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Malcolm's Murder; Centering the NOI & Not the Police is Dangerous

2/22/2020

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Friday, February 21, 2020, was the 55th commemoration of the brutal assassination of El Hajj Malik Shabazz; better known as Malcolm X. The recent Netflix released docu-series facilitated by Abdul Rahman Muhammad has generated new buzz around Malcolm’s assassination, including talk coming from the New York state (U.S.) District Attorney’s office about reopening the case.

This talk is cumbersome for those of us who have studied and done our best to carry on Malcolm’s Pan-Africanist work over the last five decades. You will never convince us that the state of New York doesn’t already know who and how Malcolm was killed since they were certainly engaged in helping orchestrate the assassination. There is plenty, and I mean plenty, written, documented, filmed, etc, on Malcolm’s assassination. Much of the information presented in the Netflix docu-series has been available for over 50 years now. This blog carries many articles about Malcolm’s life, Pan-African work, and assassination, so anyone who desires to know more about his work, life, death, etc., has an abundance of material available to study.

The primary focus of this piece will be to discuss the constant white noise chatter taking place presently, around Malcolm’s assassination in general, and the role of his former organization – the Nation of Islam (NOI), in the entire tragic and historically unfortunate process. There are particular elements to these attacks that must be addressed.

What’s happening currently is quite a few people within African communities, primarily throughout the U.S., are using the recent refocus on Malcolm to express their disdain for the NOI and Minister Louis Farrakhan. The Minister’s unfortunate role in contributing to the environment that led to Malcolm being murdered is well documented and his continued unwillingness to simply acknowledge his role is equally documented and unfortunate. Nobody outside of the NOI’s sphere is much interested in defending their organization and/or Farrakhan through any of this, but there is still so much that these critics are missing and misguided about. First and foremost, the critics demonstrate to those of us with reasonable experience how inexperienced they are with actual organizing work (beyond individual talking, writing, etc., about the topic). They fail to recognize Kwame Ture’s (Stokely Carmichael) clear, repeated, and ill refutable warning to us to avoid any criticism of our people that doesn’t include our enemies. In Kwame’s correct analysis, dismissing and/or ignoring the need to center our enemies – the U.S. capitalist/imperialist network – in any analysis of our suffering does nothing except play, either wittingly or unwittingly, into the hands of our enemies. In other words, these people criticizing the NOI and Farrakhan while ignoring the role of the state, which is the primary path Muhammad’s docu-series chose to take, are misrepresenting what happened in a very dangerous way.

These critics have their reasons for disliking the NOI and Farrakhan, but we cannot permit this to cloud our ability to recognize that the U.S. government clearly manipulated the NOI in achieving the environment where Malcolm was killed. United States intelligence agencies, and all imperialist agencies everywhere, rarely carry out their dirty work themselves. Their organizing processes are always set up to ensure surrogates carry out their evil deeds so that they can always claim plausible deniability. Please think about this carefully. Clearly, and now by their own sorry admission, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) played a coordinating role in carrying out the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and the destabilization of the Congo in 1961 and the illegal overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah’s government in Ghana in 1966, but in each case, it was Africans who actually carried out the evil on the ground work. Amilcar Cabral, the founder of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau (PAIGC), and co-founder of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), and the All African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP), was assassinated in 1973 at the whim of Portuguese colonialists who the PAIGC was fighting to run out of Guinea-Bissau, but it was Africans who actually pulled the trigger and murdered Cabral. Black Panther Party leaders John Huggins and Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter were each assassinated in 1969 in Los Angeles, California, U.S. There is no question that this was a coordinated action that was facilitated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) counter intelligence program against the Black Panther Party where the FBI pushed the US Organization, a Los Angeles based Black Nationalist organization, into a street war against the Panthers. There were other Panthers besides Carter and Huggins killed in this “war” between these two organizations and these killings were carried out by Africans. The role of the FBI and local police in inflaming "gang" tensions between Bloods/Crips, Chicago "street organizations" African/Indigenous/Latino "gangs" to keep the fighting going (and eliminate any political education work among these organizations) are well documented.

We can go on and on with these examples, but the point is if the critics of the NOI and Farrakhan are relying primarily on the fact they contributed to the environment, which they certainly did, a much better and healthier analysis would be to wage struggle with the NOI that places their actions firmly within the context of the FBI’s constant work to derail and sabotage Malcolm’s work to bridge with international revolutionary Pan-Africanists. The critique should be that the FBI’s primary tactic in doing their work was creating seeds of distrust within the NOI so that they would play that surrogate role in taking care of the U.S. government’s unsavory role in ensuring Malcolm’s important voice would be silenced. We should be building relationships with the NOI to wage this struggle so that our enemies cannot use the same tactics against us in the future. The critics aren’t taking this approach. Instead, they are harping over and over on Farrakhan and the NOI, often – like the docu-series – almost and/or completely ignoring the role of the U.S. government as if this role is ancillary and the NOI’s role was primary to Malcolm being killed. If these critics believe this, they are painfully naïve. Taking the position of principled ideological struggle with the NOI (that’s carried out with them, not against them on social media, etc) does nothing to let the NOI and Farrakhan off the hook. That accountability doesn’t happen, and isn’t happening, through the current white noise campaign anyway.

Another final area that stings in this entire issue is the apparent and dangerous lack of understanding these critics have about organizing strategies to work with groupings we don’t agree with. To these folks, if they view someone as wrong that means you unleash an unrelenting public attack against them on social media and everywhere else where blows can be struck. These people view this approach as principled i.e. not compromising with those they disagree with.

Even if their attacks against NOI are correct, and most of them are concerning the NOI’s unfortunate role with Malcolm, patriarchy, homophobia, etc., this all out attack approach has produced no tangible results for these people besides making themselves feel better. And, maybe that’s their entire objective; just to feel better. For us, the objective is the proper organization of our people against this criminal empire and so we spend lots of time, much more time I assure you then these critics, attempting to figure out how to effectively accomplish this critical task. As a result, for us, the NOI, the US Organization, Bloods/Crips sets, and anyone who these people disagree with, are not the enemy. Using these organizations as examples, history has proven clearly – study the Inkatha Movement in Azania (South Africa) during the apartheid years or police manipulation of our street organizations for reference – that its bad politics to isolate para-military forces. Maybe the critics don’t believe in the strength of their principles and positions, but we believe strongly in the basis of our work because we have experience achieving much success with our approaches. We feel strongly that we can win the ideological struggle with anyone. As a result, we will never agree with the public attacks approach and unlike the critics, we can demonstrate to anyone the successes we have had over the years influencing the NOI, US Organization, Uhuru Movement, street organizations, etc., in positive ways in many areas. Our Nkrumahist/Tureist ideology and life work to build revolutionary Pan-Africanism has taught us that there are always primary and secondary contradictions. The NOI and Farrakhan are not primary contradictions within our communities and anyone who believes that they are, and/or doesn’t understand this dichotomy, has much work to do to understand how to move us forward on a collective level.

To recap, we encourage positive and principled struggle with the NOI around the assassination of Malcolm X. We have engaged with them on this level for quite some time and again, we are convinced that principled ideological struggle, not attacks and isolation, are the best approaches to ensure the protection and strengthening of our collective movements. History is so full of examples that public attack is not an effective tool to address ideological contradictions. People who are not actively involved in organizing work among of people are confused about this. Within the A-APRP we used to have a pretty militant practice of refusing to work with individuals, preferring organizations instead. I still believe this to be a worthwhile process because individuals are only accountable to themselves and many of these people waging these critiques fit this category. These people don’t demonstrate any desire to wage collective and principled ideological struggle. Many of them seem much more interested in self promotion than collective forward struggle. All of this madness must stop. Only a strong organized African liberation movement will create the objective conditions where the NOI, Farrakhan, and anyone else is held responsible to the masses of our people. For anyone truly interested in forward progress for the African masses, this is clearly the road we must learn how to travel.

