Ahjamu Umi's: "The Truth Challenge"

Dating Apps; Capitalism & Individualist Isolation as the Norm

11/8/2021

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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Individualism, Idealism & The Savage Attack against African Identity

9/9/2021

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In 2021 its not difficult to find African (Black) people throughout the U.S. who will tell you with a straight face that they do not believe that they are descendants from Africa. Instead, these folks claim that their ancestry extends for thousands of years within the Western Hemisphere. The correct response to this perspective is bless the good souls of these people because the cause behind their position is a complete lack of knowledge about Africa beyond what the capitalist system has force fed us for 500+ years.

The diamond industry that produces the rings that people buy when getting engaged to be married, the gold people buy for their selected jewelry, etc., is propped up based on the exploitative industry of theft of those minerals from Africa. The aluminum that makes sporting rims for vehicles not to mention foil to wrap our food in, is based on the exploitative bauxite industry in Africa. The production of the most desired and admired vehicles like Tesla, Mercedes Benz, BMW, etc., is based on exploiting Africa’s steel, zinc, Lithium, and rubber mineral resources. Also, the oil that provides the fuel for those vehicles is largely exploited from Africa. Even the simple enjoyment of a chocolate bar cannot happen without the exploitative cocoa industry which is based in Africa. This entire systemic apparatus of exploitation of all African resources was built from the colonization of Africa which began approximately 530 years ago. Before these brutal industries were established, the blueprint for this process was created through one of the worst holocausts in human history, the transatlantic slave trade. Literally millions of Africans were violently uprooted from Africa and displaced to the entire Western Hemisphere. The forced labor of these Africans provided the initial seed money that fueled the industrialization period. And this period contributed to the development of the capitalist system that is represented by the multi-national corporations like Nestle, Tesla, Chevrolet, Toyota, Shell, etc., that dominate all the exploitative industries previously mentioned.

These multi-national corporations have built their fortunes on mass murder and domination of the entire continent of Africa, but they will never publicly admit any of this. Instead, they have spent the last 500 years concocting a mass narrative that they are on top because of their hard work, focus, and undeniable belief in their God. This tactic has obviously been overwhelmingly successful for multiple reasons. The first reason is that this approach elevates the individualistic perspective of history that capitalism depends upon into the dominate position. Once individualism is dominant, fantasy and the illusion of forward progress will always continue to be an effective tool because now objective reality has been replaced with subjective desire and the hope of progress. What people wish the world was has replaced what the world actually is as the dominant reality. And, on top of all of this dysfunction, the vision of Africa has been built based on this individualistic model that paints a lying portrait of Africa as a “dark continent” with primitive people, no technology, no civilization, and no hope. This backward vision of Africa contrasted with the vision of the capitalist Western world as the citadel of human progress and civilization has driven the masses of Africans in Africa, Europe, and the Western world to believe that they have to make a choice between the civilizations of the forces who have subjugated them and the poor suffering continent that, in their eyes, offers them nothing to be proud of. In this tainted scale, the capitalist world wins because it represents forward progress and all that is desired in the world. There is even a saying that “to this point, only capitalism has proven an ability to produce the products that advance the planet.”

All of the above is exactly why we are fond of asking Africans who claim not to be African to inform us about studies they have engaged in about our African history. Here there is always an oblivion. Not just a lack of knowledge, but the complete absence of any information about Africa whatsoever. Think about it. Even the most basic elements of history are denied to practically everyone who exists in the Western world. The average person, even those of African descent within the U.S. for example, could not provide you a reasonable answer to any one of the following questions; what is capitalism? Where did capitalism come from? What role did Africa play in the development of the Western world? What was the process for carrying out the slave trade? What did an average day for a captured African look like in the 1500s? 1600s? 1700s? 1800s? What did a typical day on the slave plantation look like? Where does your biological family exist in the world today? In what ways did we fight back? What examples of resistance do you know about? All of these questions will be met by 95% of the population with utter confusion and these are the basic questions required to have even a fundamental understanding of who we are. Without that foundation, any and everyone, no matter how intelligent, is forced to accept the narrative of our enemies and embrace a Western identity (even if they do so in any form of resistance i.e. “I’m Black only”) because this process has completely cut us off from who we actually are.

