Ahjamu Umi's: "The Truth Challenge"
  • Home
  • Workshops
  • New Manifesto
  • Hit Me Up
  • Blog
  • Coming Events
  • Videos
  • Donations

The Excitement & Trauma that Comes with Potential Book Events

5/28/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture

The human mind in its own specific capacity is an amazing entity.  I remember reading as a youth that humans only use about 6% of our brain capacity and decades after reading that, its still every unclear exactly what the other 94% of our brain can accomplish.  If you take that reality coupled with having to live under systems dominated by oppression and the resulting dysfunction, its really a roller-coaster ride of unexpected twists and turns navigating through this life.  

In other words, the majority of people who think they know me would automatically assume that my favorite thing is appearing in front of a microphone to talk about the ills of society and the potential we have to address those problems.  Those good folks couldn't be farther from the truth about me though.  In real time I'm actually a very introverted person who would really prefer not to be the center of attention.  The idea of it has always made me extremely uncomfortable.  Just this last Saturday I gave a work shop in front of a room full of people at African Liberation Day.  I have plenty of experience doing this type of thing.  As a result, as usual, I worked my way through my slides, using humor when I could, and making pointed public points that most people would never attempt to say in front of other people.  Over the years, I've developed my own unique disciplined method of presenting which permits me to do so without using any notes (I memorize my primary talking points and proceed from there).  So, I say humbly that to the outside observer it could seem as if doing this is second nature for me, but the energy and commitment that people perceive.  The persona that people think they understand, is really just something I've created to permit me to deliver messages that I believe, with all my heart, need to be delivered.  I believe this to such a full extent that I'm actively working on ways today to ensure my time, efforts, and energies are appreciated and respected (for many years I was so focused on getting the word about injustice out that I didn't properly learn how to make sure I didn't undermine my value in doing so).  Still, for anyone paying any attention, immediately after delivering that message I'm quick to disappear.  Anyone can also observe that my participation in events is never just about my being center stage.  I always and consistently perform every function imaginable e.g. being one of the first to arrive and one of the last to leave.  Cleaning, guiding, helping, doing whatever I can to support all those working with me.  I say all that to emphasize that for me, this work has never been and will never be about me, centered around me.

That's why the concept of book events absolutely terrify me.  Unlike other political education events, the book event, no matter how much I work to tie it into the broader struggle for social justice, is at least on some level going to be about me.  And, the absurdity of it all doesn't escape me.  You work for years, and I mean working vigorously and resolutely, to put out a literary work you can be proud of.  Something that does honor to our ancestors, which is really the only thing I keep telling myself I need to ever be concerned about, but then finally, that work is completed.  For me, the importance of all this writing is again, to get the message out.  I don't care about money, fame, any of that.  I would place my book up against any other literary fiction work to test for value, but I know that this work is far too complex to qualify for the superficial work of reactionary stimuli that poses as literature and art in today's consumer society.  I've talked to too many publishers and agents to be confused here.  They've already confirmed for me multiple times.  My work is very good, but its not "marketable" under their method of operation.  So, I have no illusions about that. I  never have.  My audience is those gentle souls for justice who desire something to lift them up.  To lift all of us up.  My hope is to encourage those souls with what I write.  So, since delivering this message is my entire motivation for producing it in the first place, why am I so terrified?

The answer is couched in the reason why I write and organize in the first place.  Being on the receiving end of more than my share of trauma growing up, I have spent my entire adult life struggling to overcome deep seated feelings of inadequacy and self doubt.  This is also something people who observe me would never guess.  People tell me all the time that I'm a picture of confidence to them and they are not wrong.  As I've said, I've worked my a - - off fighting through my issues, but the truth is the only difference between me and other people is I've reached the place where I'm never going to let my insecurities stop me from doing anything.  Instead, I just bring that baggage along with me with everything I do.  And believe me, that baggage is heavy as hell.  Most recently, I've been packed with fears about whether anyone wants to hear what I have to say or not.  Whether the wonderful people who have volunteered to help me promote this book will wake up and wonder why they did so?  Whether I can weed through this personal stuff to deliver a clear and inspirational message?  Believe me when I tell you I'm haunted to the point of tears constantly by all of this.

The difference again, is despite the pain all of this causes me, I'm never going to give up.  I certainly think about it all the time, but I'm never going to give in to it.  I'm not because the one thing I've learned over the years is an intense hatred of oppression and the exploitation of people.  I absolutely refuse to compromise with it on a level that most people will never understand.  And, I'm crystal clear that oppression is the cause of this trauma I'm haunted by.  I refuse to go out like that by letting that dysfunction win.  I just won't ever do it.  So, I'm slogging forward with my plans to try and piece together as many book events as I can and its happening, slowly, but surely.  And, I'll do them, whether its one or 20, and I'll deliver.  I always do.  And, I'll experience all of the major self doubt before, during, and after I deliver.  I'll probably even convince myself that everyone hated me because that's typically what happens., but I won't stop.

The reason I'm even writing about this isn't because I'm trying to focus on me.  Its because I know I'm not the only person who engages these struggles because I'm not the only person oppressed under this system.  In fact, I know millions suffer this way in scenarios that make mine minor.  So, my hope is that hopefully, these words can encourage you to not quit either.  If you have work and a message of inspiration, don't let them win by discouraging you.  If I can help you in any way (only sincere need apply though.  My capacity is limited), please don't hesitate to reach out.  Those of us producing these messages of art that seek to overcome this oppressive system are the only support each other actually has.  That's really another point.  Something that would really help is more support.  Its disheartening to see people pour so much support into everything that celebrities do.  Into everything that already has so much systemic support while ignoring genuine efforts by sincere people to make change.  Its like a knife to the heart to see people, good people. express support and admiration for police and military who are simply carrying out the agenda for imperialism while ignoring those of us who struggle to make a real difference.  Or, in other words, my grandmother said "even the dead fish can go with the current."  Following unjust orders is not honorable.  Standing up against injustice is. 

Of course, I know why this contradiction exists.  I have the complete analysis and I provide it whenever I do a workshop/presentation, etc., so I'm one of the last people who needs a lecture about it.  I'm just conveying my raw emotions.  Pay attention to those truly trying to make a difference and support those efforts any way you can.  These folks need your support and it helps them continue to forge forward despite the challenges of oppression, lack of resources, etc.

As for me, don't be too concerned.  I'll go through my personal and emotional gauntlet, but I'm getting a little better at learning how to enjoy the moment that I've worked so hard to arrive at.  And, even during the parts I'm struggling with, no matter what happens, now, no matter if no one buys a book, listens to the analysis, and denounces anything I'm doing from here to eternity, I'm never, ever, going to stop.  Malcolm never stopped.  Assata didn't.  Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, Carlota, Carmen Pierera, none of them ever stopped and they are my inspiration so I'm committed to doing my best to be someone elses.  Besides, I keep telling myself that my personal time clock isn't necessarily the same clock humanity is utilizing.  Its probably going to be years after I'm dead that my literature finds its voice.  Maybe its voice will come stronger without me and in some ways, that's probably going to be better because at least the message will be getting out without the painful process coming with it.

0 Comments

African Liberation Day Addresses Attacks against Pan-Africanism

5/23/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture

This weekend, May 25th, commemorates 62 years of African Liberation Day (ALD).  This day was originated by Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana in 1958 to symbolize the necessity for Africa to be free.  Or, in the words of Nkrumah himself; "until Africa is free, no African anywhere will ever be free!"  

There are dishonest elements running around in African community circles around the world today.  In the U.S. some of those people call themselves ADOS or the so-called American Descendants of Slaves.  Capitalizing on imaginative social media skills and a severe desperation on the part of our people to be free, these ADOS people use the same xenophobic talking point over and over to attempt to divide our people and carve out space for them to reap crumbs from the master's table.  They are saying  Africans within the U.S. should denounce Africans here from other parts of the world and that we should see them as competing against us for resources here within the U.S.  Their argument is that Pan-Africanism, the movement to unite Africans everywhere, hasn't done anything tangible in recent times to benefit Africans in the U.S.  In other words, they are claiming that Africans born outside the U.S. are stealing resources that should go to Africans born in the U.S. while contributing nothing to Africans in the U.S.