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"Who Killed Malcolm X" Attempts to Murder His Revolutionary Life

2/16/2020

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Malcolm X and Kwame Nkrumah in Harlem, NY, in 1960. Nkrumah's revolutionary Pan-African government was overthrown within a year and three days of Malcolm's assassination, but these revisionist scholars and their supporters, would have you believe all of this, and much more, is unrelated and a coincidence

Netflix recently released the above titled docu-series. The six episode series details the efforts by an African named Abdul Rahman Muhammad to fulfill his ambition of finding out who was behind the February 21, 1965 assassination of El Hajj Malik Shabazz – Malcolm X. Although the series does its best to suggest that no one has ever had the determination to match Muhammad’s focus on getting to the bottom of this crime, the reality is that plenty of people have explored this question before Muhammad’s docu-series. There have been a number of books that have been written on this topic. George Brietman released “The Assassination of Malcolm X” in 1967. I first read this book in 1979. In 1992, Karl Evanzz released “The Judas Factor; The Plot to Kill Malcolm X.” There are many, many others. And most of them, most notably Brietman and Evanzz’s works, go much deeper with much more critical analysis than Muhammad’s docu-series.

The fact that books on the topic of who assassinated Malcolm and why have been churned out for the last 50+ years makes it that much easier to shake my head at “Who Killed Malcolm X.” This is my response because I know the very troublesome lack of intellectual honesty that exists today. I know that most people haven’t read one authoritative book on anything, not to mention Malcolm X’s assassination. I know that most people suffer from intellectual laziness and will always choose to have someone else do their work for them instead of engaging in serious study themselves. I know that most people will rely on Muhammad’s mediocre work instead of seriously investigating this question. And, I know that Netflix as a multi-media propaganda mechanism for the capitalist system, will rely on all of the issues I’ve indicated here to do what capitalism always does; shape in a very subtle way our liberation movements and figures to fit neatly into capitalism’s desired manifestation of who and what those people and movements represent(ed). And, armed only with what our enemies have provided us, most people will passionately argue Netflix’s position on who killed Malcolm X which, if it wasn’t so surreal and pitiful, would be hilarious.

There were countless issues with the docu-series so I’ll try to recount the most glaring ones here. First, Muhammad focuses a lot of his presentation on the innocence of Muhammad Aziz, formally Norman 3X Butler, and Khalil Islam, formally Thomas 15X Johnson. Both men were convicted, along with Talmadge Hayer, or Thomas Hagan, for assassinating Malcolm X. Hayer was the only admitted assassin convicted (and he was only captured because the crowd at the Audobon Ballroom grabbed him and beat him relentlessly until police arrived and rescued him). Aziz and Islam each served 20+ years for the conviction. Anyone with even cursory knowledge of the assassination knows that Aziz and Islam had nothing to do with killing Malcolm X, but casual observers of this history should understand clearly that to most of us who have closely studied this for decades, the portrayal of Aziz and Islam as innocent victims in all of this is deeply offensive. As even Muhammad states himself multiple times during his production, Aziz and Islam were well known New York “enforcers” within the Fruit of Islam, the para-military wing of the Nation of Islam. There is no confusion what is meant by the term “enforcer.” These were guys who beat and intimidated people who did not conduct themselves in ways favorable to Nation of Islam leadership. These two guys in particular were involved in multiple incidents of intimidation aimed at Malcolm during the final months of his involvement with the Nation of Islam and certainly during the 11 months between his departure from the Nation and his assassination. The fact Aziz and Islam (the latter who died in 2009) played these nefarious roles within the Nation of Islam is what made it so easy for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the New York Prosecutor’s office to accuse and convict them. Muhammad expresses dismay that no one spoke up on behalf of Aziz and Islam, despite common knowledge that those two were innocent of Malcolm’s assassination. Most likely, people didn’t speak up because people knew that those two may have been innocent regarding Malcolm’s death, but they were certainly guilty of plenty of other crimes against people in the community.

Secondly, Muhammad’s tiptoeing around the disgraceful character known as John Ali, the former National Secretary of the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad, is criminal in its neglect. There are ample documents, most notably from files recovered in the 1974 Freedom of Information Act, that demonstrate that Ali was one of multiple highly placed FBI informants within the Nation of Islam from 1957 forward. Accompanying documentation of his increased bank accounts during that period, despite no known source of income besides his modest salary within the Nation of Islam, along with other sources of documentation, make a very compelling argument against Ali in this regard. Regardless, Muhammad resorts to only asking Ali politely about this and responding with nothing when Ali responds with a silly and garbled Biblical comparison. This is significant because the actual evidence strongly suggests that much of the internal dissension within the Nation that helped lead to the environment of Malcolm’s assassination was widely instigated by Ali who played a critical role in cutting off Malcolm’s access to Elijah Muhammad while feeding Elijah Muhammad dishonest and wedge strengthening information about the work Malcolm was doing.

Third, Muhammad does mention the position of the defenders of Elijah Muhammad during this period (and up to the present day) repeating over and over that Elijah Muhammad said publicly that Malcolm was not to be harmed by anyone in the Nation of Islam, but we know that as Sekou Ture taught us, “based solely on what comes from our lips, we are all equal.” Even despite the weak overall analysis of his docu-series, even Muhammad is clear enough to realize that there is absolutely no way Elijah Muhammad Jr., the son of Elijah Muhammad, would be brazen enough to tell 400 Fruit of Islam soldiers in the Armory building in 1964 to “cut out the n - - - - r’s tongue and send it Chicago and I’ll stamp it approved!” unless he was pretty comfortable that what he was doing wasn’t in direct violation of Elijah Muhammad’s orders.

Finally, the most egregious violation of this docu-series is its flippant treatment of the federal government’s role in orchestrating Malcolm’s assassination. Muhammad mentions this at different points, but his production never seriously centers the role of this government in precipitating the assassination and its impossible for me to consider this a pure accident. Our ideological training has taught us, as Kwame Ture was fond of saying, that “any analysis of our people’s suffering that doesn’t include our enemies is incomplete!” The FBI’s own files provide more than enough evidence to substantiate the role the FBI and local police played in the days leading up to the assassination and immediately afterward. Also, Muhammad’s neglect in mentioning the fact Malcolm was denied entry into Frances days before his assassination (presumably because the French government, being aware of the U.S. government’s intentions of having Malcolm assassinated, didn’t want it to happen in their country), and that Malcolm was unquestionably poisoned (by expert medical opinion) in Cario, Egypt, days before his assassination is curious at best and criminally amateur at worse. He didn’t mention either of these incidents because neither fits neatly into the Nation of Islam assassinated Malcolm X scenario since the Nation has no capacity to have carried out either incident. Also, you can never forget that the primary objective of Netflix is never to provide revolutionary education to the masses of African people and humanity. Their primary objective is always to produce content that will generate a large viewership for the purpose of profit and they will produce and air anything that will generate such an audience. And, they will air it anyway that fits them regardless of its accuracy.

