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African Liberation Day and My Tales from the Hood

5/26/2017

Speaking at ALD Oakland in 2011. I drove the long 10 hour one way trip from Portland alone that year, bringing the sound equipment being used for the event with me.

Tomorrow will mark my 33rd consecutive year working to organize African Liberation Day (ALD) commemorations since joining the All African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) in 1984. That's significant to me because I have always counted on ALD as a huge personal inspiration in my ongoing struggle to stay motivated, focused, and committed to fighting for African liberation. As an institution, that's the purpose of ALD. To motivate the masses of African people to dare to dream about and bring into existence a society where Africa is free, thus meaning we are free. As someone who has spent my entire life battling white supremacy, my dream for African unity, and my dedication to doing everything I can to make it happen makes ALD, the best symbol we have about what we can achieve. That's why I've spent all these years contributing towards building it and its why I will contribute whatever years I have left doing the same.

Of course, after all these years of being in the center of organizing ALD as an institution in our communities, I have had many wonderful, energizing, and even terrifying experiences for ALD and my purpose here, on the eve before I go off to help organize another ALD, is to provide you with some of the best of those experiences I've encountered over the years.

There are plenty of fascinating memories. When I started in 1984 it was a completely different political aura in the world. The cold war e.g. the so-called ideological war between the U.S. (the leader of the capitalist world) and the Soviet Union (the so-called leader of what most white leftists considered the socialist world at the time). The McCarthy era was still fresh in most people's minds in the 80s. That was a period where people were viciously persecuted for having views that could even be mistakenly identified as being sympathetic to socialist ideas in this society. Consequently, very few people openly identified themselves as socialist during that time and those that did were widely considered to be insane. Yet, there they were, in McClathcy Park in Sacramento, the organizers for the A-APRP, on the stage praising Fidel Castro and Muammar Quaddafi, and doing so boldly and without hesitation. Honestly, I doubt I could have given you a comprehensive definition of socialism at that time, but what I did know was that any Africans who were courageous enough to speak so firmly and with such conviction...I wanted to be a part of that group. So, I joined the A-APRP that year and as I mentioned, played a very significant role in organizing subsequent ALD demonstrations in Sacramento in the following years. All of those immediate events were marginally attended, but my spirit never wavered. I was in the streets everyday until the wee hours of the night, passing out ALD flyers at nightclubs. Posting up posters with pictures of Sekou Ture, Muammar Quaddafi, all the heroes of the African revolution. I talked to hundreds of people and those conversations helped shape and solidify my political consciousness. I knew my people wanted something much more than what we got in this backward society and my regular participation in our work study meetings provided me with the foundation to know that the "something" was Pan-Africanism which the A-APRP defines as one unified socialist Africa. Despite what was written in the capitalist media, and much was written in those days about the necessity for anti-socialist/communist thinking, I knew that our people were not listening to that and this gave me hope for our future.

We continued working, year round. Events, activities, supporting other organization's events, etc. And our ALDs began to reflect that level of work. The A-APRP was organizing ALDs in various cities throughout the U.S. at that time and I wanted our Sacramento ALD to contribute to that effort. In 1989 we had our first widely attended ALD and the next couple of years saw us grow. In 1991 we had Tupac Shakur rap at our Sacramento ALD and in 1992 the City of Sacramento refused to issue us a permit to have ALD because McClatchcy Park was closed due to the City building a stage there (they had never had an inclination to look at McClathcy Park as a place to do events before we started having our successful ALD events there). We were moved to William Land Park which is the City's main park. The outdoor stage there is just across the street from the City's Zoo. They didn't want a political demonstration taking place within earshot of one of the City's largest tourist attractions on a holiday weekend (Memorial Day weekend) so they added insult to injury by giving us permission to have the event without giving us a sound permit. Apparently, the City thought we would have a silent protest. We suspected that the real reason they hadn't issued us a permit was because the political tension at that time was at a fever's pitch. Libya had been bombed by U.S. imperialism a few short weeks before and people were revolting in protest all over the world. The Los Angeles rebellion against police terrorism had taken place the previous month. The masses were upset and the City knew it. We had a meeting late into the night the evening before ALD and the decision was made to break their laws and go ahead with our rally. Since we were in Land Park, outside of the African community there was no march planned. So, the rally started at 1pm and as the M/C it was my job to start the day off. There were about 500 people sitting in the shaded bleachers waiting. It was at least 90 degrees. I remember getting up there, sweat dripping. It was then that I noticed the three police cars parked above the outdoor theater. It was the moment of truth and I believe I gave my best opening that I've even given. I couldn't tell you today what I said, because I assure you, the ancestors were driving, but it was filled with pure logic, truth, and complete respect for the anger our people were feeling. As soon as I introduced the representative from the American Indian Movement to open up ALD (as is our custom) eight uniformed police officers started marching towards the stage. Myself and a couple of comrades gathered to meet them and we were filled with defiance, but just as we were converging about 50 very angry community members cut us off and surrounded the police. Visibly upset by the show of unity and the lack of fear the community posed, the one policewoman approached me with the biggest smile holding out a set of car keys. She actually even told us that all eight of them marched down there just to tell us someone had left their keys in their door.