Besides the obvious and crass imitation of white supremacist talking points against immigration into the U.S. (no surprise here, the white supremacists and these ADOs people have many of the same benefactors), the false argument that Pan-Africanism does nothing for Africans within the U.S. is quickly disposed of by taking just a cursory glance at African Liberation Day.  ALD is to Pan-Africanism what Christmas is to Christianity.  Its shinning moment.  Its best face for the entire world.  And anyone looking at ALD should be able to see right away how much Pan-Africanism is moving.

In 2019, next weekend, there are about 30 known African Liberation Day commemorations being conducted all over the African world.  The All African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) alone has a role in organizing at least 17 of them throughout Africa, Europe, Canada, and the U.S.  For the ALDs we are organizing in the A-APRP, the languages being spoken in each venue will vary significantly.  English.  The so-called King's English.  Fante, Kiswahili, Zulu, French, Susu, Wolof, all will be utilized this next weekend, but despite the differences in languages and geographical locations, the theme will be the same; "Revolutionary Pan-Africanism calls us to unite and forge a definitive struggle against neo-colonialism; Forward to one unified socialist Africa!"

How this international uniform theme benefits Africans everywhere should be obvious.  Our detractors are always quick to point out that African people have so many different languages and customs that, in their opinion, it would be very difficult for us to unite.  ALD disproves that because having the same theme and focus in so many different places around the world with so many different customs, languages, etc., illustrates that despite our differences, as Nkrumah said, we have more commonalities.  ALD 2019 symbolizes that we getting on the the same page everywhere we are on the planet. 

To the ADOS argument about Pan-Africanism not helping Africans in the U.S., think about any situation in life you have experienced where you are being abused, bullied, etc.  Maybe it happened at school.  Or work, or even in your family relationships.  What always constitutes the strength for the abuser is their ability to isolate you and keep you powerless.  The minute other people understand what is happening the power of the abuser weakens significantly.  This is no different with Pan-Africanism.  As long as they can convince us that we must focus only on the U.S. or as ADOS would have us believe, that our only opportunities are to fight other Africans and everyone else for stolen resources here in this country, we will never burst out of our oppressive state.  With ALD, the fact we are even symbolically on the same page sends a message to our enemies that we are working to get on that same page practically, concretely, and consistently.  This alone will always make your enemy look at you quite differently and it should make you look at yourself in an entirely new light.

For so many places in Africa to embrace a message of African unity tells you in the U.S. that contrary to the lies imperialism has consistently told you, there is a home for you.  You have a place to go - Africa.  Since a major power source for imperialism against the African masses within the U.S. is that the only place in the world that matters is here.  This message of African unity shatters that lie and tells us that we have a place that wants and needs us. That the wealth in the U.S. is stolen from Africa and that all we need to do is regain our stolen wealth and Africa will rise again.  The same message tells Africans in other parts of the world that we have the ability to organize our resources, technological capabilities, potential, and capacity to build up our homeland - Africa - independent of whatever imperialism wants to do.  This is our moment where the abusive "partner" who controls every element of our lives is forced to recognize that we are no longer in the position where they can dictate what we do.  That automatically means strength for us and defeat for our abusers.  This is especially critical for Africans within the U.S. because none of the legislative and other inside the system reforms we have fought for in the U.S. can offer us any hope of any power and dignity.  The system controls all of those things.  They know it and you know it.  With Pan-Africanism, we control everything and by we its clear that we are talking about the masses of African people.  That's the power in it.  What other people anywhere on earth are doing the same thing, at the same time, all over the earth, to commemorate a unified movement for freedom and justice?  That last sentence summarizes African Liberation Day which symbolizes Pan-Africanism.  Plain and simple.  

Today, we have that symbol, but the relevance of symbols is the power they represent.  All we have to do is continue to build on that power, but there is no quality argument to dismiss that this is a current day reality that every African everywhere on earth benefits from whether that African is aware of it or not.  So, find yourself an African Liberation Day activity taking place this week and this weekend.  Do what you can to support it.  And, definitely tell those ADOs people that the jig is up on their scam denial of the strength of Pan-Africanism.  Just the fact that Pan-Africanism and ALD lifts up the masses of African people everywhere while ADOs is only interested in providing resources for a tiny petti bourgeoisie element of African traitors ready and willing to compromise with imperialism for their cut says all that needs to be said about what's really happening here.  Pan-Africanism is our way forward.  The clear potential it represents today already gives us strength in ways we only need to learn to be aware of in order to feel and benefit from.  That's another purpose for ALD.  To educate our people about this reality.  Imperialism knows Pan-Africanism spells its downfall.  Or, as Sekou Ture told us "imperialism will find its grave in Africa."  That's why imperialism will stop at nothing to get us in the U.S. focused on everything in the world except Africa, but once we figure this piece out for ourselves, we will be not be able to be stopped.  Make a commitment to help our true movement for liberation grow.  Start by supporting African Liberation Day.  You can find out more about African Liberation Day events near you by going to https://africanliberationday.net/ for more information.  See you out there this weekend!

0 Comments

Patriarchy & This Man's Perspective on Controlling People's Bodies

5/22/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture

Even if as a man I had no opinion about recent legislative efforts in Alabama, U.S. about prohibiting people's rights to choose whether they wish to have babies or not, science, objective logic, and a basic sense of human dignity would push me to be 100% opposed to these efforts.  The people pushing to curb abortion rights are the very same people who unquestionably support police terrorism, mass incarceration, anti-immigrant measures, Islamophobia, and homophobic policies, so there is never anything that I'm going to agree with these "people" on.

There's much more to this issue though.  These enemies of justice have an agenda of controlling everything and everyone who doesn't fall lock step in line with the dominant capitalist patriarchy of white supremacist ideologues and policy making.  To them, the decision to have a baby is based on their view of women and non-men as commodities which of course is tied to their view of African and other colonized people as commodities.  Non-humans.  People unworthy of respect and self-determination.  That's how these miserable beings view us and that's why they find absolutely no contradiction with them attempting to legally regulate their bodies.  

As Kwame Nkrumah told us, capitalism is ripe as a "plenum of forces in tension."  What he meant is this society is completely rotten with challenges against humanity, but humanity consistently finds ways to fight back against the oppression.  In other words, the conditions from Alabama, U.S. tell us that we must unite around these questions from a position of justice, period.  What this means is as a man, I have a responsibility to be in the forefront of challenging any efforts to eliminate justice from any segment of the populations.  I have this responsibility because to do so is the right thing to do as opposed to the forces of injustice who make their policy decisions based on efforts to continue to control the movements of all populations who pose any level of threat to their desires to maintain hegemony over the human and material resources of the planet.  

That's why the contradictions Nkrumah spoke of are everywhere.  These same people who claim they work to restrict people's rights to determine what happens with their bodies because their concern is for the "rights" of those yet unborn.  This is of course a complete lie.  If it were true. these people would not also be supporting U.S. imperialist aggression against countries around the world where millions of children are brutally murdered by U.S. supported tax dollars and trained mercenaries (U.S. military).  If people really cared about children they couldn't justify and ignore the immoral incarceration of thousands of Indigenous children seeking refuge from their originating countries that are being completely sabotaged by U.S. supported dictators and neo-colonial puppet leaders.  They could not have the capacity to ignore U.S. police terrorists murdering children like little Tamir Rice within seconds of coming upon him playing with a toy gun.  These same people laud the brutal murderers of Rice and all children as heroes so that would tell even an individual thinking on the most basic level imaginable that this level of scum could never have any concern about children.  Clearly, that's not it.  Instead, its a desire to control the bodies of the people capable to reproducing life because they know that by controlling this element, they move closer to being able to control everything that the masses of people do on Earth, which ultimately, is their objective.

More contradictions.  These criminals would never propose that men's bodies be controlled in any fashion.  In fact, you cannot name one way that a man's body is in any way legislated, anywhere on Earth.  If the objective was morality, as these crooks claim, than it would be equally as simple to require men to have vasectomies.  I've had one since 1997 because I decided then that with having my wonderful biological child, and helping/assisting in the raising of countless other people's biological children, I didn't have the need or desire to have more children.  And, its not that my life was ever a playboy's paradise.  It never has been anything close to that (if such a thing even exists).  My reasons for getting a vasectomy were the partner I had at that time had health issues that made birth control dangerous for them to use for a variety of reasons.  Since I knew I didn't want additional children, I offered the solution of me having a vasectomy and although that particular relationship didn't last, I've never once regretted my decision.

