Blog Archives

The Science behind Protesting; From Spontaneous to Organized

3/30/2018

Just to be 100% clear. I’m not a protester. I don’t belong to a protest organization. Philosophically, I believe the primary problem oppressed people face is we lack power. Plain and simple. As a result, I believe, and my life and work is dedicated to, working with oppressed people to organize ourselves to achieve power. This is a completely different type of organizing work than most people understand today. Since our work is focused on the oppressed people, and not our enemies, we spend all our time talking to our people. For example, we never call the media for any of our work. The job of the capitalist media is to protect the interests of the capitalist system, which is the system that oppresses us. So, how can they provide any support or help to our work? We don’t need them, so we don’t call them. We talk to our people. And, as an extension to that point, since we are working with our people to build capacity to seize power from our enemies, there is never any need for us to go to the power structure we are fighting against to demand anything. To us, our power comes from us gaining capacity to take back what was stolen from us and that doesn’t happen by us demanding anything from the people who took everything from us. Instead, our plan is to get strong enough so that one day, we can just walk right over their chest. Whether you accept it or not, that’s what we believe.

Since those are our beliefs, you will never see us at any city council meetings. We aren’t marching the streets demanding anything from capitalism. We are 100% in support of those who decide to do those things. We support their efforts and have spent considerable amounts of our time and energy protecting those who engage in that work, but its not the focus of our work. Still, we approach liberation work with a mixture of science and emotion, not just emotion. So, our experiences have permitted us to participate in many protests over the years as well. We have attended many city council, state government, national government, and even international non-governmental protests over the years. That’s why even though that work isn’t our work, we have a better analysis about that work than many people who believe they are engaged in it.

That’s true not necessarily due to any shortcomings from the mobilization folks out on the streets. Protests, marches, etc., serve as the entry point for many people into social justice work. This is true because a march, which is a reaction to something unjust that has happened, or is happening, is the most basic level of activism as a strategic way of permitting anyone from any level of consciousness to participate. For example, an African is unjustly killed by the police. A march is called for. Without any previous experience and no real scientific understanding of the forces that oppress us, all you have to do is show up and march. Therefore, marches/protests are great activities and very necessary. For us, its just that we entered through that door almost 40 years ago. We believe that our work since then has shown us a much better ideological, philosophical, and practical approach to addressing our oppression, but we recognize everyone has to travel at their own pace.
So, we write this not to criticize protests. As we have said clearly on many occasions, we wholeheartedly support all aspects of civil disobedience. We support marches. We support taking over meetings. We support shutting down freeways, etc. All of it. In fact, we are writing this to give perspective to protesting because much confusion exists surrounding the purpose of protests, marches, etc.

A very common misconception about protests that shut down streets, freeways, etc., is that the purpose of the action is to gather support from the public. And certainly, any support that evolves from these protests is always welcome, but that’s not really the strategic objective of protests. I always cringe when I hear entitled motorists, delayed due to the protest, harping about how the protestors won’t get support by inconveniencing people. Please talk talking. Its not about you. The purpose of the protest is to highlight the fact that oppressed people are powerless. Most entitled people go through their day each day without ever recognizing the powerlessness of oppression. So, the protestors, realizing this, strategically shut down the street you are depending on to get you where you are going because by doing so, they make you powerless. You are sitting there, stuck in your vehicle, lacking the power to get where you want to go. If you have ever actually participated in a protest and/or supported a protest (and as I’ve said, I have countless times) then you have had the opportunity to observe the people who are being “inconvenienced.” When they have to wait, even for a very short period of time, the people who oppose the protest are never patient. They are never willing to wait. They immediately demand an end to their “suffering” abet all 30 seconds of it. Often, these people quickly want to turn violent against the protestors. The excuse they always use is the protestors are yelling at them while they can’t get where they are going. In Sacramento where I live, these same complainers were completely bent out of shape because they were overwhelmingly and brutally oppressed from being able to enjoy their Kings basketball game. Without question, this violation sits right up there with the most heinous crimes against humanity.

The point is these same types of people never seem to understand why people react emotionally when a Stephon Clark, or anyone anywhere, is killed by state sanctioned terrorism. They cannot understand why people just don’t accept what is happening without reacting? In other words, they are unwilling to sit for 30 seconds behind a protest against state sanctioned killing of African people, yet incredibly, at the same time, these same people will complain because the victims of this state sanctioned murder are not willing to sit and wait for justice. From the perspective of the protestors, their tactic is to teach these entitled people what it feels like to be disrespected. Many will never learn this lesson, but some will.

Something that would help facilitate this even better would be better organization of these protests. Most of the time, the protests are completely spontaneous. No planning. No objective. Just hitting the streets to vent frustration at the injustice. That’s not a bad thing. Its just that we can do so much better. Envision planning a protest? Recruiting people to serve on shifts so that the protest can last so much longer. Targeting an entity so that the protest can be strong and focused enough to inflict damage on that entity e.g. economic suffering. How about having people to coordinate these shifts? Organizing rides so that people who are stuck on public transportation, due to the protests, can still get to their miserable minimum wage jobs? How about having written propaganda and people trained to articulate it, to talk to these people so that they can realize their true frustration isn’t at the protest. Its at the fact they have to go that miserable job in the first place. How about we connect the conditions that produced the need for that miserable job to the state sanctioned oppression that killed the African? Not hard to do. Both result from capitalism. What if we trained people to be able to have those conversations? How about a structured objective from all this work that comes from the movement. Not from bureaucrats and sellouts coming together to undercut the militancy of the movement?

