst of this coronavirus pandemic, the most primitive and unhuman elements of this backward capitalist system that we live under are being exposed for all the world to clearly see. Despite centuries of stealing all the human and material labor (wealth) from Africa, the Americas, and Asia, and using those resources to build up this profit over people capitalist system, the wealthy countries in Europe and the U.S., etc., have no answer for how to organize and keep people safe.

It’s now obvious that this system is incapable of even addressing the most basic contradictions. For example, working class people are always expected to take full responsibility for any financial difficulty they experience and find individual solutions for these hardships while these capitalist governments immediately step in to bail out corporations the minute they experience financial struggles. With this type of unquestionable confusion dominant, its no wonder why people are having a very difficult time interpreting the constantly changing reality we are facing. This process becomes even more difficult when much of the information people are getting is wrong, and I mean intentionally wrong.

Now, even when the capitalist world of Europe is the epicenter of this crisis, the political leadership of the U.S. is now attempting to act as if this worldwide pandemic will completely disappear within just a couple of weeks. Reactionary chicken wing, pigs feet preachers are popping up everywhere having church services where 1000 people thumb their noses at the coronavirus. The president of this evil empire is now pompously coming on national television everyday telling us that all of this will be completed by Easter, 2020. He wants everyone in church on that glorious day to celebrate the end of this worldwide trauma.

I’m quite sure that even a complete idiot like the empire president knows confidently that this epidemic is not going to be safely concluded in 30 days. The actual scientific evidence indicating the opposite is overwhelming. Just yesterday within the U.S., the daily death toll rose by over 100 people and there is absolutely nothing indicating this trend is going to reverse course. This government’s motivation for promoting this 30 day fantasy is – as is always the case with capitalism – motivated by its drive to ensure corporate profits are protected. Despite the clear economic evidence that U.S. capitalism is consumer driven (meaning the obvious and most logical stimulus would focus mostly on placing cash reserves in the hands of working people, not corporations), this system, ever loyal only to its multi-national corporate benefactors, is intent only on ensuring those corporations are prioritized, even while people suffer and die all around us.

So, to facilitate this staged corporate salvation, the demons who run this political system are engaging in the most vile and despicable campaign of fear mongering. Appealing to the insecurities and anxieties of everyday folks who are uncertain about having to stay in their residences for an undetermined period of time, these people hope to exploit all of that to force people into risking all of our lives so that corporate stocks can stabilize.

The beasts in power have demonstrated their complete indifference to us by using their bourgeoisie spokespersons to openly express the need for the sick, the elderly, all of those people these lowlifes deem unacceptable and unnecessary, to voluntarily sacrifice themselves in the interests of capitalist longevity. All of this is unfolding right before our very eyes.

With all of this dysfunction facing us, each and every person will have a choice to make. Every bone in your body should be telling you that we need much more time to even make a clear assessment of this crisis. Not to mention what the next steps should and can be. I’m no doctor, but basic common sense should dictate to you several undeniable facts. We know coronavirus is asymptomatic meaning you can have it and not know it because your body exhibits no physical reactions to the virus. You feel fine, no aches, coughing, fever, etc. There are even coronavirus patients who are telling us that they had no fever symptoms which means even the advice of checking your temperatures isn’t a sure answer. Since we know about this asymptomatic element within healthy people who contact the virus, and the overwhelming majority of people have not been tested (and won’t be tested in the foreseeable future), even the most basic fool can take that information and deduce that we clearly have no way whatsoever to stand here today and conclude anything except that the virus will continue to spread. Unfortunately, people will continue to get sick and many of them will continue to die. That’s the only sober and truthful assessment that we can produce right now. And, no one can provide any science to refute that. This empire president is so stupid, he doesn’t even try to produce evidence, but maybe he’s a little smarter than most of us because even without an analysis, there are those among us who actually believe 30 days will be sufficient. Just because he said so and we are so insecure we want to believe him. I mean, he is giving some of you $1,000.00 or whatever the bribe ends up being.

For anyone who has a brain operating on even limited capacity, you have to make the correct decisions in the coming weeks. Protect yourself, your family, your community, your world, by absolutely 100% refusing to heed the calls of the demons in chief to pretend that our lives are not in danger. Now is the time to be talking to your friends, families, co-workers, etc., whoever, about taking a stand for ourselves and refusing to go along with their corporate agenda. The ask for you is simple. If they call on you to go back to work in 30 days, don’t do it. If they call on you to start going out to restaurants, bars, etc., in 30 days don’t do it. If you are struggling and feel the urge to open your business in 30 days, think about the potential risk. Don’t do it. This is the bare minimum. Its something we all can do. And, just this basic display of collective power can lead us to the organization we need to demand more of our tax dollars back to us and away from bailing out these criminal corporations.
Tell yourself and everyone you know, don’t listen to this federal government one bit. Resist them. Do something your children, grandchildren, partners, etc., can be proud of. Do as George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic told us in 1978, “think! It ain’t illegal yet!!” There really is no other logical choice we don’t want a death and suffering.

