Ahjamu Umi's: "The Truth Challenge"

The Undeniable Similarities Between Trump & Obama Supporters

6/5/2022

Since the emergence of Donald Trump as a dominant political figure in U.S. capitalist politics, the narrative coming out of the liberal bourgeoisie has been to criticize the lack of analytical capabilities coming from Trump supporters. For several years now, there has been a consistent focus around the lack of intellectual foundation contained within the thinking of anyone who supports Trump’s thoughts and actions. And, without question, there is overwhelming evidence to support this critique. Even surface level students of history can see clearly the lack of truth coming from Trump and his supporters with their superficial and uninformed analysis of white supremacy, patriarchy, and the basic working of the capitalist system (especially as it relates to politics in general and international politics in particular). The dominant arguments from the so-called Trump right-wing around white supremacy are so paper thin that they can be destroyed by the most basic talking points that exist beyond capitalist news media propaganda (from either the so-called “left” or “right”).

Without question, white supremacy objectively is a system of institutionalized discrimination against colonized folks (people of color), period. By institution we mean this system of oppression operates independent of who is the conduit. That is why the Trumpian view that someone like Candace Owens denying the existence of white supremacy is valid to them simply because she is (biologically) an African is ridiculous. This poor understanding of the mechanisms of white supremacy is absurd to anyone who has read even one simple book on the subject. Yet, this backward approach of analyzing systemic challenges through an individualistic, subjective, and ahistorical viewpoint is almost universally practiced and supported by Trump supporters on every issue.

What’s interesting is if we are to take a look at that same individualistic, subjective, and ahistorical approach as it relates to people who support Barack Obama the same way we do with people who support Donald Trump we find very little difference between the two camps beyond the appearance and style between Trump, Obama and their respective supporters. This is true because truth is universal and objective and capitalism is the economic system that drives white supremacy, patriarchy, etc. So, regardless of who is at the helm of the capitalist system, regardless of what they look like, what they sound like, how they walk, and whether they prefer chicken or beef, as long as we are talking about capitalism, at the end of the day, we are talking about people who have the same objective. Even if their route to achieve that objective looks and/or feels different.

Trump supporters deny reality by denying their support for Trump is rooted in white supremacy, regardless of whether they are African or not. They do so because there is something in racist ideology that they feel is of use to them i.e. Candance Owens, Larry Elder, and others figuring out that there is a niche for Africans who agree with white supremacy and a lucrative payday that comes with that. Or, for the majority of Europeans who support Trump, they feel a sense of emotional validation because his rhetoric speaks to their insecurities about living in a world where white supremacy will no longer be tolerated. Most of them will never be in a position where they will have to admit those illogical insecurities. And since their entire thinking is motivated by fear perpetuated by the capitalist system, which feeds upon the scarcity model to convince people they have to be fearful of each other instead of the people on top, we know that capitalism has produced an entire society of people who do not know how to think critically. Consequently, when they don’t think, their actions are facilitated by sentiment instead of reason. And, that explains the entire Trump phenomenon.

In a different approach, it also explains the Obama phenomenon. The perspective that individual advancement within the capitalist system can somehow represent progress for the masses of people is a theory rooted in sentiment because there is no practical evidence to support that claim. Clearly, an Obama, Kamala Harris, or whomever, who advances through the capitalist system as in individual, while the masses of Africans remain powerless, does absolutely nothing to advance the masses of people. Even if Obama, Harris, etc., were determined to fight 100% for the advancement of African people, with the masses of Africans disorganized, there is no collective power to hold the capitalist system accountable to us in any way shape or form. And, that’s still true even if every individual African who advances to hold positions within the capitalist system is sincere about our liberation when Obama, Harris, and others clearly are not.

All one would have to do is evaluate the track record and policy work from Obama, Harris, etc., to see that their existence has nothing to do with our advancement. Since 2008 when Obama was first elected, African people are still victimized by mass incarceration, poverty, healthcare disparities, police terrorism, etc., None of things have gotten better and its not as if Obama developed any type of campaign to even attempt to address any of those things in a serious way. He couldn’t do that even if he wanted to because again, our people are disorganized. We control no power base within the Democratic Party that elected him. We are only continuously pimped by that party, nothing else. And for those who trot out the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) as evidence of something that supposedly separates Obama from Trump and/or others, that’s a historically low bar argument. It’s the equivalent of praising McDonalds for feeding starving people from their scraps. It looks good, but does virtually nothing to address the fundamental problem.

And, we haven’t even offered an evaluation of Obama’s devastating policies internationally of which the overwhelmingly majority of African people who support him could not even give you a comprehensive discussion around. Africom in Africa i.e. up to 80 U.S. military bases overseeing neo-colonialism in Africa. The annihilation of the Libyan Jamahiriya in 2011. The support for the illegal and immoral coup in Honduras in 2008. The support for the fascist regime in Brazil. Support for fascist elements who led the coup attempt in the Ukrainian government in 2014. All of this terror and more was carried out under Obama’s watch as president, but if you bring any of these things up to Obama supporters, they will always respond with the same subjective sentimentality about how good he looks with Michelle and their daughters. How good it makes people feel to see them in that position.

How is any of this any different than how Trump supporters see Trump? The dismissal of actual and factual devastation against human beings while raising up ill relevant emotional responses based upon our individual desire to feel better about our personal realities and what space we occupy within this backward society without recognizing the necessity to take action and make changes.

Its an absolutely sick dichotomy that is a systemic indictment against the capitalist system as a whole. Its only this capitalist system, with its unprecedented 24/7/365 propaganda mechanisms, that can so effectively program millions of people on a consistent basis who come from completely different backgrounds to respond to phenomena the exact same way. In the case of Trump supporters its rural people, people with no college education, people with college education, primarily European people, non-white people who see a lane for them to benefit in supporting Trump, whomever. Appeal to their insecurities and fears and convince them that as long as Trump and what he represents validates them in some emotional way, there is absolutely no reason to consider any other critical pieces of information about the consequences of his work on all of humanity.

In the case of Obama supporters its city based working people, people of color, people with college degrees, people without college degrees, people suffering from white supremacy, patriarchy, and all forms of institutional oppression, whomever. Appeal to their pain and suffering and convince them that as long as Obama and what he represents validates them in some emotional way, there is absolutely no reason to consider any other critical pieces of information about his work and the devastating impacts it has on all of humanity.

Just for context and for the record, we are revolutionary Pan-Africanists who stand for and organize for the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism. We are 100% opposed to the capitalist system anywhere it operates in this galaxy. We have no dog in the bourgeoise political arena of the Democratic and Republican parties and any capitalist political parties anywhere. Like Malcolm X, another revolutionary Pan-Africanist, told us in 1964, we aren’t politicians. We aren’t students of politicians. We’re neither Democrats, nor Republicans, nor Americans, and got sense enough to know it! We are people who recognize that the capitalist super rich classes know that they do not have the capacity to defeat the masses of people. They know they rely on their propaganda to keep the masses loyal to their elite interests. They know that to ensure their system continues, they have to make sure that we never learn how to truly think for ourselves. If you understand that, then you should be able to understand that even if they sound different. Even if they look different. Even if they come from different places. Even if the people who support them come from different places. Even if the two sides kill each other on sight. At the end of the day, Obama and Trump will always have more in common with each other then they will ever have with any of us.

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Dignified Reasons I'm Sick of the Oscars, Will Smith & Chris Rock

3/30/2022

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As usual, the blatant hypocrisy of the capitalist system is so sickening it turns my stomach. And, it should turn yours also. Just to be clear, I don’t care one bit about Will Smith, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith, the Oscars, the U.S. government, capitalism, any of it.

I’m sick of the people claiming that Smith was defending African women. If you really think a stupid, spontaneous, and emotionally generated reaction (if it was even authentic) is a strong example of defending African women than that goes a long way in explaining why African women are never defended in the concrete and dedicated ways that they deserve.

I’m sick of the liberal capitalist bourgeoisie immediately reacting to this foolishness by gasping and denouncing “violence in any form.” If they really believed in denouncing violence in any form they would consistently denounce the terrorist actions of the U.S. military in every endeavor its engaging in throughout the world. They would denounce U.S. unprecedented support for the racist settler colony of Israel and its daily violence against the Palestinian people. They would denounce the systemic violence against the Indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere and the African masses scattered and suffering in 120 countries worldwide. They would denounce the 70 years of terrorism from the so-called North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) which is the core reason behind the conflict in Eastern Europe today. They would denounce racist police gestapos. They would denounce AFROCOM in Africa. They would denounce murderous sanctions by this backward government against Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela, and other countries whose only crime is asserting their dignity.

We all know none of those things will ever be denounced because the purpose of the Oscars and the people who finance and support them like AT&T, Coke, Chevrolet, Will Smith, Jada, Chris Rock, etc., is to uphold the capitalist system. So, in tune with everything within the day to day operations of capitalism, everything, every time can be attacked and criticized except the very thing that is perpetuating all of the violence in the world, capitalism.