And, with no healthy foundation of who we are, we are not in the position to understand even the basic history of what great contributions Africa has contributed to human history. None of these non-African, Africans, can ever tell you a single thing about Africa’s unquestionable contributions to the development of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. None of them can tell you about our contributions to science, debate, and even our creation of the world’s first documented university (Timbuktu in Mali, West Africa). They don’t know that the Greek philosophers they have been taught to believe laid the table for world philosophy got their training at Timbuktu (and they even wrote about it). They know nothing of our matriarchal histories throughout Africa where women identifying people were elevated without men being subjugated.

This complete cut off from Africa places us at the mercy of our colonial identities. As a result, we have come to view the world completely through the vision provided to us by these colonizers. We believe we are Black British, Afro-Cubans, Black Brazilians, Black-Canadians, African-Americans, Nigerians, Kenyans, etc. We see our interests as tied to the micro-states where we were born and where we live. Meanwhile, these micro-states have zero commitment to representing our interests, especially since they know that their continued prosperity is tied to the collective exploitation of Africa. So to them, we will forever be a threat to them, even if we don’t understand why (which we don’t) because they know that one day we will wake up and realize that the riches that they command come from the same place that we do.

African identity is much more than glamorizing our past. For proponents of Pan-Africanism its really a recognition that there are 2 billion Africans worldwide, living in 120 countries and in each of those countries we occupy the bottom of society. And, at the core of this is the continued subjugation of Africa.

The great thing about Pan-Africanism is an African can be Puerto Rican, Dominican, Brazilian, Canadian, etc., and still recognize that our core interest and progress as a people is intrinsically linked to the liberation of Africa. We would never wish to deny our experiences over the last 500+ years because our ability to survive despite the trauma we experienced is a badge of honor and a testament to the strength of our African culture which is without question the resource that has guided us through this hell we have experienced. What does that culture look like? When people say things like “what Black people do” really what they are saying is our refusal, conscious or unconscious, to change or compromise who we are is actually our African culture manifesting itself in ways that protect us. This has permitted us to survive as we have. Torn, beaten down sometimes. Confused, but still here and as a result, potentially ready to fight back.

That African culture has never left us, whether we know that or not is ill-relevant. Its always been here and we use it all day, every-day. And, our culture is a collective one and that’s why the individualist approach has never worked for us and it never will. All that approach will do is confuse us into accepting the logic of our enemies that our problems are our fault as individuals. Some individual failing that God is punishing us for because we are inferior. This is the basis of white supremacy which is the foundation of the capitalist system and we already told you where capitalism came from so clearly, none of this is healthy and productive for us to pursue.

Its time for us to raise the bar. No talk about identity that isn’t accompanied by study and analysis of our history. It’s tragically unfortunate that people are paying these corporations hundreds of dollars to tell them what we already know, that we are Africans. Its tragically unfortunate that so many of people, completely ignorant about who we are, feel the need to lie and make a history they cannot document instead of learning the true and glorious history of who we are. Its tragically unfortunate that capitalism has reduced truth down to nothing more than a subjective interpretation that varies from individual to individual “based upon your truth being your truth.” This is absolute nonsense designed strictly to justify the injustices that are normalized as the natural order of things. We are Africans, period. Even Mother Nature knows this and any African who straightens their hair is reminded of this as soon as the elements of Earth hit that hair.

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An Anti-Materialistic Person's Tribute to A Long Time Metal Comrade

8/17/2021

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In December of 2004, I bought this SUV. Since that time it has served as my primary vehicle and by primary I mean that thing has driven through Mexico and Canada. It has carried me across the country. But, more important than that is the actual reason why I see the need to celebrate a piece of metal. That vehicle I relied upon through some of the most scary and traumatic moments of my adult life.