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Vlad T.V. & How It Actively Exploits Black/Brown Suffering

3/24/2020

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To be completely honest, before a few months ago, I had no idea who D.J. Vlad was. I admit that I’m not the most active follower of present day popular culture so although I had heard the name, I didn’t know anything about him.

In my efforts several months ago to research information surrounding the last year in the life of Tupac Shakur for an article I wanted to write, I came in contact with a number of youtube videos. It was then that I became immediately aware of D.J. Vlad. I learned that Vladislav Lyubovny aka D.J. Vlad has over three million subscribers to his youtube channel. And, based on the wide array of people he’s interviewed on his channel, its not hard to understand why he’s attracting people. Everyone who had any knowledge and involvement around the shooting of Tupac Shakur has been interviewed on Vlad T.V. He interviewed the Southside Crip who admitted during the interview, that he was in the car that fired the shots that ended Tupac’s life in September of 1996. He interviewed the Los Angeles and Compton cops who investigated the shooting as well as people who knew Orlando Anderson (Baby Lane) who was the person stomped in the MGM Casino that led to the Tupac shooting. As I got further involved, I discovered that entire generations of popular rappers have been on Vlad T.V. Actors, athletes, all types of people who are household names.

I watched a number of these interviews and eventually, my interest expanded beyond just information about the Tupac situation. One thing that started to become evident to me was how Vlad constantly made the point during his interviews to point out how he was “down with” or “friends” with the people he was interviewing. I’m talking about people who had established and well documented histories of gang banging in Los Angeles. Compton Mob Pirus who served as security for Death Row Records throughout the 90s. Southside Crips and other allied Crips sets who were connected to Orlando Anderson, the person widely believed to have killed Tupac. Many of these interviews came to the point of becoming uncomfortable to me as this person used his “close relationship” to these people he was interviewing to openly express his perspectives on what gangs should be thinking and doing. In one interview with a former Compton Crip, Vlad questioned why African “gangs” are “disorganized and not able to unite.” The interviewee - Al Hassan Naqiyy, born as Arlandis Hinton, and more popularly known by his Nutty Blocc Crip name “BG Knocc Out” expressed clear frustration about Vlad’s attempts to define and characterize African “gang” culture. He protested repeatedly during that interview and during another where Vlad questioned Naqivy’s assessment of “the gang mentality.”

My issue with these interviews is just because this European sits down and talks to these people doesn’t mean he understands inner city life and street organization culture. We know of absolutely no qualifications he possesses to question and/or challenge the practices of African street organizations. Plus, the danger here is the millions who are watching probably aren’t thinking about the need to ensure any assessment of African street organization life is inclusive of a clear analysis about the political and economic conditions that create that street organization life to begin with. In other words, the methodology from which his interviews take place suggests that our young people are savage, unable to function in productive ways, and without a broader analysis of the contradictions, the inference is that something is just wrong with us. That’s the same old tired analysis being projected onto our people that needs to be shut down everywhere it raises its head. Need further examples? Contrasting Vlad’s approach to former African street organization members, questioning them without a complete analysis of the conditions they faced, Vlad’s interview with retired L.A. police detective Greg Kading took on a completely different approach. Kading investigated the Tupac killing and after he retired, he wrote a book about it. At no time does Vlad question the morality of a European writing a book to profit off of murder and destruction in African communities. He doesn’t even question why an L.A. police detective became the central investigator in a crime that happened in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.? Instead, he accepts everything Kading says, never challenging him the way he challenges the Africans he interviews.

I don’t know why Naqivy, Mob James, Daz, Tray-Dee, etc., permit this Vlad person to talk to them the way he does. I don’t know why they don’t just tell him he’s crossing a boundary and that he’s talking about things he doesn’t understand. Naqivy, to his credit, makes an attempt to do that several times. And, maybe, they all do, but its edited out. Regardless, they have to know that what these interviews are being set up to do is make us look weak and useless to broader society. Its ill responsible to talk about Suge Knight (Death Row Records CEO), Tupac, Dr. Dre, the MOB Pirus, and the fall of Death Row without also talking about Time Warner which ultimately owned Death Row (with Interscope being a distributing company in between), and how and why it is that the European capitalists media corporations turned out profitable from the era of “gangsta Rap” while Knight is in prison, Tupac and Biggie are dead, and many, many more Africans, such as a number of MOB Pirus are dead. You could probably make an argument that Knight and the others got what they deserved, but you cannot conclude that European corporations have the right to profit off of all of that carnage. All of the people previously mentioned have a responsibility in this also. I don’t know what if anything they were paid from those interviews and/or whether that had anything to do with how they react in them. I do know that Bay Area Rapper Lil B has a point when he calls all of them out for working with Vlad T.V. and doing those interviews.

In those interviews, all of them express some level of regret for the destruction they participated in during their street organization tenures. All of them express a desire to see African people recover from those traumatic years. They have to recognize that the way they are being used by Vlad in those interviews does as much to continue our pain as it does to heal it. Another despicable example of Europeans taking our suffering and figuring out ways to profit off of it.