We already certain we know how some of you are going to react to this piece. There are those of us who still (amazingly) wish to subscribe to a classless analysis of our people and what we produce, wanting to believe that anything “Black” (whatever that means) should be universally supported by African people everywhere and anything short of that is treason against our people. We completely and unilaterally reject that unscientific position. People operate with all sorts of capitalist inspired, money making agendas that have absolutely nothing to do with our people’s liberation, despite their ability to fool most of us who understand our movements only on a Hollywood surface level. We also should point out that there are those among us who will go down to the bitter end depending our right to be as ignorant as we want to be while refusing to be honest enough to acknowledge that there are people out here who, while you spent all your time partying, playing with your shoelaces, or whatever you have spent your life doing, have been studying and working around questions like who really killed Malcolm. In other words, inspite of the illusion of social media, there are many people who know much more about this than you do. Despite this clear contradiction, we recognize some of us will die before we acknowledge this, choosing instead to maintain our superficial understanding of these critical questions that are reinforced by production’s like Muhammad’s. For you folks, we are impressed that you have even read this far because this piece really isn’t for you. Its for the masses of serious students of history who understand that Malcolm was a burgeoning revolutionary Pan-Africanist. For those of you who know that Malcolm may have said or written whatever to try and appease Elijah Muhammad, but that he truly didn’t want back into the Nation of Islam (no more than you really want to hold onto that toxic relationship in your life that you do some much to maintain). Serious people know that Malcolm’s comments about John F. Kennedy’s assassination at the Manhattan Center (where John Ali orchestrated complete sabotage against Malcolm in a clearly coordinated way) on December 1, 1963, clearly indicate his political outgrowth beyond anything the Nation of Islam was capable of talking about. Malcolm’s analysis, which Muhammad glosses over in this work, was as clear a denunciation of imperialism’s criminal role (it continues to play) in Africa and around the world, using the Congo and the U.S.’s leadership role in Patrice Lumumba’s assassination to preserve imperialism’s dominance in mineral rich Central Africa. Malcolm’s leadership role in articulating these crimes against humanity and his strong organizational work to unite with revolutionary Pan-African forces in Africa working against these injustices, as well as his still unknown linking up with Cuba’s socialist revolutionaries. These are clearly the reasons Malcolm was killed regardless of who uncle sam ended up getting to pull the trigger. Malcolm’s assassination has to be seen in the political context that it occupies. The murder of Lumumba. The destabilization of the Congo. The murder of Malcolm X. The overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah’s government in 1966. The overthrow of Keito’s government in Mali in 1968. The Portuguese invasion of Guinea in 1970 (with its objective of overthrowing the Democratic Party of Guinea, assassinating Sekou Ture, Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral, and destroying the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau). The destabilization of revolutionary Pan-Africanism., etc. The rolling out of neo-colonialism in Africa and the destabilizing of revolutionary organizing efforts. All of this is for serious students only though. Not anyone content to rely on Hollywood productions to pretend to understand true revolutionary African liberation history.

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Oprah, Gail King, Snoop, Kobe & the Petty-Bourgeoisie African Lie

2/8/2020

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The latest high visibility drama within the African community within the U.S. is the issue of news anchor Gail King interviewing and asking former basketball player Lisa Leslie about Kobe Bryant’s 2003 rape allegation in Denver, Colorado, U.S. Bryant, of course, was killed along with his daughter and seven other people in a January 26, 2020, helicopter crash.

Hip/hop star Calvin Broadus aka Snoop Doggy Dogg, chimed in after King’s Leslie interview, allegedly calling King “a dog headed b - - - h.” Hundreds of thousands of people have agreed with Snoop online and some have gone even farther in their criticism of King. On the flip side, Oprah Winfrey, who is close personal friends with King, has spoken out defending her friend, claiming King is receiving death threats from people who disagreed with her bringing up Bryant’s rape conviction.

First, we desire to point out that anytime we want to assess circumstances like this, its imperative that we do so utilizing a nation, class, and gender analysis in order to sort out the proper perspective on how to view any and all occurrences. This type of critical analysis has to conclude that King, Oprah, Snoop, and Kobe, beyond people’s emotional attachments to them, unquestionably represent the petty bourgeoisie in this country. In other words, none of those people represent the needs and aspirations of the masses of African people or any working class people anywhere. Oprah has been a talking head for bourgeoisie ideology for decades, posing as the reasonable voice for “middle America” whatever that is when in actuality, her work has always been sustaining an audiance from petty bourgeoisie European women, first, and then petty bourgeoisie colonized women, second, in support of the capitalist, imperialist, patriarchal, white supremacist empire. The thrust of her message has always been that the way we address social inequities is by further integrating ourselves into this system of oppression that continues to terrorize us. Its like suggesting to sheep that their salvation is with marching into the wolf den. King, by virtue of being a mouthpiece for the Rockafeller owned NBC bourgeoisie machine, is without question a token tool designed to fool us into thinking an African woman voice, through a bourgeoisie media outlet, is an example of diversity and justice in reporting. This tactic continues to work because most of us don't know the difference between visibility and power.

Snoop Dogg has earned millions exploiting the inner city suffering of African people. He has done this by posing like he is simply reporting our suffering when the millions he has earned are the direct result of him, and others, capitalizing off of that suffering by making it appealing and marketable to suburban European youth who represent 70% of the rap music buying audience.

To be clear, when these conflicts between celebrities take place, its important that everyday people recognize that none of these people are representative of the challenges and struggles you endure each day. None of them are concerned about your challenges and struggles. In fact, none of them are doing anything except using their close cultural connection to our daily existences to slyly advance their personal careers. Still, some of the issues raised in this “conflict” desire examination. Yes, raising Kobe Bryant’s rape allegation is appropriate. I for one am sick and tired of this foolish posturing on behalf of African people on line who are so utterly confused that they completely ignore the suffering of the families of people like Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, Sundiata Acoli, Mutulu Shakur, Ruchell Magee, etc.. People who have legitimately stood up and sacrificed mightily for African people and humanity, while these online Africans act like a legitimate question about Kobe Bryant’s own oppressive actions against women is some sort of blasphemous statement against God Almighty. Yes, Kobe was a great basketball player. No one can deny that. Yes, he appeared to have developed into a good father and husband (based on available evidence at this point). And, yes, he was accused, and did actually acknowledge being inappropriate against a woman. Yes, the system of patriarchy is set up so that any woman who chooses to accuse a popular celebrity of rape can expect to have her name dragged through the mud. Anyone who cannot become mature enough to discuss all of this in a rational manner is just not serious as a human being. Along with that, the disgraceful public comments of Snoop Dogg, along with his public comments in support of someone like Bill Cosby, who has spent the last four decades denigrating African people for his handlers, is equally disgraceful. By the same token, Gail King and Oprah Winfrey are not strong examples of African women resistance. Each of them is in this position because they are not that. King wasn’t asking Leslie questions about Kobe’s rape allegation because she is there to ensure the integrity of women is preserved. She asked because doing so invokes controversy into the interview which increases viewership rating. Understanding that this is the unscrupulous nature of capitalist media, we would suggest that asking those questions was probably not even King’s idea, but the idea of some network producer who wanted to enhance the ability of her interview to attract higher advertising dollars. As for Oprah, she has been spent the last 30+ years operating out of Chicago, Ill, U.S., and yet she cannot be counted on to even provide a semblance of an analysis of the problems plaguing our people in that city, beyond the same tired blame the victim while ignoring the prominent role the enemies of African people play in destabilizing our communities. As for Snoop, its criminal and cowardly that he chooses to attack this mouthpiece woman who clearly has no capacity to respond beyond the parameters provided to her by her corporate masters, or his worthless attacks against Trump that have no impact on empowering our people, when he could use his voice, loudly and consistently, to speak for real unity among African people, particularly the African and Indigenous/Latino “gang” youth who’s suffering he has made millions rapping about. He could be speaking to real challenges we face as African men instead of allying himself with Bill Cosby who has demonstrated that he has absolutely no respect for the African masses (his raising money to petty bourgeoisie colleges and universities while denouncing the masses of Africans who will never step foot on those campuses when you cannot point to any large scale efforts from any of those schools to truly contribute to our liberation as a people, doesn’t count when you try and claim Cosby is helping strengthen the masses of our people). And yes, even with not discussing the rape charge, Kobe Bryant, like the overwhelming majority of these athletes and entertainers, was no example of African self determination and dignity. By all reports and available evidence, he was just another celebrity who chose the individualistic advances playing court jester for the capitalist system provides you while basically ignoring the mass suffering our people endure. No one, no matter how talented they are, ascends to success on an individual level within the capitalist system without assistance from the mass struggle for justice our people have waged. There were basketball players prior to the 1950s who had skills and talents at that time that would have dwarfed Kobe’s impact on the modern basketball game, yet systemic racism and segregation prohibited them from being able to exhibit their skills and capabilities. The fact Bryant was able to do that, was as a result of our mass collective struggle for justice so whatever skills he had can never belong to him alone. Just like any skills and capabilities we possess can never belong to any of us individually because it was only our mass struggle that opened the door for him to earn millions playing basketball. The fact that his life and work was relegated to upholding capitalism and not advancing our struggle towards liberation does not qualify him or anyone like him as a role model for our people (instead of people like Acoli, al-Amin, etc., who deserve that respect) and the fact we continue to elevate people like him to that status speaks to the class desires of so many of us to assimilate into the capitalist system on individual levels at the expense of the masses of our suffering people.