I’m sick of African petti bourgeoisie celebrity culture and the people who consistently frame these foolish people and their antics as representative of the actions of the masses of African people everywhere. Will Smith, Chris Rock, and the like are nothing more than 21st century jesters for the master. Just as Malcolm X told us 50+ years ago when he warned that the capitalist system will always get its jesters to speak for and represent the African masses. Fast forward from 1964 to today and Malcolm was clearly prophetic. Most of us live our lives based upon what these clowns say and do. The bar is so low that they can use our African culture, which belongs to the masses of African people, and make millions, give a small percentage of that to some insignificant cause like petti bourgeoisie African colleges, and for most of us, they are donig something for our people. We believe this nonsense whiie we consistently ignore the true solders for our people's liberation who have nothing, yet sacrifice everything for us and we don't even know their names.

I’m sick of the fact African people are so desperate for positive images that we pander to these rich celebrities who the master scoots out for us. We refuse to study our history because if we did, we would find out rather quickly that we have multitudes of people who serve as outstanding role models for us and our future generations. The people I talked about in the last paragraph who's names we don't even know. People who had enough dignity to know that we are oppressed. All of us have to perform at some point under this oppression, but there’s performing, and then organizing against the master, and there’s what happened at the Oscars; performing for ego, additional market share, nothing…

For anyone serious about protecting African women that has to start with African women and it has to include African women organizing themselves against the forces oppressing them. As men, there is an overwhelming level of work we can do to defend African women. Those of us who struggle to do that work understand this clearly and that work doesn’t include theatrical performances of protection. They involve fighting to create conditions to build capacity for true women empowerment. An empowerment that can only happen when African people achieve our freedom and independence. None of that is ever going to happen on the master’s stage, in between the master’s commercials, in front of the master’s vision. Some of us have enough of our brain cells to be sick of that type of nonsense. Some of us want so much more for our people and humanity. And, we know that the work to get us there can never be reduced to anything Will Smith or Chris Rock can perform in real life or on film.

Our lives are no Hollywood performance. If you truly want African women protected, join and/or start an organization that is fighting against capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy and turn the damn television off.

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The Missing African Social Movement & the Democratic Party

1/12/2022

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Everyone has seen the iconic picture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) shaking hands and smiling. That picture took place on March 26, 1964, on the floor of the U.S. Capitol. Both men were there for the same reason. The civil rights bill (Act) was being debated on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Malcolm was there to gather information to support his political view that the fact the 1964 civil rights bill had to even be created in the first place was proper evidence to its worthlessness. That 1964 act sought to provide the same “rights” that the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the 1870 15th Amendment of the U.S. constitution were supposed to provide to the African masses, but hadn’t as of 1964 (or 2022 for that matter).

Malcolm and Martin’s meeting on the Capitol floor wasn’t planned. It was spontaneous. They had a few moments of interaction and that was it. The two of them had never met before that and they would never meet again. Malcolm of course, continued in developing his international Pan-Africanist focused work (after leaving the Nation of Islam). This work led him to strengthen relationships with revolutionary Pan-African leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, Gamal Abdul Nasser, etc. As we know, his work was cut short on February 21, 1965, less than a year after his one-time meeting with Dr. King.

The focus of this piece is on the work King was doing at the Capitol building in March of 1964. Although, as has been stated, everyone knows of the picture of King and Malcolm, most people don’t give much thought as to what either of them was doing there that day, especially King. Its critical to understand King’s purpose because today in 2022 and beyond, most Africans and other people within the U.S. who believe that that U.S. capitalist system can be reformed to provide justice for people oppressed under this backward system, believe that this can be accomplished through the current bourgeoisie model. That model is people voting for candidates and issues in local, state, and national elections. The continuing theme in this sick scenario is that every election, the masses of people will be told that this election is the most important one. Political leaders will be marched out. One may even show up at your door. And, when they do, they will preach to you about how important the election is to preserve our “rights.” For anyone who doesn’t respond positively to this, you will be bombarded with judgement and pronouncements about how you are betraying your ancestors by refusing to participate in the U.S. capitalist electoral process. The logic behind this strange approach is rooted in the firm belief that this capitalist process is the absolute only methodology available to oppressed people to address our suffering conditions.

Then, these elections happen, every two and four years. Each of them the most important one ever. And, historically, as it relates to the Democratic Party since the mid 1940s, the African masses vote upwards of 95% or better for the Democrats. In fact, you cannot find a Democratic president since Kennedy’s victory in 1960 who would have won without the reliable support of the African masses.

Unfortunately, once these capitalist politicians, from Kennedy through Obama, to Biden, get in office, the question becomes what mechanism do we have to hold them accountable to fulfill our interests? In 2020, Biden campaigned strongly to get the African vote. He and Kamala Harris won and declared that the African masses put them there so they would have our backs. When and how has that happened? Even now, a full year after they were elected, the bourgeoisie bureaucracy is debating voting rights/suppression in the racist Southern states of the U.S. The exact same issue that the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act were supposed to be enacted to address. Now, there are those would respond to the question about Biden/Harris/the Democrats by attempting to argue that the Republican Party plays the role of sabotage which prevents any progress from happening, but this is also a strange argument because the Republican Party has played that role for the last 80 years and yet, in the 60s, there was still legislation created like the acts mentioned. Acts that most of the supporters of bourgeoisie electoral politics continuously point to as validation of their approach.

This brings us back to what King was doing at the Capitol in March of 1964. And, this analysis should be expressed with the clear understanding that our politics are those of revolutionary Pan-Africanism. We work to achieve one unified socialist Africa. We are not concerned about, focused on, or interested in engaging the U.S. capitalist electoral process, but because we have active experience engaging our people’s struggle for justice on the ground, we do have a valid perspective about how we can make positive progress in the reform arena, even though that’s not a part of our political objective.

King’s role at the Capitol on March 26th, 1964, when he had his chance meeting with Malcolm X, was to apply in person pressure to members of the U.S. Senate to vote in favor of the Civil rights bill. On that day, King met with multiple senators from both political parties. His objective in doing that was to remind them that he was there as the voice of a movement. A mass civil rights movement that the year before had demonstrated its strength by assembling 250,000 people at that same U.S. Capitol building for the historic March on Washington. The same movement that was challenging segregation laws in the Jim Crow South and slowly, but surely, knocking them down. The same movement that had organized in 1964 (through the work of the legendary Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee – SNCC) the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) which effectively challenged the white supremacist hegemony within the Democratic Party (that broke down the segregation within the Democratic and Republican parties that paved the way for Harris, Obama, Stacey Abrams, etc.).

The point is that King represented a mass movement and his role on March 26, 1964, at the U.S. Capitol was to remind those bourgeoisie politicians that if they didn’t stand up for us, we would mobilize against them. Again, we are revolutionary Pan-Africanists so we are not arguing that this was and is the most effective way for us as a people to move. Clearly, that is not what we believe, but our point is if you are going to promote reform politics within the capitalist system, you don’t have a logical argument to suggest that any progress whatsoever can ever be made through that approach without a mass movement to serve as the political strength to back those efforts.

Today, unlike in the 60s, no such movement exists. Today, there is no mass movement such as the one represented by King and others on March 26, 2964, pushing to hold those people in elected office accountable to us. Today, all you have is a completely subjective hope and desire that the Democratic Party and those within it in power who are beholden to capitalist corporations, can somehow find it within themselves to prioritize your interests above all else. Above the money coming in the millions from those corporations. A continuing and naïve belief on our part that appealing to the morality of this system will bring justice to us when the system has been unquestionably clear for quite some time that it doesn’t possess a single shred of morality, especially when it comes to us. That’s why there isn’t an effective argument that the approach of today has shown any semblance of strength in moving us forward. That’s why no progress has been made against mass incarceration since it was proliferated during the 90s. No serious progress against health disparities as the pandemic clearly illustrates. No serious progress against police terrorism against the African masses and other oppressed communities.

One last time, our work is different, and we are doing our work, and our work will be successful, but this piece is primarily an observation for those who love to let us know they are opposed to revolution (although they have no idea what revolution is) and instead are always going to stick with capitalist reform. Our message to you is if you stick with reform, spend the necessary time to learn from the practices of Dr. King and others who understood then, as we fail to understand now, that Frederick Douglass was 100% correct when he said “power concedes nothing without a demand!” No movement, no power.

Revolutionaries know how to engage in mobilization work (reform work) and organization work. Every effort made to organize oppressed people makes the conditions for revolution closer so any true revolutionary would see the necessity to help reformists build stronger reformist movements, but the desire to do so must exist for the people who claim to want to see positive changes inside of the capitalist system. Until those people are willing to recognize that the collective struggle that our ancestors displayed for us in the 60s, is our proven cultural method to make progress, and that the individualist practice of just voting will never accomplish such (without a movement back it), we will continue to be prostitutes for the Democratic Party while being systemically ignored by the Republican Party while the masses of our people continue to suffer. And, just to bring the point home farther, if you participate in the capitalist electoral process, but you are not an active part of an organization working to build movement, then you are without question, a significant part of the problem.

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A Revolutionary Pan-Africanist Perspective on Events in Ethiopia

12/19/2021

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Of course, any news about anything happening in Africa is never a primary news story in the capitalist media. In fact, most people in the West probably have absolutely no idea that there is a crisis situation taking place in Ethiopia (East Africa) right now, but there is. A very serious situation. And, just like every other urgent tragedy in Africa, this one has its roots in international imperialism.