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We Can't Let Fear Overwhelm. There's Good We can Do Now

3/22/2020

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There are a number of things those of us who genuinely desire a better world can do during this pandemic crisis. I’ve had a working definition of “dialectical and historical materialism” since I first studied the concepts back in the 80s in the work study circle process of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP), but it wasn’t until years later that I gained a practical understanding of what those concepts actually mean. In short, dialectics is the struggle of opposites. The struggle for dominance. Good versus bad. Right versus wrong, etc. The struggle is one of variables from each side struggling to become dominant. As I’ve come to understand it better, what dialectics has taught me is that in order for there to be good in something, there has to also be bad within it. It usually isn’t a 50/50 split. Maybe the good is 75%. Maybe the bad is 80%, but there is each element in everything. The primary struggle is which will dominate.

Consequently, a dialectical approach to the current pandemic situation informs me that despite the great tragedy and trauma associated with the coronavirus crisis, there is also some good that will come from it. That good is that we suddenly find ourselves, during social isolation, with more time to ourselves. More time to think. More time to figure things out. More time to study. More time to link up with people. And, thanks to the sacrifices of the masses of Africans in the Congo and Mozambique, and other oppressed humanity, we have the technology to discuss how to end their suffering, ours, and everyone else’s who has been suffering long before COVID 19. We should take advantage of the trauma to create things that are good.

Everyone doesn’t have internet, but a lot of people do. Especially people who have skills and capacity to do things. Aren’t these some of the people we should trying to get engaged in the struggle for liberation? Provided those people are organized to use their skills to advance all of humanity there is no shame in focusing on politically educating and organizing them. I struggle mightily with ZOOM and other internet conference/communication platforms, but I’m getting better. Still, due to my growth, I definitely see the importance of people who possess strong technology skills. Don’t we need to recruit those people? People who have strong technology skills and can help us understand how to use these platforms more effectively to reach more people. People who possess strong social media skills. Don’t we need more and more of those people on our side? People who know how to publicize events on line? Of course, we are greatly concerned about the houseless communities and other vulnerable segments of our population. We do everything we can to help, but that doesn’t mean we can’t figure out ways to bring political education to segments of the population who have internet and the skills to help us build capacity for the long term struggle for justice. The struggle that will end houselessness and other ills in society?

So, for those who are thinking about and interested in building that long term capacity to create revolutionary potential, this is the time for us to consolidate much of that work. Kwame Nkrumah encouraged us to work with what we have and with what we can use. We should take maximize advantage of what we have to work with right now.

Online political education. We should make sure we have organizations we belong to that have political education processes. We can use ZOOM, Skype, and other platforms to continue political education. In fact, our study and discussion should intensify now because we have fewer distractions than we are used to. Let’s take advantage of that. Recruit people to participate in your study group and start ongoing political education.

Organize online seminars on any number of topics. Scientific socialism. Community defense. Pan-Africanism. International solidarity. Anti-white supremacy. Anti-patriarchy. Anti-homophobia. There’s an endless number of topics we can discuss. And with online access we can invite people from all over the world to participate with us. Solidarity. Building those bridges. Let’s take advantage of this.

We can do organizational orientations online. We can recruit people. We can develop work, do research, and determine what our course of action will be and how we will carry them out. We can do all of that right now. We can write and share our writings as I’m doing right now. The article I wrote on fascism during this pandemic has received over 17,000 reads in the last four days. Effective propaganda. Let’s take advantage of this.

There’s so much we can do folks. There are a lot of us who suffer from depression and that’s understandable beyond a doubt. For those of us who are ready and in a stable enough place to do work right now, we say lets use these ideas and others to start doing that work. Think about it, we can have thousands and more discussing how we can organize for justice everyday. Let’s take advantage of the time and make positive emerge amongst all the negativity.

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Don't Let Panic Force You to Support a Growing Fascist Police State

3/17/2020

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Its important to contextualize what’s happening throughout the world today with the challenges facing us from the potential growth of COVID 19. If what we are learning is true, this virus has devastating capacity. Even if you are healthy and strong, you can hold the virus, without knowing it, for up to a fourteen day incubation period. During that time, you can unknowingly pass the virus on to countless people who do not have the benefit of a strong immunity system. This is an unprecedented element that forced me to start thinking isolation, despite the fact I’m really not concerned about the virus as it relates to impacting my body.

Those are obviously real concerns. Its also worth repeating that millions of colonized and oppressed people across the world are forced daily to live under martial law conditions. Empty shelves at stores. Restricted movement. Lack of food and healthcare resources. In countries like Zimbabwe, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela, these stark conditions result in large part due to U.S. led capitalist economic sanctions against them for refusing to tow capitalism’s line. In other parts of the world the exploitative nature of capitalist dominated production of goods and services continues to maintain this system of very few haves, and millions of have nots.

