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The Liberal Elite & Its Conspiracy Against African Self Determination

2/29/2020

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

Over the last few years, especially since the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement throughout the U.S. Europe, Central, South America, the Caribbean, and even Africa, it has become common place in community spaces to hear people from all backgrounds say things like “listen to POC (people of color, or we say colonized people)” or “respect POC” or “respect African (Black) women”, etc. Unfortunately, in this bourgeoisie dominated world – meaning anything that doesn’t have a specific and tested commitment to the masses of people in humanity is automatically going to represent the interests of the ruling capitalist classes – these phrases, beyond their catchiness, have no concrete basis from which to evaluate how those objectives being yelled out are actually accomplished.

For many people, just saying these things has come to represent the fulfillment of their commitment to achieving and/or respecting the voices of colonized peoples. And, since these characterizations are classified using that bourgeoisie formula of anything goes, anything qualifies (another way of saying the status quo i.e. capitalism is the outcome), those phrases end up taking on the same arbitrary basis as other bourgeoisie catch phrases like “support our troops.” That phrase, widely used in capitalist societies where these “troops” are used as cannon fodder to ensure that capitalist domination of everyone’s natural and material resources continues, has taken on the same nebulous characteristics of “listen to POC” meaning saying it is all that actually needs to concretely happen, not ensuring it actually happens.

Evidence of this can be confirmed many ways, but we will just take on two examples. First, the preponderance of the willingness of all the “listen to POC” people to jump on the bandwagon of random colonized people who claim to speak for all of us, is telling. Its also interesting how these people consistently choose to ignore the constant voices of reasoned people who call upon us to support true political prisoners like Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (H. Rap Brown), Mutulu Shakur, Sundiata Acoli, or Leonard Peltier. The campaigns and efforts to bring attention to the immoral plights of these and other genuine political prisoners never receive any recognition or support from the “listen to POC” crowd while those people immediately buy into supporting people who have not only done nothing for human liberation, but using Bill Cosby for an example, use their platforms to further destroy the dignity of oppressed African people. Still, these “listen to POC” people will talk about Cosby, or R. Kelly, all day, while ignoring the 50 years and counting voices of “POC” who are telling you that our true political prisoners need much more support.

On a related note, while Hollywood and other imperialist committed media outlets continue to churn out trash that is supposed to pose as historical and/or cultural accounts of the forward progress of oppressed Africans, the “listen to POC” crowds, cheer on these hit pieces against the collective militancy and independence of our movements. These people champion garbage like “Selma” or “The Killing of Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman” or “Black Panther.” These projects, and others like them, do anything except listen to those of us who have been saying for years that people from the Nation of Islam may have pulled the trigger against Malcolm, but the U.S. government bought the bullets. These projects go to such great lengths to hide the militant and uncompromising elements of our actual struggle for liberation, instead choosing to portray all of us, all the time, as pacifists who desire nothing other than the approval and validation of European dominated societies. These projects tirelessly attempt to separate us from Africa in subtle ways while slyly reinforcing the notion that nothing outside of allegiance to Western capitalism will ever prove to be a viable road for us. Meanwhile, the militant, independent, uncompromising, and fiercely determined spirits of Malcolm X, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, the Congolese National Movement, the Black Panther Party, American Indian Movement, etc., are viciously and savagely assaulted to make any of us who dare speak from our own independent perspective appear as terrorists. And, the “POC speaks” crowds apparently have absolutely no problems with any of this as they are always the loudest in championing these sellout projects.

There is no surprise on our part about the role imperialist cultural media centers play in defanging our movements. That’s their role, but the fact so many people who claim to stand for independent voices of self determination for our peoples are so quick and determined to support these hatchet jobs against us is infuriating.

Finally, the absolute unwillingness and seeming contempt these so-called “listen to POC” people have for genuine efforts to develop self determination on the part of colonized people is the elephant in the room these days. These people who yell so quickly to respect us (this includes those of us among this element) are really saying that they support our voices only as long as our voices are saying what they want us to say. In other words, provided our voices support bourgeoisie capitalist agendas, elections, policies, etc., they support us. The minute we decide we are more interested in building our independent movements that do not fit inside their capitalist system paradigm, they not only have absolutely no interest in hearing us, they respond with hatred and sabotage against our efforts. Here we have many projects that reflect a genuine and true and concrete example of Africans building revolutionary institutions on the ground and these people who clamor about “listening to POC” never even flinch in support of any of this work.