Those are the types of little lessons I've learned repeatedly in my time in the A-APRP. They always reaffirm what the elders have always told me and what the ancestors are telling right now, this eve before ALD...The masses are the makers of history. This struggle is simply about the power of the organized masses! The years after 1992 saw a decline in our ALDs in Sacramento. Personal changes in people's lives, including my own, had an impact on the social dynamics of our existence and we struggled up and down with that for a few years. There were a couple of good years that I remember, specifically 1996, but for the most part we struggled with positive events, but poor turnout which we knew reflected challenges with our work year round. In 2002 we made a concerted decision to turn that around and focus and we had a number of excellent events that set the stage for ALD in May. I specifically remember a religion and revolution conference that was outstanding in the winter of 02. The ALD that year was lit! We had a march of over 1000 people with about 40 Aztec dancers leading the way. We had a strong and militant march with of course no permit. We had African motorcycle clubs blocking the streets for us and I remember not one motorist dared honk their horns. I also remember the number of obvious undercover police who were taking scores of pictures of us along the march route, but the most memorable thing about that 2002 ALD was when we returned to the park after the march. The police met us in the park with sirens blaring. About five police were directed towards myself and my comrade Brother who were responsible for coordinating security, but just as we started asking the police what they wanted, about 25 members of the Fruit of Islam, the male paramilitary members of the Nation of Islam, began sprinting across the paths of the police in military formation. Some of them sprinted within inches of police. While this was happening, the police were whirling around, clearly intimidated while the Brother and I continued telling them we were busy and we were going to get back to our event. Eventually, the police left with their tails between their legs.

In early 2007 I moved to Oregon and due to many factors, in 2009, we moved ALD to Oakland. In 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011, I drove down to ALD with people I had invited from Oregon. I continued to participate. In 2012, jobless, I had no money to get to Oakland so I organized an ALD event in Portland that had about 20 people. it wasn't much, but I was proud and it certainly helped raise my spirits at a time when I badly needed that.

By 2013, gainfully employed again, I organized a group of about eight people to go to ALD in Oakland and by that next year, I had helped organize an A-APRP work study circle that traveled down. Every year since, A-APRP organizers from Portland have traveled to Oakland for ALD, including 2015 when I participated as the keynote speaker at our Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, PA, ALDs. And, a contingent of organizers, reportedly all African women, are traveling down as I write this to participate in ALD 2017 tomorrow. I anticipate an outstanding ALD tomorrow. We have worked hard again and it feels like those ALDs between 89 and 92. Like 96 and 2002. The word is out and we are marching again this year. And our marches are always different. All African people and always through African communities. We don't march to make a demand. We march as a call to action to our people and unlike the activist marches dominated by the white left, African people come out of their houses to offer us cold water and support as we march by. More reaffirmations that we are on the right track. ALD has always been about those affirmations. So, I close by wishing the best to our comrades at home in Africa, in Europe, Canada, the Caribbean, South America, who are organizing and participating in ALD. Safe travels to those who are traveling to ALD all over the world. Much respect to our alliances in the Palestinian, Irish, Indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere, and Filipino struggles. Much respect to all who struggle for justice and who want peace. We know we will never have peace until we claim justice. That's what ALD means to me. That's what the ancestors tell me. Right now Malcolm and Marcus, Harriet and Amilcar, Sekou, and Kwame Nkrumah and Kwame Ture. Huey P. Newton and Carmen Peireira. They are coming off my walls. Patrice Lumumba and Che Guevara. Fidel Castro. They are coming off the pictures on my walls and talking to me tonight. They are telling me that I am doing the right thing and that I must keep on. I must serve as an inspiration to others to keep going. That's what ALD means to me. So, you can keep all of your imperialist holidays and your presents. Because none of that will ever give you one inch of the joy I get on this night knowing that we are setting the stage for our people to one day be free.

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Banning African Hairstyles: Our Experience Until Africa is Free

5/22/2017

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Its prom season so as is the tradition, youth all over the U.S. gear up for that special night when they get to dress up, many of them for the first time in their young lives. Like all self identified women, young African women look forward to being able to present themselves on this night in the way they deem appropriate. In today's developing consciousness of our youth (you may not recognize it, but our youth are growing everyday in collective consciousness) that means wearing natural hairstyles that more so reflect our African identify than the Euro-centric presentations that are assumed by most people to represent the "norm" of how people should look. Many of these young women, and men, are choosing cornrows, braids, and locked hairstyles for prom night and beyond. As a result, news sources all over social media are reporting how schools are denying these African students entrance to their proms and expelling them from school on a daily basis, simply for wearing these natural hairstyles. The reasons? The hairstyles defy the dress codes of the schools which - like every other institution within the capitalist/white supremacist society - base their norms on those defined by this system of oppression. That means anything non-European is wrong, but it means something much more than that.