All of the above is connected to the real anxiety about COVID 19 in the U.S. and other capitalist countries. Consistent with what these empire nations do in colonized countries as daily policy, their approach to addressing the challenges of COVID 19 are led with a military, guns first, strategy. Meanwhile socialist Cuba, despite having extremely limited resources due to the 58 year U.S. economic blockade against them (for daring to implement a socialist revolution 90 miles from the U.S.), is leading the way in confronting COVID 19. They have worked with China to develop a vaccine called Interferon. The vaccine works with the body’s natural proteins to formulate a boost to the body’s own immunity system. Cuba has shared the vaccine with China and virus epicenters like Italy. In fact, Cuba has sent dozens of doctors to Italy to help treat the virus there.

The U.S., with its profit over people capitalist dedication, has been forced to announce that the medical resources to adequately treat the virus do not presently exist within this country. Consequently, the focus on martial law, social distancing, curfews, etc. Lip service is being given to providing finances to working people. Some of that may happen or not, but you can bet on corporations, especially large ones, being bailed out with your tax dollars.

While all of this is happening, this military first approach is setting the stage for some intensified police state realities. The focus will suddenly be on people “looting” toilet paper or even food and the resources of the state will be loaded up towards stopping people from getting what they need, not ensuring they have the medical and human resources they deserve.

Its important that in the midst of this we all don’t fall victim to the push to support this police state. The stage is set for the empire’s “us against them” mentality of “othering” people who don’t fit i.e. colonized people, LGBTQ, poor people, houseless people, etc. Its these populations who are most vulnerable right now.

Please accept that under any circumstances, the police are not your friends. Under no circumstances does it benefit you, your family, or your community, for you to talk to police about anything. Not even about the weather. If the virus intensifies as expected, panic will increase. In their consistent efforts to do everything in their power to ensure we remain afraid of each other so that we never focus in on the superrich who are really responsible for all these problems, we can see things becoming much more drastic. During these increasingly difficult times, its going to be crucial that people don’t allow themselves to become unwitting snitches for state sponsored repression.

Establish electronic ways to keep in touch with people around you that you can trust or networks of people you trust, even if they aren’t in your immediate vicinity. Maintain contact and stay aware of breaking developments. Ensure those developments are communicated clearly across your networks. Establish check ins to compare notes.

Talk to people you know who may be more vulnerable to police terror. People who have issues happening like outstanding warrants need help establishing a regiment that permits them to lay low. Don’t drive around with expired driver’s licenses or vehicle registration. If you have to go out for anything extended, try to make sure someone knows where you are going. And, of course, always observe all the frequently mentioned practices to prevent the spread of this virus.

Make sure you have plans on how you can defend yourself if needed and recognize common sense practices such as if you are traveling at night, even just to the store, etc., have car keys ready before getting to your vehicle so that you can readily enter and be on your way. The same with your living conditions. Check on others around you, especially those living outside. And watch police, military, whomever, and what they are doing with people. Use your video when you can and when necessary, but be prepared to lend a helping hand. Its not helpful to video someone being brutalized when you could have helped them. If you don’t know how, reach to those of us with skills and experience in this area and we will do our best to help you prepare. In other words, do everything you can to ensure you are not placed in a position where you feel desperate enough to depend upon the police state.

Finally, don’t ever forget that the capitalist system is the core reason behind this situation. I provide the example of Cuba because their socialist development clearly illustrates that there are many effective ways to serve and protect humanity when people come first. The fact people aren’t first in capitalism contributes to conditions where a virus can grow out of control. So, capitalism is at fault, even just based on that reality, not the mention the fact we don’t know where or who the creation of this virus can be attributed to, but we do know the capitalist countries have a history of producing viruses and other biological warfare as weapons for population control.

And despite the fact your loved ones may be police and/or military, or you may be yourself, the undisputed reality is that these armed and trained state institutions like police and military are here for one purpose – to protect the interests of the capitalist system. They are not here to protect and serve you and the proof of that is borne out by the fact they are being deployed to control your movements, not to distribute food. You don’t employ armed, trained mercenaries to distribute food. Any of us can do that. You deploy them to control the movement of people. That’s what they are going to be doing. Don’t help them do this. Instead, build capacity among your groups and people to protect yourselves and your surrounding communities.

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First World Suffering Isn't the Gauge to Care And/Or Take Action

3/16/2020

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Interferon is protein based and serves as the foundation of the vaccine socialist Cuba has created to address COVID 19, not just in Cuba, but throughout the world. Meanwhile, the U.S. has no strategy besides human beings isolating from one another

COVID 19 isn’t strange to me. We live in a world today dominated by capital over human dignity, so since we don’t know exactly where or how this virus originated, in this social environment where money is always more important than people, I wouldn’t and couldn’t ever be surprised that something like this would happen. In some part of your brain you had to expect something like this to happen eventually.

What does make me angry is the level of self-centeredness and total lack of awareness so many people are exhibiting. I understand people are panicked, scared, and upset – with good reason, but there has to be a standard of decency that we all agree to accept if we are ever going to have any chance of overcoming adversity when it rears its head. In other words, if you fashion yourself as someone genuinely concerned about humanity, then there are certain contradictions that appear in times like this that cannot be ignored.