We don’t have any of those things in place today because most of the protestors are far too new to the work to even understand how to go about creating those elements. And then, there are the other undisciplined elements who hit the streets who have absolutely no intention of organizing anything. And they have the arrogance to brag about that. Many of those people aren’t interested in a solution to the oppression. They are just angry. Have mental health issues, are lazy and undisciplined, or any combination of all of those things. These people just want to let off steam. They have no intention of engaging in the work necessary to solve these problems.

Since our politics are revolutionary, we do have the big picture. And although we have no interest in creating conditions for further reform of the capitalist system, we are always willing to help activists who pursue reform learn how to better organize their protests as we have indicated here. Why? Because the better organized people become, the better our work will be. The better our work, the closer we can get to pushing the system to respond to our efforts. The more we push the system, the more the serious activists will realize the system doesn’t have the desire or capacity to address our issues. But, don’t worry, there is never any need for us to push our views on anyone. The more people bump their heads against capitalist bureaucracy, the more they realize on their own that it isn’t about adjusting this system. Its about destroying this system. So, we are just here to help because we, more than many of the people at the protests, are not interested in seeing our people marching and making demands in spontaneous ways 100 years from now. We accept the definition of insanity. Doing something the same way each time and expecting a different result. How about we stop acting like we are insane?

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The Wakandan Fantasy versus our Pan-African Reality

3/28/2018

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The Black Panther motion picture movie is on course to be one of the highest grossing movies in the history of commercial cinema. The success of this movie is unprecedented for a movie so focused on Africa and African people.

The movie’s attempt to depict a self-sufficient African society where people have dignity and power has a strong pull to the masses of African people who cry out for that type of liberation in real life. That’s why its not difficult to understand why the slogan “Wakanda forever” is maintaining such popularity across the globe.

The problem of course is Wakanda, the fictional home of the Black Panther and his people, doesn’t exist in real life Africa. In fact, for people who are legitimately concerned about the state of the real life Africa, the question looms as to why a fictional African homeland could create so much excitement for the children of Africa?

Of course, the answer to that question is that African people have suffered from colonialism, slavery, and neo-colonialism for over 500 years. Consequently, the truth about Africa’s glorious history has been buried under years of brutal lies and distortions designed to depict Africa and her children as ignorant, lazy, and incapable of making any type of productive contribution to this world we live in. As a result of this systemic propaganda war against Africa, millions of Africans today, regardless of where we live on Earth, have absolutely no desire to relate in any way to Africa. And why would our people want to relate to our homeland when all we have been taught about her is that people in Africa cannot feed themselves. That we cannot exist without destroying one another. And, that we are incapable of governing a society without the guidance of our great white fathers and mothers from Europe, Israel, and the U.S.

All people are organically connected to their homelands because our homelands produce our culture and our culture defines our existence. Without that, we are lost as human beings. Consequently, our people – who have been violently ripped from our African history and culture - yearn strongly for a connection to Mother Africa, but since we don’t understand how and why Africa ended up in the state she’s in currently, many of us prefer to ignore the realities of Africa today. Its much less painful for us to instead focus on creating and relating to a mythical homeland then dealing with the problems in the one that actually exists.

What all of this really says in a scientific and correct way is that when we project Wakanda, what we are doing is expressing our desire to see Africa united, liberated (and socialist). This is the vision we are really pursuing in Wakanda because that is the vision that creates our real life Wakanda.

We all know that we cannot expect anything if we are not willing to work and sacrifice for it. This is especially true for oppressed people. Our real life Wakanda isn’t going to fall from the sky and it isn’t going to come alive off the movie screen. Our real life Wakanda will become reality only when we are willing and ready to work for it. The good news is that the framework is already in place. Many people have already sacrificed to create the initial groundwork to carry us forward. The vision of people like Henry Sylvester Williams, Anna Julia Cooper, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Amy Jacque Garvey, George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, Patrice Lumumba, Imbalia Camara, Carmen Peirera, Mangaliso Sobukwe, Elizabeth Sibeko, David Sibeko, Malcolm X, Thomas Sankara, Kwame Ture, Muammar Quaddafi, and many others, speaks to that desire to see the achievement of our dignity. That real life Wakanda. That one, unified, socialist Africa. That Pan-Africanism.

Pan-Africanism, once manifested, is the solution to every problem facing African people regardless of where we live on the planet Earth. The problems of starvation? Pan-Africanism requires us to utilize the over 600 million hectares of arable land in Africa that is currently being un-utilized, to grow food that will feed the African masses. Lack of potable water? Pan-Africanism requires us to cultivate our lands, build necessary dams, (as was done by Libya in the Sahara before imperialism sabotaged that effort), and produce water for everyone in Africa. Police terrorism? The achievement of one unified, socialist, Africa, converts Africa from a dependent place to an independent entity that must be respected. The accompanying respect removes the disrespect that permits state terrorists to murder Africans without impunity in the Americas, Caribbean, Europe, and Canada. Poverty? Pan-Africanism nationalizes Africa’s vast mineral wealth and cultivates that wealth to eliminate employment issues and lack of opportunities for our people.

Pan-Africanism equals dignity for African people. The type of dignity we can achieve in real life. The type of dignity we are looking for through a movie. We want it. We need it. We deserve it. The question is are we willing to work for it? Do we desire to create the conditions that will generate true happiness for our people or are we content to live with the temporary upliftment this movie will provide us?

When we decide we are willing to work to achieve our real life dignity, than that will require us to stop complaining about our problems. We will need to stop fantasizing about solutions to our problems. We will need to make a choice to do what those ancestors named previously did. We will need to join organizations that are working to build fighting capacity for our people. We will need to make a commitment to build those organizations and make them stronger than they were when we joined them. We will need to commit to hang in there when it gets difficult. We will need to pledge to learn how to work with each other, no matter what. We will need to agree to refuse to give up. All these attributes are what’s required to make our real life Africa the place that we aspire for in that movie.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, a man who did much to contribute to Africa, once said that “revolution must be guided by love.” That means when you decide to sacrifice for your people, you do so because you love your people. You do so because you love justice. It’s that level of consciousness that makes us do the things mentioned in the previous paragraph. And, if we are serious about winning then we will need to do all of those things.