This phenomenon is much more than a question of fashion. Its also much more than white people being insensitive and hating African people. Make no mistake about it. This is a political struggle. And those of us who understand cultural imperialism as a component of political imperialism understand exactly what that political struggle is based on. As is stated often in these writings, the capitalist system throughout the European dominated world e.g. Canada, the U.S.,s-called Israel, Australia, and Europe, was developed off of exploiting Africa. The entire myth of white supremacy - of which this entire society is based - was created to provide a justification for the raping and plundering of African and Indigenous peoples in Africa and the Western Hemisphere. In other words, the ability of this system to successfully subjugate us is grounded in its ability to completely diminish the significance of Africa. To create the impression that Africa, and therefore African people, have contributed nothing to world civilization. The imperialist knew/know that if they get people to believe this than Africa and her children are dehumanized in the eyes of Europeans and everyone else, including Africans. Once this is the dominant reality, it becomes possible for the system to do whatever it wishes to us because we are less than human. its important for serious students of white supremacy to understand this because this analysis provides the logic of why our people are systemically treated as sub-human e.g. shot down in the streets, criminalized as common practice, and disrespected as day to day policy. If you don't understand the core reasons why this happens you will be confused into accepting imperialism's narrative that the problem is simply one of attitudes, meaning that white supremacy isn't a system, but simply what someone feels on a given day. Once they get you to believe their version then you begin to see the problem as simply an emotional and subjective problem, meaning it can change with the wind. Clearly, a 500+ year problem that is worldwide and consistent is much more than something that changes with the wind.

As our great son of Africa Sekou Ture expressed so clearly in his still groundbreaking writings on African culture as a tool for liberation, and as other great minds like Franz Fanon have made equally as clear, the key to our liberation is our ability to regain the integrity of our culture. Follow this logic and you will be able to comprehend why the sight of African youth with afros with picks in them is frightening to many white people even though they themselves cannot explain why they are upset at a hairstyle and a comb. Follow this logic and you will understand why these schools react the way they do even if to some of the youth wearing the hair styles its just a fashion statement. Anything a colonized people do is political. In fact, the minute you walk out your door in the morning you are committing a political act because the system seeks to destroy you and/or completely subjugate you. So, once you appear, you represent the potential of doing more. Of standing up for your dignity. That's why the very existence of African people during the last stages of imperialism is an act of resistance. And even though most people have never thought of what I'm explaining to you right now, if you think seriously about it, it makes sense why people react to these seemingly harmless things the way they do. Since this system has been built and maintained by exploiting Africa, that will always make Africans the X factor in this system. We are the one group who's existence is always up for debate. Whos behaviors are always unpredictable. Will we side with imperialism or not? We are the ones the system is not sure about and that is why they lean on us so hard. That's why they repress us the way they do. And when we respond by reflecting who we are, the system sees that as resistance, and really it is, even if the act is unconscious. Imperialism is smart enough to realize that an unconscious act today can become a conscious act tomorrow. Especially since our enemies understand that even the unconscious acts are coming from a conscious place. No one was wearing anything African before the African independence movements and the subsequent Black power movements of the 50s and 60s. So, that means the fact people wear these hairstyles today is without question a political act.

The other element to this equation is that because African people are oppressed and lack power, the system of imperialism is able to disrespect us and our babies and we have no organized way to stand up to this disrespect. Instead, we get upset and our usual course of action is to demand justice from the very institutions that are perpetuating the injustice in the first place. In some ways, this entire process reinforces our being a subjugated people, especially when our devices to protest are controlled by the forces that oppress us. This is the reason Pan--Africanism is without question the key to resolving all of these problems. One unified socialist Africa will provide the muscle and ability of African people to control the sources and forces that govern markets. That structure societies. That establish culture. Once we have the ability to do that, we will no longer be in the position where imperialism is able to define our conditions. Imperialism defines the beauty standards for the world because it has the power to do so. Once we can determine our own destiny, we will then also have the power to do that for ourselves. This reality will alleviate the situation where we are dependent upon imperialism to recognize us which is like an abused person waiting for their abuser to recognize them. It cannot happen under that context. This is what Ture, Nkrumah, and Fanon wrote about. And this is why their African cultural analysis provides the added ingredient to our revolutionary ideology that Marx, Lenin, and Engels could never supply.