Women and non-men should be the only decision makers about what happens to their bodies.  If people really have a concern about the future of children, there a hundreds of thousands of children waiting on your caring soul to adopt them.  Or, at least mentor them.  Most of the people pushing for this control I assure you will do neither.  Nor do they have any intention of doing either because that's not their concern.  Controlling humanity is.  That's why its so important for men to step up and declare that we will not tolerate this nonsense.  If you are a man and you have a concern about populations being controlled by abortion than I have an easy solution for you.  Prepare yourself and then organize an organization of men who will have as many children as you want with the organizational responsibility that you will help raise them in this capitalist society.  Of course, no one is going to do anything like that because again, that's really not what you want is it? 

For the rest of us, its imperative that we make our voices loud in condemning this trend.  Those men who believe in this hegemony over people's bodies definitely don't speak for me.  And, any man worth his weight in morality will have to say the same.  This is an issue that is easily resolved.  Everyone can get what they want e.g. men can have as many children as they wish, but we refuse to play their stupid game that they don't want government except in areas where their government controls our lives.  If this isn't a signal to you that its time to get involved in this struggle for justice, on a practical level - not just a talking about it level - I don't know what will inspire you.

For African people in particular, its far past time that we spoke out against the hypocrisy in our communities.  This disgusting contradiction where we sit here and let a bunch of worthless chicken wing preachers tell us every Sunday that abortion is wrong while those same churches do absolutely nothing to help the millions of African children who suffer today.  These same gutless preachers who wouldn't lift a finger to support one African body except their own while they drain the limited resources of every African who comes through their doors.  This is disgraceful and its time we gain enough backbone to tell Reverend pigsfeet, or Imam porkchop, that until we start seeing these churches do something to challenge systemic oppression, instead of just being cowardly and focusing on controlling individual decisions that Jesus and Allah, etc., couldn't care less about.  No wonder church going is continuing to diminish.  I hope it diminishes to the point where these chitlin pastors are out on the streets collecting cans for a living.  Its far past time where we as African men start standing up for the African women and non-men in our communities who are the backbone of everything good coming towards us.  We should respect them enough to understand they have proven quite capable of making nothing except the best decisions for the future of our families and our people.  

The same is true for all women, non-men, everywhere.  Our love and support should be unconditional and without cowardice and ego.  We owe that to humanity.

And for women and non-men.  I get the logic argument that people are going to have abortions whether they are legal and safe or not.  That's an effective talking point for people who are just confused about the issue and need more information, analysis, and perspective.  Its not a useful argument for the people pushing against your rights.  As Kwame Ture told us 50 years ago, appealing to a person's consciousness is only effective if said person has a conscience.  In the case of this country and these anti-human people we are talking about, there is no conscience.  Only a desire for control and power and the continued dominance of the capitalist system.  Appealing to their morality is a waste of time.  Until all of us are ready to bring this system to a standstill, things are only going to get worse. And, by standstill we mean just that.  Not just lobbying for another stop gap bill like Roe V Wade that can be overturned the minute the right reactionaries are in control.  Nkrumah's statement applies even to childbirth.  That process itself is a contradiction of forces struggling against one another until the dominant solution is the baby being born.  Our struggle to maintain our dignity and protect people's rights on any level is no different.  If we aren't going to be ready to fight for a better system then we should just stop complaining about how oppressive this one is. 

0 Comments

The Historical Connection Between Malcolm X & Ho Chi Minh

5/19/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Today, May 19th, symbolizes the born day for two giants in human history.  El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) and Nguyen Al Thoc (Ho Chi Minh).  Depending upon whether you study history in a critical fashion or if your information is received 100% from the enemies of humanity, Malcolm is either a revolutionary Pan-Africanist or a militant anti-white Black nationalist.  Ho Chi Minh is either the courageous leader of the Vietnamese resistance against U.S. led world imperialism, or he is an oppressive despot who ruled over the Vietnamese people.  

We of course accept only the former definitions for both of these historical figures.  At no time in history has U.S. imperialism ever acknowledged its exploitative role throughout the world so there is no existing scenario where imperialism is ever going to accept and respect those people who dared wage a fight against its hegemony.  So, Malcolm and Uncle Ho are strong examples of forward progress for us and we would like to take this space on the day each of them was brought into this life to acknowledge the little discussed connections between each of their massive contributions to humanity.

As we have discussed previously, Ho Chi Minh was a student at Columbia University in New York City during the late teens and early 20s of the last century.  Living in Harlem, New York, U.S., and working as a dishwasher at local restaurants, Uncle Ho experienced extreme poverty and life in the inner city of the U.S. He wrote about how he relished going to the street corner rallies and listening to African nationalist speakers address the problems of African people worldwide.  Uncle Ho discussed how his favorite speaker was the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey who at that time was laying the groundwork for his Universal Negro Improvement Association which went on to become the largest independent African organization our people have ever had.  Garvey's nationalist message had a huge impact on Uncle Ho.  The message helped him frame his perspective on white supremacy within the U.S.  A perspective he would go on to use in a tactical sense in the war against U.S. imperialism.  He would exploit the disconnect between Africans, even those in the U.S. military, and the U.S. government to spread the seeds of distrust and demoralization about fighting in a war, for a country - the U.S. - that did not recognize and/or treat us like human beings.  Even imperialist analysts are forced to acknowledge that this psychological attack challenging the relationship between Africans in the military, and the contradictions of a racist U.S. government, had a profound impact on the morale of U.S. troops, thus playing a significant role in the U.S.'s inability to advance to victory against the Vietnamese people.

Garvey's message was equally influential to the family of Malcolm X.  Malcolm's mother was born and raised in the Caribbean like Garvey so Louise Little had no trouble understanding the Pan-African message Garvey was delivering.  Earl Little, Malcolm's father, was a staunch and dedicated Garveyist who, along with the support of his wife, did much work to spread Garvey's message during Malcolm's youth.  The message of African nationalism and Pan-Africanism flowed through Uncle Ho and Malcolm as each developed into their life paths which would lead them to achieve their ultimate contributions.

There is much being discussed today about Malcolm's final year of life.  The debate is focused primarily on whether Malcolm wanted back in the Nation of Islam or not.  Any critical observer would know immediately that based on Malcolm's behavior, this objective was not central to the development he was engaged in.  He wrote in his autobiography that the highest honor of his life was his time spent with Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, the founder of the Convention People's Party, and the founder of the All African People's Revolutionary Party.  Its strange that Malcolm would make such a strong statement like this about Nkrumah, but no scholar has ever attempted to examine what he meant deeper.  In fact, most scholars like Manning Marable are so intent upon connecting the finances for Malcolm's travels to the reactionary (so-called) Muslim leaders of Saudi Arabia that virtually no attention is given to the work Malcolm was doing in that final year and what his developing relationship with Nkrumah actually was.  Malcolm nor Nkrumah spoke at all about their well publicized two or three meetings.  Actually, besides Malcolm's statement about the highest honor and Nkrumah's pronouncements in his letters to others about how fond and respectful he was of Malcolm's abilities, nothing else was really mentioned by the two of them.  What we do know is shortly after returning to the U.S. from meeting with Nkrumah, Malcolm named his newly founded political organization the Organization of Afro-American Unity after Nkrumah's Organization of African Unity.  And, although there's no question that Malcolm's speeches going back as far as 1960, clearly demonstrated a political line that was diverging from that of the Nation of Islam, his speeches during that last year had a much more pronounced Pan-African framework within them.  The key to all of this is Malcolm's African nationalism was being shaped by his developing relationships with Pan African revolutionaries like Nkrumah.  And, Nkrumah's understanding was enhanced greatly by his understanding of Garvey's ideas.  Nkrumah called Garvey one of the key influences in his life and he honored Garvey by placing the Black Star, the emblem of Garvey's Black Star Ships company, on the Ghanaian flag.  

Further influenced by revolutionary Pan-Africanists like Nkrumah and Sekou Ture, Malcolm came back in 1964 with a vehement anti-imperialist message.  And, central to that message was a strong sentiment against developing U.S. imperialist aspirations in Southeast Asia.  This is made clear by Malcolm's reference during his famous "The Ballot or the Bullet" speech in March of 1964 where he encourages Africans to support "that little man in Asia" who was picking up the gun and standing up "to uncle sam!"