In 2011 and 2012 I was engaged in helping lead some radical and dangerous housing justice work. I was getting peppered sprayed and getting in fist fights helping protect people’s houses when the big secret I held was that during that time, I myself didn’t have a place to stay. In the course of abandoning my long time work within the finance industry (trying to play the double role finally caught up with me), I was in between any real job and having never faced that reality before, I didn’t know how to deal with it. How to ask for help. So, for about 14 months, this piece of metal served as my living quarters. Southeast Portland, Oregon, U.S. will forever serve as a sentimental place for me because it was throughout that neighborhood that I slept in my vehicle all those nights. I’ll always remember the night before a huge action and the well intentioned European organizer/accomplices were concerned about the police trying to locate and pick me up to try and derail the event. I calmly and consistently reassured them. There was no way the police would know how to find me that night. I didn’t even know where I would be myself.

I used my political work as cover. I could serve as security for the houseless vigil at city hall, parked in front, sitting in my vehicle. No one else needed to know that I would have had no where else to go anyway. I enjoy the thoughts of it because even if I had a place to live during those days, I know that I would have still been where I was. Where the danger was, because work needed to be done. I’ll always remember all those nights having no gas money and worried like hell that I’d run out of gas or worse, that SUV would break down. Somehow that I’ll never fully understand beyond crediting the ancestors, I never ran out of gas and that SUV never stopped working, even when by all rights it should have because of how much I was unable to maintenance it during that period.

Many dangerous missions were carried out in that vehicle. Shots were fired at it by intolerant elements. Lonely roads were traveled many times late at night. Sometimes with people of ill intent in pursuit. By my latest recollection, between California, Washington, and Oregon, I was pulled over in this vehicle at least 20 times.

Then there are the times I needed it to drive through intense snow. I lived for a time in a place in Oregon where heavy snow happens nine months a year.

I’m the least materialistic person you will ever know. I don’t care about houses, cars, etc. As long as the house is comfortable and I can maintain it. As long as the car looks decent and drives fine, I’m good. This SUV was special though because it was there for long trips. Organizing trips. It was there for every facet of political work I engaged in from 2004 through today, August 17, 2021 (the birthday of Marcus Mosiah Garvey). It served as a reliable resource in every way I needed, at times when I needed it the most.

If you can read between the lines here, then you should pick up that this really isn’t a tribute to a vehicle. Its an acknowledgement of the struggle that takes place everyday. The ancestors who always guide me through and a reminder of the struggles I myself have come through. The good times and the bad. The comrades, rolling from here to there. The loading of people and equipment for events. Dang, that was my vehicle when my daughter graduated from high school. The night I went to jail for defending myself against a domestic abuser who made the mistake of thinking they could abuse me, the police tried to impound my SUV until I challenged them. The number of events that vehicle played a crucial role in helping organize from sound equipment for African Liberation Days to carrying a vehicle full of folks to the American Indian Movement’s Un-thanksgiving at the crack of dawn. I can go on and on, but the point is not the black 2005 Tahoe vehicle. It’s the memories and people. I traded in the vehicle today, but writing this has helped me recognize that all of those memories are mine forever.

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Black August, COINTELPRO & Learning The Important Lessons

8/9/2021

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As 2021 moves along there are a number of things that, like the sun following the moon, remain constant. The international capitalist system continues to utilize its control over our brain waves to promote, institutionalize, and normalize lies, confusion, and misinformation. The masses of humanity continue to resist this oppression in any number of creative and evolving ways. And, the forces attempting to organize against the system continue to claim complete mastery over how the government manipulated our movements in the past while simultaneously and foolishly behaving in the same destructive ways, especially on social media, that sabotaged our work in decades past.

The theory here is that capitalism is relentless in promoting the individualistic vision of life as the one and only way that we can effectively carry out our existence. By individualistic we mean that we are taught that the dysfunctional and subjective ways that we view the world is all that we need to participate in and even lead movement work. As a result, many people who genuinely believe that they are exercising healthy approaches in the work that they do are actually acting in ways that result in lots of drama and unnecessary conflict. Conflict that our individualistic vision prevents us from recognizing is being used on a much broader scale against our movement work in ways that will adversely impact us for years to come.