Its perfectly normal for people in capitalist countries like the U.S. to be upset, but the world reality is children under 18 routinely die every day from hand mining columbite tantalite (coltan or cobalt) in Congolese mines so that Apple, Samsung, etc., can make billions while you get the latest iPhone. Thousands of people died in a flood in Mozambique recently. Immoral and illegal sanctions are leveled by the U.S. and other capitalist countries against sovereign countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and Iran for no other reasons besides the fact those countries refuse to stand in lock step to the demands of the capitalist world. Meanwhile, these immoral sanctions cause those countries to experience empty shelves and shopping centers as a regular part of their lives. Children in occupied Palestine (Israel) are subjected to daily indignities, death, and terrorism. Oil workers in Nigeria are killed at an average age of 40 due to the harsh conditions imposed upon them by Dutch Royal Shell so that you can have gasoline to embark on your weekend road trip.

The point is all of these things happen routinely, primarily to provide capitalism with the capital to continue to exploit the world. And, since a part of that process is to provide you in these capitalist countries the crumbs from that stolen wealth to buy your allegiance to upholding this capitalist system, you are in essence as guilty as the corporations. So, for those of us who live with, and understand these realities every day, it causes anger in us to see people in capitalist countries suffer the types of slight inconveniences that the recent COVID 19 scare has created, while these people act like the world should now stop and pay attention to any level of suffering they are forced to endure. I see people criticizing people for using humor to help them through this period when those issuing the criticisms never stopped using humor that was either unconsciously or consciously connected to any form of suffering the people previously mentioned face daily. People in capitalist countries, and not just the Europeans, have embraced, either intentionally or not, this narrative that your lives are more important than everyone else on earth. So, in your mind, when you suffer, not anyone else, that’s when everything needs to be acknowledged. That’s when action needs to take place. To you, the value of the world is based on centering yourself, despite whatever rhetoric you express every day about humanity. What this latest ordeal is exposing is that come push to shove, you exhibit the same racism, xenophobia, and self centered philosophies that are the reasons for these social dysfunctions in the first place.

If we are to develop as human beings its going to be essential that people focus on building some maturity and political sophistication that goes much deeper than rhetorical proficiency. Loss of life is loss of life. Don’t just get tuned in because you can’t get toilet paper, or your children don’t have to go to school when you generally are living your best life while the children of Palestine or the Congo suffer. Learn how to demonstrate that you truly do have concern about humanity and not just you and your nuclear and/or extended family. Do this by doing the only thing that provides that example. Get involved on a consistent basis. Don’t just react and do something for the next few weeks to make yourself feel good, then go back to business as usual while the majority of the world suffers (as long as you don’t have to see or deal with it). Join organizations that are working to address problems. Help them build up capacity. Encourage and help them to connect with other organizations around the world. By doing this, we greatly increase our ability to make change. And, we improve our understanding about how that will happen. We institute political education so that we understand the world we live in and how we fit into it. We develop the ability to come together to address these problems and take care of each other without relying on our enemies for information or direction. We eliminate the current reality where people who haven’t even read one book about socialism are comfortable making comments about whether socialism would make any difference with the COVID 19 situation. The facts are undeniable. Genuine socialist countries like Cuba have developed a vaccine they are implementing. A vaccine called Interferon which mobilizes the proteins in our system to build up resistance of our immunities against viruses. They are utilizing this vaccine in the Caribbean countries and they have sent doctors and medical teams to Italy and China to help.

It was announced by the World Health Organization today that 47 countries in Africa expect to have capacity to provide widespread testing for COVID 19 and they are going to be able to do this despite the fact they have an abundance of resource issues. Meanwhile, the U.S. – the richest country in the world – has no capacity and/or plan to test people widespread and no other strategy besides the physical separation of human beings from one another. Think about that for a moment.

You are not the center the world. The country you live in is not the center of the world. What happens or doesn’t happen to you is not the gauge from which to assess or direct the value of anything. You just happen to live in the country that gained its wealth status by being the absolute best terrorist and thief in human history. For me, I live here because I and millions of others like me, are survivors of that terror and theft. I know this so I always act accordingly and with respect for the rest of humanity. Not only do I reject this notion that I’m aligned with this capitalist society, I work every day to strengthen the capacity and abilities of the rest of the world to reclaim what rightfully is being stolen from them. If you don’t see the connections of any of this. Or, you don’t believe in any of this. Or, whatever you tell yourself to justify continuing to center yourself. No matter what happens going forward, you will forever be a part of the problem that created whatever devastation lies ahead.