Malcolm, of course was assassinated by U.S. imperialism on February 21, 1965, (if you are running around here saying ridiculous things like Louis Farrakhan killed Malcolm, you are doing police work for free), but the continued tie between Malcolm and Ho Chi Minh, influenced heavily by the work of the Garvey movement, had one more card to play.  In 1967, two years after the silencing of Malcolm's voice, a young Stokely Carmichael - two years before he would move to Africa and become Kwame Nkrumah's political secretary in helping build the All African People's Revolutionary Party at Nkrumah's request - would seek out counsel from Uncle Ho Chi Minh.  Young Carmichael, then the Prime Minister of the Black Panther party and the just removed chairperson of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) where he helped guide SNCC into becoming one the movement leaders of the emerging Black Power movement, had the desire to contemplate what best represented his ability to make his best contribution.  Hounded by challenges within the Black Panther Party, which we know now were largely instigated by imperialist forces, young Carmichael sought lunch with Ho Chi MInh to ask him his thoughts on how young Carmichael should proceed in his work.  Sitting at an outside table in the midst of his country fighting for its life against invading U.S. imperialist forces, Uncle Ho calmly advised the young Carmiahel to acknowledge that he was African and to accept that the answers to the questions he had would be most logically answered by returning home to Africa.  Young Carmichael considered that conversation a confirmation of what he had been thinking already.  He ended up living in Conakry, Guinea, West Africa, becoming Nkrumah's secretary and an aide to Sekou Ture, becoming a leading organizer in Ture's Democratic Party of Guinea along with the All African People's Revolutionary Party, and changing his name to Kwame Ture in 1977 to honor the work of Nkrumah and Sekou Ture.

Today, we honor Malcolm and Ho Chi Minh not just because of their born days.  We recognize that a person's legacy isn't built around when they are born since we have no control over when that happens.  Your legacy is built around what you do while you are alive.  Although Malcolm and Ho Chi Minh never met one another, we know that their legacy and mutual respect for one another is cemented in history.  Both courageously decided to dedicate their lives to fighting imperialism.  The valiant struggle of the Vietnamese people was an inspiration to Malcolm as he expressed openly.  The struggle of the African liberation movement around the world was also a major inspiration for Ho Chi Minh which he clearly articulated.  Now, with both major legacies firmly intact, its simply up to us to build on those bodies of work to further our struggle to advance humanity.


0 Comments

The Stigma of Roaches; Poverty; Racism & Living with All Three

5/16/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture

I had a very funny conversation last night with an extremely good friend about a number of things.  Since this friend grew up in the state of Florida, U.S., and is thinking about possibly returning there, our discussion moved to talking about Palmetto bugs, or roaches.  Her experiences and mine are different.  In Florida these Palmetto bugs as they call them (to me that's just a title to permit you to avoid saying you have roaches) are huge and often fly.  For me, growing up in inner-city California, my experience with roaches stems from the so-called German roaches.  Much smaller than the Palmetto variety, but much more numerous.  I joked with my friend that there were so many roaches where I grew up that I recall at one point, we essentially lost the ground game against them, meaning there was no movement to confront them after a certain point because there were just too many of them.  You leave a damp towel somewhere for one hour.  When you come back there are 30 roaches scattering underneath it when you lift it up.  I told my friend that although we lost that battle against the ground troop roaches, I was still not prepared for the roach air-force in the presence of these Palmetto bugs, once I started visiting the Southern U.S.  

As I reflected on our conversation today, I thought back to statements I made to my friend admitting my childhood trauma at having roaches.  When I was growing up, living with roaches was just something you didn't discuss publicly.  This was the case because roaches were automatically connected to poverty and dirty living conditions.  Although we were without question poor and the unit I grew up in had its share of clutter, it was definitely not an unclean environment.  Yet, I recall clearly that roaches, inner-city poverty, and racism were as interconnected as weed stench at a George Clinton P-Funk concert.  And, the racism manifested itself clearly as well.  I recall European students ribbing me for living in a unit they just knew (how I never understood since they certainly would never have physically inhabited the space I grew up in) I had roaches where I lived.  I remember some of them using the n word against me and laughing up at my roach infested existence.  I also remember infuriating them by responding that if roaches were ghetto and connected to African people, how the hell were they German roaches then?  I mean, wouldn't they have be Nigerian or Ethiopian roaches?  Angolan roaches?  Rwandan roaches?  Clearly, if they are German, they come from Europe and I told those people that meant they brought the roaches with them.

I couldn't explain how they ended up with me or how they knew that to be the case.  I've also just come to the point of being able to psychologically grasp how traumatic and intertwined roaches are to my entire life.  I was so distressed about them as a child that I peed in the bed rather than get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night where, without question, they would be gangster organized, ready to pounce on me and kill me.  My parents were furious at me, at 12 years old, peeing in the bed.  And the worst part about it to me was I could never tell them the truth about why.  I truly believed roaches (and rats/mice) would kill me or at least do me serious harm.  So much so that I preferred to stay in my own urine other than take that risk.  Typical dysfunction during my childhood.

In later years, during periods of time when I used therapy to help me balance myself in this life, I revealed during a session that I'd been having dreams of roaches and rats/mice since my childhood.  Regular dreams.  The therapist helped me figure out that the rodents and insects in my dreams represented my fear of not having control of my life.  Being powerless.  That made perfect sense to me because during my youth, if I felt anything, it was that I had no control over anything at all.  To me the police had control.  The teachers had control.  The telephone company had control.  And, to the lessor extent, my parents and grandmother, but I didn't see myself as having any agency in my life and I continued to feel that way, strongly, until well into my adult years.

Today I recognize where that trauma originated from.  The lack of control was really about the constant uncertainty of whether the electricity could be kept on.  Whether I would be able to play sports at school if any money at all was required.  Whether I would be enough as a human being for anyone to take even a cursory interest in me.  All of this derives from the mechanisms of white supremacy that work overtime to destabilize our confidence in ourselves while enacting things to prevent those of us who find ways to overcome the dysfunction to try and address the issues we face.  White supremacy of course is simply an appendage of capitalism e.g. capitalism is the brain and white supremacy is the arm and fingers.  The appendages don't work without the brain and white supremacy doesn't work without capitalism.

None of the above is to say with socialist revolution we immediately eliminate the ability of roaches to exist.  What it does say is that the conditions under which roaches exist, where they exist, how they exist, and what impact they have on the people living among them, is a clear statement about the class and white supremacy oppression that millions of people suffer under.  Socialism eliminates the systemic obstacles that hold back colonized and poor people.  You know, those same types of obstacles ala having your resume dismissed because of your name.  Or, receiving a longer prison sentence than your European partner for committing the same indiscretion.  Or, being denied opportunities in ways the overwhelming majority of Europeans who professionally deny white supremacy would absolutely flip out on if they just suspect a single instance of the type of  discrimination against them that we experience as standard rule.  Those types of obstacles would be consciously battled against by socialism by creating society that invests in people first and foremost.  Not giving anyone any handouts.  Nobody wants handouts.  For those of us who actually talk to people living on the streets, not pass judgment on them as we drive past them on off ramps, we know even people with nothing have dignity and want opportunities, not handouts.  A society that produces these opportunities eliminates the stigmas that live and breathe in capitalism.  Maybe once we do that we also eliminate the traumas that come from that oppression.  To me, that's what my lifelong connection to roaches illustrates.  Much like the rat in the beginning of the novel Native Son, the roaches are in a war for their survival, like we are.  Killing them symbolizes the system killing us.  And, their resilience symbolizes our determination to be free.  For me that all makes perfect sense.  Still, I can't lie.  Although I interact much differently with roaches now than I did as a child e.g. I don't freak out at them and I try to move them out peacefully if I can, even the the largest ones I've ever seen in my life like the one in the bathroom in a hotel in Texas, or the ones who almost daily found themselves in the bathroom in the house we stayed in Ghana, I still have trauma when I see them.  The difference is now I understand it much better.  They represent for me the fears I had about being able to live.  Today, I have no fear of living.  I actively claim my right to live.  I actively claim the right of all creatures to live and I am prepared to defend that right to my fullest capacity.  