This past Saturday, August 7, 2021, represents the 51th commemoration of the Marin County Courthouse incident involving Johnathan Jackson, William Christmas, James McClain, and Rutchel Magee. Most people know the general history of that incident (and if you don’t, information about it is everywhere), but far less people know of the confusion and distrust that influenced the events of that day. Confusion that was completely and ill-refutably orchestrated by federal police agencies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had developed a nationally coordinated intelligence program called the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). This program had a number of variations dating back to the 1920s when the Department of Justice (the pre-runner to the FBI) engaged in successful sabotage efforts against Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, but by 1967, a new and improved COINTELPRO was released. This program, under the seedy direction of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and facilitated by soulless FBI officials like Cartha DeLoach and William Sullivan, had the specific objective of dismantling the African liberation movement. Back in those days there were very few African FBI agents, so the FBI relied primarily on undercover police informants. These informants represented African people who were facing criminal charges from the U.S. government. Once the FBI profiled these people and determined that they had the temperament to help them, they would offer these people paid work to join our movement organizations and gather information that the FBI could use to filter down to state and local police departments who were reporting to and cooperating with the FBI through this nationally coordinated program. Since these people were facing criminal charges if they refused, and most them had zero political education and/or commitment to our liberation struggle anyway, the FBI had little trouble finding plenty of these people to work for them. From information these people provided to the FBI, the bureau knew that gang antagonisms existed between the US Organization in Los Angeles and the L.A. Black Panther Party membership. They knew that Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter, the founder of the L.A. Black Panther Party Chapter, was the former head of the Slausens Street organization (what people call gangs) and that para-military elements within the US Organization who led that branch of that organization were recruited from gangs that saw Carter and other Panthers as rivals. Once the FBI had this information, they knew the weak points and where to push against our organizations. The results were a number of Black Panthers being killed, including Carter, a complete disruption of political unity in Los Angeles, and all of this happened without anyone at the time having a clear understanding of why this was taking place.

The events of August 7, 1970, were not immune to these contradictions. There were always struggles within the Black Panther Party over the concept of waging in an out and out war against the empire, and that meant armed struggle, and the focus on the Panther’s “survival programs.” The FBI knew this and they also knew that many of these contradictions were manifested through divisions in the above ground Panther organizing work and those operating within the underground movements. For example, there were elements who wanted to take militant action to free comrade and Soledad Brother George Jackson from prison. Work to create that plan was developed and centered around the 17 year old brother of George, Johnathan Jackson. Geronimo Ji Jaga (Pratt) had assumed leadership within the L.A. Panther Chapter after the assassinations of Bunchy Carter and John Huggins in January, 1969. Ji Jaga, working to try and solidify that Panther chapter that had obviously been under systematic attack (as was the case nationally with Black Panther Chapters and branches), made an attempt to challenge the feasibility of taking action to free comrade George. In fact, according to eye witness accounts, and FBI records (because remember, everything that was happening, they were aware of), Ji Jaga gave orders to abandon the jail break attempt, but due to COINTELPRO interference, that message apparently never reached young Johnathan on the day of August 7th. According to FBI file documents, this miscommunication was the objective of the FBI as they hoped the result would be an action that was so poorly carried out that it would have no consequences and would embarrass and discredit the Black Panther Party. Ji Jaga apparently thought the action was dead and the FBI probably thought nothing significant would come of it, but the feds underestimated the determination of young Johnathan Jackson. Evidently undeterred by conflicting information and misinformation, Johnathan soldiered his part and entered the Marin County Courthouse on August 7, 1970, armed and prepared to liberate James McClain, William Christmas, and Rutchel Magee, so that they could free George and do much more for our struggle. Its important that we never forget that the FBI is a soulless organization. Their sabotage work was designed to ensure that the incident on that day would not succeed in its objective to liberate George Jackson. Beyond that, they surely had no concern about who was killed, injured, etc., even if some of those people were courthouse employees. In fact, FBI documents summarizing the days events celebrated the moment Johnathan came into the courtroom, focusing on his moment of indecision due to the lack of people being in place that the plan had called for (when the plan was constructed and before it was blocked, all of which was apparently unknown by Johnathan Jackson). Able to recover from his momentarily and alleged surprise, Johnathan made his famous announcement “gentlemen! We are taking over now!” And, the incident continued with Jackson, McClain, and Christmas, being murdered that day along with a number of courtroom personnel including the judge. Rutchel Magee, 51 years later, remains incarcerated.