Currently, the Ethiopian government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, is tottering on collapse from a serious armed offensive led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Tigray is a region currently within Ethiopia that consists of about seven million people. For many years now, Tigray, like Eritrea before it, wants complete independence from Ethiopia to establish a sovereign country of Tigray. This has been a movement the Tigray people have developed since the creation of the TPLF in 1975. In 2020, the question was scheduled to come to a vote, but the national election in Ethiopia never happened. It was stalled due to a decision by Ahmed’s government and the Tigray people reacted by carrying out their own election before deciding to take this question further into their own hands by carrying out a military offensive against the Ethiopian government.
These types of internal explosions in Africa are not uncommon. The phenomenon can by explained through the analysis of that revolutionary Pan-Africanist Sekou Ture when he talked about Africa’s evolution from states into a nation. Ture discussed how colonialism divided Africa into states based upon the interests of European capitalist development. He argued correctly that this intrusive control of Africa was against the interests of the African masses (everywhere on earth) and that Africa, in her forward march towards justice, would utilize revolution to expedite the evolutionary process of unity for the African continent as our way of combating the efforts of our enemies to divide Africa and African people. In other words, on the surface, it may look like the struggle for division and/or the creation of newer states, is contrary to what Ture argued, but in essence, this phenomenon is further proof of his analysis.

The geographical areas surrounding the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea) were and are brutally exploited by colonialism from Belgium, France, Britain, zionist Israel, along with capitalist exploitation from the U.S. starting in full force in the 1940s. And, even though Ethiopia didn’t ever have a European government installed within Addis Ababa, it was challenged seriously and consistently by Italy to the point where many people in Ethiopia today speak Italian. As a result, colonial influence in and around Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa has been as definitive as anything else in determining political, economic, and social control of that region.

A brief history of Ethiopian politics is important in order to dissect the events happening today within the region. For forty-four years, Ethiopia was governed by Emperor Haile Selassie until 1974. There are a number of Africans worldwide today who continue to view Selassie as an immortal being. Although its not our desire to upset or offend any of them, we will just say that there are essentially three models of human governing in existence in the world today. Feudal or monarchy such as the model Selassie represented, military regimes, and societies governed by elections (whether bourgeoisie like the U.S. or actual people’s democracies like Cuba and Venezuela). In this reality, feudal/monarchies are clearly the lowest level of development, yet for almost a half century, this was the model in Ethiopia. After Selassie, a power struggle from several quarters erupted which led to the country being governed from the mid 70s until 1991 by a collective of people known as the Derg. This governing entity initially claimed to represent a socialist government after the fall of the emperor, but Kwame Ture taught us that we must always judge a system by its principles and practices, not the professions of the people leading and/or participating within it. And, although many people, including the usually correct Cuban revolution, incorrectly accepted the Derg initially as a socialist entity, it was soon proven once Mengistu Haile Mariam emerged as the leader of Ethiopia within the Derg, that this government was anything except socialist. In fact, Mengistu closed out the 70s courting U.S. imperialism and zionist Israel for closer ties, largely to secure assistance in preventing the Eritrean people, led by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) from gaining independence from Ethiopia. The zionists in Israel wanted greater ties with Ethiopia because the EPLF maintained strong and principled relations with Palestinian resistance fighters. The U.S., British, etc., imperialism wanted those ties for those reasons and broader reasons for ensuring imperialism’s interests were sustained in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia wanted those ties because aid from imperialism would permit them to become a regional power in East Africa. Consequently, Ethiopia began receiving millions of dollars in annual military aid, training, equipment from imperialism. In return, Ethiopia would serve as the Horn’s enforcer against the Eritrean, Oromo, Tigray, and Somali uprisings, even expanding into Sudan and Chad, etc., to prevent further influence from the Libyan Arab Jamihiriya revolution throughout Africa.

As previously mentioned, In 1975, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was founded in an effort, like Eritrea, to bring independence of the Tigray region from Ethiopian control. The TPLF has been waging this struggle for independence from Ethiopia for the last almost half century and its this conflict which has heavily influenced the current instability within that region.
After Ahmed’s government cited the pandemic as justification for canceling national elections in 2020, the TPLF reacted because they were eager to use these elections as the potential for creating more regional autonomy which they felt would pave the way for future independence. After Tigray’s regional elections in August of 2020, the Tigray Regional Elections Commission called their election a success with 97% turnout calling for an end to Ahmed’s & Ethiopia’s authority in the region. For many in Tigray, Ahmed’s government represents nothing more than the continued brutal rule against the Tigray people that has been the policy of the Ethiopian government for decades. Even the imperialist supporters of Ethiopia, like the U.S., have had to acknowledge the systemic human rights violations against Tigray and it was the U.S. that was largely responsible for pushing Ahmed to present a much more favorable public face, which led to Ahmed winning the Nobel Peace Prize. We know that many an imperialist leader has won that award, so its meaning is ill relevant to true seekers of peace and justice. And his international accomplishments did little to diminish the efforts of Tigray to push against Ahmed’s government even harder.

Today, there is without question a serious human rights crisis in the Tigray region. Death, destruction, and the forced movement of hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, due to the military conflict between Ethiopia and the TPLF has created an even higher level of havoc within the region. Fingers are being pointed from all sides. The TPLF has been labeled a terrorist organization for committing atrocities against the Ethiopian people. The Ethiopian government of Ahmed continues to be called a brutal regime from many sources. Even the imperialist U.S. government has moved away from its long time enforcer in the region (although this is probably because Tigray’s military advances against Ethiopia leads the U.S. to believe Ahmed’s days in power are numbered.. Often, within a worldwide leftist community that has been shaped largely, even today, by the politics of the cold war period of the forties through the nineties, where everyone in the world was consistently forced to “take a side (either the Western capitalist countries or the Eastern so-called socialist countries)”, people approach every political situation from this standpoint i.e. either Ahmed’s government is right, or the TPLF is right. We suggest here that the actual solution is much more complex than that.

Revolutionary Pan-Africanism has never bowed down to the cold war politics. As Kwame Nkrumah correctly stated 60+ years ago, our struggle is neither on the side of the East or the West. And, it was that philosophical foundation which has permitted us to always maintain an independent point of view of world events, obviously as it relates to anything happening at home in Africa. So, instead, we suggest that everyone look at the conditions in Africa, some of which we have detailed within this piece, to substantiate why these conflicts continue to happen in Africa. Whether its Sudan, the Western Sahara, the Horn, the Congo, etc., the common denominator is that people are fighting for rights, resources, and the ability to govern their lives with stability and the ability to reach their fullest potential. And, the reason this reality is necessary is strictly because of the dominance and control of imperialism in Africa for the last several centuries. No African anywhere on earth should have to struggle for food, water, shelter, stability. There is more than enough in only a small portion of Africa to take care of all of those needs for all of Africa so without question, the problem is that the resources Africa produces are not controlled by the African masses, but by imperialism. And, this control is so institutionalized and consistent that most people unwittingly accept imperialism’s strategy of convincing all of us that there is scarcity and therefore, we must fight each other for what we need when its them we should be fighting.

Revolutionary Pan-Africanism accepts the definition of liberated zones articulated by Kwame Nkrumah in the “Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare.” By liberated zones we mean territories that are under the control of the masses of African people. With international imperialism so dominant throughout the entire world, and the defeat of the Libyan Jamihiriya in 2011, at best, we can clearly agree on contested zones existing today in Africa, but no clear liberated zones. Since we know this is our reality, we know that no government in existence today in Africa is there to serve the interests of humanity. And, with the absence of organized political education on a mass scale, every so-called liberation movement that doesn’t institutionalize political education is suspect. And, by political education we mean the ideas and practices of proven principled revolutionaries like Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, Amilcar Cabral, Mangoliso Sobukwe, etc. There are certainly many entities struggling to institutionalize this such as the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (South Africa), the Azanian People’s Organization, African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau (PAIGC), and others. And, the All African People’s Revolutionary Party and others are working diligently throughout Africa to further cement these efforts, but this work is without question a work in progress and it will remain so as long as the majority of people are operating under the narratives of international imperialism. So, in the meantime, what we are left with is the scramble for resources, limited resources. Whatever imperialism has left for us to fight over. The solution to the problems in Ethiopia are not going to come from Ahmed’s government or any neo-colonial government in Africa. The solutions will only come from the people of Ethiopia. The people of the Horn of Africa. The people of Africa as a whole, and the two billion Africans scattered and suffering all over the world, crying out for our mother Africa. And this effort cannot come through individual consciousness, but only through the organized expression of the African masses. Without that Pan-African struggle, wherever we are on earth, we are like roaches scrambling for crumbs while doing our best to avoid being stamped out in the process.

A great way to push back against this somber reality is to make your own commitment to be a part of the solution and not perpetuate the problem. Be a part of an organization with a revolutionary Pan-African focus and an organized political education program. Commit to and develop this process and smash the backward concept of relying on imperialism to provide your world analysis, pretending that this is an objective approach to acquiring information. Without question, if even a slightly larger percentage of us committed to operating under this approach, the quality of our movement towards justice would increase substantially overnight.

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Dating Apps; Capitalism & Individualist Isolation as the Norm

11/8/2021

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Like many single people, I’ve invested time over the last year or so in various dating sites. I’d used them off and on before that, but never for any extended period of time. Over the last year, I’ve learned some things that I didn’t understand before.