As we move forward, we change the narrative.  As we seek justice we learn to dismantle the stigmas and in doing so we can see roaches and all creatures, as beings struggling like we are to exist.  Now that I understand this, I don't dream about them any longer.  When I encounter them, I try and treat them with the respect they deserve.  My brief time interacting with MOVE's Ramona Africa helped me rise to that as she educated me about their position that all living things deserve respect.  Roaches aren't my enemy.  They never have been.  We have just been historically forced together by social circumstances of the most backward and oppressive society known to our existence.



1 Comment

Venezuela Exposes More White Supremacy Among the White Left

5/13/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture

Recent events in Venezuela have exposed quite a bit.  Forces within Venezuela opposed to the revolutionary socialist government that was democratically elected most recently in 2018 (by 67% of the Venezuelan people) is being challenged by elements backed primarily by the U.S.  So-called opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself president, dismissing the fact that socialist president Nicolas Maduro is the legitimate president of Venezuela.  The U.S. immediately moved to recognize Guaido as president and a nefarious effort to take control of the country through military force was organized by Guaido.  That military effort was swiftly and completely put down by the Maduro government.  

These recent events in Venezuela are telling on many levels.  There is an old African proverb that says when you boil dirty water, the scum always rises to the top.  This proverb is indicative of many on the so-called white left of all stripes who could not wait to jump on the side of the illegal Guaido effort.  And by jumping on the side I mean all those who claim objectivity, yet they repeat all of the same talking points as the reactionary pro-capitalist elements.  Those white left talking points are the focus of this piece.  Much of what they are saying is that the Maduro government has jailed opposition leaders and taken steps to undermine the country's decision making processes in order to maintain power.  This is an old and overused tactical argument by imperialism in evaluating the behaviors of new socialist societies.  Its the social equivalent of someone forcing you and another person into a tank that is slowly filling up with water.  You decide you are going to fight for your life so you do everything you can to break the glass in the tank to stop the water from filling, etc.  Meanwhile, the other person in the tank with you believes your actions are making the situation worse so they do everything they can to stop you.  As a result, you end up taking action to eliminate the other person so that you can figure out how to get free.  The person watching, who created the problem in the first place, messages the situation as you being a violent maniac who caused the conflict because you took the other person's life.  If you miss the point of the analogy, its that the person watching can create any scenario they want because they are the entity in power.  This is the reality for the masses of Venezuelan people and all oppressed people.  We are routinely subjected to the narrative provided by our enemies.  The ones keeping us in the oppressive state in the first place.  And, often, more often than not, the white left - supposedly the friend to oppressed humanity - comes to side with the oppressor instead of the oppressed.

Revolution 101.  Revolutions are never fought for the privileged in society.  This is true because the privileged are privileged because they benefit from the oppression of the masses of people.  The purpose of revolutions is to create a process that will remove the oppression to create a society where everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential.  Obviously, apparatuses like white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia, all appendages of capitalism and imperialism, are the vessels that feed the obstacles that keep oppressed people oppressed.  Venezuela is no different.  Approximately 56% of the country's population are brown people.  People who historically have a long history of being on the downtrodden end of the societies they live in.  About 43% of Venezuela are descendants of Europe.  Just those numbers alone demonstrate there are going to be some very different perceptions of what is taking place, who it benefits, and whether it is in Venezuela's best interest.  We would argue that the masses of those brown people, the people the revolutionary process is designed to lift up, see the revolution as a positive.  And the clear indications that those elements of the country are out in the street fighting to protect their revolution is unquestionable proof of that.  By the same token, the fact that the overwhelming majority of voices condemning Venezuela's government are those of the privileged class of European descendants makes a clear statement also.  In other words, 98% of the so-called Cuban "exile" community in South Florida is European people.  This means it has never been the African masses of Cuba who are coming over in mass in those rafts.  Its always been the Europeans who resent the fact the Cuban revolution is righting the wrongs of centuries of racist caste structure (despite the ridiculous claims of the so-called American Descendants of Slaves - ADOS) characters who ignorantly claim only Africans in the U.S. had legalized racial segregation).  The same reality applies for Venezuela.  Leopoldo Lopez is being talked about as the mastermind of the coup attempt in Venezuela, but no one discusses who he is and where he came from.  He and his wife are descendants of Venezuelan elite classes.  His wife is actually the daughter of the Agricultural Secretary under the Romulo Betancourt presidency of the mid to late 40s in Venezuela.  Bourgeoisie historical accounts attempt to paint Betancourt's regime as a reformist government, but the reality is that they consistently sided with the interests of U.S. companies and policy in Central and South America, including being a strong U.S. subordinate regime for anti-Cuba activities in the region after Bettancourt was re-elected in 1958, immediately before the conquest of the Cuban revolution that next year.

Being a product of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie, Lopez rose to attend college in the U.S., attending the prestigious HUN School at Princeton University.  There he was a leading member of the student organizations that supported bourgeoisie government in so-called "Latin" America.  Once he returned to Venezuela, he eventually founded the political organization Primero Justifica or Justice First.  Although this organization's stated claim was to be a bastion for all political thought, since 1999, it has been universally committed to overthrowing the Bolivarian revolution led initially by Hugo Chavez and now Nicolas Maduro.  Their reasons, despite their claim of neutrality politically, are the same reasons any bourgeoisie group provides for opposing revolution.  They want more "economic freedoms" which all poor people know means they want the right to make as much money as they want without any efforts to dismantle the racist class structures that created the need for revolutionary change in the first place.

For us, the poor people of the planet have every right to seize control of the forces of production to use them to eliminate inequality.  And, since the bourgeoisie forces acquired those forces of production, not through any hard work or democratic processes as they would have everyone believe, but through force of violence and the imposition of the most oppressive slavery and exploitation systems known to human civilization, the masses are justified in doing whatever they need to do to those bourgeoisie in order to protect their revolution.  What that means is we have to stop this bourgeoisie argument that because a government imprisons someone's relatives that you know, that automatically means that government is corrupt.  A few years ago, I posted a happy birthday post on Facebook to the leader of Vietnam's resistance against U.S. imperialism -,Nguyen Al Thoc, or Ho Chi Minh as he is better known.  Some idiot who has apparently been found out to be an abuser since then, wrote a comment complaining about my post because - I quote - his family was imprisoned in Vietnam.  What I'm saying here is pure emotion isn't enough for me to stop there solely because of what happened to your family.  I would need more information.  What was your family doing in Vietnam?  In China?  In North Korea"  In Cuba?  In Venezuela?  It could very well be that the government had every right to stop your family from sabotaging the revolution. Or, it could be the government made an error, but they didn't make an error with everyone's family.   Based on the behaviors of many of those family descendants today, that's not at all a far fetched thought.  Especially since most of the people complaining about that have absolutely no problem believing people that look like me should be incarcerated, regardless of the political circumstances that drive mass incarceration in this country.  And the so-called white left is very quick to take up this subjective family argument to justify that a country like Venezuela is locking up opposition without any type of analysis and discussion about who that opposition is.  

Any true revolt in any society has to evolve from the masses of that society. Not some bourgeoisie Princeton graduate with blood ties to the elite of the country.  We cannot ignore the reality that those on the white left choose to side with the narrative of other Europeans above that of the objective conditions of the masses of brown people on earth.  Even if those Europeans are the same elite class that white left in the U.S. claim to want to overthrow.  Well, now you know why no Africans and other brown people are joining your political circles.  

Probably the most racist statement of all is how the white left doesn't have enough faith in the humanity and abilities of dominantly brown countries to work through their stuff to figure out their revolutions.  Obviously, the 20 short years of the Bolivarian revolution is not anywhere near enough time for that process to play itself out.  The 60 years since the Cuban revolution isn't enough time.  I'm almost that old myself and I'm still trying to figure out my own self so how the hell can an entire country be expected to do that in that short time period.  All of that is ill refutable besides the point that the U.S., and anyone inside it, is in absolutely no position to pass judgment on any people.  This country is going on 250 years old and its getting worse, not better.  The Venezuelan people are the only people who can decide their future.  That means most of that 56% brown population and the 20% of Europeans there who are on the side of justice.  They can do that and they will.  I believe it because I have confidence in them, in us.  If you don't believe that, and any narrative saying anything else means you don't, then we just wish to thank you for helping us get more and more people to see what we have been saying forever, for the most part, left or right, still white.