We have proven that we can get dressed up in the finest African attire to go see a movie. We have proven that we can communicate far and wide, on international levels, about that movie. Now, its time for us to prove to ourselves that we understand that Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, and all those other Africans, had a vision of African dignity long before Marvel Corporation knew how to spell Africa. When we begin to manifest this, that real life Wakanda we are searching for will exist in Rwanda, Luanda, and the rest of the real live African world.

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The Stephon Clark Killing; Let's Build Revolutionary Communities

3/22/2018

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This past Sunday, in Sacramento, California, where I presently live, another African was shot and killed by state sanctioned terrorists (police) for no logical reason. Twenty-two year old Stephon Clark was killed by Sacramento police while knocking on his grandmother's backyard entrance to her house.

According to the grandmother, her family often sought to visit her through her back door because it was known that there were issues with the front doorbell. The police claim that Stephon was running away from them and despite their offering an infrared video of this, their story, of course, doesn't make sense to anyone with cognitive capabilities.

I'm not one to believe anything the police say about anything. If they said the world was round I would have to question it because I know that they lie as policy. I'm also not someone who can be convinced that their purpose for existing serves any objective beyond protecting the capitalist system for the super rich. As an institution, they evolved from the slave patrols that terrorized my people during and after slavery. So, you will never be able to convince me that the police were ever, or can ever, be here to "protect and serve." My beliefs have nothing to do with your brother, sister, friend, or neighbor who unfortunately happens to "serve" as a police officer. 500+ years of empirical evidence guides my analysis. For example, the question in the Stephon Clark shooting was raised as to why the police took so long to bring in medical help for young Mr. Clark after they shot him dozens of times before confirming that all he had in his possession was a cell phone. An equally interesting question was why Stephon's grandmother was questioned for a considerable amount of time without ever being informed of the shooting (she apparently didn't figure out it was her grandson until she happened to look into her backyard and saw his body).

I'm envisioning the police taking all this time to contact medical personnel because they were using that time to collaborate their stories with one another. Something they do systemically after criminally shooting someone and being unable, for whatever reason, to plant a weapon to justify the shooting. I'm also envisioning them waiting to ensure Mr. Clark expired since him doing so would greatly assist their ability to make up whatever type of story they wanted.

I know that some of you reading this are still (amazing as it is) convinced that the police are here to protect us and that whatever "glitches" exist in this so-called "service" can be ironed out with a few reforms here and there.

To be clear, this piece isn't about debating the facts surrounding Mr. Clark's killing. There is far too much evidence for us to disrespect our people by engaging in that argument. For us, its a given, that the police are state terrorists who exist to repress the African masses. Police are here to represent the U.S. capitalist empire. Since the African masses, who's backs the empire was/is built and maintained upon, therefore represent the largest threat to the continued existence of this empire, its imperative that the state has an organized apparatus in place to prevent us from rising up and seeking our long deserved justice.

Although I live here where this terrible tragedy occurred, I never had the opportunity to meet young Mr. Clark, but I've known hundreds of young Africans like him. I was one myself once. As a result, my responsibility is to him and the millions like him, not to this system that exploits and oppresses us. As a result, I'd like to focus here on thanking all of the activist organizations here, and everywhere else we face this terrorism, who take time to protest and raise hell about these injustices. I thank them, but I proceed to suggest that its far past time for us to operate as if our only options are to pursue justice from the very system that facilitates our oppression. Its time for us to take our destiny into our own hands. And, yes, we can organize (not just mobilize) against state terrorist police. We know we can do it because its been done before. Many people have heard of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). Some of you even know the names Assata Shakur, Sekou Odinga, Sundiata Acoli, and many of the courageous soldiers from that period, but most people couldn't tell you concretely what the BLA actually did. One of the many wonderful things they did was organize to protect our communities from police terrorism. There are countless old time people and documented stories, particularly in areas like New York City, during the mid 1970s, where it was common for our people with issues to seek out support from the BLA, not the police. Issues like domestic violence, neighborhood bullies, and all types of crimes against humanity imaginable, were addressed by the organized mass known as the Black Liberation Army.

What we are saying here is its far past time that we revisit those organizing techniques. If we listen to people with no organizing experience, of which there are plenty of them always ready to express their blind opinions, we would believe this type of organizing to be impossible. Why so many of you listen to these people is beyond me. Possibly, its because part of you believes we cannot successfully organize this way and these people validate your secret desire to release yourself from this responsibility? I don't know, but for those of you who have faith in our people, we need to be clear that we can organize in this way and doing so isn't nearly as difficult as so many people want to make you believe it is.

The first step is for us to target communities where we want to engage in this work. The communities are chosen based on African density, class characteristics, and other demographic elements like poverty levels, police penetration, etc. Once we have the appropriate communities in mind (finding these communities is like finding the sun in Africa), we engage in intensive community engagement e.g. door to door work designed to identify people who desire to see our communities eliminate the fear and devastation that plagues wherever we live. If you think the results of this exercise will be no one wanting to talk to you or people not expressing their desire to see change take place, you are again exposing your complete lack of experience organizing among our people. The response to have something, anything, happen, to alleviate the suffering will be overwhelming. The next step is raising a very clear and simple question to these residents; what role are they willing to play in building this process? The responses you will get from people are they will do pretty much anything (because most of the time, people won't necessarily know what needs to happen). At this point, we rely on the information people have provided us which will indicate that they want services and support like counseling and protection. Our response discussions to this have to be that no one is going to protect us except ourselves. We have to have clear, political education driven discussions that make it plain that our objective is to create self sufficient communities that not only don't rely on police, but see them as agents of the very people responsible for our suffering.