In a nutshell, despite the fact they may look like you, sound like you, and speak, act, and perform on levels that you identify with, neither Oprah, King, Snoop, Cosby, or Kobe, exemplify the conditions of the masses of African people and for the most part, all of them do everything in their power to avoid any connection to the majority of us unless like Snoop, they use our existence simply to advance themselves individually. And, please understand, we are not interested in charity cases or whatever that these people are involved in. We are talking only about the collective mass struggle for justice and liberation that our people and all of humanity need and deserve. None of these people have made a single contribution to that and they never will because they are not the same as you and you are not the same as them. And, the moment we reach a level of political maturity when we can understand and recognize that is the day we can finally move past this charade where court jesters and entertainers are passed off and confused as legitimate representatives of our mass struggle for forward progress and dignity.

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Dr. Martin Luther King; Great Mobilizer. Organizer? Not so Much

2/3/2020

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Dr. King with Kwame Nkrumah in Accra, Ghana, on March 6, 1957, during Ghana's independence ceremony

There are more than a fair share of people who will be offended by the title of this piece. The reason is the general default position is that its immoral to say anything less than 100% favorable about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is of course an entirely subjective argument that even Dr. King’s own political approach would demonstrate he wouldn’t have agreed with. Besides, much of the negative reactions that would occur result from the fact most of us don’t have a clear understanding of what mobilizing work and organizing work is, and how they differ.

Think of mobilizing work this way. Have you ever attended a rally and/or demonstration? Maybe you and people you know felt the need to go to the rally you heard about that was put together when one of the many Africans and other oppressed peoples were unarmed, yet shot down, by police. Or, maybe it was an anti-war mobilization. You went to this event without necessarily knowing who would be there, what would be happening, and how you would interact with the event. You felt the need to be there, so you went. All of this is absolutely wonderful, but the thing that defines it as mobilizing work is you came and probably listened to some speakers. You probably marched somewhere and chanted. Then, eventually, you dispersed and went on about your life until the next such gathering. You received very valuable information at the event about the issue at hand. You may have even invited others who received the same education. You didn’t, however, make a decision/commitment to join and start doing any specific work around the topic at hand. In fact, you probably didn’t get a clear picture from the event what, if any, work is even going to take place beyond the mobilization you attended. That’s what makes it a mobilization because the purpose of such an event is to bring awareness to a problem and/or issue. Mass awareness. Since this is one of the most critical defining steps in movement building, mobilization work is very important, but obviously, its capacity has severe limitations.

Dr. King was a proven and effective mobilizer, but he was not a strong organizer. Think for a moment about the things Dr. King is known for. The Montgomery Bus Boycott. The March on Washington. The protest at the Edmund Pettus Bridge (although Dr. King himself was not at the initial protest, his organization – the Southern Christian Leadership Conference – SCLC – facilitated that work), the poor people’s march, and the Memphis garbage worker’s strike. What those actions have in common is they are all mobilizations. They are all designed to bring awareness to issues like white supremacy, poverty, segregation, and social inequities in labor. They are all very valuable and historically iconic actions. They are all events that were the first of their kind for many of the people who participated. They were also the last of their kind as well. Many people who participated in one of those actions, never did so again. Almost none of the participants were lured to the actions to make a broader commitment to engage in sustainable work (if they did that, there were invariably other factors like relationships, etc., that led to that happening, not the mobilizations themselves). Actually, SCLC was so limited on its recruitment abilities throughout those years of its mass actions that it never developed the mechanisms to recruit into SCLC the masses of students who came from all over to participate in civil rights work. For example, when a young James Forman, who would eventually become a central organizer in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) came into the South following up on what he thought was a job secured for him with SCLC, he was sent running around in multiple circles that led nowhere, forcing him to seek out working for SNCC instead.

Contrary to the all-important mobilizing work that SCLC, Dr., King, and others were doing, organizing work is quite different. Unlike mobilizations, organizing work isn’t just about bringing awareness although that’s always a part of any social justice work being carried out. With organizing work, the primarily focus is on using visibility events strictly to identify people who can be recruited in to take on roles in organizing specific capacity to address the problem being discussed. Consequently, organizing organizations can be identified by their projects that are ongoing and designed to build the ability to wage sustained fights to solve the problem, not just bring awareness to it. So, whereas SCLC mobilizes the March on Washington and walks away with no increased capacity, but a greater overall consciousness about the issues raised at that march, SNCC organized the Loundes County Freedom Organization (the original Black Panther Party) to create a local organization that would build the ability to fight for African empowerment.

Another great example of an outstanding organizer is Malcolm X. Unlike King, Malcolm never played a central role putting together any large scale awareness events. Instead, he took the classic organizing approach, setting up on street corners, talking to people in one on one conversations. Recruiting people into the Nation of Islam (NOI), and eventually the Organization of Afro-American Unity. His work was centered on using Nation of Islam rallies to recruit so that more Mosques could be established with him helping the new Mosques gain stability. The idea being the more members and Mosques, the greater the capacity of the organization to fight for its actual objectives. All of the training involved with building Mosques like military drilling for the Fruit of Islam and Muslim Girls and General Civilization classes were designed to make stronger and more dedicated persons in the Nation of Islam. The establishment of the Nation’s first newspaper – “Muhammad Speaks” was about building that capacity. The organizing style of the NOI helped it produce many outstanding organizers. Louis Farrakhan was able to use the organizing skills he learned in the NOI from 1955 through 1975, to rebuild the NOI after the death of Elijah Muhammad and the dismantling of the NOI by Elijah’s son Warith Deen Muhammad in favor of an Islamic organization more in line with Muslim organizations coming out of the Middle East. Silas Muhammad, another former Elijah Muhammad disciple, rebuilt another NOI grouping in Atlanta and Khalid Abdul Muhammad helped Louis Farrakhan rebuild the post 1975 NOI only to be able to leave the NOI around 1997/98 and build the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) which is still active today in 2020, 19 years after Khalid Muhammad’s physical disappearance.

Of course, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) was a principle organizer within SNCC and he was able to utilize those organizing skills to serve as Kwame Nkrumah’s political secretary in Guinea-Conakry after Nkrumah’s legitimately elected government in Ghana was overthrown by a Central Intelligence Agency inspired and directed coup in 1966. After writing the classic “Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare” in 1968, Nkrumah asked young Stokely Carmichael to carry out the vision for the All African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) in the U.S. (while other initial members like Nkrumah and Amilcar Cabral did the same organizing work in Africa) by establishing and building the A-APRP in the Western Hemisphere.

Ture’s focus on making the work study process the foundation for A-APRP work contributed to building a sustainable infrastructure within the A-APRP which has permitted the party to continue to function today in Africa, the U.S., and all over the African world, 22 years after Kwame Ture’s physical disappearance.