0 Comments

Create Your Own Vision for What Mother's Day Should Look Like

5/12/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture

Its always been a significant source of humor for me that the moment you question whether people think for themselves in this society, people immediately and completely take offense.  No one wants to be thought of as following someone else's plan for how they live their lives.  Yet, there are examples all around us that clearly demonstrate that very few people really do any concrete thinking for themselves and the way so-called holidays are carried out in this society is textbook curriculum to make this point.  Without knowing any history of the day.  Without even bothering to create our own context for the day, most people in this society follow along with the dictates of this power structure for what days we celebrate, when we celebrate them, and how we celebrate them.

Today is Mother's Day right?  Who choose the second Sunday in May?  Who decided that the method of honoring mother's is to take them to brunch, buy flowers, etc.?  If you ask me, the whole thing sounds like a set up by corporations because at the end of the day, they are the ones who come out on top.  As I'm writing this, the restaurants, candy stores, and flower shops are booming with business.  Yet, we all do all of our thinking for ourselves.

Of course, none of what I'm saying in any way suggests we shouldn't honor our mothers and if that is what you are taking from this, you are a poster child for the point I'm making about not thinking for ourselves.  We should not only honor our mothers, but we should have a completely different definition of what a mother actually is.  Clearly, its much more than just a biological unit who has born children.  A mother is a person who nurtures human beings and helps them reach their fullest potential.  A mother isn't the personal property of her children on this day, she is a valued and respected member of the community she helped nurture and develop.  And, that value cannot be expressed through how much money is spent today.  It can only be expressed by how this mother is honored daily.  

Clearly, with this expanded and much healthier definition of what a mother should be, we are not just talking about women who have born children.  We are really not even necessarily talking about just women.  And, we certainly aren't just talking about someone who raises their biological children.  We are actually talking about the people who advance human society.  That's who we should honor and we should do so by showing them respect everyday and definitely, we should honor them by working daily to improve the world they nurtured us to participate in.  

I fully realize that no one wants to deal with the definitions I'm putting out here because they require much more commitment and morality than just paying a bill once a year at a restaurant or flower shop.  And, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the restaurant and flower shop.  What's wrong is that we have permitted the value of mothers, even if you just want to see it as your biological mother, as being reduced to just simply providing material recognition for human sacrifice.  This is the very definition of how capitalism evaluates human beings.  You are just a reflection of how much money needs be tossed your way.  Yet, we are thinking for ourselves alright.

As usual, the objective here isn't to ruin anyone's capitalist dominated day.  It is to hopefully get us thinking a bit about how we function because doing so helps us get to the point of understanding the root causes of much of the problems we face today.  So, the suggestion here is use today to make a commitment to not only your biological mother, but anyone in your life who has played the role of nurturing and supporting you.  And, if you don't have that person, start thinking about how you can nurture and support someone because that's the quickest way to develop a reality for all of that to come back into your life.  Make a pact to build regularly with that person/s going forward.  Decide what that will look like and how you will keep that flame lit.  Then follow up and do it.  Imagine if all of us did something like this.  Not only will we cease being pimped every month by having to spend money on whatever imperialism tells us to spend money on, but we will be building deeper and more true connections to the people in our lives who positively impact us.  And, by doing that we will be building deeper connections within the entire society in a way that teaches us what really matters in life.  By learning this we will start to understand what is worth fighting for.  When we get to this point, we may find that a lot of the problems we sit around today wondering why they exist (especially since we are doing all this thinking for ourselves) can be resolved much easier than someone has led us to believe.


0 Comments

Defining Political Education & Demystifying the Black Panther Party

5/10/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture

The Black Panther Party was a wonderful organization.  I, like millions of others, have spent my entire life inspired by their courageous example.  Their fearless pursuit of police terrorists in the streets of Oakland, California.  Their blossoming into a national, and then international, organization that developed an outstanding legacy of struggle and resistance.  

Fifty plus years since their inception, people are still reading about the Black Panther Party (BPP).  And, there is plenty of literature about them to read.  There are books on every aspect of Panther life and existence.  There are multiple books by Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton.  There are books by co-founder Bobby Seale and other internationally known Panther leaders like Elaine Brown, David Hilliard, Geronimo Ji Jaga (Pratt), Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Assata Shakur, and Eldridge Cleaver.  There are books by regional Panther leaders like Aaron Dixon, Wayne Pharr, and Flores Forbes.  There are critical books written by Joshua Bloom, Waldo Martin, Charles Earl Jones, George Ketsiaficas, Huge Pearson, and others.  There are countless videos, children's books, and other material on the Panther party and their impact.  Some of this material is great.  Some of it subpar.  Some of it not good at all, but its out here and people are reading it.  Still, it must be said that just because people are reading everything about the BPP doesn't equate to people getting politically educated about what the Panthers mean to us.  

The fundamental difference between reading books and political education is significant.  Many people believe just reading books is getting politically educated and on a mini level this could be true, but this is not what we mean by political education.  We mean organizing components of study that are designed to take place within a collective and committed structure of analysis where collective reading and discussion is consistently carried out.  For us, creating this type of process is head and shoulders above any individual reading hundreds of books because collective study creates a systemic and comprehensive educational process.  The old saying that "two heads are better than one" applies here.  Having collective study and conversation that takes place regularly ensures that everyone who participates benefits from the perspectives and experiences of everyone else participating in the process.  On the other hand, the individual approach is good, certainly better than nothing, but its difficult to imagine a scenario where any logically thinking person could claim individuality is better than a collective effort.

Although people are reading about the BPP, mostly on an individual level, the fact this is the reality reflects the many problems with this approach.  First, we should add we say most people are engaging this on an individual level because of the results we see coming forth.  Most of the idealistic perceptions of the Panthers are still pretty much dominant.  There is very little critical analysis of their work and there is virtually no clear analysis developing of their core contradictions e.g. how their lack of political maturity nurtured the effectiveness of the government's efforts to destroy their organization.  Serious analysis around these questions isn't dominant as it relates to how the Panthers are perceived today because the majority of people talking about them are not themselves involved in collective struggle to advance our people and humanity.  The individual approach relies mostly on preserving idealism and subjective interpretations of who the Panthers were, what they did, and how we can best learn from their experiences.  Only collective and critical political education will bring out the type of analysis we really need about the Panthers.

The encouragement of more collective disciplined political education struggle around the Panthers will produce more concrete critique around the patriarchy dominant within the party.  Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver, probably the most influential leaders within the BPP, and their terrible treatment of multiple women within the party including Kathleen Cleaver.  Surface level analysis around this question chooses to focus exclusively on Newton's speeches and writing on the subject instead of his actual behaviors. Meanwhile, Cleaver's admitted history as a rapist is used to make him the fall guy while ignoring the culture within the BPP that supported his predator behavior.   Also in need of reanalysis is the Panthers subjective glorification of the lumpen proletariat with a serious lack of concrete political education taking place around class.  Equally as problematic is this strange infatuation with some of Newton's ideas in the latter stages of his tenure as a leader in the BPP during a period when he was clearly unraveling at the seams.  His latter year analysis that because of imperialism's international stranglehold on world economics there is no longer such a thing as a nation state is understandable, but dismisses the objective reality that colonized people, in order to achieve our self-determination, must pursue our nationhood.  In fact, imperialism's efforts to destroy the nation concept was and is firmly rooted in its understanding that colonialism and neo-colonialism depend upon denying colonized people our nationhood e.g our self-determination - in order for us to prosper.  So, our solution isn't adopting the position of the European left that nations are ill-relevant.  Instead, African people must circle our wagons around reclaiming our national identity e.g. the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism as articulated by Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, Amilcar Cabral, etc.  Also, the Panthers early focus on the gun, without an equal focus on the political education of the masses of African people (so that the masses become armed, not just a few activists) is an error that too many groups today are still copy catting 50+ years later.