What all of this should be telling those of us sincere about our self determination is that the more efforts we place into strengthening our movements, the more independent we will become. When this begins to happen, all these people will have absolutely no choice except to respect our efforts. Or, the moment it becomes crystal clear to them that we truly don’t need them, that’s when they will pay attention. So, for those of us concerned about this much deeper than just yelling out cliché slogans, all we have to do is keep working, keep building, and keep exposing these hypocrites. Our time is coming and that of course means their time is coming also.

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One Thousand Bernie Sanders Will Never Equal One Fidel Castro!

2/26/2020

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In the capitalist heartland known as the United States, there are many experiences you regularly encounter which, were they not so brutally oppressive and traumatic, would serve as the perfect comic fodder for any story telling environment. Certainly, at the top of this list is the periodic circuses titled elections that occur in this country. This is especially true when the president, the highest office in the country, is voted upon.

No matter what comes out of any serious candidate for U.S. President’s mouth, if they cannot generate a minimum of $100,000,000 million to wage their campaign, they aren’t going to seriously contend. With the international clown routine represented by the current president, and the equally weighted clowns running against him from the Democratic Party, the unfolding circus act known as the challenge to the presidency is top form foolery in this regard.

Here, in 2020, you have someone like Bernie Sanders who poses as a progressive and socialist minded politician. Then, you have his supporters who work overtime crafting sharp tools designed to shove his clown act down our throats as if our refusal to play along with this charade is actually the source of the problem.

Please don’t get me wrong. To those of you who have decided to go along with all of this, whether its Sanders or one of the other clown actors, nothing being written here is designed to attempt to get you to change your mind. Our efforts are focused on making sure those who are just as tired of this soft shoe act are receiving the necessary message that alternative thinking is still a possibility.

In the latest chapter of clown foolery, Sanders – in a rare moment of honesty and truth – expressed recently that the Cuban Revolution, led for its first several decades by comrade Fidel Castro, waged a very effective literacy campaign once the revolution came to power in January of 1959. As soon as Sanders uttered those words, which all of us who have bothered to read anything credible about Cuba have long already known, the forces of reaction which represent the capitalist media, the propaganda arm of multi-national capitalism, came out strong to denounce Sanders for his comments when what he said is the social equivalent of saying the sky is blue. Objective fact; prior to the Cuban Revolution, literacy in Cuba was about 15 to 20%, meaning only one or two out of 10 people could read effectively. After the revolution waged its literary campaign, literacy increased dramatically and today, Cuba has a literacy of rate of about 98%, meaning practically everyone in Cuba can read and write. The U.S. cannot make this claim. Most countries on earth cannot make this claim. Certainly, none of Cuba’s Caribbean capitalist dominated neighbor countries can claim this as most of those countries have literary rates today that are equal to or not much better than Cuba’s rates in 1959.

The reason we label Sanders, apparently the most progressive minded of all the Democratic Party clowns, as a fake progressive and fake socialist is because of what happened after the attacks against him to repudiate his comments started raining down against his campaign. He of course backtracked on defending anything about Fidel Castro and he went on to parrot the same old tired anti-communist rhetoric that has been leveled against Cuba on a steady basis by the U.S. capitalist media mechanisms. And, Sanders, like all U.S. politicians, is afraid of the reactionary anti-African, pro-capitalist, anti-Cuban Revolution European (98%) so-called “exile” Cuban community living in South Florida as well as general reactionary people in this country who are anti-Cuban Revolution. People in this country are anti-Cuban Revolution despite reading absolutely nothing about Cuba, socialism, socialist Cuba, or knowing anything about it beyond what they are told on television or what some misguided person who may have previously lived in Cuba (or knew someone who possibly did) has told them.