For me, I have no question we will overcome COVID 19. We will overcome global warming. We will overcome poverty, houselessness, white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia, and we will overcome capitalism. We will make our contribution to all of this happening by fighting for one unified socialist Africa. And, we will continue to support other movements fighting for similar justice. I have absolutely no doubts about any of this and I know I will not be here to reap the benefits of these victories, but I know they will come. I believe this because I am a dialectical and historical materialist. That means I know that if the world can be disrupted into its current realities, there has to be a way for us to reverse these adversities because that’s the only way we could have maneuvered into this place we are in today. We may not have all of the answers now, but we know that coming together and organizing is the pathway to get the rest of those answers. We can’t even hear those who are naysayers. We don’t speak their language. We refuse to be stopped, but a critical part of this journey is honesty. We have to make this call to action for us to get serious and stop playing games with the future of our world. Who is truly ready to go beyond useless fronting mechanisms? Who is ready to have real conversations that lead to real work? Who is ready to put some skin in the game beyond just talking on social media about lots and lots of nonsense? Who is ready to test themselves and make a real difference? Its not COVID 19. Its not global warming. Its none of those things that will decide the future of human existence and the quality of that existence. Its how you and everyone else decides to answers these questions that will determine where we are 100+ years from now.

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The Democratic Party; Outside of the Plantation - Our Main Pimp

3/11/2020

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Here in the U.S., there is an extremely odd and expensive circus that takes place on a national level every couple of years. Whenever this circus happens, we are routinely subjected to the same false narrative that the circus is really a battle for power between the Democratic and the Republican parties which are billed as opposite ends of some imaginary political spectrum. In reality, these two parties are just different ways of saying and doing the same thing, for the same ultimate objective.

This confusion is supported by people’s lack of understanding about the difference between a political party and a mass movement. Movements involve any and everyone who takes an agreed upon position about an issue. The issues can be anything from police terrorism to healthcare to foreign intervention to houselessness. And, with issues like those, the participants in a movement will participate and support actions, marches, rallies, teach ins, and all other forms of resistance to express their unified position against and/or for an issue. What isn’t unified in a movement effort is how the issue will be resolved. Within a movement, if the issue is police terrorism by example, the degree of difference among the participants about the best ways to solve the problem can be as divergent as possible. Some participants will believe police reform i.e. body cameras, community policing, etc., to be the best solution. Others see the complete abolishment of police as the solution. And, the beauty of movements is people who are serious about their participation will engage all of those elements of movement work up to a point where the movement approach is no longer viable for this type of participant. They now want more of a focused analysis and action plan for how the problems will be addressed. When this happens, revolutionary organizers gleam because we know this is the pathway for creating a more informed populace at worse, and revolutionaries at best.

Political parties are usually formations that have one common ideology and direction. Parties have principles that define their objectives and their work and everyone in the party is expected to adhere to those principles at all times. So, everyone can be a participant in a movement provided they agrees to take a position against and/or for a specific position on specific issues. With a party, only those who accept the ideological direction of the party would be members and participants.

Its just confusion within the bourgeoisie U.S. electoral process which makes it so difficult for some people to see the forest for the trees. For example, the Democratic Party wants you to believe that it is a political party that honors the definition provided for political parties here. They bill themselves as the party for working class people. The party against white supremacy, patriarchy, and homophobia. The party for justice and forward progress for all human beings.

Any African and/or other persons from colonized communities knows that the Democratic Party is anything except what it bills itself, and what so many of us want to believe, it is. Truthfully, the Democratic Party has much more in common in terms of ideological solidarity with the ruling elites who dictate the direction of the Republican Party than they do with anything happening with working class people and colonized communities within the U.S. And, whatever progressiveness that exists within the Democratic Party is only there due to the struggles of those previously denied access to representation within the U.S. electoral process who fought for inclusion. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) pushed the National Democratic Party to recognize it in 1964 and the subsequent drama around the Democratic Party’s national convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, that year did more than anything else to facilitate the integration of African and other colonized people into the Democratic Party’s delegate process.

Of course, the progress SNCC and MFDP provided to the Democratic Party took place, along with other similar advances, because of the civil rights movement within the U.S. There was a mass movement that had identified white supremacy as its primary issue (which expanded to include poverty, imperialism, patriarchy, etc). During the mid 1960s, the civil rights movement became the primary accountability enforcer for the Democratic Party. The civil rights law of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965 don’t happen without the constant pressure placed on Lyndon Johnson by Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Congress of Racial Equality, SNCC, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the masses of people who supported those organizations. The leaders of those groups pushed for constant meetings with Johnson’s administration during those years. And, when they met with him they assured him they would continue to take the struggle to the streets to get the reforms they were looking for. And, whether he wanted to or not, Johnson, Kennedy before him, Nixon, etc., had to respect the threat even the most reformist elements of the civil rights movement represented because without question, there was a mass movement behind those individuals sitting in that office. Another tactic those organizational leaders used on U.S. political leaders was to strongly suggest that without wins, the tide of African people would shift to the more militant rhetoric and actions of Malcolm X and later others like SNCC and Kwame Ture/Jamil al-Amin (Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown), the Black Panther Party, etc. Again, another movement - the Black Power movement. And, from this movement work we even received some reforms that benefited our people without a doubt.