There is much to learn good and bad about the BPP, but the objective here isn't to tear down the Panthers.  As stated, we love the Panthers.  We certainly would not be here were it not for them, but what we need is to learn and grow from their work.  Not to manipulate their existence to justify our individual agenda for what we are or aren't doing today.  If people are sincere about building upon the Panther's legacy, then we must decide today that we all must be in organization's working for justice.  Revolutionary realities will never emerge without organization.  No individual can accomplish this so anyone claiming to want to build on the Panthers legacy while being without organization is someone who either doesn't really know how actual change takes place or they are are just unknowingly wasting their time and all of ours.  Only the masses of people make history so we have to move to a place where anyone talking about what we need, no matter who it is, without an organization, is considered for what they are, a hypocrite and someone not really serious about our liberation.  You can't name one serious African revolutionary and/or activist who wasn't in an organization.  Malcolm left one and started two.  Kwame was in several.  Marcus and Amy/Amy = organization.  Nkrumah was always in organization.  Sekou Ture.  Cabral, etc.  What is happening now where people are acting like they don't need organization needs to become akin to a crime against our people.  After we start getting people in organizations, we have to ensure those organizations have serious political education processes in place.  That means concepts of study e.g. nationalism, Pan-Africanism, Nkrumahism-Tureism, Marxist-Leninism, socialism, communism, organizing, etc., where these concepts are studied as modules.  Reading is assigned regularly and completed.  Facilitation is shared so that all can become effective at leading discussions.  The, the material studied can be used as intended, to be worked on in the field where our people suffer.  And, anyone who struggles with reading, comprehension, etc., is able to benefit from strategies to help them become comfortable.  With all of these essential things in place, we will begin creating political education apparatuses that will start to raise the level of consciousness all around us.  

Anyone reading here who interprets this as an attack against anyone only needs to seriously study the works I described in the beginning to see that most of the serious leaders within the BPP e.g. Kwame Ture, Assata Shakur, etc., said the very things I'm saying here.  In fact, it was directly from those historical giants that I learned how to see things this way.  Assata says quite clearly in "Assata" that the BPP lacked a clear political education program and the lack of this essential vehicle prohibited the party being able to critique the actions of the BPP.  She gives examples of how there was no criticism of the actions of Huey Newton after his release from jail in 1970.  How he actually transformed the BPP into an Oakland gang, exhorting money from African businesses in the mid 70s and carrying on much more egregious actions within the African community.  No criticism about any of this.  Kwame Ture talks about how the Panthers lack of discipline led to easy access into Panthers affairs by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Kwame makes it clear that it was these contradictions, not the often repeated lie that Kwame was against working with European militants that caused him to seek a different path, thankfully, which eventually led him home to Africa.  

The Black Panther will forever live on as a critical contributor to our people's forward progress and that contribution only grows in value the more we dig down deeper to learn how we can benefit more from what they left for us.  The burden now is on us.

1 Comment

Is There a Place for Europeans (Whites) in the African Struggle?

5/7/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture

We believe the answer to that question is technically yes, but not in the way you would necessarily think.  Historically, whether we are talking about Whites aligned with our struggle for liberation in Azania (South Africa) or in the U.S., etc., the model being discussed has always been around the question of multi-racial organizations.  This line has been certainly promoted within white left socialist formations.  Their position has been that the primary contradiction is with the capitalist system so only when people unite across racial lines to form a multi-racial class struggle socialist party will we see collective progress.

We believe the above analysis is far to simplistic.  Its wishful thinking on the part of white leftists who are unwilling to face the racist history of white left organizing efforts.  The reality is a major component of white supremacy, the core appendage of capitalism and imperialism, is its assertion that European culture is the driving force for the universe.  This thinking, which is dominant within every community on the face of the earth today, by extension suggests that no people can ever dream of addressing anything without a strong dose of European culture and European people.  By default, white people believe this and African, indigenous, etc., people believe this, whether its admitted or not.  

For us, a mutually respectful relationship between African revolutionaries and European revolutionaries must be centered around an anti-colonial analysis that respects the necessity for Pan-Africanism as African people's contribution to the struggle for justice for humanity.  You can count on one hand the number of European formations that are willing and active in supporting this requirement.  So, with this uneven level of respect dominant, even within so-called progressive and revolutionary circles, it is impossible for us to see how we can ever trust our future in the hands of multi-racial organizations where any agenda item focused on African self-determination will come down to a vote dominated by white people.  A clear example of this is the history of the Communist International during the 1920s.  The white left, anxious about the growing influence of the Garvey movement of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, came up with the idea, initially advanced by Russian revolutionaries (maybe Joseph Stalin or Leon Trosky), that a black belt South strategy in the U.S. should be supported by white left parties.  Yes, this means the idea of Africans getting the Southern U.S. came from a European and that idea wasn't even rooted in any real commitment to African self-determination, but an insincere desire by white leftists to attempt to control our movements.  This to us is a classic example of white revolutionaries subscribing to the most basic racist inclinations.  As Public Enemy said "can't truss this!"

Eighty years later, you cannot even find a dominantly European organization that even studies African liberation movements unless they make an effort to redesign our contributions within the framework of European focused struggle e.g. labeling Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, Amilcar Cabral, etc., as Marxist-Leninists, ignoring each of those ideologues clear statement declaring their dedication to Pan-Africanism.  

No, the answer isn't multi-racial organizing for us, although we are not against anyone who chooses to follow that pathway because we stand supportive of any organizing work designed to bring progress to humanity.  We just believe that the role of white people in the African liberation struggle is in those Europeans working to bring revolutionary organizing to white communities.  Our question, which is the very same question the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee asked 50+ years ago, is where are the white people willing to organize among white people?  Where are the white people willing to de-colonize their people, educating them about the white supremacist system, and providing them an analysis that permits them to abandon their shock troop status for the capitalist system?

There are some groups active today who seemingly are attempting to engage the work we implore is needed.  Those groups should continue to build upon their work.  By doing so, they make a significant contribution to our struggle.  A conscious white working class is a major obstacle removed from our path for liberation.  Historically, whether on this continent, Africa, or wherever, every step we make forward, it is white working people who step in front of us to protect the capitalist system, despite their shared lack of access to the system alongside us.  So, we definitely welcome the efforts of white activists who are sincerely working to stem this tide.  We even look forward to the day when we can work alongside these organizations, coordinating our work - them in white communities, us in African communities - to advance our agendas for revolutionary organization and progress.  This type of reality is real solidarity that respects our self-determination as colonized peoples. Anything else, especially any insistence that multi-racialism is the only organizing way forward, is dysfunctional and heavily slated towards the wants of white activists, not the needs of African people.  And, we believe wholeheartedly that any white activists that truly want African liberation would not only respect this, but insist upon it. 

In 2019, there is no reason for white people to continue to come to us asking how they can become a part of our work.  Instead, go to your communities and start there.  If you need help organizing we are always happy to provide our experience, etc. to help you.  

I just released my third novel which is a story where a white woman is accepted into a revolutionary African organization.  Its a very interesting story line to me which stems from my imagination spouted from Kwame Nkrumah's statement in the "Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare" that "foreigners" who take a genuine interest in the African liberation struggle can be accepted as comrades in arms.  Don't be confused though.  Just because I expanded upon this concept in the fictional realm doesn't mean I see this happening in the real world.  The character in my book is someone I've never come close to meeting in real life.  In fact, if such white people really existed in real life, we probably would be much farther along in our struggle for justice than we are.  That's why that's fiction.  In real life, we have to be scientific in how we advance our work.  In this present world, that means we desperately need to work within our communities and grow to coordinate that work across communities. The more we do this work now, the better positioned we will eventually be to reach potential for that post-race society some people are so desperate for that they insist upon imposing their fantasies on our current reality.

We are a long, long, way from that point.  For now, we will continue building our Pan-African work and we implore white activists groups to continue to build for the massive amount of work needed in white communities.  We also implore them to continue to provide material support to African, Indigenous, Palestinian, Filipino, etc., organizations.  Our comradeship should be judged and based solely on our mutually respectful work to attack capitalist ideology at all tender points possible within each of our respective communities.  