And as for our youth, we realize many of you are outraged when these stories arise, and you should be. And, of course, we share the outrage, but we also are excited by these challenges because we understand that struggle is dialectical, meaning as Nkrumah said the world is a series of forces in a plenum of tension. This means every cause generates an effect. So, this struggle over hairstyles seems to be one thing on the surface, but what is really happening is African youth are challenging the grips of imperialism on us as a people. And as they stand up to resist more and more of our youth will do the same. And the more this spreads it creates the exact conditions where our people begin to understand that claiming our culture is claiming our dignity. They also begin to understand that the only way we can hold unto that dignity is by achieving the power to enforce it. Africa and her liberation is the key to that power. She is the only key and these occurrences are daily reminders of just how close we are getting to that ultimate showdown.

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The Black Liberation Army and Today's Crushing of Dissent

5/15/2017

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I see all these people with apparent good intentions getting all upset and bent out of shape at the sight of white supremacists massing, showing their faces, and coming out to openly express their naked white supremacy. I know most of the people upset about this are sincere people, but I can only shake my head at how naive they are about the society they live in. These people act as if there is some moral force within this society that would or should somehow prohibit the presence of white supremacists. The problem with that is this society was built and is maintained on values of white supremacy. The only thing happening today is that the scab is being exposed for what it is.

I'm not the least bit shocked or surprised at the existence of these savages. What shocks me is how anyone could be surprised that they are here and why Africans won't prioritize getting organized to defend ourselves against them? What surprises me is how so-called white revolutionaries seem much more interested in reacting to white supremacists than effectively organizing against white supremacy. If people really understood what this society is about, than none of what's happening today should be a shock. And, although we hear some of these rodent white supremacists making feeble attempts to separate themselves from violent white supremacy by their amateurish efforts to link the ku klux klan and neo-nazi movements to our glorious freedom fighters, as if they can be mentioned in the same sentence, we know the history of this society. We know that white supremacists, violent as they want to be, have never been serious targets for destruction by this government because they have never been an obstacle to the imperialist aspirations of this capitalist empire. In fact, for the most part, just as they are doing today, they have served the interest of capitalism by supporting police terrorism and taking the agenda of white supremacy to higher levels, a necessity for capitalism and imperialism to continue to function effectively. On the other hand, African liberation organizations like the Black Liberation Army have been primary targets of destruction by capitalism because of their stated objective of destroying capitalism and replacing it with socialism that is designed to meet the needs of the masses of people. That's why the number of police who may have been cut down from guns from the Black Liberation Army is peanuts compared to the literally hundreds of thousands, millions, of Africans and other people who have been murdered and terrorized by white supremacists - from their independent organizations to those serving behind police badges - without any type of justice being served. Yet it is the Black Liberation Army fighters, not the violent white supremacists, who are viciously pursued by the state. That should tell you something.

And, this oppression against our freedom fighters is still happening. Kamau Sadiki is a former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army fighter who is among the dozens who are still incarcerated in 2017. Kamau has been incarcerated for decades, but the reasons he's still locked up today have very little to do with the 60s and 70s. Sadiki stays incarcerated as a part of a quietly kept operation by U.S. imperialism that has roots in the aftermath of 9/11. Once the Homeland Security apparatus was formed in 2002, a concerted effort was pursued to recruit old police agency hacks who had worked cases during the 60s/70s. The purpose of finding these hardened racist police was to focus attention on a number of unresolved cases of police officers who had been killed. These old racist cops, often having personal ties to many of their friends who had been killed, had added incentive to take these jobs that offered them open access to seek revenge for the deaths of their police comrades. In the 60s and 70s, there was no ISIS, no Al Queada. There was the African liberation movement. And you better understand that the brave people who participated in that movement were as vilified then as ISIS is today. So, it should come as no surprise what these terrorists with police authority have put in place. Dozens of former activists, people who abandoned political struggle decades ago, were pursued with the intent of opening up long closed cases and charging these people with these crimes. Most of these former activists were living working class non-activist lives. Working for the Post Office, raising children and grandchildren. Most of them were in their 60s and nearing their 70s. None of that mattered to the blood thirsty vision of these terrorist cops. In the case of the San Francisco 8, Richard Brown was tortured into confessing to a killing of a police officer that he not only had nothing to do with, but was clearly not even in the vicinity when the killing took place. He was arrested, convicted, and sent back to prison in the early 2000s for this phantom case. And the reason why its called the S.F. 8 is because several of his former comrades suffered the same fate.