So then, the question now is why do we seem to struggle with being able to make even the slightest reformist progress within the Democratic Party today? It would be inconceivable that today we could push for the type of legislation even on the level of the 1964 civil rights act. At least two of the prominent reasons we struggle so much today to win even an effort of respect towards us (not to mention tangible policy efforts) inside of the Democratic Party is the lack of a movement like that which existed in the 1960s, and the lack of mass political education among the population of the U.S. No movement, no basis to hold the political system accountable. We say that until we can no longer speak, yet so many seemingly intelligent people continue to believe without fail that investing so much energy and so many resources into individual candidates without any type of mechanism to hold them accountable is ever going to work. Clearly it isn’t. The Democratic Party and Republican Party each agree – through their combined lack of action otherwise - that their primary purpose is to uphold the capitalist system promoted by the multi-national corporate world that pays the bulk of their bills. That means that individual candidate, despite good intentions, at some point will have to answer to that Democratic Party apparatus that is forced to bow down to imperialism. In fact, the only variance between these two "parties" is that the Democrats says the right things, sometimes, and sometimes accomplishes some level of reform – like the Affordable Care Act – which stops just short of providing nothing to the masses (and that assessment is based on the objective realities of what should and could be available to us. Not just our emotional response to our current individual challenges). Nothing about the Democratic Party is ever going to present a strong presence against imperialism, world domination, the crushing of legitimate dissent, and a true platform of justice for the majority of people on the planet. Biden has no record that comes close to even being interested in any of those things and yes, we say that confidently understanding clearly his parasitic relationship to the imperialist; Barack Obama. Bernie Sanders, Barry Sanders, or Colonel Sanders, none of them can point to any concrete and consistent measures they’ve championed in their approximately 40 years in congressional “service.” Its that lack of substance that explains why Sanders is having such a difficult time getting any Africans and other colonized people to vote for him. With no movement in place, none of this will change despite another 100 years of people shaming people for refusing to participate in this absurd process.

The lack of mass political education is actually a problem that the U.S. electoral process shares with the U.S. labor movement. Interactions have become so transactional that people now see unions and their political parties in this country as corporations. They offer financial support and in return, they expect a service. What needs to happen instead, is people have to be provided with the educational resources for advancing ideas like it is absolutely impossible for anyone to say they support working class people while also supporting capitalism, imperialism, and the continued existence of this system of exploitation. Then, along with that, the dialogue must ensue, and expand, around the question that capital accumulation and imperialism are unquestionably against the interests of the overwhelming majority of people on earth from everywhere on earth. Anyone convincing you that they can be in favor of humanity and capitalism at the same time is selling game. In truth, its game to attempt to convince people, as Sanders and his supporters are doing, that socialism can come any way except through organized revolution. Revolution is the overthrow of the capitalists and the insertion of the masses of people as the decision makers in society. That can never happen and should never be expected to happen with the blessings of those who support the capitalist system that manifests oppression of the world in the first place. This concept of "Democratic Socialism" is really another compromise for those who want a strategic way to put politically unconscious people at ease about the type of social change that we desperately need. There are no shortcuts to socialism and liberation and no amount of transactions with the masses is going to change anything in any substantial way. Only the power of the organized masses can accomplish this.

The Democratic/Republican, and capitalist party system as a whole needs to become dead to true pursuers of justice. Reformists must advance to being politically mature enough to no longer accept shortcuts. Start building true movement work. Revolutionaries have to get to work with building revolutionary capacity through international anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements abroad and revolutionary community defense projects to support that work locally within the U.S. As long as we continue to the Democratic Party like the person we keep asking for a date who consistently keeps promising us yes for next time, we will remain in this subservient place. This place where we willingly participate in periodic circuses which should be an absolute insult to everything we are and certainly everything we have been through over the last 500+ years.

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Panic, Purell Sanitizer & The Primitive Capitalist System in Crisis

3/7/2020

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The memes are making their rounds every few seconds over the last few days. Purell sanitizer is being satirized as an illegal street drug. The Purell dealer is now one of the most popular people in the neighborhood because this dealer can deliver Purell since none is apparently available at many stores in this country right now.

Although meant as a joke, that meme says an awful lot about this so-called “free democracy” we live in. Just think about it for a moment. A few more cases of coronavirus close to where you are and the price of Purell, either sold on the streets as the meme jokes, or sold on shelves in stores, will continue to see sharp increases. Amazon has a 28 ounce bottle of Purell replacement for $103.00, a mind boggling level of price increase in just recent days. And, this type of criminality has overwhelming precedent. When hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters hit regions of this country, and basics like gasoline and water are not plentifully available, we have seen the prices for those items skyrocket for the people who need it the most. During one of the recent hurricanes, stores were selling 24 packs of bottled water, usually sold for anywhere around $5.00 USD for about $30.00 USD. And, due to the fact that capitalist corporations have us completely conditioned to view the world strictly through the visionary glasses they provide for us, when these types of practices occur, a lot of people don’t identify anything wrong with it. These people call it opportunistic business sense.