First, unlike many people, I believe that every action I take is guided by ideology. A lot of people don’t believe that because they probably don’t understand what’s meant by the term ideology. It simply means the values behind the thoughts that drive your actions. Using that definition, its difficult for anyone to seriously argue that your life isn’t governed by ideology. This is really a question of whether you understand clearly what ideology you are functioning with, not whether it exists or not. Or, in other words, give me any action you take, and I bet I can identify for you the ideology that guides and shapes your action(s) because ideology generates from the culture we exist in. Capitalist culture, capitalist ideological domination i.e. individualism, elitism, impatience, etc., you get the point.

So, since I know ideology guides everything, I’m always conscious of how I move through life. By conscious, I mean as policy, I think through the actions I take. I consider the variables, the results (consequences) and the deciding factor is always how the action I end up taking lines up with my principles as a human being i.e. people before profit, dignity, etc. As you can imagine, I mess this up consistently and I don’t know how to not do that, but my objective is to ensure that if I mess up, its not because I wasn’t being sincere in my application and trying to do the right thing as I move along.

What I’ve learned from dating sites is the overwhelming majority of people on them, regardless of gender, are not really on them to meet and date someone. As a man, I find continuous profile statements from women indicating how they don’t play games, don’t like drama, etc. I respond in kind that I unite with them around those principles. I initiate conversation and 90% of the time, nothing happens.

This isn’t some mansplaining analysis based on the patriarchal premise that women must respond to men. No one has any responsibility to respond if they don’t want to. I fully embrace this principle and that is why I make it a point to initiate communication and if there is no response, as there most often isn’t, I don’t make any further efforts because I am not that dude who refuses to respect consent and a woman’s choice for whether they respond or not. If they don’t respond, that’s my signal to keep it moving.

Still, my point here is not really about the women who aren’t responding, but more so about the ones who do. For example, I reached out to a woman last week. A woman in my age range. African woman with positive things to say on her profile. I responded that I enjoyed her profile statements and I asked her how the dating world is treating her? She responded with a joke and we had three or four back and forth communications through the dating app. That seemed to go pretty well (we were talking about the things we enjoyed in common), so I asked her if we could graduate to communicating by phone. I gave her my phone number with the explanation that I was providing my number to give her 100% respect for whether she wanted to respond or not (again, if she doesn’t respond, I keep it moving). She responded by texting me “Hi baby!” That was a strange response to me because we are still just speaking in an introductory way to one another, but whatever. No judgment. We started communicating by text and that happened back and forth for a complete day. I then asked if we could speak by phone. You know, stepping it up a little, but nothing intrusive. In fact, she had commented by text that she felt comfortable with how we were moving and that it would be fine if we talked. We set a time for the next day and when that time came, I called her to get a voicemail message. I left a quick message just indicating I was calling as we discussed whenever, it would be cool to talk to hear back. Again, nothing intrusive. I never heard anything else from this person and that was four days ago.

Again, I am not saying she had to callback, even though she said she wanted to talk. She has every right to change her mind and I don’t even believe she has to advise me of anything if she did change her mind. My focus is that I just wonder how many people are really emotionally ready to actually meet someone? I wonder if people have lost faith in the ability to meet someone. Do people even believe in putting in the work to get to know someone? I know some people will raise the question of catfishing and to that my response is that itself is a result of the problem with human interaction that I am attempting to discuss here.

Based on my cumulative experiences, I believe that the answer is no, people on these apps generally don’t want to invest any time in getting to know someone. I say that because even when I have graduated to meeting someone and even going out with them, I’ve found its difficult for people to find a comfort level in asking the types of questions you have to ask to open the door to get to know someone. What I mean is I even had someone say my question about how the dating life is going was “too deep.” I believe that’s not too deep. Its that most people are very surface level in how they approach the dating process and I believe most people are not even aware that they are so superficial.

I think all of this stems from the impacts of the capitalist system on us all. This system has effectively convinced the majority of us that we are nothing beyond an extremely flawed individual being. This thinking has been completely engrained within the very fabric of this society. Think for example the commonly held belief among those who practice Christianity that we are all born in sin. Once people believe that, we are operating from a premise that we are not good enough. And, whether people consider themselves Christians or not is ill-relevant because the capitalist system works overtime to convince us all that we are not good enough. The entire basis of this society is that you are only as good as the material gains you have been able to accumulate. They have that basis because they want you to believe, as we do, that we have to keep spending. Buying things to make us measure up. If you are 40 and don’t have a mortgage, or a damn good reason why you don’t have one, you are a failure. If you are unemployed you are a failure. If you don’t have a car you are a failure, etc., etc. I realize many people will say “I don’t believe any of those things”, but that’s not really the entire picture. The point is we are all impacted by this because even if your self esteem is really strong, and mine is as strong as anyone’s, because the dominant reality we exist in is so toxic and anti-human, there is absolutely no safety in being genuine. In truth, if you decide that you are going to be genuine, you can depend upon having a very rough go at it i.e. being ghosted, misunderstood, gaslit, etc.

None of this is to say that any of us are perfect. We are of course, all flawed and that’s really the point. The capitalist system zeros in on this reality and cultivates it. This has happened to the point where adults don’t have the skills and capacity to have grown up conversations with one another. And, clearly the domination of social media, as great as that medium is, with such stunted human growth, does nothing except further exacerbate these challenges.

Just for the record, this is no venting of sour grapes. I am perfectly content in my single life to the point where I’ll say that the only way that single status will change again is when I can connect with someone who can appreciate my efforts to be a real human being in every way (not a perfect human being). Someone who sees my 99 efforts to be there for them and is emotionally secure enough to not throw away those 99 attempts because on one attempt I wasn’t able to perform miracles. In return, I will most certainly appreciate those qualities in them as they apply them to me. Someone who isn’t existing in a fantasy world, but who understands the struggle for justice, at least on a working level. But, if that person doesn’t become evident at any time, I am not going to be upset about that. I actually really enjoy being single. Living on my own, but I am 100% willing to change that for a positive upgrade. A person who is ready to build with someone. And, by build I mean put in the work to grow with someone.

My point is I don’t think finding that is likely on a dating app. That world is completely formed by idealism and superficiality. Still, I believe its possible to find your person there (if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing it). I just think the odds are not high. I don’t worry about it at all. Whether its at an event, in the gym, the supermarket, or online, it will happen when or if its supposed to happen and when it is supposed to happen I will know. And, it won’t happen from me pushing for it to happen. I’ve also learned this lesson some time ago.

I just think its important for us to understand that these challenges with dating apps aren’t because men are liars, women are not loyal and non-binary people are confused. Maybe those things exist, but they are at best simply manifestations of the larger problem. The core of these challenges happen because the very fabric of this society is based in devaluing human beings and making us fearful and distrustful of everyone and everything around us. This unfortunate reality does slim to none to benefit us, but it benefits the capitalist system in so many ways that discussing those ways would be an entirely different article. I am making sure to constantly remind myself of that. Especially when I think I may be connecting with someone just to have it stop flat, instantly. Its not me being rejected. They don’t even know me because they didn’t have an interest in knowing me which if fine. I just want to make sure I am remembering all of this so I can continue to try and be as genuine as possible. I recognize that like everyone else, I am as infected by this backward system. My hope is that whomever I talk to and wherever I talk to them, they can see my efforts and find it something they can relate to with a desire to grow with that. Now, that type of conversation, that would be a fun thing to experience on a dating app for someone like me. I’ll just have to keep looking while understanding the 0.01% chance that it will happen, but when/if it does…?

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Discussing Colin Kaepernick's Mini-Series on Netflix

10/31/2021

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Jaden Michael, who plays Colin Kaepernick throughout the dramatized segments of the docu-mini-series about his life on Netflix, poses here with the real life Kaepernick

Netflix the corporation has been on a trend the last few years presenting documentary type products that tackle the African struggle for liberation. I’ve written critical reviews about their 2020 released “Who Killed Malcolm X” and their 2021 produced “Blood Brothers – Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali.” Most people are not actively involved in the African liberation struggle and as a result, 99.9% of their understanding of it comes through the forces who benefit from our continued exploitation. The unfortunate reality here is that many of those folks were “inspired” by those two documentaries which is exactly the objective of the capitalist system. Shape our history for us and provide us the narrative of how we should view ourselves and this system.

Serious activists within the African liberation movement and students of history have little difficulty seeing through the tricks of the capitalist system. We know that the purpose of those two documentaries is to defang the militancy among the African masses and to portray figures of militant history like Malcolm X as decaying dragons of an era gone past. Fortunately, the Colin Kaepernick docu-miniseries didn’t exactly follow this same trend. The strengths of this series were its brutal honesty about this system of white supremacy and the devastating impacts it has on oppressed African and other colonized peoples. And, 100% of the credit for this goes to Kaepernick, maybe Ava Duverney (I and others have justifiably criticized her work in previous presentations about our movement), and whomever had the dignity to demand that anything presented be done in a way that upholds justice for the legacy of our struggle. Netflix gets zero of this credit because all you have to do is look at previous works produced through their channel, while maintaining a clear view of the history of capitalist corporations like Netflix and how they move, to understand that there is absolutely no way they have the political consciousness and/or commitment to tell truth to power without being pushed by Kaepernick to produce what he produced.