In the case of Kamau Sadiki, he was also pursued for an old closed case of a cop who was shot and killed. In the case of Kamau, he was sought and charged with this killing in 2003 for an officer who's case had gone unresolved since 1971. At the time of Kamau's conviction in 2003, he was offered a deal by the state. If he would help them recapture Assata Shakur - the former Black Liberation Army leader who was freed from prison and has lived in Cuba since 1984 - his conviction would be overturned. Now, most people don't know that Kamau Sadiki is the father of Assata Shakur's now grown daughter. They achieved this wonderful accomplishment while being incarcerated in the same facility in the 70s before Assata was broken out. And, despite the fact Assata has lived peacefully in Cuba for going on 35 years, the U.S. not only won't let it go, they continue to amp up the energy in attempting to recapture her. They have made her - a woman in her mid sixties - the number one most wanted person today, in 2017, on the FBI'S most wanted list. They have doubled the bounty on her head to $2 million. And, they have spread all types of malicious rumors that the Cuban government was prepared to turn Assata over to U.S. authorities when the Cubans have made it crystal clear (through their actions as well as their words) that principles matter to them, something the U.S. is clearly incapable of understanding.

Of course, Kamau completely rejected the state's slimy proposal and when he did that, they told him if he didn't help them recapture Assata, he would spend the rest of his life in prison. So, Kamau Sakiki, along with many other notable and noble soldiers for African liberation, continues to sit in prison, in very poor health.

It should be said that several of these Black Liberation Army alumni still hold their revolutionary views, but whether they do or not, that isn't the reason this recent harassment and prosecution against them is taking place. The reason this is happening because all of these people, walking around today, are shining examples of people who fought U.S. imperialism on the front lines. Imperialism has a standing policy of ensuring no one who does that lives to brag about it. That's one of the most effective ways they maintain their mystique. Its the concept that they are invincible. If you go up against them, you will lose. People like Kamau Sakiki, and especially and without question Assata Shakur, are clear examples of that. This is the reason they pursue Assata so vigorously because they don't want you to seek inspiration from her example. They know that if you only knew about her example, not just the adventure elements of it, but her politics and what she actually stood and stands for, you would be encouraged to continue to fight for those very worthwhile principles and objectives. This is the thing that scares the system more than anything else. The FBI's Counterintelligence report about the Black Panthers in 1968 discussed how the Panthers had (according to the bureau) no more than 800 core members, but they estimated that 44% of African youth 25 and under were sympathetic to the message and work of the Black Panther Party. This is what frightens the power structure. So, you should know that when they come after Richard Brown, Kamau Sadiki, Jalil Mutaquim, Assata Shakur, and others, its partly because of what they did, but its equally as much because of what you could do. Assata, Kamau, and all the others, are much more than a meme or a hoodie. Please think about that. Think hard about that.

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Inside White Supremacy. The Crippling Pain from My Own People

5/12/2017

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I've gone back and forth about writing about this topic for years now. There are countless internal struggles within our African community that this capitalist/white supremacist system created and perpetuates that swim freely all throughout our culture. Even within the so-called conscious African circles. Since I completely understand that, I've avoided broaching this subject because I'm convinced that we as a people desperately need the time and space to heal and rebuild. I don't believe we can properly do that without genuine trust within our communities to hash out these issues among ourselves. So, despite the fact I have taken countless blows and attacks over the years, I've absorbed them without making an issue of it in a sincere effort to "take one for my team" so that I feel like I'm doing my part to protect the integrity of my people's experience. God knows there is more than enough already out there that seeks to discredit, harm, and otherwise damage our ability to sustain our existence against a system that has been hell bent on destroying us for 500+ years. Plus, because, like everyone of us, I've had my share of struggles against the inferiority complex that plagues our people, I've always believed it my responsibility to take blows in order to prove (in a dysfunctional way) that I'm worthy of the love I've always sought my entire life from whomever was willing to provide it.

I complain not about any of this because after taking so many blows I've come to realize there are probably no blows I cannot take. This has strengthened me in ways most people probably cannot imagine and I see that as a benefit and a resource in the fight(s) we have in front of us. So, I'm going to tackle this issue with as much diplomacy as I can while still managing to address my spiritual need to stand up for myself, and anyone who is unquestionably victimized by this same unfortunate phenomenon. This isn't easy, and it will certainly further cement the feelings of alienation I often feel, but consequences have never stopped me from doing what I believe to be right, so...