Fortunately, in this space, those types of people don’t get to define “acceptable” for us. In our minds, raising the price of a needed item just because a crisis has suddenly created a great need for the item is criminal robbery. Of course, we don’t let the capitalist system establish our values for us though. So, we would go even farther and say that the merchants who engage in those price gauging tactics in a crisis are the true looters, not the person who grabbed a package of diapers at the local drugstore, without paying for them, because they have a baby that needs them.

The ruling capitalist class writes the history so just because their Websters Dictionary defines a looter as someone who “steals things during a riot”, that doesn’t mean anything. Their job is to shape your thinking in ways that favor their approach and interaction with our planet and everything in it. We are not at all confused about the fact we are the forces who stand in direct opposition to their plundering of the entire planet and their oppression to the people within it. So, understand the liberating foundation of our thinking when we say that the state is the only entity that carries out riots. Hear us when we tell you that they are the entity that authorizes their clients – big business – to set the tone by taking advantage of people’s suffering while they continue to mislabel and criminalize the masses of people who do anything to challenge their legitimacy and authority.

Think about the fact that an alleged virus can occur and everything the state tells you about it is questionable or not useful when they are the so-called official instrument for disseminating information to the public. And then think about how this usual disconnect between the forces in power and the masses causes the type of panic that makes Purell and other sanitizing products unavailable in a crisis moment. This example alone should provide you all of the proof you need to understand how primitive the capitalist system actually is. The apologists for capitalism never want you to develop this type of analysis about capitalism which questions the morality and logic of supporting a system that immediately places money over the interests of people. Not sometimes, but every single time, everyday, 24/7/365.

A concrete example for how socialism would tackle a problem like coronavirus is in the planning for the society. Socialist development is based solely on creating a system where the needs of the people are prioritized so that the resources from the system are set up to provide people what they need to meet their full potential. In this reality, when those genuinely elected to serve the people are presented with the responsibility of creating a national budget, key to that task would be ensuring that there are provisions in place to implement in the event that something like coronavirus occurs. They don't wait until it happens to react to it. They plan in advance to help control its impacts. Time is taken to ensure proper estimates of capacity are established and without question, provisions are put in place to ensure the materials the people need, like socialist sanitizers (because there is no private capitalist corporate Purell Corporation in a socialist society) are planned out to be made available to everyone who needs it, for as long as they need it during the crisis. These measures would go along perfectly with the fact medical services are of course available all the time to everyone whenever needed. These are the types of measures socialist Cuba by example, implement whenever there is a crisis i.e. a hurricane, virus, or whatever. This is why Cuba, every time, under all circumstances, despite having far less capacity and access to resources, always comes out with a much better ratio per person impact on these types of emergencies than the U.S.

The reason why Cuba does so much better every time than the U.S. is because in contrast to their planned economy and system, there is absolutely no planning for anything in capitalist societies. There is only corporate processes, us working for them, and as another popular meme pointed out; when people need help, they can rely on things like gofundme for their healthcare needs. That’s about as primitive as a society can get. And, for those who would disagree, we challenge you to provide us the details on a plan for how the U.S. government goes about handling something like coronavirus? Where is the plan for this? Where is the plan for anything, even hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., that happen over and over again. No planning whatsoever. In fact, you are essentially on your own when tragedy strikes in a capitalist system. Its so incredibly primitive that we are told we are supposed to celebrate the individual initiative of people who spontaneously step in to help others during a crisis (“when tragedy strikes, the community comes together”) as if that is supposed to substitute for a plan designed to address issues so that tragedy can be mitigated. Primitive.

Maybe hoping that someone can decide to help, or crowd fundraising, etc., are good enough solutions for those who are not serious about addressing challenges that we face, but for us, we would prefer to push ourselves to a higher level of human existence. One that includes components designed to navigate these issues so that the loss of life, the pain of upheaval, and all the other tragic elements are reduced to their lowest possible impact on society. We believe its our responsibility to make sure our youth, elderly, physically challenged, mentally challenged, etc., are protected and taken care of and that there is a plan to make sure that happens. Capitalist society doesn't care about those wonderful people and since coronavirus will disproportionately impact elderly and ill persons, the rulers of this society y (and many other people) are quite fine with that.

All of this is completely unacceptable to us. We want a higher level of organization and we feel this only happens with revolutionary construction and despite what many people would have you believe, you cannot separate revolutionary construction from socialist construction and development. Socialism and revolution are one and the same. Socialism provides that planned economy and political system. I know it may sound strange to many people, but what should look strange, sound strange, and be unquestionably primitive to you is how it is so many people can willingly accept that if we don’t have something as simple as hand sanitizer available to us, the reason is that we just didn’t try hard enough.

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The Liberal Elite & Its Conspiracy Against African Self Determination

2/29/2020

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Currently, we have a revolutionary book drive designed to get people to send revolutionary literature like Walter Rodney's book to our sister Pan-African party in Zimbabwe, but most people who claim to support African self-determination would never consider supporting such a project. To them, our independence stops at the point of what doesn't center them and/or feed into their fantasies for how progress is made despite the realities that directly contradict their vision