This is not to say that the series was without flaws. We are revolutionary Pan-Africanists so as we’ve said time and time again, no true analysis of what is needed for our liberation from this backward system can ever be expected to come to us from the main propaganda mechanisms managed by the very system that carries out our oppression. And, that’s precisely what Netflix and all Hollywood inspired and produced content is – the corporate propaganda arm of the capitalist system. Kaepernick himself would be hard-pressed to disagree with this assessment. He created his own publishing company to produce materials connected to our struggle for liberation instead of relying upon the existing corporate publishers, many of whom would certainly salivate at the potential profit windfall telling his story would provide for them.

Kaepernick does a good job in the series connecting the daily racist mico-aggressions aimed at our youth and how those actions adversely affect our mental health and our physical ability to function freely in this society. He even does an outstanding job making the point that we have the right to think for ourselves and he illustrates that in a powerful moment where he displays images of African freedom fighters who are routinely disparaged and disrespected by the capitalist system like Marcus Garvey, Assata Shakur, Kwame Nkrumah, etc.

Where the series of course falls short is after the system is correctly identified for the horrific and backward system that it is (in an impressively uncompromising way actually), no in-depth analysis of the system and/or solutions are offered. Please don’t misunderstand. We are revolutionaries and as a result, we have a program to achieve the revolution we are fighting for so I certainly wouldn’t be looking for those answers within any capitalist produced show. Even one done as well as Kaepernicks, but it is our responsibility to point out this problem. If we don’t do that than many people would not even think about it. They wouldn’t think about the fact that as can be expected, the word capitalism and the fact that system is the source that facilitates all of those micro-aggressions, is never mentioned. And, the most significant and subtle as you can imagine thing that will forever define anything produced within the capitalist system is the culmination of the story resulting in a display of Kaepernick’s individual determination to play football despite all the racism and everything else. This contribution of the series contributes to capitalism’s most prioritized message that individual determination, not collective organization, is the key to overcoming adversity of any kind, even white supremacy. The fallacy of this thinking is there are Africans who have had more individual determination to challenge white supremacy than Kaepernick, myself, and millions of other colonized people, and those people were not able to overcome the vestiges of this backward system. They weren’t because capitalism’s oppression of all of humanity is a collective oppression that will never be resolved until the masses organize collectively to bring this system down to its knees.

Still, the series was a quality view because of the consistent messages that the foundation of U.S. capitalism has always been and will always be based in the lie of freedom and democracy. And, that since we know this system was built and is maintained on our backs, we have no obligation to perpetuate the fantasy this capitalist system and all the people who support it deeply desire are perpetuated. Unfortunately, the bar is so low that anything that doesn’t just lie about our history is a positive development. That of course is not Kaepernick’s fault. He is certainly to be commended for his effort. Its an effort that makes a contribution to our struggle to raise the consciousness of our people and all of humanity. Its also a strong reminder that its always the masses of people of who make history, not individuals. Without our mass movement for justice against police terrorism against the African masses Colin Kaepernick would be no more than a football player who had some success who no longer plays. He would be forgotten by now. Its our mass and collective struggle that explains why most of you even know who he is. You should always remember that because that same reality is the reason you are ever going to know anything about African people and other oppressed communities that isn’t compromised and completely controlled by the system responsible for our subjugation!

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The "Karen" Movie, White Supremacy & Our Stockholm Syndrome

10/28/2021

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Like everyone of us, Huey P. Newton had his failings, but the absolute beauty within him was his ability to teach us, as Fanon and many others before him, that our dignity is tied to our ability to stand up and fight uncompromisingly against our oppression, regardless of the consequences. The capitalist system, utilizing its Hollywood propaganda, is working overtime to dull that message

Against my better judgement, I decided to watch the movie “Karen” last night. I knew the subject would trigger me. Like most colonized people (but I’m certain at a much higher percentage due to how I walk through this life) I’ve been targeted by Karens, Kens, and capitalism, my entire existence. Plus, Taryn Manning plays the Karen role in this movie and ever since “Hustle and Flow, Orange and Black” and anything else I’ve seen her in, that woman knows how to make a role come alive.

As I anticipated, Manning played the hell out of her role, but for someone like me, who is well experienced in dealing with micro-aggressions to overt violent white supremacy, that was to be expected. The part of the movie that really actually triggered me the most was how the African couple, and every African portrayed in the movie reacted to not only Karen, but this entire white supremacist system.

I understand fully that Hollywood is nothing beyond the media propaganda arm of the capitalist system. These movies, television shows, etc., are corporate sponsored which automatically means their objective is always to promote the system that butters their bread. This is of course why you will never see any movies or television shows that show victory for socialist revolution, Africans seriously and uncompromisingly fighting back against white supremacy, etc. This is also the reason why any and all movies like “Karen” that make attempts to portray real life issues, up to and including actual stories of real freedom fighters (Fred Hampton, Patrice Lumumba, Che Guevara, Malcolm X, etc.), always follow one very subtle, yet very important trend. They all make every effort to downplay and destroy any militancy on the part of the oppressed communities against the dominant system and the people who carry out its interests.

That African couple and their friends are portrayed in this movie in ways that should be extremely offensive to any conscious African, but with bourgeoisie idealism dominant, many people will completely miss and/or misunderstand the critique I’m making here. The Africans in this movie weather repeated and consistent disrespect from Karen, including overt racist remarks made to their faces. They consistently (in ways that made me sick to my stomach) responded to this garbage with smiles and silence. Then, to add insult to injury, instead of the Africans developing a strategy to confront the racism, they begin to blame each other for what they are experiencing.

As the movie progressed, I realized I was being triggered over and over again and I realized why. The movie reflected much of what we see in the countless number of videos that circulate daily of Karens, Kens, capitalism, insulting and targeting African and other colonized people. There are some exceptions where we respond to this disrespect by pummeling the perpetrators, and believe me, I enjoy those immensely, but the overwhelming majority of these videos portray us (colonized people) being consistently and uncompromisingly insulted. We are called racist names. Told to speak English. Told to go back to Africa, Asia, wherever. Completely dismissed as human beings, and while we are being berated, our responses are to attempt to appeal to the humanity in these individuals when after 500+ years it should be quite clear to all of us by now that they have none.

I was triggered because the movie channeled that passive, anti-militant behavior that the capitalist system pounds down our throats 24/7/365 as the only pathway available to us in order for us to exist. I’m triggered by this because that pathway doesn’t do a damn thing to sustain our dignity. In fact, I would argue that approach does everything to compromise our humanity. In “Black Skin, White Mask” Franz Fanon correctly argues that our psychology of oppression is fueled in part by our lack of humanity and agency in being able to stand up to our oppressors in the ways they oppress us. He talked about the liberation our ancestors felt in killing the slave masters. This is something most of us have been programmed to reject immediately, but its something we need to learn to talk about much more than we do today. I speak from extensive experience in saying there is no better way on an individual level to process white supremacy, patriarchy, and all forms of oppression in a healthy way than giving back the disrespect to the people dishing it out in droves. I understand that capitalism has socialized us to act in its interests, not our own. Consequently, many people, when I say what I said in that last sentence, have been remote control programmed to respond that “two wrongs don’t make a right” but that logic never stands up to the more rational logic that bullying never stops by simply pleading for humanity either. I learned a long time ago that the best way to stop bullying in a community where bullying was the daily policy was to convince bullies that messing with me was a bad health decision for them. As a result, they learned quickly to leave me alone. Karens, Kens, capitalism (including police, and other state institutions), have also had to learn this lesson. In truth, because I have institutionalized this approach of personal dignity and the demand for respect, this is the reason that I can go out wearing overt political statements most us wouldn’t wear if something paid us too, that clearly challenge everything this backward country stands for and no one will say a word to me. Meanwhile, other people go out and do everything in their power to demonstrate they are no threat and the disrespect rains down on them at unprecedented levels. Why? People tell me all the time that the energy surrounding me is one of “don’t mess with him.” Well, if that’s true, why can’t more of us have this same energy? Wouldn’t that be a good thing?

And, saying you don’t know how to be like me in this regard i.e. knowing how to defend yourself on a social, intellectual, or physical level is no excuse. There are people everywhere, including myself, who are offering unlimited time training people for free how to utilize the skills that I’m speaking of here. Most people aren’t interested and/or paying attention because they would prefer to roll the dice and hope they can achieve some financial compromise with capitalism that rewards them before racism confronts their lives in these types of ways. Besides a handful of petti bourgeoisie celebrities and individuals, the overwhelming majority of us never find that cash windfall, but plenty of us come face to face with that racism and we have absolutely no idea how to deal with it beyond calling the police, which is so mindboggling that even the producers of that movie were at least able to demonstrate that calling the police is not even a bad choice to make for us. It’s a life threatening choice.

I was triggered by the movie because I know we can do so much more to protect ourselves. I was triggered because it hurts me how so many of us have absolutely no safety plan besides calling the slave patrols known as police when something happens. Imagine that. The Karens are famous because they call the police on us for no reason. And, they call them because they know the police will default to white supremacy, no matter what nationality the police are (white supremacy is a system and everyone in it operates according to its laws). Most of us know this already, yet we still believe we will get some level of justice by calling the police?