These are all examples of sustainable, organizing work. This type of work was not the strength of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Where that has hurt King’s legacy is in not having the cadre to carry out the appropriate and correct history of that legacy. Much of what King did is drastically misunderstood today. Capitalism/imperialism of course, makes every effort to sabotage King’s image and distort his work, but part of the reason they are so successful with doing that is because of the unsustainable nature of mobilization work alone. The organizing models used as examples for the work in the NOI and the A-APRP are effective because those are independent organizations. With that and their organizing platforms, those organizations have never depended upon the power structure to tell their stories. Instead, they built cadre and capacity to define their existence and that’s why they continue in the same line of work so many years after the personalities who initially defined their work ceased to physically exist. Without that cadre, Dr. King’s legacy has fallen into the hands of the very capitalist corporate image makers who cheered for his assassination when it happened. King’s positions on non-violent civil disobedience, Black power, the war in Vietnam, and everything else about his work has been distorted. Without having organized a cadre of organizers, the parts of King’s legacy that aren’t controlled by capitalism are in the hands of his biological family, some of whom seem to have more in common with the corporations than anything King was working for.

Again, nothing here is designed to discredit and disrespect mobilization work. All of us came into our current levels of consciousness and work through initial involvement through mobilizations. This work is necessary, but its equally as important that people realize that mobilization work has limited capacity. At some point, we have to move to engaging organizing potential to recruit and build capacity in an organized fashion to sustain our enemies in resolute struggle until we are finally able to overpower them and seize what’s needed for everyone to be free. When we honor Dr. King, its important to recognize these questions as food for thought to further enhance our capacities to build.

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Tupac's Fatal Transition from Revolutionary to Gangster

1/31/2020

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From a musical/artistic perspective, Tupac Amaru Shakur was one of the great talents of the 20th century. Blessed with a foundational social consciousness, a quick wit, and a drive not matched by many, Tupac was known as a prolific writer and a dynamic performer.

He was born into the African (Black) liberation movement by virtue of his mother – Afeni Shakur – being a member of the New York Chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP). The New York Chapter was one of the most creative and active BPP chapters and as a result of their activity, they were specifically targeted by the U.S. government for elimination. The most significant blow in this realm was the arrest and conviction of 21 New York Panthers, including Afeni Shakur, on baseless charges that they intended to blow up the so-called statue of Liberty and other capitalist monuments in 1969.

Tupac was born out of that intense struggle and as much of his music reflected, he grew to have a respect for our righteous struggle for justice and liberation. Still, as most everyone already knows, there was another side to Tupac. Just as he produced iconic songs that gave tribute to our people and our struggle like “Dear Mama, Lost Souls,” and “Brenda’s Got a Baby” he also produced harsh, anti-woman, and disrespectful music like “Its All About You (we see the same h - - es!), Gangster Party”, etc. And, unfortunately, like the recently departed Kobe Bryant, Tupac was also accused of sexual assault.

The complex and contradicting sides of Tupac cannot be ignored and glossed over. Especially since we would like to explore how and why he, and so many of us, often straddle the line between principles and justice for humanity, and individualistic manipulation and exploitation of our people’s suffering. This is really an interesting topic for African revolutionaries, and hopefully all revolutionaries, who constantly seek ways all the time to guide people towards revolutionary socialist political consciousness and away from reactionary anti-people ideology produced from the capitalist system.

In many ways, Tupac’s life is a case study of these vast contradictions. Coming into a hip/hop – Rap – industry that places a lot of emphasis on where you are from, Tupac was someone who was from the Bay Area, East Coast, Southern California, and really none of those places i.e. having real roots in a particular location. He got his start with the Bay Area hip/hop collective the Digital Underground who around 1989/90 produced huge hits like “Dowhatchalike” and “The Humpty Dance.” Tupac’s breakout performance came on the song “Same Song” and from there he won the role in the movie “Juice.” From that point forward, his career as a solo artist really began to take shape. During this period around 1991, I had the opportunity to briefly meet Tupac when he performed at our All African People’s Revolutionary Party sponsored African Liberation Day commemoration in Sacramento, California, U.S. in May of 1991. His performance that day, to which I – unknowing who he was at the time – had the chance to introduce him in my role as the M/C, served as one of the highlights of that event. Although I didn’t know him then as he’s known now, I recall being struck by his calm and intelligent demeanor and the ease to which he won the complete attention of the crowd of approximately 4000 people that day with his vast array of socially consciousness, pro woman lyrics.
That’s another reason why I, like so many others, was somewhat surprised to see Tupac emerge in the mid 90s as a Death Row Records artist and eventual participant in many of the actual gang related activities that occurred within that record label that ultimately appears to have cost him his life.

The story of Death Row is well known, but most people probably don’t know that Marian “Suge” Knight, the Chief Executive Officer for Death Row, was never a gang member although he certainly surrounded himself with actual gang members from his Compton, California, U.S., neighborhood of “MOB Piru.” Death Row’s entire security team was filled with MOB Pirus who carried out, or at least contributed to an environment, where Suge’s violent and sadistic attacks against his artists and employees became common place.

There’s a lot of information out about the rise and fall of Death Row, but for this purpose, we focus specifically on the events that led to Tupac’s murder in September of 1996 in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. The MOB Pirus were enemies with the Compton Southside Crips set. These antagonisms were well established before Death Row Records. As a result, Southside Crips came to see Death Row as simply a store front for MOB Piru activities. And, even though many of the artists and employees connected to Death Row had nothing to do with MOB Pirus, they became synonymous to people in the Los Angeles area. This explains why when Southside Crip Orlando Anderson, known as “Baby Lane” saw someone walking in a Southern California mall with a Death Row chain on, he apparently saw the need to strongarm the chain from that person. Another element of this story is the rumor that Sean “Diddy” Combs, wanting to ensure security from Suge Knight (as a result of the infamous “East Coast/West Coast” feud from the mid 90s), developed a relationship with the Southside Crips because of their antagonistic relationship to the MOB Pirus. Some people even say Diddy hired Southside Crips to confront Death Row people. Whatever the case, the incident at the mall happened which created the conditions for the videoed attack against Anderson in the MGM Grand lobby in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996, after the Mike Tyson fight. In the video, several people, all affiliated with the MOB Pirus, including Suge and Tupac, are seen kicking and punching Orlando Anderson. Of course, a few hours later, the car driven by Suge on Las Vegas Blvd, with Tupac as the passenger, was shot up with Tupac being shot multiple times and eventually passing away a few days later on September 13th.

The shocking thing about this situation is that Tupac was clearly involved in the attack against Anderson at the MGM. The question is why and how he, a hip/hop artist with no historical gang connection, felt the need to involve himself to that level in a situation that had nothing to do with him? There are reports that he had even gotten a tattoo that read “MOB” on his arm sometime before that fateful day.

The point is Tupac was no gangster. He was a musical artist. Had he been a gangster, he certainly would have realized who Orlando Anderson, or Baby Lane, was. He would have known that Baby Lane was without question what the L.A. streets would call a “hitter.” Someone who definitely would not have hesitated to retaliate. Why the MOB Pirus around Tupac, who were supposed to help protect him as an investment for Death Row (as probably its most prolific artist at that time) would permit him to make such a reckless and ill-rational decision. Why Suge Knight, as the CEO of Death Row, would permit Tupac to do so?, but more importantly, why Tupac himself felt the need to mix himself up with something as serious as that to which he clearly was overwhelmed and completely out of his element?