Resource building work is done. For example, what people who are skilled and licensed to provide counseling services to our people will commit to doing so free of charge? Let's meet with them, have that political conversation, and establish a mechanism to plug them into our process. Then our discussions with the community residents who expressed a desire to do something will be that we need to do more door to door. We need to organize community events. Organize donation drives to have block parties. Its at these events that we announce our objectives to the community. We introduce the service providers to the community and we explain that if people are domestic abusers (for example) we have services to help them and we will do everything in our power to support them receiving help, but what we will not permit is for them to continue to terrorize people in our communities. We take the same approach with drug dealers and others. Remember, this is not reinventing the wheel. These tactics have been tried - successfully - many times before. We are just implementing what our ancestors provided for us previously. We announce self defense classes and we continue to organize around creating teams that will hit our streets to ensure our people are safe. We advance two extremely clear and precise messages to our people. The first is that everyone is welcome in our communities provided they respect our communities. Second, that if you disrespect our communities we will not be calling the police. We will develop processes to address you, specifically. And, once those processes are developed, if you intend to prey on our people, you will probably eventually wish someone had called the police on you.

The political work has to take place so that these messages come from the community, not a few organizers. The role and job of the organizers is to spark this work. We work to build up the capacity of this organization with the goal of moving to a point where people see more value in relying on each other in the community than calling in state sponsored terrorists because we just think that's the only option that we have.

Obviously, there is so much more to developing this model, but you hopefully get the point. We can organize for a world where we aren't disorganized. Where we aren't gunned down like rabbits in the street. Don't waste my time talking about what isn't possible when our people are being cut down like flies. There are many of us willing to do this work and we can create many, many, more who wish to build this capacity.

Or, with all due to respect to all those who make sincere efforts, we can continue to react, going to our slave masters and begging them to respect our lives. Based on history, we should see that we definitely deserve better than that, but of course, we will only ever get what we are willing to work for. As we lay young Mr. Clark into the ground. As we prepare to bury our next young person, don't you at least think its time we think seriously about all of this? Just speaking for myself, I have extensive experience with what I'm talking about here. I have a page on this site that offers services to help anyone with community organizing. Like most revolutionary organizers, I'm under-ultilized while hustlers and pimps who want to prey off our people can't get enough requests to rip us off. Is it just me, or is something terribly wrong here?

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What are You Truly Afraid Of?

3/14/2018

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Its a question I think about often. And, the reason for its consistent presence in my conscious mind has been the unfortunate truth that confronting fear has been a constant theme in my life. I'm certainly not bragging, but I have had to stare credible death threats in the face at least four different times in my life. One example is the five day coma I experienced in 2002. The hospital where I was a patient had their Chaplin come in on the first day of the coma and read my last rites. Part of me could hear her doing that. That's why I recognized her voice three weeks later as I was recovering. As I pieced that experience together, I remembered having some subconscious understanding that she was there during the coma. And, I remember being told, by the ancestors, God, whatever way your spirituality works, that I would not die. I remember receiving this news with a level of indifference in my intra-world state. I know I wanted to live, but I was also mentally prepared for a different reality. And, I should add, contrary to the self-righteous claims of bourgeois Christians, I didn't come crying to their capitalist/imperialist version of God when my Earthly future was in doubt.

Those types of experiences, coupled with the reality I grew up with, the type of political work I've committed myself to over the years, and the way I choose to live my life e.g. claiming my space, protecting it, and doing the same for others, I've had numerous encounters with the threat of physical violence. And, actual violence has resulted from those threats on countless occasions. So, my point is I've had a lot of time and space to think about, and experience, fear. What I've figured out is we have the capacity to learn how to navigate through life despite our fears. I've actually gotten pretty good at learning how to acknowledge my fears while working through them so that they are incapable of stopping me from achieving whatever objectives need to be achieved.

I hope what comes through here is that I, like you, experience fear on a regular basis. I've learned some productive ways of learning how to work through my fears, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Since I'm so conscious about this question, I've also learned to identify the things that represent my true fears, as opposed to those things that I'm reacting too. What I mean is I define general fears as things I don't understand. My lack of understanding causes me to react with fear. True fear is something I understand that I haven't figured out how to resolve. A general fear is something I don't understand. An example of a general fear is my diabetes. I'm not perfect, but I make every effort to eat right, everyday. I also exercise everyday. I've done both for years. As a result, for the most part, my diabetes has always been under control. I certainly have had my struggles, but after being diagnosed almost 20 years ago, I can say proudly that my eyesight, dental condition, etc., are perfectly healthy; the triggers to identifying issues with diabetes management. Still, I'm also aware that even with controlled A1C (diabetes terminology to indicate where you stand in managing the condition), I'm at an increased risk for heart issues. This is true despite the fact my blood pressure is consistently at levels indicative of someone 20 years my minor. I'm researching options for this, but until I come up with a clear solution, that isn't taking medicines, this issue is causing some trepidation for me because I don't yet have a solution for it.