I’m still eternally optimistic that people will wake up and realize, as I articulated in my book – “A Guide for Organizing Defense against White Supremacist, Patriarchal, and Fascist Violence”, we can prepare ourselves to stop this dehumanizing treatment. And, we have everything we need to do that on our own without the institutions of this society that are there, not to support us, but to keep us repressed. Yes, the movie triggered me, but not for the reasons you think. Not because I was traumatized by seeing us disrespected. I crossed that bridge years ago. I’m triggered because I have some extremely good ideas and practices for how to stop this from happening to us, yet most everyone has little to no interest in finding out more, even for free. That’s traumatizing as hell to me. I mean what am I supposed to do when I see our folks confronted by these racists, we call the police, and the situation becomes worse? At a certain point, this becomes our fault if we refuse to do anything about it. A mentor told me once that the more conscious you get about our suffering, the more trauma you will experience because you will struggle to understand why we don’t do something to stop it. Until we can get more of us to wake up and realize we have no other option besides getting organized, the triggering and trauma will only get worse for many of us because being able to take care of myself and my family is and never will be my objective. Doing that is the bare minimum and its nothing you should feel qualifies you to brag about anything because in truth, as long as we are not safe collectively, your and my individual safety will forever be compromised. I’ve helped my offspring get organized to address these situations. I’ve even helped my ex-wife and that’s why I can say that’s nothing to brag about. That’s the equivalent of the base level of operation, nothing more.

I’m triggered not for me. I know how to deal with Karens and Kens and they know that too and that’s why they never bother me with that nonsense. I’m triggered because our babies are not safe and they aren’t not just because of those white supremacist terrorists (they represent everything this country was built on), but because so many of us prefer to live in a fantasy world provided to us by Disney and the rest of capitalism to the point where when danger happens, we have no idea how to adequately address it. If you are one of those people, do us all a favor, and remember that when your time comes. Don’t be crying and wanting to know why. You already know why. You just didn’t have the courage to do anything about it. When your time comes, you should do as Kwame Ture once said. He stated “if you are not willing to do anything to help your people, if you are not willing to live for your people, then at least be willing to die for your people. Get yourself a phone directory. Call the local KKK office. Tell them that you refuse to do anything for your people so when they prepare to lynch their next victim, give them your address because if you are not willing to live for your people, you should at least be willing to die for them!” Sound harsh? It is, but so is this system and anyone paying attention should already know that. Even Hollywood motion pictures aimed at popular culture are telling us about the reality we live in.

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Chappelle & the Dishonest Appeal of the African Petti-Bourgeoisie

10/11/2021

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The capitalist system within the U.S., founded and sustained through the systemic exploitation of our Mother Africa and her children, has maintained ironclad oppression against the African masses for centuries. Since this discrimination is so widespread and systemic, most African people have some level of consciousness about it. Unfortunately, because our oppression has forced us into being so utterly disorganized, we currently possess slim to no capacity to mount any serious challenges against this capitalist system. This is the reason why the moment any random African, especially one who has recognition from the capitalist system, says anything about our oppression, you will always see a large number of us who immediately support it.

In some ways, this is always great to see because it signifies that the majority of our people recognize at all times that we exist within a system that does not have our best interests at heart. It never has, and it never will. The challenges to this phenomenon are reaped in the contradictions of class struggle among the African masses. Malcolm X warned us in 1964 not to fall into the trap set by the capitalist system where African celebrities are scooted out in front of us and their perspectives on any and everything are treated like official statements from the African masses. Malcolm’s logic is critically important because of the specific role celebrities play in wittingly or unwittingly serving as buffers between the capitalist power structure and the masses of people. Their role is to provide the masses of people a vision of potential success within the capitalist system. That each and everyone of us can achieve individual and financial success within capitalism. This is an overwhelmingly important message from the capitalists because as long as they can convince the masses of African people to have faith in that message, they can ensure control over our thinking. This is the reason that whenever there is a mass uprising by the African masses, what do they do? They get celebrities to talk down the anger and frustration. For example, during the protests throughout the summer of 2020 around police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others, you witnessed an onslaught of African petti-bourgeoisie celebrities from Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, athletes, etc., coming out telling people to chill. Barack Obama, the chief African spokesperson among the bourgeoisie class, piped up telling people not to attack the system, but “vote!” That’s the role of these people, to set the political agenda for the African masses and because we watch these people in movies, they sing songs that appeal to our emotions, and make plays on the field/court that pause the anxieties we feel from this capitalist oppression, we relate to these people in strange ways. We feel that we know them and/or that we have a connection to them. The reality is Dave Chappelle introduced himself in his most recent Netflix special; “I’m famous and rich!” There is only one reason for him needing to state this obvious fact, but most people that heard it probably didn’t catch it. He made a clear class distinction separating himself from the masses of his people and if we are really paying attention, that should have invalidated much of what he had to say about the African experience, even if some of what he said was true.

Its that balance between objective truth and class propaganda that makes the African nationalist bourgeoisie so difficult to challenge. Their strategy is always to take the lowest hanging fruit, things that even a 5th grader would have to agree with, and couching lies and misinformation within those basic truths. For example, Chappelle talks in his special about European LGBTQ people protesting oppression against them while being perfectly willing at any time to claim white supremacy i.e. calling the police on African people, whenever it suits them. This is an obvious truth that is carefully designed to tug at the heart strings of the African masses because deep down inside, its always difficult for us to trust any European. And, despite the fact that we do find ways to trust some of them, because our African culture is still primarily humanistic in theory and practice, more often than not, their behavior usually confirms for us why we can’t trust most of them. The African petti bourgeoisie in general, and Chappelle in particular, rely on this tactic of saying certain things that appeal to the African masses in a way that makes us much less critical of the deeper things Chappelle and these people are saying. And, the tactic is always and easily effective because the masses of African people have been conditioned to do two very unhealthy things. First, we don’t study much of anything. We don’t study our history, we don’t really know who we are, and we rely on our enemies for all of our information. Second, most of us are completely numb to recognizing that one of our enemy’s most commonly used tactics is to get African celebrities to deliver messages that are kind to the interests of the capitalist system. The way the system “gets” these African petti-bourgeoisie celebrities to do this is tangled up into the way class privilege works. Chappelle’s self-proclaimed richness insulates him from having to experience the conditions for the majority of African people. As a result, for someone like him, this country really is a free society based on how its worked out for him. You can tell this is what he believes because he actually expressed in the special a belief on his part where he has convinced himself that his decision a few years ago to leave money on the table is the equivalent of some great social sacrifice. Comparable to Lumumba continuing to struggle against Belgium and the neo-colonialists despite knowing it meant his certain death. Comparable to Che Guevara facing certain death in Bolivia by fighting on the front lines in an effort to liberate the America’s from capitalist exploitation. Comparable to the comrades taking such a personal risk to free Assata Shakur from a maximum security prison so that she could escape to Cuba. In this strange and insane reality where truth and justice are completely divorced from material reality, Chappelle actually stood up in front of millions and suggested that foregoing additional money (when he clearly had the pathways to make that money up in other ways) should be considered some badge of integrity for him. And, it works for people like Chappelle because the majority of us know absolutely slim to none about Lumumba, Guevara, Assata, or any of our genuine freedom fighters, why they fiught, and what they are fighting for, so because of this inequity in political consciousness, for a lot of us, Chappelle is somewhat of a freedom fighter. Another great example of this is how so many Africans trumpeted the injustices being perpetuated against Bill Cosby and R. Kelly, for things they more than likely are extremely guilty of, while ignoring the actual injustices being perpetuated against actual freedom fighters and longtime political prisoners Mutulu Shakur, Sundiata Acoli, Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, Mumia Abu Jamal, Ruchell Magee, etc.

Chappelle and other petti bourgeoisie celebrities operate under this cloak of respect and acceptance from the African masses because we have been conditioned to avoid any knowledge of our real struggle for dignity in this society. As a result, many of us mistakenly believe that aspiring to get to the position that Chappelle and other petti bourgeoisie Africans hold is what our actual struggle really is. Since we want to be like Chappelle, we respond to our emotional urges to protect him because in most of our eyes, he is being attacked by the system. And, since he uses those basic talking points about white supremacy that most of us know to be true, we interpret these events to suggest that he is being attacked by the system the same way we are everyday.

As a result of our emotional response to people like Dave Chappelle, we often fail to see the deeper contradictions in what he and others in his class privilege are talking about. We do this because many of us believe in one African nationhood with no class distinctions. Or, as Kwame Ture put it “the Democratic Party is the only party where millionaires and houseless people belong to the same party and act as if they have the same interests!” Also, most of us possess the valid desire to stand up against white supremacy. When Chappelle says European LGBTQ revert to white supremacy whenever they desire, he’s correct about that and that logic resonates deeply with the African masses.