A clue could be found in the collective conditions of African people as an oppressed community. Everyone wants to be identified with a winner. Everyone wants to feel that they are a part of something significant. As individuals existing within a society that has contempt for us, its very difficult for people to feel connected and empowered in this society. This is true for everyone, especially colonized people like African folks. This is one of the core reasons why gangs maintain relevance and popularity within our communities because they provide a place for people to exist and a structure of support, no matter how tenuous. One of the challenges we face as revolutionaries is our work doesn’t provide those “perks.” There are no image builders. No visual perceptions of existing power. No places to go where we can make people feel empowered just by existing and doing revolutionary work. We don’t have that because our work is focused around getting people to recognize that until we organize on an independent and mass level, there is no power for us. Just an illusion of power that a gang and other entities within this society provide. This is the constant challenge we face and in the case of Tupac, I’d argue that somewhere along the way, he decided to forgo any pursuit of that revolutionary work for the shortcut imagery of power that 10 to 15 people beating up someone provided in the MGM that day in 1996. For him, the desire to be out front in attacking Anderson somehow gave him a sense of loyalty and belonging that he, like all of us, had probably been pursuing his entire shortened life.

Of course, what Tupac got was the sad reality of street life for an oppressed people. And eventually, Death Row, Suge, and many of the MOB Pirus and Southside Crips got much of the same. Orlando Anderson himself was viciously shot down in Compton two years later in a street conflict that had nothing to do with the Tupac situation. And, this was after he had been shot up within that two year period in street violence that apparently was connected to the aftermath of the war between the MOB Pirus and Southside Crips after the Tupac killing. MOB Pirus were also murdered from this and other situations unrelated to the Tupac killing. Suge Knight is currently in prison for unrelated nonsense.

We as African revolutionaries and people concerned about our people’s deliverance should take this unfortunate reality to recognize how critical it is for us to build concrete community defense projects in our communities connected to our revolutionary Pan-African work. By doing this we can provide our people, especially our youth, the identity they so desperately crave. We can give them a productive, militant, and uncompromising identity to counteract what they seeking in gang life identities.

When we lose youth like Tupac and Baby Lane we are losing quality voices who can articulate the pain and victories of our struggle. We are losing soldiers who can give us the strength to win our battles. What happened to Tupac and the others, and our people everywhere on earth, is symbolic of what we can gain if we properly organize to address these insufficiencies. When you are listening to a Tupac record, you should think about that and how we can effectively do the work to keep his and everyone’s legacy alive and moving in a positive direction.
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Kobe's Death; This Backward System & How We Process It All

1/27/2020

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On an organized and disorganized basis, I’ve played basketball since I was about 10 years old. As I got older, I made the personal decision to avoid drinking, getting high, etc., but everyone needs something in their lives to release pressure, anxiety, and depression. Especially in this backward society where people are commodities who hold as much value as material possessions. So, for me, sports most often filled that requirement. I played organized and disorganized sports, primarily basketball, well into my 40s. I watch professional basketball, not as much as I would like to, but a lot over the last several decades. Consequently, since he came into the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1996/97, I was aware of Kobe. I wasn’t a fan. I live in Sacramento and despite their ineptitude, I’ve been a fan of the Sacramento Kings basketball team since the 80s. As a result, I watched Kobe dismantle my Kings multiple times, on television, and often in person. From a basketball standpoint, no one who watched Kobe play could not be impressed with his skills, commitment and presence on the basketball court. That was especially true for me during the 2002 season when Kobe, Shaq, and the Lakers ripped the chance for the championship from the Chris Webber led Kings.

So, I understand why Kobe’s death, the death of his daughter, and the deaths of seven other people on board that helicopter, would really impact so many people on such a level. Most of the people of course, never met Kobe Bryant. I never did and I probably never would because I have a practice of never approaching celebrities. I just believe those folks get more than their share of adulation for their capabilities and although I enjoy watching them perform their crafts, I have never seen them as people who generate that level of respect to require me to approach them. Now, when I met Assata Shakur, or Marilyn Buck, or Kwame Ture, I was speechless each time, but I know that for most people, basketball in general, and an iconic player like Kobe in particular, provides much of the relief they need to continue to function within this oppressive, capitalist system. The pain these people feel from Kobe’s death is real for them. Capitalism teaches us every second of every day that we don’t matter. For most people, celebrities represent immorality. So, when a seemingly larger than life figure like Kobe is killed, it rocks people's sense of stability. That pain, fear, and shock is real for people, but I think we have to learn how to think deeper about what incidents like this mean and why people actually react the way they do, even people who don’t follow basketball in the least.

There are many variables at work. For survivors of sexual assault, and those who wish, like I do, to bring consciousness around patriarchy and issues related like sexual assault, there is a need to remind people who are mourning Kobe’s death that he was accused of sexual assault a few years ago. The people who are mentioning this are not doing it to demean the loss of Kobe or anyone else. They are seeking to maintain their dignity because in this backward society, the suffering they experience doesn’t matter. Just like the suffering experienced by the woman in Colorado, U.S., who accused Kobe of assault didn’t seem to matter then, and certainly doesn’t matter to many people today. Still, its legitimate that people want everyone to remember that this accusation against Kobe is as much a part of who he was as him scoring 81 points in a game.

Another related contradiction is that people die tragically every second of every day. People being brutally exploited working oil rigs in the Niger Delta for Shell Oil die in the hundreds in the most tragic and violent ways all the time. People digging out cobalt from Congolese mines by hand so that cell phones, laptops, etc., from Apple, Samsung, etc., will work are dying from inhumane conditions on a consistent basis all the time while this piece is being written and while you are reading it. Mass incarceration, imperialist motivated wars, sanctions, and oppressive conditions, kill people by the hundreds of thousands consistently. Police murder thousands of innocent people every year in the U.S. alone, not to mention in other societies. These things happen and all of them combined never generate anything close to the attention that Kobe’s death is creating. That’s something that doesn’t sit well with those of us who have consciences because we know that the reason for this inequity is because the masses of people on earth have no value whatsoever to the forces that control the planet today. We know the only reason Kobe does is because his profession is entertainment for the privileged in these societies. So, whether we want to think about it or not, the fact his death generates nonstop coverage everywhere while the fact the rape and murder of a poor and innocent child in the Congo, or Brazil, or New York, will be talked about by very few people is very disconcerting.

We know the everyday people distraught about Kobe are just trying to hang onto what they can grasp because capitalism has taken everything else from them, including their dignity and ability to critically think about the issues being discussed here. We also know that death is upsetting, especially when its people we feel that we know and the people who respect Kobe feel as it they know him and his family, etc. What we have to do is use tragedies like this to steel our commitment to continue to work effectively to challenge the inequities that make an incident like this so disjointing.

The bottom line no matter what is Kobe is a commodity like all of the rest of us in this capitalist system. He’s just a higher priced commodity based on his ability to deliver products this system values. The reality is a few months from now Kobe’s death (along with the others) will be practically forgotten by most of us as we continue to move on navigating and trying to survive this corrupt system. I’m not saying people are going to forget Kobe. I’m saying life will move on because that’s what happens in this system of profits over people. The NBA will do tributes, but the games will continue and the profits will pile up. In fact, there will be more than a handful of people who will figure out how to profit themselves from Kobe’s death. Maybe not out of spite, but because those folks are just trying to be as creative as they can in finding ways to survive this system. Capitalism gives them no other options. I would even suggest confidently that capitalism, as always, is probably the direct culprit in the Kobe crash incident. We don’t have details, but speculation is that visibility was an issue with the pilot of the copter and how it possibly crashed. If so, that’s a clear indication of the pressures of finance that drive all decisions in this backward society, including decisions that place completing a job above human safety. As people concerned about justice, we have to make that correlation for people because this is the same disregard for humanity that devastates the masses of people every day. This is true whether we are talking about who gets incarcerated, why people have to work in inhumane conditions, or why a copter tried to make a flight that could be ill advised due to conditions. These are the lessons I hope we take from Kobe’s tragedy. Kobe was a rich and famous man so his death in this backward society has value, but we should expand that and use it to advance our struggles for justice. So, mourn Kobe if you need to. Point out the contradictions. Talk about sexual assault. Talk about class struggles and contradictions. Talk about how capitalism values some deaths of certain people it adorns over the deaths of the masses of humanity. Use all of this to move us forward in helping people understand why nothing that happens is separate and/or devoid of class, race, and gender analysis about how capitalism is always the driving force that creates trauma for everyone on earth.