An example of a true fear e.g. something I do understand and have a solution for; is pertaining to the legacy I want to leave behind. I worry every day about whether I'm doing all I can do to live up to the sacrifices my ancestors made for me. I believe that I feel their pain and suffering in a vivid way. And, I'm a spiritual person so I believe I'm in constant contact with those who came before me. I believe they are watching me. I believe they have invested a lot in me and they have expectations. Their expectations are that I will continue the fight they carried to bring about justice for humanity. This is something I understand completely. There is absolutely no confusion about it. No information I still need. I know exactly what I need to do to resolve this, but yet I still have intense fear about it. Why? Because the requirements, although clear, are overwhelming sometimes. To do what I need to do, I must constantly confront my self doubts. I must challenge them, and I must overcome them. I must speak out against injustice, even when unpopular. I know how to do this. I do it all the time, but yet it never gets any easier because doing so creates alienation and other issues which cause depression, etc. As a result, if you are a person of justice, you constantly battle, as I do, this back and forth of how to make sure you stand up while managing the resulting trauma that comes with it. Then, there is the guilt for feeling anything because I know those that came before me dealt with much more than I will ever have to deal with. But, most of all, there is the fear that I will fail to stand up. I'm talking about the situations that aren't as clearly defined. A racist skinhead running towards us isn't what I'm talking about. That's clearly defined. That person is going down. That's easy. I'm talking about patriarchal things that are systemic and subtle that I may not recognize because I'm a man. I've failed in that regard before and the resulting disappointment was overwhelming. The challenge to take principled positions on other people's struggles for justice besides our African liberation struggle and to challenge my people to become open and conscious about that. I've failed at this before and hated how I felt as a result of this. Now, if I can give myself just a little credit here, I know I'm much better at all of this than most people, but as a result, my bar for myself is pretty high. In fact, I often wonder how so many people can live with themselves being so mediocre and liberal about justice, but those are your challenges that you must learn to confront if you are going to be an honest person. My job is to create a standard for myself and to make it high because I want to contribute to creating a high standard because I know that's how we will ultimately win. That's a lot of pressure and the fear of failing is ever present. That's a true fear. My priority fear. My constant bed partner.

Think about what your true fear is. I know the more I think about mine, the more ideas I will come up with to confront it. I've done a reasonable job so far. I learn from my mistakes. I continue fighting and moving forward. That's the secret of life. You cannot eliminate fear, but you can learn to confront and work through it. The enemies of humanity - capitalism/imperialism - depend upon our fears consuming us. That's their primary weapon. I have no intention of letting them get away with it.

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Black Lives Matter, African Homophobia, and COINTELPRO 2018

3/12/2018

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Intense irritation is the motivation for this article being written. There is a video getting much rotation on social media over the last couple of days. The video displays a so-called African, dressed in so-called African attire, with a so-called African name, speaking to a school board meeting in Negroville, U.S.A. The African isn't making a point about the systemic miss-education of that, and all, public school systems within this backward society. His intention wasn't to challenge the role the public school system plays in being the breeding ground for prison for young African and other oppressed persons. He didn't expound upon the need for us to ensure lessons of African dignity, consent, and respect for humanity over money be placed as priority curriculum in these schools. Instead, this so-called protector of our people wanted to speak out against the school board's decision to support some so-called resolution that was apparently originated from that local town's Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapter. His concern? BLM is an organization that "promotes the gay lifestyle...blah, blah, blah.

Let me make myself abundantly clear. I grew up in San Francisco during the mid to late 1970s. The significance of this is that during that period, San Francisco was without question the capitol city for the LGBTQ community. This fact wasn't even challenged. During my middle school years, what we used to call Junior High, I caught the bus daily on the corner of Castro and Market, which was the main intersection within the main gay community in the entire U.S. My dear departed mother, being involved in community theater, created and directed plays throughout San Francisco on a regular basis. Many of her participants in these productions were transgender, gay, queer, folks. My point is I grew up exposed on a regular basis to people in the LGBTQ community. I interacted with them as a child growing up. And, today, I am as heterosexual, CIS, whatever the hell you want to call it, as anyone can be. Plus, just to be completely transparent, I cannot tell you that I am completely resolved in my consciousness about the question of being LGBTQ e.g. whether its something people are born as or not. I lean heavily towards people are without question born as they are born, but the nature of my intellect is I constantly challenge myself on everything I believe, including my Pan-African beliefs. Due to that, I know my ability to constantly challenge myself this way is the reason I am so strong in my convictions, beliefs, and actions.

And, a very strong conviction that I am not the least bit confused about is regardless of what I or any other so-called heterosexual person believes about LGBTQ as a lifestyle, natural way of life, or whatever people believe about it, I know that jumping on the homophobia bandwagon does absolutely nothing to help anyone, especially the oppressed African masses. This is the main reason for my irritation. Its unfathomable that African people, anywhere we live on earth, with the centuries of oppression we have experienced everyday, could find any possible way, any opening, no matter how slight, any grain of sand, to support any thinking that causes any group of people, especially portions of our own communities, to suffer. Its painful enough to see, not to mention for those in our communities who have to experience it, when I know the homophobic ideas that are growing legs in our communities everywhere today are not ideas we are originating.

This part needs to be exceptionally clear. Kwame Nkrumah was 100% clear and precise when he talked about African culture being a culture of "humanism, collectivism, and egalitarianism." Those are the values and the fundamental basis of our existence as African people. That's why Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) was correct when he said that Africans have "civilized America!" When we responded to the massive brutality and terror of thousands of lynchings against African people exactly 100 years ago in this country, our response to stage large, peaceful, marches, to demonstrate our humanity was an act (whether you agree with it or not is immaterial) of civilizing this society. When we responded to the brutality and terror of the Ku Klux Klan, in and out of uniform, by singing humanizing songs, we were civilizing this society. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. talked about loving our enemies, we civilized this society. When our people faced brutality from colonialists in Africa and the Caribbean, we civilized this world. All the peaceful marches that were met with state violence in Southern Africa. Sharpesville for example. We were civilizing our oppressors. Again, not the point whether you think you agree with those peaceful tactics or not. You benefit from them so give the required respect.