For anyone with a soul, the results of August 7, 1970, should disturb you. A 17 year old warrior and other comrades were lost and although we understand the moral victories we derive from that action 51 years later, the adverse impact the incident had in helping create the atmosphere that pretty much made it open season on attacking African liberation organizations are things we still struggle with today. Also, anyone who knows of the devastating internal antagonisms that resulted from the aftermath of the incident and the miscommunications and distrust within the Black Panther Party membership understands what’s meant when we say our enemies got their way. The same can be said for the internal dynamics that have haunted the American Indian Movement surrounding the circumstances of the murder of American Indian Movement leader Anna Mae Pictoh Aquash. Just like the Panthers, those wounds are still wide open in 2021. This is important because those wounds impacted the capacity of each organization.

What all of this should mean for us in 2021 and beyond is you are extremely naïve if you don’t believe that the same level of monitoring against all of our organizations is taking place in 2021 that was taking place in 1967. As was stated, COINTELPRO came through several manifestations so clearly, what we are facing today is not going to be the same as it was in 1967, but its still happening. And, just because you don’t see it means absolutely nothing. No one saw it in 1967 either and the level of technical capacities available today to prevent you from seeing far exceed what was in existence 50+ years ago. So, although we probably won’t have the clear evidence for some years now, you can bet your bottom that everything you say, do, talk about, think about, etc., is being monitored, filed, and strategized around for how it can be used against all of us. Some of us talk so much that you may say 1000 things and none of them are ever used, but don’t let that confuse you into thinking nothing is happening. Also, the level of participation you have or think you have is completely ill-relevant. Even a movement nonentity like William O’Neil could be molded to get close enough to a significant leader like Fred Hampton to cause ill-reversible damage. This is actually a constant strategy used by our enemies. Another thing they rely upon is our indoctrination in that individualism and the proliferation of the ego being centered in whatever capacities we have. The reliance of social media in today’s organizing work is a strong catering tool for that proliferation of ego and the ability of people to create whatever type of reality for themselves and others that they desire. All of this is being closely monitored, studied, and strategized around by the enemies of humanity. And, people today are probably as naïve as we were 50 years ago in thinking that nobody cares about what we are saying, etc. At least we hope that this is the case because if not, it would have to mean that people just don’t care how much what they are doing is harming real movement building.

Best practices to combat this effort to bring us down is to practice time tested things that strengthen our movement instead of providing our enemies all of the fuel they need to attack us. Remember that disagreements are a natural part of the growth process and that there is no rule that we have to agree with everyone to have a positive relationship with them. It’s the strong who can work with and respect people they don’t agree with because those people understand that everyone has a contribution to make. Its only the egotistically fragile who believe that their way is the only way and anyone who doesn’t see the world the way they do is the enemy. The FBI loves those of you who believe that last sentence. Develop some intellectual maturity and discipline. When disagreements arise make it a practice to take them to the people they involve and absolutely no one else. Learn how to engage in principled ideological struggle over disagreements and practice keeping those disagreements ideological and not personal. If you cannot subvert your dislike for someone in the interest of not providing fuel for our real enemies, then you lack the maturity to be involved in this work on any meaningful level. Dislike them, but struggle principally with them. Doing so will make you feel better about yourself and will make the person you dislike respect you more which will help stall out negativity because you will recognize the courage you manifested in taking the struggle directly to the parties involved. In turn, they will also see that because they will feel the accountability you brought to them with your principled approach. All of this only makes us stronger while denying our enemies the fuel they are looking for to use against us. If we aren’t willing to implement these simple practices and if we continue to refuse to learn from the lessons of the past, then we are demonstrating that what we are doing now has little to do with mass liberation and more to do with personal advancement and ego gratification. Don’t be that person. Let’s make sure our elders and ancestors didn’t suffer for nothing.