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White Supremacy, Capitalism, & American Identity

1/25/2020

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Within bourgeoisie information circulation, white supremacy, capitalism, and American identity are defined all types of different ways that are drastically different than the clear scientific meaning for each. By bourgeoisie we mean the people and institutions that dominate world political, economic, and social activities. The bourgeoisie have an obvious vested interest in using every mechanism in this society to maintain their interests and they recognize that the only way they can effectively accomplish this is by keeping the masses of people confused about these concepts we are talking about because this confusion prevents the bourgeoisie from being exposed for the corruption they practice 24/7/365 against humanity. So, the bourgeoisie organize themselves to ensure they are placed in decision making positions on Ivy League curriculum bodies because they know that those bodies influence education all the way down to kindergarten levels. The bourgeoisie place much emphasis on making sure they hold dominant elected positions to ensure policies are in place to uphold their visions. And, they maintain control over the institutions that enforce their policies and visions.

So, under this system, instead of white supremacy being defined as systemic oppression against colonized people, the bourgeoisie are able to convince most people that white supremacy is simply an emotional attitude of "racial hatred." With this approach, white supremacy becomes no different than Black, Brown, Red, or Yellow supremacy. In fact, they all become the exact same thing. An attitude that anyone can have. There are no systemic elements to it.

Capitalism, under bourgeoisie direction, isn't defined as the dominant economic system that is based on the super rich owning and controlling all the production apparatus for the purpose of private profit as it should be. Instead, under bourgeoisie direction, capitalism is mostly understood to be a system of "free market enterprise" where anyone with the right ideas and the drive to succeed can become a millionaire or better. The historic and systemic denial of access to capital is completely ignored under this bourgeoisie definition of capitalism.

And, American identify, under the bourgeoisie flag of confusion, is never defined as simply the tactical way to get most people to accept and justify white supremacy and capitalism. Instead, American identity is commonly understood to be a love of this nation at best (without any criticism assessment of what this nation is doing), and a determination to keep anyone from being against the foundation (unspoken, yet commonly understood) of this country that its a European country and those norms, values, and practices must be upheld at all costs. By European - or white - what the bourgeoisie have done is teach people that European/white/capitalism/American identity are all one and the same. That all white people have a vested interest in protecting capitalism and seeing their personal identities as one and the same with that of the super rich bourgeoisie. This logic explains clearly why so many working poor people identify with the goals, objectives, and agendas of the super rich. These people have been conned into actually believing that the super rich, and the political process of elections that they control, is really something that will work in the interests of everyday people and/or at least these everyday people can figure out a way to make this bourgeoisie system respond to their needs.

What we will counter with is that white supremacy is the tool used by the bourgeoisie to convince white people that their interests lie with the bourgeoisie, not the masses of colonized people on earth. Doing this upholds the interests of capitalism and the belief that all of these things are the same is the glue that holds this backward system together so well.

This all explains why we can easily see bourgeoisie elections in Britain, the U.S., etc., be based entirely on working class people buying into their legitimacy and actually being the primary forces that uphold that legitimacy. That's why every bourgeoisie election is "the critical election." This will be the case for the next 500 years if we let it. Meanwhile, the masses of people, regardless of how these elections turn out, will continue to struggle to have adequate healthcare. They will continue to not have affordable housing. They will continue to suffer from systemic oppression from police agencies and the other agents of the bourgeoisie and imperialism.

The only solution to all of this is a mass political education campaign that is designed to reverse the successful tactic of the bourgeoisie to convince most people that intellectualism is a worthless pursuit of your time. All you need to do is earn money because earning money is the solution to any problem, any individual problem (because that's all that matters) you have. What seekers of justice need to do is be able to begin to implement mass political education in the form of schools, meetings, rallies, etc, and most of all, constant and consistent political education groups, that we can learn to make palatable and attractive to everyday people. This can be done. It has been done before and its more needed now on a mass scale than it ever has been.

If you are currently not engaged in any ongoing political education process, the first priority you should make is ensuring you begin doing that. If you don't have an organization with such a process, you have to join one that has it. If you don't want to join any organization, you have a responsibility to start an organization that contains such a process. On a collective level, we have to start thinking about how we can make political education as palatable and popular as the Superbowl or the World Cup. If you don't believe we can accomplish this, that is a major source of the problem. We have to believe we can achieve this because if we don't, we will never have mass consciousness. And, if we never have mass consciousness, we can never truly have collective forward progress. Whether your vision is revolution, like mine, or something else, this is the absolute only way we will ever achieve it. We know this because the masses of people are always the true makers of history. Individualism has never accomplished anything to move society forward and it never will. Only mass struggle, fueled by political education on a mass level will make these positive things happen. Anyone, anywhere, who wants help with this, you should reach out here. We are always ready to build.

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Dissecting Fact from Fiction as It Relates to the Chattel Slave Trade

1/20/2020

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If you are not African (Black) and/or you don’t participate in and pay close attention to issues within the African liberation movement, you probably won’t have much framework for what I’m talking about here. Within African community dialogues within the U.S. there is a contentious discussion about the true origins and connections of Africans within the U.S. today with the transatlantic slave trade. These discussions are raging everywhere from African churches to petti-bourgeoisie opportunism electoral politics, to revolutionary nationalist organizing spaces. The central debate centers around how we came to the Western Hemisphere. Did the majority of us come here through the transatlantic slave trade, kidnapped from Africa? Or, did we come thousands of years before that on our own? Or, were we always here and therefore have no actual connection to Africa?

I think primarily because I have spent an inordinate amount of time studying the transatlantic slave trade, I have learned – not from the bourgeoise educational institutions in this country – but from my independent Pan-African education learned within the work study process of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party, that our people from Somalia to Bokango to the middle passage to the Western Hemisphere have always fought courageously against colonial oppression. Since I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt, I have absolutely no shame at all at knowing that for a brief period of our African lives, we were enslaved by European colonialism. There’s no disgrace in that for me no more than there would be if I was attacked on the street by 10 people and captured despite the fact I fought valiantly against them. The odds were against me and they took me hostage as a result. I see our history in the transatlantic slave trade that same way.

If someone doesn’t know our valiant history of resistance, then I understand why that person would have no desire to identify with that slave history. The only other alternative is to see us willing participants in our oppression. The happy house slave narrative of someone who happily accepted being disrespected and dehumanized. If people believe those lies about us, than its even easier to see why that person would see the need to create a more “honorable” version of our history. And, for the most part, with the Africa deniers and to a slightly lesser extent, the “we came on our own” crowd, I’m afraid some of this shame is driving much of their narrative.

Certainly, for the we were never in Africa people, this position is 100% driven by ignorance and shame about history these people clearly haven’t lifted one finger to digest and understand. I haven’t met or seen a single one of them who has read a single book about transatlantic slavery. Certainly, nothing about Africa. Instead, they rely almost (and incredibly) entirely on conspiracy theories about the lack of fully intact slave ships today as proof that there was no transatlantic slave trade. For these poor souls there is not only a lack of understanding of our history of resistance, but a very sad and disgusting oblivion of understanding of anything about Africa. In fact, you can test it. Ask these people to tell you absolutely anything about an ethnic history, practices, customs, biological, etc., connections between African people in the West today and Africa and you will receive nothing in return except a litany of rhetoric with no substance. This problem is the direct result of colonial anti-Africa miss-education.