Besides, you fantasizing about what you would have done is so besides the point. The focus here is that our people have always maintained a level of humanism, despite whatever our circumstances. We have no history of bombing anyone. No history of lynching anyone. There are no pictures you can find of countless cases of Africans standing around burning Europeans alive. No examples of our organizations whole sale killing Europeans. Even though our enemies (with many of you mindlessly contributing) continue to try and compare the existences of the Ku Klux Klan and the racist White mercenaries in Africa with the Black Panther Party, Land and Freedom Movement (Mau Mau in Kenya), Nation of Islam, etc., any violence we meted out was always only to protect our people from persecution. Never was it to prevent any other people from living in whatever way they desired. So, anyone who cannot see the differences here is just a lost soul. We have always maintained that humanism. To be honest, I don't claim to understand it myself, but we have. And, we have because that is who we are as a people. So, historically, despite whatever we felt about the LGBTQ community, we have never before advocated any type of suppression against them, until now.

Recently, we have seen episodes of Africans terrorizing LGBTQ people in Azania, South Africa. We have seen repression proposed and practiced against these communities in Uganda. We have seen it in Zimbabwe. Now this African from Negroville is going to a school board - where we challenge you to find one public school board in this entire society that is a true friend to African children - to attack an African formation that is trying, to the best of its capabilities, to fight in the interests of African people.

Its astounding to me, but that's probably because I see the world much different than most people in this backward capitalist reality. To me, if you are my people, I'm ride or die forever. I know lots of people say that, but most of the people saying that have never been tested. When their moment to stand up comes, they will wilt like ice in 100 degree weather. That's why so many people are opposed to any form of accountability. Try to implement some and see how they react. For me, there is no one alive who can make me more accountable than I make myself, so accountability is not only not fearsome to me, its a way of life. I've been tested countless times and continue to be tested. In fact, I look for ways to be tested. I do because I am all about fighting against the enemies of my people and humanity. I'm real about that and therefore, I am able to recognize others who are real about it. I'm also able to recognize those who aren't. And, most of us talking about real aren't real at all. We get mad when people like me tell Africans we don't engage in serious study. Well, get ready to be mad because I'm going to say it again. We aren't serious about doing the study we need to do. If we were, we would realize who we are as African people. There wouldn't be so many people out here running around spouting this ridiculous nonsense that we aren't Africans. Show me one of these people and I'll show you a person who knows absolutely nothing about Africa, period. Show me one of these people born in Africa and I'll still show you one who knows nothing about Africa. Serious students of African history, and our humanist culture, know that its not a question of whether one believes a person can be gay or not. For those of us who are not LGBTQ, its really none of our damn business. Its a question for us that all people deserve respect and dignity. And, that our culture is one that provides that to everyone. That's why my dear departed father was always nothing except respectful to everyone my mother had over to our place. Not tolerant, respectful. There's a huge difference and if you don't know what that difference is, you don't understand African culture around humanist questions like this one. And its time for us to attack this backward idea that by acknowledging our LGBTQ family members we are somehow compromising "the African family." Please come to my 30 year old daughter and I and explain to us how our respect for the LGBTQ community has compromised our healthy father/daughter relationship. How its diminished our strong commitment to African liberation and Pan-Africanism? You cannot do that because that position is BS and we all know it is. What's really happening there is African men who lack strong enough self esteem and guts to challenge our true enemies are taking the coward route and attacking members of our communities who are easy targets. These so-called "brothers" and the mindless women who support them, despite whatever soothing rhetoric they are preaching, are pimps who see our suffering as a means to an end. Nothing else. Find me one of these people and I'll show you someone who is either severely miss-informed and/or who has never confronted the true enemies of our people at any time in their lives.

The final and very critical point on this question is the reality that this latest version of intolerance and repression that is being suggested by this latest brand of pseudo so-called African "leaders" (especially all those who have absolutely no organizational structures to help our people, just a youtube following) is the undeniable fact that their reactionary rhetoric is straight out of the handbook of white supremacist groups like Franklin Graham's "Samaritan Power" which spends millions of dollars annually in African communities from Nairobi, Kenya, to Los Angeles, priming our people to become homophobic. The reason? Because big money capitalist interests use their vehicles like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to squeeze through lots of anti-African and poor people legislation. They now they can get you to support it if they couch it in homophobic rhetoric. They know you won't look much farther once you determine what their peddling lines up with your homophobic views. And, since they are the ones feeding your homophobia, they know their tactics will work. Just like they know their Southern Strategy, coded racist language, will continue to convince European/white working class people to support racist polices against their own economic interests. In other words, those of you who believe all this nonsense are being pimped, again. But, you'd rather be mad at people like me for telling you to study than research all of this yourselves in an organized fashion with others.

Then, to add insult to injury, we don't even have the basic scientific understanding of the war we are in to piece together the obvious. This federal government, through its criminal investigation agency - the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has targeted BLM activists as terrorists. They have done this despite the fact BLM hasn't killed, harrassed, or terrorized a single person. Yet, they are telling you that they are classifying BLM as a main threat to the security of people in this backward society. All of this while white supremacist groups are producing lone wolf terrorists who are shooting up and killing scores of people in schools, malls, and even churches. Yet, your FBI is completely silent about any of these groups. Our collective African response to all of this obvious sabotage against our people is to help the criminal FBI and U.S. government by openly attacking BLM? And, many of us support this amateurism? You'all are either painfully ignorant of history, or you are working for the police against our people. None of this is to suggest that if you have disagreement with BLM or any African formation that you have to just swallow it. There is this thing called communication you know. We can reach out to each other, discuss our concerns, and try to learn to work together to resolve them so that our collective strength grows and isn't diminished. We do have options besides going to a racist school board - and I don't care if every single member is an African - the institution of public education in this country is institutionally racist and no one can deny that. Those of us who are serious about organizing our people for liberation understand this because its the core work we do. Working to build relationships. Strengthening our connections to one another. Those of you who's activism consists of being individual keyboard warriors have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about right now, but no worries. This analysis is for those who have some trace of honesty and integrity left and hopefully that's you, but quite possibly, it could never be you.