It resonates so deep, and we don’t have the political tools to analyze things beyond our surface feelings about them, we don’t necessarily know how to deconstruct a lot of what is being said. For example, the reactionary existence of the majority of European LGBTQ people against the African masses cannot and shouldn’t be confused with the day to day conditions the masses of African LGTBQ people experience. To suggest that the experiences of European and African LGTBQ people is the same would be just as insane as suggesting that the experiences of us so-called “hetero” African and European are the same. The truth is there is no blanket large enough to cast over every reality in this argument. The truth is there are some European LGBTQ people who are more down for African liberation than Dave Chappelle will ever be. The truth is there is nothing about Dave Chappelle that should be that impressive to anyone. He’s risen to fame using racism as a comedy tool to largely European audiences, using the n word at will. For me, there’s nothing there that makes me want to laugh. Jokes about slavery, domestic violence, Trans people being killed, none of that is funny to me and it never will be, but all of that is fair game to a petti bourgeoisie puppet like Chappelle. If you want to really be impressive, figure out how to grow some estrogen and create some jokes that attack the system that’s oppressing all of us. I can tell you already, that will never happen because doing that would do nothing for Chappelle except bring some systemic wrath down upon him and that’s clearly not what he’s trying to do. Again, he said it himself, he’s rich and famous, and at the end of the day, that’s what its all about for him and if his so-called back and forth with the LGBTQ community hadn’t caused him some personal discomfort, whether he admits it or not, he wouldn’t even be talking about any of this. That should be all you need to know to realize he’s not speaking out to speak up for the African masses against white supremacy. He’s only doing what people like him always do, using the African masses to advance themselves.

As for us, we need to seriously examine why we are always so unwilling to hold any of these people accountable to our collective interests. Is the bar so low for us that we won’t even make people like Dave Chappelle, Ice Cube, 50 Cents, Kanye West, respect us as a people? They can disparage us and we do nothing because they said one or two things that are true (as the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day).

In the final analysis, its incumbent upon us to reach some level of political sophistication where we are able to collectively ascertain that only the masses of African people can speak for our people. And, the test of that is in ensuring that what is spoken is done in a way that advances the conditions for the masses of our people. Yes, the LGBTQ question needs much more discussion among our people, but its an insane reality we live in where we are more concerned about LGBTQ people of any race before we are interested in discussing what this capitalist system is doing to our people worldwide. That sums up the entire point being made in this piece. Anyone who is sincerely interested in African people from a creative standpoint would be trying to figure out ways to discuss mass incarceration, police terrorism, African identity, our relationship to Africa in healthy productive ways i.e. Pan-Africanism, forced sterilization of African women, etc. Dave Chappelle isn’t doing that. All he’s doing is looking out for his individual best interest. And, he’s using us to attempt to do it and as usual, too many of us are more than willing to comply.

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When You Die, What Will People Say About You?

9/15/2021

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In the middle of seeing people use social media on a regular basis to call out folks and make accusations (while claiming they are doing so for the good of everyone), you have to wonder what some people’s motivations actually are. In the midst of a petti bourgeoisie dominated reality where truth and justice and material reality are completely divorced from one another, and people routinely confuse idealism (subjectivity within your head) with actual on the ground material conditions, the same question about what incentivizes people to move gets arisen every day.

The idealism piece is a real problem because in many ways, it drives much of the dysfunction being mentioned here. The capitalist system is designed to negate reality because reality never favors its interests and capitalism is concerned about nothing beyond its interests. That system has absolutely zero sentimentality, but it intentionally and consistently propagandizes the masses of humanity to rely on sentimentality for every thought that we engage. In fact, this process is so automated that most people couldn’t even differentiate between an objectively tested and verified theory as opposed to the thoughts in our heads which are untested, unverified, and most often, not even based in anything beyond just what we have subjectively accumulated.

That last sentence sheds light on how people can actually convince themselves that publicly calling out people is the best actual way to address contradictions even though these people cannot point to one instance where this method has effectively resolved a contradiction. On the flip side, we can point to countless examples of how this method has led to absolute devastation within movement circles, but the people carrying out this “work” don’t care about that. They don’t because idealism has led them to incorrectly and dangerously believe that their way of doing things is the most correct to the point where they don’t even bother to seriously investigate the warnings our elders and ancestors have been providing to us for centuries. They don’t need to do that because they already have everything figured out. More bourgeoisie idealism.

All of this is the reason the age-old statement that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” is absolutely correct. People who think they mean well are often actually the conduits for creating conditions where abuse, police sabotage, and the destruction of legitimate work flourishes. And the statement that “history is repeating itself” is not a statement based in dialectical and historical materialism. Imperialism’s counter intelligence measures in 2021 and beyond will be much more devastating than they were in the 1960s and 70s because the capitalist system’s systemic mind conditioning techniques are much more advanced and institutionalized today than they were 50 years ago. Plus, social media has added a complex realm to this situation because now, in this bourgeoisie idealist dominated reality, anyone with an internet account and a computer can automatically elevate themselves into whatever type of personality they want you to believe they are. And, again, since idealism is dominant, no one ever even thinks to do some work to discover what people’s history of work looks like. People will argue with you all day before it even occurs to them to do a five minute Google search to find out who they are talking to. To find out what they are talking about.

The point to all of this is that there is an objective formula available to all of us to utilize to keep us traveling in the correct direction. Get in the practice of periodically asking yourself the same question. If you were to drop dead right now, what would people say about you? The answer to that question will never be provided by how many internet arguments you believe you won. It won’t materialize based upon how many people you overtalked or abusively dominated. And, it won’t be influenced by whatever image of yourself you spent so much time constructing that has absolutely nothing to do with who you really are as a person.

If you have attended as many funerals as I have, you learn to understand the format, especially in African cultural funerals of which I’ve attended on multiple continents (the cultural components are still the same because we are still the same people, despite 500 years of colonialism and violent separation). What always happens at these functions is people get up and talk about what impact the deceased had upon their lives. The selfless things that person did to influence them and help them become a better person. None of this can be manipulated. It cannot be given an Instagram face-over. The statements people make about you in this setting will be based 100% on your material actions and how those actions impacted people’s lives. So, when its your turn, as it will be one day. Maybe a long time from now, maybe immediately, but one thing that cannot be refuted from a material standpoint is that day is coming for all of us. When it does for you, what will people say?

Let’s start by discussing what they won’t say. They won’t say how much money you had or what material possessions you claimed. They won’t say how much knowledge you had, either objectively or just within any ego warped perspectives. What they will be talking about is how much patience you had with people. We know this is what they will say so if you don’t practice patience with people, this would be a great time to start doing that. They will be talking about how available you were. Did you come ready to become a part of solving problems or were you the person who was great at criticizing shortcomings of others, without ever seeing them in yourself, while never offering anything to help alleviate the contradictions? They won’t be talking about how much you invested in properties, but they will talk about how much you invested in people. Not just your family, but the masses of people that you always claimed you fight for. If no one is talking about any of these things regarding you right now, that’s a clear sign of the areas you should start focusing on. We should also start identifying the people who exhibit those positive traits so that we can start giving them their flowers now, before they depart. We can initiate a cultural offensive where we start to honor true soldiers for justice instead of petti bourgeoisie politicians and celebrities when the true warriors for justice offer more to humanity in one fingernail than any of those other people offer in their entire lives.

Even if we don’t honor those people, it won’t bother them much because they are not living their lives as they are for recognition. True revolutionaries know there is never any personal recognition. If you are serious about dismantling this system you know that you cannot expect recognition from any element of that system and the moment you receive any, that’s a sign that you are falling off.

Of course, surely if you have read this far, you know that the real purpose of this piece is to encourage us to think about how we can be the type of people we claim we want to build a society around because clearly, we have a very long way to go before we reach that level of engagement. A good place to start is to tell yourself you will not get on social media and air out problems for any reason. If you have any courage at all, take the grievance to the person/people you are directing it at. Trust us, that approach works so much better at addressing the problem, but it’s a much harder approach than just posting something on social media. And, in this bourgeoisie capitalist reality, easy is much more attractive than necessary.

No one today is going to be any more articulate than Huey P. Newton was in 1970 when he used the Black Panther Party Newspaper to call out Geronimo Ji Jaga and the New York 21. And, if you balled up all of these supposed revolutionaries today into one they couldn’t equal Huey’s contribution, yet we know today that him doing that was instigated by police while opening up the Panthers to all out attack from the police. Attacks that eventually helped destroy the party. Everyone today claims to understand that history, but every day, you can see people doing the exact same thing that Huey did 50 years ago. How does that saying go? The definition of insanity is doing something the same way over and over and expecting a better result? So, as Amilcar Cabral taught us, to properly correct contradictions, its important that we “return to the source.” That source is our revolutionary African personality and culture. And that source always tells us to start by looking within. So, if we are truly interested in getting better and winning, we should all be asking ourselves on a regular basis, what will people say about us when we die? None of us are fooling our elders and/or the ancestors and when we are ancestors we won’t be fooling anyone still living. When we die, we leave the earth with nothing except the legacies we built. Its time to start taking that much more seriously than we currently do.

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A Critical Review of Netflix's "Blood Brothers - Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali

9/11/2021

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As is the usual trend within capitalist dominated popular culture, the power structure takes every opportunity to shape the history and perspectives of the people its subjugating. Their effectiveness at achieving this objective cannot be disputed. Most people today have been socialized to strongly prefer entertainment forms of stimuli and interaction over intellectual study and critical analysis developing skills. In fact, many people today will speak openly against the need and/or desire to study much of anything.