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Simone Biles, African Athletes, U.S. Patriotism & White Supremacy

8/4/2021

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During the 2020 Olympic games, which due to the pandemic are being carried out in the summer of 2021, gymnast Simone Biles, suddenly withdrew from competition for the U.S. team. Biles, who has been so dominant in her performance over the last several years that she has earned the title of GOAT (greatest of all time), has been so outstanding that many judges have admitted being confused about how to properly evaluate other gymnasts in comparison to Bile’s incredible capabilities.
Biles, apparently feeling pressure to justify her decision to withdraw, took the painful step of revealing publicly that she has struggled with depression and needed time away from the sport to manage her mental health. She expressed that the depression results in large part from the abuse she experienced for an extended time from her gymnast coach. Neither her dominant performance in gymnastics or her admission about the reasons for her withdrawal have muted the incredible level of criticism that is being waged against her by a large swath of people who are calling her a coward and someone who has abandoned her teammates at the Olympics. And this harsh criticism hasn’t just originated from random people. It has been echoed by national media personalities, politicians, etc. These people are exhibiting zero empathy for her suffering whatsoever.

We have seen this same scenario many times as it relates to how African athletes are evaluated. Professional athletes like Barry Bonds and Kevin Durant are often criticized for their demeanor during press conferences and in interacting with the public. They are often called “ungrateful” and “spoiled” because of their unwillingness to be everything the general public wants them to be at any given moment. Meanwhile, follow professional athletes like Larry Bird and Aaron Rodgers, both European (white) will never win any magnanimous personality awards. Neither has a shining reputation for being patient and engaging with the public, yet neither has been subjected to the venom that comes for Bonds, Durant and other African athletes on a daily basis.

Another instance revolves around San Francisco Giants Baseball Pitcher Jay Jackson. An African relief pitcher, Jackson has performed well for the Giants this season up to last week of July when he had three consecutive rough outings. For those unfamiliar with baseball jargon, what that means is Jackson was batted around by the opposition in three games and for that he received such a barrage of racist hate mail that the Giants baseball organization felt the need to respond to repudiate the racism directed at Jackson.

What ties all of these incidents together is the underlining white supremacy that operates on a systemic level within every crevice of every function within this society. The foundation of rightwing pundit Laura Ingraham’s admonition to LeBron James last year to “shut up and dribble” is the belief on behalf of millions of people in this country that every breath we take as African people is somehow a privilege that we have not earned, but has been provided to us by the glorious United States of America – the citadel of freedom and democracy. This belief is firmly rooted in the myth of white supremacy that advances the notion that African/Indigenous, and other colonized people have never contributed anything to the “development” of this country. Instead, this myth argues that we been the benefactors of the hard-work, values, and ordained blessings of white Jesus on this great European nation. And, as a result of this lucky position we find ourselves in, we should consider ourselves fortunate to have the opportunity to earn money playing a sport for the entertainment of large, mostly European crowds and owners. We should be honored that Europeans, the only true “Americans”, even permit us to represent their great country because certainly, we have done absolutely nothing to earn such an honor.

This white supremacist thinking explains where the venomous response to Silver medal winning Shot-putter Ravin Saunders medal stand protest (against injustice against colonized and oppressed people) comes from. It also explains why fans at professional basketball games feel perfectly justified cursing at players, throwing popcorn and spitting on them (Atlanta’s Trae Young and Washington’s Russell Westbrook). It also explains why tennis player Naomi Osaka was met with the same disdain for pulling out of the Wimbledon and Olympics tournaments for similar reasons as the ones Biles provided. This marginalization of African athletes, whether anyone admits it or not, is rooted in the white supremacist notion that we are nothing beyond the tools of European capitalism, to be used completely to their satisfaction. Beyond that, we have no agency they need to respect and the idea of viewing us as complete human being is as absurd as suggesting during the enslavement of our ancestors that they were full human beings.