If people in the U.S. spent even a nominal amount of time actually studying Cuba’s accomplishments during their revolution of the last 61st years they would know that literacy is one of many outstanding accomplishments Cuba’s socialist system has achieved. They have eliminated mother to child HIV transmissions. They have effectively abolished cervical cancer. They have an educational system that even the imperialist dominated World Bank and United Nations publicly acknowledges as one of the best in the world. They have made major strides in improving the consciousness of their people against anti-people ideas like white supremacy, patriarchy, and homophobia (much of that is aided by those reactionary racist elements who have left Cuba over the last few decades). They have accomplished all of this while providing free health care and education to everyone, despite crippling sanctions, and terrorist attacks carried out and enforced by the U.S. against them for practically their entire revolutionary period. During this entire time, Cuba made commitments to serve humanity and they have done that. They are not a bragging people, but if they were, they could accurately claim that they did more than anyone else outside of Africa to sacrifice to ensure racist apartheid didn’t continue to exist and spread in Africa. And, they had 500,000 troops fighting in Southern Africa in the 80s and 90s (Cuba’s entire population is barely 11 million people so approximately 5% of their people fought in Africa). It was those 500,000 troops who made a major contribution towards ensuring Nelson Mandela was freed from prison in 1990 and that Namibia became independent. Not to mention Angola and Mozambique doing the same. In return for their great sacrifice in Africa, Cuba received nothing except more scorn and attacks from U.S. imperialism. Fidel Castro was the central figure in facilitating, leading, and ensuring all of this progress in and out of Cuba (in Africa). Cubans will tell you that Fidel individually commanded Cuban military efforts in Angola and Southern Africa from his station in Havana, Cuba and his leadership within the Communist Party of Cuba, their National Assembly (legislature), and their Committees for Defense of the Revolution (CDCs) is well documented.

For us, there is absolutely no way to talk about Cuba’s major advances and contributions without acknowledging Fidel Castro. I personally cringe whenever I see anyone praise Cuba without mentioning socialism and Fidel. All of it is completely inseparable. Fidel’s contributions to pushing humanity forward overwhelm any and everything all the U.S. presidents combined have ever even thought about doing. This brings us to Bernie Sanders. And, remember, we already said he is likely the most progressive of all of them, so the trap door opens and we need not even talk about the rest of them. Sanders, the so-called progressive and socialist, doesn’t even have the strength and organization backing him to speak accurately about Cuba and Fidel without having to qualify and repudiate Fidel and the revolution in the same breath. By backing, we mean an active movement for social justice and socialist development which would consist of millions of people who may choose to endorse Sanders, or anyone else, as a tactic, but electing some clown under capitalism would never be the primary focus of any serious movement building work. Instead, such a movement would be focused on pushing the capitalist system farther into true progressive lanes by building capacity to shut capitalism down if we don’t get universal (free) healthcare, free education, etc. Such a movement may use Sander’s campaign as a tactical approach, but it could never be totally focused on success through a bourgeoisie election. Still, any campaign based on integrity can never justify any reason for not telling the truth. And, this is why we could never respect Sanders because his inability to stand up against imperialism and tell the truth about the love that Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution have from most of the people who inhabit this planet, and his willingness to swing instantly into the same anti-communist (“we are not the same types of socialists as Fidel”), rhetoric tells us we could never respect him. If Sanders isn’t the same type of socialist as Fidel, that confirms for us that we could never have anything to do with him and the argument that he’s better than the current clown is the same to us as arguing in favor of one rapist over another. Non-starter argument. Plus, there is ample evidence to confirm that Sanders has a very suspect record as a so-called progressive. The reason he’s struggled up to the current time (that’s potentially changing because of the desperation of African people within the U.S.), with obtaining African votes is because he has never done anything to concretely challenge white supremacy. Up until 2016, most Africans didn’t even have a clear idea who he was. Yes, he “marched with Martin Luther King”, but a whole lot of people marched with King. People who went on to become political reactionaries marched with King. Police informants marched with King. That means absolutely nothing. Especially when Sanders has voted to support U.S. imperialist war efforts. Clearly, he may have marched with King, but he learned nothing from him. King was the voice of integrity. He’s dead because of his willingness to stand up against injustice, despite the personal cost, something Sanders and these other bourgeoisie politicians, and apparently most of their supporters, apparently know little about. He’s voted for policies placed forward by the current clown in office that he claims to be against. He voted to extradite Assata Shakur from Cuba, etc., etc., etc.

Again, if your thing is the Democratic Party and Sanders, or any of those professional clowns, than more power to you. Voting for any of them isn’t going to save us from the current clown if that’s your thinking. The only thing that will save us from this ever evolving cycle of misery is the power of the organized masses of people. Nothing else. There is no question that 1000 Bernie Sanders rolled up into one could not match the integrity, courage, and commitment to justice that comrade Fidel Castro displayed in all of his 90 years on Earth. Win or lose, 50 years from now if humanity is still here, no one will remember Bernie Sanders, but Fidel Castro’s contributions will be eternal. We are forever grateful to Fidel and we will always love him for his contributions to humanity. There is no clown show with bright lights and no comedy show pretending to be actual political debate, along with no campaign of foolery that can ever change that.

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

2/22/2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2/16/2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2/8/2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2/3/2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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