I've been back in Sacramento not even two months now. And, I love being back here. The strong cultural elements that exist here are feeding a long starved soul. I'm thankful to be back in California for so, so, many reasons, but one thing is bothering the hell out of me. In the two short months I've been back here, on four different occasions, people who I haven't seen or talked to during the entire time I lived in Oregon - 10 years total - have told me the same thing. All of these people, Africans active in this Sacramento activist and/or artist/cultural community, have told me that the only thing they knew about me during that 10 year period is that I dating someone who was not African. This type of revelation wouldn't mean anything if I was a guy who's life consisted of going to a job, watching ballgames, and buying several six packs per week. No shade against that guy. Its just that he's never been me. My life has always been dominated, at a great personal price to me, to engaging in organizing work to liberate my people as a contribution to liberating all of oppressed humanity. That means that there was never a period of hitting the clubs on a regular basis. There was never a period of indulging in recreational drugs. There were never any hangovers. No period of getting away to get high. There has always been the constant work to engage in working with people. That means there has always been the constant follow up with people and having them stand you up. In fact, I can say confidently that I've been personally stood up thousands of times. That's part of the work. Just like its part of the work for people to see you and reach out to repeatedly to provide a service request for them. Counsel them on problems. Mentor their children. Intervene in conflict to have difficult conversations and/or even violent intervention. It matters not that none of these people have any intention of being there for you for even the slightest thing. Regardless, I've been there to do all of that, often and consistently over the years. I've been there to build. Have it knocked down, and build again. I've been disappointed more than an entire generation of children who learned Santa Claus is a lie, only to pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep working. I've been disrespected so many times that I've come to expect it. And the efforts to engage in personal undermining, discrediting, and sabotage. This has been so common that I consider it a regular part of my existence.

I say all of that to say that I established a very consistent track record of doing all of those things for the struggle in Sacramento before I moved to Portland, Oregon, and did the exact same thing. And I didn't do it for five minutes. i did it for years and continue to do it. So, anyone who knows me knows all of that. This is why it is completely insane to me that not one person, not two, not three, but four different people, in less than two months, could tell me that all they know about what I've been doing for the last 10 years is betraying my people because I dated outside of my race. None of them knew anything about the School of African Roots (SOAR) in Portland that I played a critical role in creating. None of them were familiar with the free breakfast program I played a major role in initiating and maintaining that existed in consistent fashion for a year and half, leading to the elevation of SOAR. We fed hundreds of children's stomachs and minds and that school is continuing to do that. Of course, there would be no SOAR without the All African People's Revolutionary Party chapter in Oregon which is going strong with young African members from all over the world. There was no A-APRP in Oregon before I got there and all those things I described above happened in my life in order for there to be an A-APRP in Oregon today, but none of these people knew anything about that. No one was aware that I had written and published three different books during my 10 years in Oregon. No one had heard a peep about how on numerous occasions, at great physical and psychological damage to myself, I had helped lead protection of the community against armed white supremacists. There would have been crickets had I mentioned that I got in physical fights and got pepper sprayed by police, and pulled over and harassed for nothing on 10 separate occasions, because of the housing justice work I did to ensure that older Africans were not illegally evicted from thier homes. And, the astounding thing is that the school, the A-APRP in Oregon, the breakfast program, the books, all of it, came with extensive media, social and mainstream, whereas I don't think my dating life had any of that. Yet, that news, without any work attached to it, spread faster than all the hard work I was doing combined. And apparently, all of my people here forgot the work that was carried out before I left California in 2007 because had they remembered, they should have thought to consider that I had to be doing more in 10 years than dating - outside of my race.

Please don't misconstrue all of this to mean that I'm sore just because I haven't received any credit I believe is due me. Or, that I think I'm beyond a critical assessment of who I date. I accept all of that. I've spent my entire adult life involved in independent revolutionary political organizing. And if there is one thing I've learned in the last 35 years of doing this work its that this imperialist system is systemically designed to ensure people like me not only never receive any credit, but that we be judged as clinically insane by the majority people operating within this society. And, I think the discussion about interracial dating is enough of a valid one that I even made it a central part of both novels I wrote, but the people who criticized the fact I have a European woman in my book, never read them, so they missed that. Anyway, I'm comfortable in these spaces. I not only know the credit isn't coming, and yes, that means doing work just to have others take credit for it. I also have reached a place where I really don't need it. I have sufficiently evolved enough within my Nkrumahist/Tureist ideological development process that I can tell you confidently and honestly that my best moments are seeing people rise up against oppression and I'm most happy when I know I made any type of contribution to making that happen, despite whether anyone knows that contribution or not. We are so oppressed that I love to see my people come up which is why all of this is so painful to me because I always wish people the best. The most happiness. And I still always assume, as naive as you may think it is, that people have my best interest like I have theirs. I know better, but that faith in my people is a significant factor in driving my passion for the work, so I don't ever want to become cynical, jaded, and distrustful as I've experienced people being towards me and many others.