The Netflix produced documentary “Blood Brothers – Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali” is the latest example of their efforts to exploit our unwillingness to critically study our own history in ways that would force us to learn to think outside of the paradigms that they provide for us. Following on the heels of their 2020 documentary “Who Killed Malcolm X”, Netflix’s “Blood Brothers” explores the development of the personal relationship between Malcolm X and Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali and the ultimate destruction of that personal relationship. Starting with Malcolm’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz and Muhammad Ali’s brother Rahman Ali, a stream of scholars, historians, petti-bourgeoisie activists (Reverend Al Sharpton), and former activists (Peter Bailey), are interviewed to provide insight on Malcolm and Ali’s personal histories and the relationship between the two of them.
For people who are familiar with Malcolm and Ali, there isn’t an awful lot happening in this documentary that you haven’t heard and seen before, but from Netflix and capitalism’s perspective, that’s essentially their point. They are never attempting to actually educate anyone with these documentaries. Instead, what they desire to do is paint a picture of our history which defangs it, removing the militancy, while luring us in with plenty of sentimentality and a subtle suggestion that all this militant talk gets in the way of our being able to “all just get along.”

Examples of the above paragraph are plenty in this documentary. The relationship between Malcolm and Ali is portrayed as a personal relationship. A friendship gone bad. This would make sense if it wasn’t for the undeniable fact that their relationship wouldn’t have ever happened if it wasn’t for our struggle for African dignity and forward progress. It was that reality that produced Malcolm, Ali, and the Nation of Islam where they met. So, despite the effort by Netflix to advance the capitalist individualistic line of interpreting everything we do, there is no material basis for defining their relationship as just consisting of their two personalities. The individualism is continued throughout the dialogue when the gentleman who was interviewed (multiple times) dressed in the Nation of Islam “Fruit of Islam” uniform says that Malcolm “chose himself” while Ali “chose the Honorable Elijah Muhammad” as his explanation for why their relationship went bad. The belief that Malcolm went his own individual path when he left the Nation of Islam has been repeated so often, covertly and overtly, that there is no way you will convince us it is an accident. Unfortunately, for people who are not active in organized struggle, their perspective of the world is through an individualistic vision because that’s all they have to work with so that trick resonates with them, but any serious examination of Malcolm’s life demonstrates how absurd that analysis is. Even in the documentary when it makes the point of highlighting how hurt Malcolm was when he ran into Ali in Ghana (shortly after Malcolm had left the Nation of Islam), and Ali had rebuked and dismissed him, the portrayal of Malcolm’s individual alienation is inaccurate. The film makes the point of repeating a statement Malcolm allegedly made after leaving the awkward face to face with Ali while Malcolm was in a car with Maya Angelou and others. According to the documentary, Malcolm said “I’ve lost so much!” And this was displayed during the film to paint the picture of a completely dejected Malcolm, yet the truth is Malcolm didn’t respond by doing what people tend to do when they feel alienated, isolated, and painted into an individualistic corner. Malcolm didn’t spiral into drug use, or drinking, or any other unfortunate direction. Instead, he ramped up his political work. He formalized the creation of the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He further built important relationships with revolutionary Pan-Africanist leaders on the continent of Africa like Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Ture. In those 11 months after he was snubbed by Ali he did what we would argue was his most important work.

And, we recognize that many people would probably disagree with that last sentence because most of how their development of an organization has taken place is articulated through that same individualistic bourgeoisie vision. Rahman Ali, Muhammad Ali’s brother, said it during the documentary; the problem was the personal relationship between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad and Eljah’s personal relationships with the women he had babies with that Malcolm exposed to the public. Personal/individual, blah, blah, blah. As Kwame Ture was often fond of saying, the contradictions of capitalism are obvious for all to see!” Even within this same documentary, scholar Todd Boyd contradicts this individualistic and tired portrayal of the split between Malcolm and Elijah, even if he wasn’t aware he was doing it, when he says the problem was really a divergence of ideas.” This is probably the most critical statement in the entire documentary because it is absolutely correct in stating that Malcolm’s evolution as a revolutionary Pan-Africanist exceeded what he had learned in the Nation of Islam and this is the primary reason for the split, not the babies born out of wedlock. We understand the confusion here and Malcolm himself made a terrible error that compounded this confusion when he made the accusation about the babies public. As we have stated often, we should never do police work for them and unwittingly, Malcolm did just that when he made that statement, but we will come back to that point about police shortly. For now, its important to also add that another example of the rampant individualism is the way history is projected in the documentary (and in everything capitalist). The Fruit of Islam uniform wearing African in the documentary makes the statement that Malcolm learned “everything he knew from Elijah Muhammad.” This statement has been repeated often during the period of 1964 when Malcolm was hunted and in the almost 60 years since his assassination. Its another subtle effort to make our interpretation of history individualistic instead of collective. No one person, no matter how great, is responsible for everything anyone knows. The Universal Negro Improvement Association, the African Blood Brotherhood, and other organizations had as much to do with the intellectual development of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm’s father Earl Little (which obviously would have had a triggering effect of permitting Malcolm even to hear Elijah Muhammad’s teachings) so its insane to give Elijah Muhammad all of the credit for Malcolm’s awakening. Of course, this happens because for Netflix, and capitalism, they wish to make us believe that since we are not Elijah Muhammad, we cannot have the type of influence over anyone like he allegedly had over Malcolm, etc., and so therefore, there is no use for us to even try. The truth of course is that the masses make history, not individuals so we all play a role in everyone’s development, all the time. Malcolm’s evolution beyond the Nation of Islam was much more than just an individualistic venture on his part. It was part and parcel of his exposure to our international African liberation movement. That’s why its so symbolic that the statement that got him initially suspended by Elijah Muhammad was the statement he made about John F. Kennedy’s assassination where he used the analogy of U.S. imperialism in the Congo, Central Africa, to make the point about “chickens coming home to roost.” No where in what Elijah Muhammad was saying was there a connection to what was happening in the Congo. That was 100% Malcolm’s evolving consciousness which was fueled by his growing understanding and commitment to our revolutionary Pan-African movement.

The most disgraceful element of this documentary was its dismissal of the role of the U.S. government in sabotaging the relationship between Malcolm and Muhammad Ali, Malcolm and Elijah, and our entire movement. The documentary spends no more than 60 seconds talking about the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and its counter intelligence program and even during those few seconds, they talk about the FBI as if they were casual observers who was simply rooting for friction to develop within the Nation of Islam. The truth is the FBI orchestrated the dissension that took place surrounding Malcolm. The FBI’s own files illustrated that they had high level informants within the Nation of Islam who’s primary role was to disrupt communication between Malcolm and Elijah and to create distrust between them. The FBI memo from director J. Edgar Hoover just days after Malcolm was assassinated spoke of a financial reward for the work of these informants with a congratulatory theme for their efforts to completely sabotage the work Malcolm was doing (that they manipulated the Nation of Islam to do their work for them). And, to add insult to injury, the people who put this Netflix documentary together had the complete disrespect for the masses of African people to even place John Ali, the man who was pretty much without question the FBI’s highest ranking informant in the Nation of Islam, in the documentary. He was the guy who was the National Secretary who played goalie in preventing Malcolm’s effort to communicate directly with Elijah Muhammad while filling Muhammad’s head with lies about Malcolm’s intentions. He’s also the same guy who gave the press conference after Malcolm’s house was bombed on February 14, 1965, accusing Malcolm of placing his wife and daughters in danger by setting the fire to the house himself. All of this and much more and the directors didn’t ask Ali a single question during the documentary about his role in any of it. In fact, the only semi-journalistic question they asked him is why he thought Malcolm was assassinated to which a fourth grader could have provided a more articulate answer. Absolutely disgraceful.

Finally, the documentary makes the point towards the end, through Todd Boyd, of stating that Muhammad Ali’s legacy of resistance i.e. refusing to be inducted into the U.S. military to fight in Vietnam, had been whitewashed through his role in the 1996 Olympics, etc. What they don’t mention is that from the time of Elijah Muhammad’s death in 1975, when the Nation of Islam was dismantled by Elijah’s heir apparent son Warith Deen Mohammad and Muhammad Ali began practicing Sunni Islam (and not the Nation of Islam’s brand of Black nationalist Islam), until Ali’s death in 2016, Ali made no public pronouncements about our struggle for liberation. His physical challenges are noted, but even his actions during that period i.e. the 96 Olympics, meeting with U.S. presidents, etc., contrasted with any type of independent African liberation stances. The point there is the most potent weapon against the individualistic interpretation of our history is the advancement of our mass struggle for justice and the need for everyone to belong to organizations fighting for our liberation. If more of us had that focus, we would understand clearly that we cannot depend upon our enemies to properly teach our history. Its our enemy’s job to misrepresent our history as they did with Ali those last 41 years of his life post-Nation of Islam. Its also their job to present Malcolm as a sad lesson in isolation, something none of us would ever wish to emulate. And, because so few of us explore our history on our own, we don’t realize how rich Malcolm’s life was. None of us wish to exit the planet the way Malcolm was unfortunately forced to exit, but that day in February 1965 will never define his legacy. African people are shot down all day everyday so clearly, that’s not why so many people know who Malcolm X is. Its that rich legacy of his courage and struggle for our dignity that inspires us to respect him and its that which our enemies work overtime to dim in our consciousness.

You will never find us discouraging anyone from watching and reading anything. Watch the documentary, but what we will tell you is you are ill-responsible if all you know about Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, the Nation of Islam, and our African liberation movement is what you learn from these documentaries and motion pictures. There is so much information out here at our fingertips that anyone who doesn’t pursue it to make that your foundation, not Netflix, is really just resigned to remaining in the slave mentality that they joyfully target to produce these projects in order to ensure we continue to stay in that mentality.

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A Critical Review of Netflix's "Blood Brothers - Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali

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