The people who believe we were always here present a little more complexity, but not much. Their argument, which they rely on credible scholars like Ivan Van Sertima and Cheikh Anti Diop to substantiate, expresses that Africans left Africa in large numbers long before colonialism and ventured to this Western world and settled here. There is no question that Africans did travel here before colonialism. They developed relationships based on mutual trade, assistance, and understanding with the Indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere. Actually, there is evidence that people traveled all over the place before colonialism without engaging in antagonistic and dominating behavior towards the people they encountered. So, that portion of this analysis has legitimacy. The point of contention is the percentage of African people in the West who fall within this number. According to these people, a significant amount of our people here represent this reality. In order for us to take this suggestion seriously, we need these people to present much, much evidence. In other words, the people advancing this notion cannot provide you any scientific evidence to justify their claim. They will argue that an African with roots in Louisiana with a French surname (like my family) could have that as a result of slavery, but could also have it because of historical patterns (they claim) of Africans losing their family knowledge and people settling everywhere, even in slave states. Although it could be possible that some people fell within this realm, its highly unlikely that large percentages of Africans living in slave states fall under this definition and these people produce nothing to suggest any differently besides their desire to believe this.

I’m forever open minded and ready to learn. The minute these people offer something beyond their hopes and dreams, I mean scientific evidence, I’m going to go all into studying it. In the meantime, I reject their position in the basis that its extremely disrespectful to our ancestors who fought to keep us alive in this hellish experience. I refuse to diminish the courage and dedication of our ancestors. I acknowledge their suffering and for me, that means recognizing those slave shackles and our constant demand to break them. There’s no shame in this whatsoever. Its actually one of the proudest legacies out here because we come from a people who fought to be free. Maybe I see it this way because I've roamed the somber chambers of slave dungeons in Ghana and Senegal. I say this because no one who denies our legacy of slavery that I've talked to or studied has endured those horrific memories. If they had, it would be akin to a Jewish person denying the Holocaust. This spirit explains the constant spirit of resistance, creativity, and defiance that so many non-Africans spend 24/7 trying to emulate. I guess in the final analysis, this is what it comes down to for me. We are a people fighting for our freedom and liberation today. That fight is fueled overwhelmingly by our spirit of resistance. In that frame of reference, our struggle against servitude is a very proud and necessary aspect of what makes us up as a people today. I don’t know what it is that makes these people wish to deny that, but I wear it proudly. Its that spirit that refuses to let me give in to oppression today. Its that spirit that drives me to challenge injustice everywhere all the time, despite the consequences. And, probably, its their fairytale version of history that explains why they exist with a fairytale analysis for how we will move forward as a people.

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The Radical and Unknown Side of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

1/16/2020

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The radical Dr. King is unknown to most because much of what we understand about Dr. King’s legacy was created for us by the very same people and interests that wanted to see Dr. King destroyed when he was alive. Today, and every year around the time of the commemoration for Dr. King’s birthday (which is actually January 15th), we are overwhelmed with a constant barrage of repeated snippets of Dr. King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech where he talks about “little black girls and little white girls…”
The corporate image making mechanisms that craft everything you believe from what mustard to like to what you know and think about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., are forever hard at work crafting your vision of Dr. King as that of a religious pacifist who just wanted to be loved by racist white America. And, their suggestion about Dr. King is that he would sacrifice anything for that love, even his life. This is nothing except a shameless effort by the capitalist system to redefine Dr. King’s image to keep you from recognizing and understanding the significance of Dr. King’s courageous and uncompromising moral imperative against this wicked power structure.

For example, Dr. King’s uncompromising position against the immoral war in Vietnam. His position, of which he admittedly was pushed to take by the militant influences of the youthful Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee working around him, was not just some soft position of being un-dialectically against war. His position developed from his increased understanding that the war was being fueled by the capitalist system’s desire to eradicate any threat (socialist development) to its political and economic hegemony over the world’s people and resources. Dr. King stated as such in his iconic “Why I Oppose the War against Vietnam” speech given one year to the date of his assassination on April 4, 1967. In that speech, Dr. King probably sealed his death warrant with terrorists who carry out intelligence work for this country when he explained, correctly, that a few people were using the war to consolidate their control of resources and the targeted bombing against the Vietnamese people was simply a manifestation of the rich trying to ensure the poor stayed that way. Dr. King called for a “redistribution of wealth.” And, by this he didn’t mean anyone giving anyone anything. He meant pursuing justice for centuries of the economically developed capitalist countries stealing from the majority colonized people on earth.

Another example is Dr. King’s position on non-violence. The capitalist power structure, by continuing to repeat the one speech snippet over and over, is attempting to deceive you into ignoring Dr. King’s total approach to fighting for justice for all of humanity. Without question, Dr. King believed completely in non-violence as a principle, meaning to him, there was really no other approach that could win us our liberation. Still, Dr. King was a pragmatic person who recognized that the masses of African people, tired of racist exploitation, were never going to sit still and let our enemies brutalize us without fighting back. Or, in other words, Dr. King knew, as most of you who rely on our enemies for your education about our movement don’t, that our people always fought back. Not sometimes. Not a few times. We always fought back. He knew that if the enemy shot at us, we would shoot back. So, although Dr. King certainly had his individual convictions, he was practical enough to respect that the masses of our people would never accept non-violence as a principle, only as a tactic, as was evidenced by civil rights projects like the Loundes County Freedom Organization – the original Black Panther Party, in Alabama, in 1965. No evidence exists to suggest that Dr. King didn’t exist, cooperate, and support the movement’s collective decision to engage in self defense against racist white terrorism, despite his personal position which everyone knew. That means Dr. King was often in houses where he knew the occupants had guns. He was in cars where people were armed. He even accepted without resistance (and even relief) armed guards from the Deacons for Defense.

Finally, much has been written about Dr. King’s position on the evolving Black power movement which had its most recent mass expression during the march against fear in June of 1966 in Mississippi, United States. What has been written is that Dr. King vehemently opposed the concept of Black power. This perspective has been advanced by biographers, documentary and film makers, etc. of Dr. King who wish to promote the belief that Black power was anti-white so by positioning Dr. King to be completely opposed to the movement, these people hope to discredit it. Dr. King certainly expressed reservations about the movement, but even while doing that in public, he worked behind the scenes to ensure he maintained nothing except the most principled and respectful relationships with the younger proponents of Black power like Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael). In fact, Kwame Ture indicated that King often warned him that he was going to make certain statements about Black power, but that it meant nothing as it related to King’s support of our desires to be free. In other words, Kings approach was a strategic one designed to throw the power structure off base while our people continued to build our capacity.

This weekend, as always, will be filled with a strong whipped cream version of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Just remember that all of that is designed to keep you from seeing King as he was. A person who was willing to sacrifice his life for justice. And for him, that justice increasingly meant challenging the capitalist system on every level using every tactic and resource necessary to change this backward system. Although many of us refuse to see it, this power structure assassinated Dr. King because they clearly saw this happening. If we now can begin to accept this, in order to truly commemorate Dr. King’s contributions, we recommend you take two actions. One, read his April 4th, 1967 speech against the Vietnam war. The second thing is organize groups to read that speech as a part of an organizational effort to educate and organize around the true movements for justice in this world as they are. Not the annual sanitized versions released to us by the very people who actively sought to destroy Dr. King.

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The World Warns Africans in the U.S. "Don't Forget Who You Are!"

1/9/2020

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Former U.S. National Basketball Association (NBA) player Mahmoud Abdul Rauf, bravely refusing to acknowledge the imperialist and racist U.S. national anthem before a game in the 1990s