Unfortunately, this all comes down to the fact that as oppressed African people we still, in 2017, have a very difficult time believing we can win as a people. In spite of how good we look in our cultural attire. How confident we may seem. No one can convince me that the masses of us still don't believe the master is better. I can expertly analyze this system and the evidence is overwhelming. If it were not true, we wouldn't behave like this. We would behave in the way that confident and healthy thinking people would behave. That would mean supporting and encouraging the positive. It would mean demanding to hear and find the positive that our people are doing instead of being completely satisfied to believe trivial things about one another. It would mean being interested in what's being done to win our liberation instead of who someone is dating. Yes, I'm saying that the people focused on who someone is dating are exposing themselves to an experienced organizer like me as someone who isn't involved in organizing our people. That's especially true for revolutionary organizers. Because so much of your time - at least 95% of it - is spent in environments you don't believe in (because you are in the work of moving your people) that you already know that you have to learn that in order to build the relationships with one another we need to build to get stronger, your ego cannot get in the way. That means you cannot focus on your personal beliefs because once they clash with the people you are organizing, you can't build any longer. So, you have to make a commitment to putting your ego aside and when you learn to do that, you start to grow and realize a lot of what you thought was important isn't important at all. You start to get to know people different than you and you come to understand that the differences with them you thought were critical actually have nothing to do with us coming together to liberate ourselves. If you really do the work than you know that. If you don't do the work than all that's really important to you is what you think because in your tiny world, that's all that matters. To those people, ego means everything and they will hold unto it at the risk of death because they really don't believe liberation is possible anyway so why not hold unto our personal ethos. At least that gives you some sort of dysfunctional energy boost.

I'm not going to get into who I'm with because its really none of your business. My dad told me years ago that he never made decisions based on people who "didn't put food on his table" and I live by that philosophy as a principle. The point of this is to express that despite my desire to say I don't care what my people think, the way people treat me matters and it hurts, but don't confuse that to mean it will influence or stop me from moving forward because I'll be doing this work as long as I live. And, I'll be doing it in my Pan-African revolutionary lane that entire time. So, yes, there people outside my race, among all the other things I did and do for my people. If that makes me a traitor to you I hope you can get over it and see the larger picture. In other words, if you truly love your people like you claim you do, than don't sabotage the work I'll be doing. That work will be good work. Necessary work and its about our people. Not me. Not you and your all important opinions. Its about our people. Take a second and soak that in. When you die the people at your funeral won't be talking about how much money you had or who you dated. They will be talking about what impact you had on their lives. I know that people have to say I had a positive impact on their lives so I'll go with that because whomever I'm dating will be giving me what I need to fight the beast that is oppressing our people. Instead of tearing down those of us who are sacrificing a lot, maybe you can mature a little and learn how to provide support to those who are waging the fight in ways you know damn well you don't possess the courage to carry out.

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Capitalism, Cinco De Mayo, and Selling Oppressed Peoples Culture

5/6/2017

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That's one thing Kwame Ture always said about capitalism. Despite what you may think about the system, its always consistent. As he said it, this system never tells the truth. Not it sometimes tells a lie. It never tells the truth. "And even if it tells the truth, its only because of a double lie!" Capitalism consistently pimps the culture of oppressed people to make money off of our suffering. That's why I told the man who ignorantly asked me recently why so many African youth use the n word that he was indeed a very stupid man. If African people have been for sale under capitalism for 500+ years, why would any sane thinking person think our culture wouldn't also be on the sales rack? Why wouldn't they make a commodity of our suffering right along with that process? The n word has been a profit maker for this system since its inception so if you understand that, it shouldn't be any surprise to you how easily the n word can slip off anyone's lips today.

This is the same reality with all oppressed people. Your suffering is for sale in this backward system. And, they specialize in taking your victories and making them commodities. That's why everyone today knows St. Patricks Day is in mid March and these same people look forward to that day as a party day, but almost no one can tell you the history of the day or what the day actually means. That's why the same contradictions exist for Halloween, Easter, Thankstaking - oops giving, the fourth of the lie, Mis-Christ, etc. And, sadly, we have just seen another manifestation of this inhumane practice with the Cinco De Mayo holiday. Many people are too hung over to even read something like this right now, but that doesn't change the fact that like all the others, Cinco De Mayo has nothing to do with partying and getting drunk. For those who are interested, the day actually represents the 5th of May, 1870, which is supposed to symbolize when the Mexican people of the town of El Pueblo de Los Angeles, poorly armed and lacking in equipment, defeated the invading French army on shear determination. But, the point here isn't to provide a history lesson because clearly, the people out last night have no interest in that. The point is in acknowledging that one of capitalism's most consistent methods of demoralizing a people's determination to be free is to take control of their cultural institutions and turn them from vehicles to battle against oppression into vessels to advance the capitalist system. They have done this with all of the institutions mentioned here and they continue to try this same tactic with any and every institution that they can successfully create the narrative for. This is why they produced a Malcolm X stamp. And a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez holiday. Its why corporations dominate the Juneteenth holiday today. And, they would love to get their hands on May Day and African Liberation Day. In fact, I recall several years ago when we were actually approached by a marketing firm about hiring them to market African Liberation Day. Once I finished explaining the true nature of this day to the ambitious young man on the phone, he left me holding the receiver, but we realize that the minute African Liberation Day captures that mass imagination as it is rapidly doing, they will be back.