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Has the Military Colluded to keep Colin Kaepernick out of the NFL?

3/6/2018

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TMZ, the popular investigative reporting service on celebratory life within the U.S., has reported that the National Football League’s (NFL) Baltimore Ravens franchise was all prepared to offer Colin Kaepernick a contract last year when their starting quarterback, Joe Flacco, went down with an injury. The report indicates that Ravens coach John Harbaugh, the brother of former San Francisco 49ers and Kaepernick coach Jim Harbaugh, was very high on signing Kaepernick and initially had the ok from the team owners to move forward. According to the report, what stalled the process was the influence of a “high ranking U.S. military official” who dissuaded Harbaugh and the Ravens organization from signing Kaepernick because of his leadership in initiating player protests against institutional racism and police terrorism against African people.

The TMZ report is worth discussing for several reasons. First, it makes sense that the U.S. military would lobby against Kaepernick ever wearing an NFL uniform again, and not just because of some reactionary kneejerk patriotism. The U.S. military’s own “Recruitment and Representation” study for 2015 speaks to the challenges facing the military in recruitment. According to the study, “an improved economy spells trouble with future military recruitment.” Translation: Young people are generally finding the influx of low paying service jobs with little future more preferable than joining the military and inflicting physical violence against innocent people around the world. The military study references increased resistance to U.S. military recruitment and presence on high school and college campuses as a major problem since those institutions have historically served as primary recruiting grounds for the military. In recent years, the military has turned to bribing young people through millions of dollars of advertising during NFL (and National Basketball Association broadcasts, as well as NASCAR, and other sports) games. Obviously, Kaepernick’s leadership and courage in carrying out these protests since September of 2016 is a major concern to the military. They are worried that their core demographic – 18 to 35 year old people – could be influenced by this dialogue about state sponsored terrorism, U.S. imperialism abroad, etc. In the eyes of the military, the decline in recruitment could be the writing on the wall so for them, Kaepernick being denied employment and the NFL’s subsequent “deal” with the Player’s Association to quiet the protests, is the best way to make the controversy go away before multitudes of youth, particularly European youth, start paying closer attention.

Another reason the report is worth noting is because if true (and there is absolutely no reason to believe it isn’t true), it completely invalidates former Ravens player (and noted uncle tom) Ray Lewis’s bold faced lies that he was working behind the scenes to ensure that Kaepernick “could be brought in” only to be stymied because, according to Lewis, Kaepernick’s partner criticized the Raven’s owner as a “slave master.” Look, racists of all stripes and all their apologists can pretend to be intellectual around this issue all they want, none of us are confused. Kaepernick’s career and lifetime stats as a quarterback are much, much better than every back up quarterback who was signed in front of him last year and that fact is ill refutable. In fact, no quarterback who led his team to a Super Bowl, and then the National Football Conference title game (the game to get to the Super Bowl) the following year, just three and four years ago, has ever been denied employment this long in the NFL’s entire history. So, the slow brained racists who are working overtime to justify game related reasons for Kaepernick’s continued unemployment only maintain any steam because this society is built on anti-intellectualism. Truth in this society is not objective reality, its whatever you can convince people it is.

And, none of this is about focusing specifically on Kaepernick’s job future anyway. Whether he plays football again or not. The man said in 2016 that he knew when he started his protests that he could be ending his football career. So, like everyone before him who took a principled position against this backward society, he knew the sacrifices he would have to make. So, this discussion isn’t about Kaepernick’s job situation. Its about understanding that every institution within this society is controlled to benefit multi-national corporate interests. Those interests are the direct reason for every conflict the U.S. military has been engaged in from Korea in 1950 all the way up to their threats against North Korea today. As more and more people become conscious of this reality, which will make them reject the insane suggestion that the U.S. military is fighting for anyone’s freedom and democracy anywhere on Earth, Kaepernick’s brave act underscores how what has happened to him is an example of modern day slavery and oppression of African people who dare stand up for justice. No, he’s not making the same sacrifice Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Assata Shakur, and others have made. No, he’s not impoverished, despite his long unemployment, but none of that is central to the core issue. African people are oppressed as a nation, not as individuals. That means there are many different methods in which the system can silence and demobilize us. Economic oppression, silencing of our voices, frame ups, imprisonment, murder, all of these things are tactics used by this system against us. Its important for us and any true friends to African liberation that we recognize this because it will help us understand how important these actions and movements are. We will hopefully do whatever we can to fan the flames of this activism and that will hopefully influence other people to take stands.

Or, we can forget about Kaepernick and just melt into the next NFL season, forgetting about the protests and doing nothing to support further efforts to raise these critical questions. That’s why we continue to talk about this to prevent people from forgetting. And if it disturbs you that we do, we hope your discomfort causes you as much difficulty as is humanly possible.

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Land Reform in Azania, South Africa: Right, and Not Nearly Enough

3/1/2018

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The voices against proposed land reform in Azania (South Africa) are loud, consistent, and dominant as the process unfolds in that country around this question. Those voices, as can be expected, are coming from imperialism e.g. the capitalist media outlets, thinkers, and apologists for neo-colonialism and the continued exploitation of Mother Africa.