I love sports and baseball is one of them. I’ve been a fan of my San Francisco Giants (my city of personal origin) since being a little boy. As I listened to the Giants game earlier this week when pitcher Jay Jackson was having a difficult time getting opposing batters out, I was keenly aware of the rancor being directed at him by the announcers, who are allegedly supposed to always be objective. They were talking about how “horrible” the pitches he was throwing were and how poorly his approach was to trying to get hitters out. I have played, watched, and listened to thousands of basketball, football, baseball, etc., games over the years. Anyone else who has already knows that bad performance is a part of sports, but all one has to do is compare the sentiment expressed around it when African athletes struggle compared to their European counterparts to see the glaring contradictions.

The underlining issue is African people are not respected as human beings. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, we are viewed as show animals. Pay attention to how African athletes, regardless of what country they “represent” are labeled and analyzed. Clearly, the values of chattel slavery are still very evident today. The dehumanization of African people is an essential part of maintaining the capitalist system. They have to separate us from our humanity because to see us as fully functioning human beings would bring into play the contradictions that exist within this society. Contradictions that if fully exposed, shine bright lights on the international capitalist system that depends upon those contradictions to continue to exploit and profit from our human and material resources, particularly in Africa, but everywhere African people exist.

The positive thing is these examples illustrate clearly how the manifestations of capitalism work. Nothing falls outside of the realm of white supremacy. Not a single thing. From a single gymnast in the Olympics to the performance of the garbage worker to even a Hollywood actor, white supremacy permeates every crevice of this society. And the only thing that will change this reality is when the African masses demand and achieve the respect we rightfully deserve and the only thing that will ever produce this result is the liberation and unification of Africa (under one continental socialist government) = Pan-Africanism. As we currently exist, even an African gymnast or shot-putter in the U.S. doesn’t fall outside of these parameters. A professional basketball player playing in the U.S. who was born and raised in Greece doesn’t fall outside of this. Nothing and no one does. And, for those who doubt Pan-Africanism is our solution to these problems, just stop and think for a moment why it is that you will never hear the same disrespect and dehumanization being leveled at athletes (or anyone) from any European country or even China (where they are engaged in a similar type of building up of China that we need for Africa). This is ill-refutably true whether athletes from those countries have failings in their performances (which they do) or not. As long as African people in general, and Africa in particular, are disunified, even being a famous millionaire athlete is never going to be enough to protect anyone from the ravages of this backward system. And, if Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka are subjected to this inhumane treatment, just imagine the experiences of the everyday masses of African people. What we are seeing with how our athletes are being treated is another very clear example that individualism, regardless of how much money it generates, is never going to be the solution for us to acquire the dignity that no amount of money on earth will ever be enough to purchase. As Kwame Nkrumah correctly articulated, our problem is political, not economic. Political in the sense that we need organization of our people. Even the silly Olympic games provide insight to how unity would show our power. Imagine a team representing a united Africa. Where Africans born in Brazil, Jamaica, the U.S., Britain, and every country of Africa are on the same united Africa team against the rest of the world. It would be a struggle for anyone else to win even a single bronze medal in anything except the few sports that African people don’t participate in like that silly horse jumping nonsense. And, that’s just the Olympics. The same dynamic would be in play for international politics and economics and every sphere of life that African people currently struggle to gain a seat at the table in. Its past time that we recognize this because even if we don’t, the people brutalizing us understand this clearly. This is the reason they come at us as hard as they do because they know that the moment we recognize that playing by their rules will never benefit us is the day they know their days are numbered.

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Simone Biles, African Athletes, U.S. Patriotism & White Supremacy

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