What the masses of peace and justice loving people have to do is reclaim our history. Snatch it back from the jaws of imperialism. Create our own institutions around these symbols and make sure our children and everyone else understands the true meaning. And, the only way we can systemically make this happen is if enough of us are in organizations doing this on an organized and ongoing basis. It can't happen on an individual one off here and there because that won't make even a chip in the mass consistent propaganda machine that capitalism relies on. So, hopefully, you had the chance to tell a party reveler yesterday that for every sip they take they are actually celebrating an Indigenous family member knocking the you know what out of a European settler.

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Black Panthers, the NRA, and the Contradiction of Guns in the U.S.

5/1/2017

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May 2, 2017, marks the 50th commemoration of 29 Black Panther Party members and supporters converging on the California State Capitol in Sacramento, armed with guns, to protest the pending Mulford bill legislation to make carrying guns in public illegal. Don Mulford, a racist state senator from racist Mill Valley in the Bay Area, sponsored this bill, with full backing from the National Rifle Association (NRA). At that time, carrying guns in public in California was often as common as carrying a boombox was in the 90s. Still, it wasn't until Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale started organizing the young Black Panther organization in Oakland to engage in armed patrols of the police that the issue of carrying guns became an issue. The Panthers were interested in challenging the rampant police terrorism that was dominant then, and is still dominant today. Huey, Bobby, and other Panthers would patrol around Oakland, following police cars. When the police got out of their cars to harass African people, as they always did, the carload of Black Panthers would stop, get out with their guns, and recite the proper laws to the Africans being harassed. When the police challenged the Panthers for carrying guns, they would not back down. Instead, they would make it quite clear to the police that if any effort was made to disarm the Panthers, they would defend themselves and the community from attack.

There were high profile incidents like the Panthers showing up armed at the San Francisco airport in late 1966 to escort Dr. Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, to an interview at Ramparts magazine in town. Reporters and police challenged the Panthers that day and Huey Newton showed the world how fearless and determined he was to stand up for African rights. Incidents like this one placed the young Panther organization in the sights of local and federal law enforcement agencies. The Mulford Act was a carefully designed and supported measure to cripple the Panther's ability to perform their armed patrols.

To protest this racist effort, the Panthers coordinated showing up at the capitol on May 2, 1967. Those 29 brave Africans were armed with long rifles, pistols, and every type of gun they could get their hands on. Their intent was simply to wage a protest against the state legislature against the Mulford bill. As they approached the capitol in disciplined formation, it was clear that this would not be a quiet protest. Then governor Ronald Reagan was on the lawn of the capitol speaking to a group of primarily European school children. The children saw the Panthers and thought they were another gun club. The children surrounded the Panthers to ask them questions about their guns. Meanwhile, cowboy super hero Ronald Reagan saw the armed Africans and took off running, leaving the children behind with the Panthers. So much for his Hollywood crafted image as a strong man role model.

The Panthers made their way into the capitol and Bobby Seale read the prepared statement about protecting African people from police terrorism. The Panthers were unsure where to go to observe the legislature in action so they inadvertently (at the advice of a reporter) wandered onto the floor of the legislature which by policy was not open to the public.

The day ended with the Panthers arrested blocks from the capitol for the transgression of entering the legislative chambers. The Mulford bill passed easily, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation turned up the heat on its illegal campaign to destroy the Panthers and the entire African liberation movement. What we should take from the Panthers action 50 years ago is that African people have always stood up against oppression and that we have done so as Malcolm X instructed "by any means necessary!" This is a critical point because the Panthers bold stance with the guns, although overwhelmingly criticized since it happened, changed the thinking of the African masses. After the Panther patrols, much of the fear was wiped away. The image of these young fearless Africans standing down racist police with their own guns energized the psyche of the African masses. Even today, when police terrorism is still a serious problem, the attitude of the Africans masses is much different than it was 50 years ago. The fact this is also the 25 commemoration of the Los Angeles rebellion is further proof of that. Our people are still dis-organized, but we are definitely no longer afraid. And Huey P. and the Panthers deserve much of the credit for that.

Also, their action should highlight for anyone confused how racist and contradictory the NRA has always been and continues to be. Clearly, they stand for gun rights only if you are rich and white. And, any African who would be an NRA member should change their last name to confused. Our responsibility today is to build on the Panthers legacy of community organizing so that we can build up and create a community consciousness around protecting ourselves and challenging this backward society in an organized fashion. When we can do that, no bill or law will be able to stop us and we will have the power we desperately need and deserve.

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African Liberation Day and My Tales from the Hood

Banning African Hairstyles: Our Experience Until Africa is Free

The Black Liberation Army and Today's Crushing of Dissent

Inside White Supremacy. The Crippling Pain from My Own People

Capitalism, Cinco De Mayo, and Selling Oppressed Peoples Culture

Black Panthers, the NRA, and the Contradiction of Guns in the U.S.

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