What these voices are focusing on is how hard the descendants of European colonizers have worked to cultivate and develop agricultural land in Azania and therefore, how unfair it is for them to have their land taken away. Consequently, these arguments conclude that land reform is morally wrong and will devastate Azania's economy. The people promoting this racist analysis are kind enough to use land reform in Zimbabwe as proof of their argument. Since land reform was initiated as policy in Zimbabwe in 1990, these same voices of reaction have pointed to the struggles of Zimbabwe to implement land reform as their rationale for why land reform in Azania must be opposed. To make their racist points, these people lied, misrepresented, and completely maligned Zimbabwe's program from the day it was initiated. What these reactionaries and racists forgot to tell you is that any program, especially land reform, is going to take time to successfully implement. Especially since they never ceased placing their foots on our collective necks. Today, almost 30 years after being implemented, Zimbabwe is seeing unprecedented economic growth from the over 200,000 African families who have benefited from the land reform program there. For example, maize, a primary food and agricultural product in Zimbabwe, is being grown, cultivated, and sold in these newly owned African farm lands at paces that are significantly raising the medium incomes for Africans across the country. Of course, the imperialist voices are quiet about all of this progress because they want to keep us confused. They do this by bringing your attention to the baby struggling to walk, completely ignoring that baby once they learn to walk upright with pride and dignity.

The situation in Azania is no different. The focus of imperialist analysis, as is always the case with white supremacy, is in centering the experiences of the Europeans (because whatever they experience is all that matters, right?). Just like Zimbabwe, where they claimed for years that Africans were violently forcing Europeans off of lands (proven to be nothing more than racist propaganda), they are predicting gloom and doom for Azania. Organizations dedicated to preserving racist white traditions in Azania, such as the reactionary "AfriForum" which is a lobbying group for Boers in Azania, are alerting the world market of the proposed program, although its not projected to be approved and/or implemented for several months. Newly installed President Cyril Ramaphosa is serving as the new mouthpiece for neo-colonial alleviation of white fears in Azania these days.

The truth is these land reform programs taking place in the former settler colonial territories of Africa are simply the beginning stages of our revolutionary Pan-African movement to take back all of Africa from the exploiting classes. Azania is called Azania (instead of South Africa) by Pan-Africanists because the name reflects the actual history of the country e.g. "land of the Black people at the tip of the continent." Like the name, this land reform is about reclaiming our dignity. When Azania was under racist apartheid rule, the racist Parliament implemented a national law in 1913 that no land could be owned by Africans in Azania. As a result, all the fertile/arable land was given to European settler descendants. Of course, all of this took place under the backdrop of the institutional apartheid system where African movement was physically restricted. Africans were prohibited from entering and occupying European spaces, gain education, having productive jobs, and physical terror and intimidation were daily practices against the African populace. So, any talk of European/whites being mistreated under land reform today is laughable. We as African people have absolutely no responsibility to protect any interests of these shameful people when their interests have been held up by our systemic oppression. And, anyone who cries for these Europeans, just like the ones who cried for those in Zimbabwe, is by that very act, proclaiming their support for neo-colonialism, racism, and the continued exploitation of Africa and African people.

Plus, even if you have absolutely no knowledge of Azanian history, everyone reading this would have to argue completely that theft is wrong. And, without question, these Europeans came to Africa to conquer it. And, in the course of their efforts in Africa, Australia, occupied Palestine, and the Americas, they systemically murdered and oppressed the Indigenous populations in all of those places. So, guess what folks? That means those Europeans are thieves. This is equally true for the descendants since they benefit from the original theft e.g. they hold the land today. They are tilling, working, and living on stolen land. No different than if you saw the child of the person who stole your car driving down the street in it. You wouldn't say "well, that's the child...The person who stole it is dead now and the child had nothing to do with the original theft so..." Besides, these settler Europeans have proven to us that they at least believe rhetorically in the concept that theft is wrong. Their prisons are filled with millions of people, especially people who look like us, who are there because the capitalist system said they stole something from somebody. And, if you multiplied whatever accusations were/are being waged against every African in prison in every capitalist country, you wouldn't come close to equaling the amount we lost from settler colonialism and the theft of land in Azania, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and all of Africa.

Now, just to be crystal clear, we are not advocating land reform policy. We are revolutionary Pan-Africanists which means we are advocating for the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism. In other words, we are opposed to any negotiations surrounding our freedom and dignity and our sister parties in Azania such as the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania/South Africa (PAC) and the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO) have published clear positions around this question. So, as we said, land reform is just the beginning of this process for us to achieve Pan-Africanism all over Africa. By summer, the Azanian (South African) Parliament is promising to have completed its research on moving forward with land reform. I'm telling you now that the masses of Africans in Azania want it. The key to European capitalist and bourgeois classes maintaining their dominance over Africa and African people is controlling our land in Africa. They never had a right to it. They obtained it only through terrorist and inhumane methodologies, and we have every right to get that land back to use to raise our people out of poverty and to advance us. If the Europeans there don't like it, they should do what they are always so quick to tell us to do in this settler colony, they should go back to Europe.
Actually, what they really should do is get down on their hands and knees and give thanks that there is even a legislative process to facilitate this process because one day, they won't have any say and what they think won't matter, as it shouldn't. We clearly should only be concerned about anyone else's welfare to the extent they are concerned about ours. Azania's history is as clear as can be that these Europeans crying today have never exhibited any concern for us. We are simply getting our feet under ourselves to reclaim our dignity. It's long overdue.

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The Science behind Protesting; From Spontaneous to Organized

The Wakandan Fantasy versus our Pan-African Reality

The Stephon Clark Killing; Let's Build Revolutionary Communities

What are You Truly Afraid Of?

Black Lives Matter, African Homophobia, and COINTELPRO 2018

Has the Military Colluded to keep Colin Kaepernick out of the NFL?

Land Reform in Azania, South Africa: Right, and Not Nearly Enough

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