0 Comments

Context for the Murder of Malcolm X; Farrakhan & COINTELPRO

5/5/2019

2 Comments

 
Picture
Malcolm X, an unidentified Nation of Islam member, and a young Louis X in 1957 at a Harlem rally before Malcolm spoke

Whether people like Minister Louis Farrakhan or hate him, one thing no one can deny him, he consistently finds ways to keep his work in the discussion.  Facebook recently blocking him from using its platform has again placed the Minister in the forefront of many discussions raging among African people.  The purpose of this piece isn't to dissect the legitimacy of the Minister and/or the Nation of Islam.  We have faith in the legitimacy of the African masses to figure out for themselves who they will respect.  The purpose of this piece is to address much of the misinformation being vomited out about the murder of Malcolm X, formally a member of the Nation of Islam.  The role of the Nation, particularly Minister Farrakhan, in that assassination, and how we look at and discuss those events today.  

Its important to state clearly that the U.S. government assassinated Malcolm X.  Or, as we say in Pan-Africanist organizing circles, members of the Nation may have pulled the trigger, but the government bought the bullets.  Freedom of Information released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files provide ill-refutable evidence that the FBI had paid informants within the highest levels of the Nation of Islam (NOI) as early as the mid 1950s.  Declassified documents confirm that the NOI National Secretary - John Ali - was most likely one of the FBI's highest placed informants/agents.  The irony that Malcolm was the person who helped raise Ali up to the position of National Secretary (Malcolm recommended to Elijah Muhammad that John Ali be considered for that position) stings, but nonetheless, Ali undoubtedly played a significant role in isolating and dehumanizing Malcolm as a part of the FBI's strategy to set Malcolm up for murder. The FBI, along with multiple U.S. intelligence entities, wanted Malcolm gone we believe because they recognized the power of the work he was engaged in with worldwide revolutionary and Pan-Africanist organizers like Kwame Nkrumah - then in Ghana, Sekou Ture in Guinea, Che Guevara in Cuba, etc.  The basis of those political connections is available now for all to study so the U.S. government was not confused.  They were making numerous attempts to destabilize all of those organizers mentioned.  They ended up successfully overthrowing Nkrumah's government and removing Ture's political party from power.  Guevara was of course assassinated by the Central Intelligence Agency - by way of the Bolivian military - in 1967, and they made arrangements to silence Malcolm's voice in 1965.

The imperialist intelligence agencies are experts at studying sabotage techniques so obviously, they recognized the opportunities available to them if they exploited the bad blood between the leadership of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X in 1964.  And, those tensions were real.  Yes, people in the Nation were upset about Malcolm talking about the women Elijah had impregnated outside of his marriage to Sister Clara Muhammad, but that was only part of the reason some in the Nation wanted Malcolm dead.  In the early 1960s, Elijah Muhammad suffered from a variety of serious physical ailments.  His respiratory issues were severe enough to require him to move from Chicago to Phoenix during that time.  There were many people who feared "the Messenger" would not live much longer.  At that time, Malcolm was the most likely successor as leader of the Nation of Islam.  He was the most widely known and respected.  He was also increasingly expressing much more militant and political objectives than the Nation cared to engage itself in.  Malcolm had also developed a level of integrity that was unquestionable and it was this principle that frightened many within the NOI leadership.  Much of that leadership was composed of Elijah's family, most of whom saw the NOI as a vehicle for personal wealth and comfort for them and their families.  In 1975, when Elijah Muhammad died, the Internal Revenue Service estimated annual revenues for the Nation of Islam at approximately 80 million dollars.  In the early 60s, Elijah's family, particularly Herbert Muhammad (the long time boxing manager to Muhammad Ali who certainly bilked Ali out of much of his money), Elijah Muhammad Jr., and daughter Ethel Muhammad and her husband NOI Fruit of Islam Supreme Caption Raymond Sharriff, had grave concerns that if Malcolm assumed leadership of the NOI, their ability to continue to live off the labor of the believers and followers would come to an end.  In 1963, Ethel Muhammad went on a national speaking tour to the women in the Nation - the Muslim Girls Training and Civilization classes (MGT) where in several cities she told rooms full of Muslim women that Malcolm was unable to satisfy his wife Betty in their marriage.  When Malcolm left the Nation, Elijah Muhammad Jr. told several hundred Fruit of Islam members in New York City that they were being cowards for not killing Malcolm themselves.  All of this can be summed up as partly idealistic religious fanaticism, political jealously, and outside manipulation, but there's no doubt that the atmosphere was established for Malcolm's life to be taken.

What role did Louis Farrakhan play in the hunting down of Brother Malcolm?  Farrakhan has been involved with the NOI since the 1950s when he joined the NOI, partly due to Malcolm's influence, after being a nightclub singer from Boston, Mass, U.S.  Despite the rampant conspiracy videos circulating on Youtube about Farrakhan's role in Malcolm's murder, Farrakhan's contribution to this was actually not nearly as significant as some people today would have you believe.  There is absolutely no evidence that Farrakhan was in any way connected to the FBI ala John Ali.  In fact, all Farrakhan did was talk about Malcolm.  What he said during those days was indeed very shameful.  And, his words certainly contributed to the atmosphere that helped dig Malcolm's grave, but this is trademark cointelpro tactics.  Farrakhan's role with Malcolm is not much different than much of what happened within the Black Panther Party.  The FBI sent letters to Huey Newton while he was locked up in 1969 and 1970 that suggested to him that Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) was an FBI informant.  There is credible evidence that Huey responded by dispatching people to cause harm to Kwame Ture.  And, the murders of Panthers Sam Napier and Alex Rackley now demonstrate clear cointelpro sabotage to cause people to create negative environments that led to both men being killed.

The point here is the FBI creates an environment and fans the flames of that environment to create the climate to get the result they want.  They definitely did that in the NOI around Malcolm X.  What Farrakhan is guilty of is falling prey and contributing to that environment.  Than, to add salt to the wound, he has never just come forward and acknowledged he was manipulated.  Instead, for years and years since then, up to and including the 2015 Million Man March reunion, he chooses to make half hearted excuses for selling out Malcolm if not out and out justifications.  For anyone upset with him about this, you are 100% justified in feeling this way and I've told countless NOI members this for years.  What's not justified is blaming Farrakhan for Malcolm's death because if you are going to do that you would also have to blame Huey, Bobby Seale, David Hilliard, Emory Douglas, etc., for the 27 year imprisonment of Geronimo Ji Jaga (Pratt) because all of them knew Geronimo wasn't on some tennis court in Santa Monica the night that European woman was shot and killed because they knew he was in Oakland for a Panther Central Committee meeting.  Huey Newton ordered everyone present at the meeting to not say a word about Geronimo's presence there because the FBI had convinced Newton that Geronimo was a police agent.  There is ample evidence today to support this.  And, despite his five day protest at San Quentin prison in 1988 when he was there while Geronimo was there, and his confirmed personal apology to Geronimo during that time, Huey never publicly apologized for his role in that and other cointelpro influenced actions that harmed African people who were sincerely trying to liberate our people. 

The important take away here isn't whether people like the NOI or not.  The facts are the NOI has been active in African communities for decades doing their work in places most of the people criticizing them would never dare venture into.  As revolutionaries, we know revolution cannot happen without revolutionaries being created in this capitalist dominated world.  That doesn't happen by condemning and attacking everyone who doesn't agree with us because if we do that, we are attacking 90% of the population and no 10% of the population will ever accomplish revolutionary victory.  That's what we want and for many of these people out here, they probably couldn't care less about achieving that.  Yes, we work with the NOI because our work is in political education.  We want to raise the consciousness of our people in order to create conditions where revolutionary work and victory is possible.  We cannot do this by being exclusive and judgmental against any of our people.  So, as revolutionaries, we will struggle with NOI, Moors, Hebrew Isrealites, drug addicts, drug dealers, gang bangers, frats, sororities, petti bourgeoisie, anyone who can be brought around to support revolutionary struggle and we leave it at that.  We are strong enough so that none of those people are going to change our position on things.  We have confidence enough in our abilities to not worry about that.  I've spent many days inside NOI Mosques struggling with them on everything from homphobia to Africa and I'll continue to do so.  How can we expect people to grow if we aren't willing to do this work?  And how elitist is it for anyone to look down on anyone's else's lack of consciousness around issues as if you were born with the consciousness you currently possess.  As if no one ever had to struggle with you over anything.  If you don't see the point of that, you don't understand revolutionary organizing work.  

And by taking this approach we aren't selling out Brother Malcolm.  Excuse us if we don't willingly participate in your cointelpro initiated set trip with the NOI.  We are embodying the essence of what Malcolm wanted for our people.  Up until the final weeks of his life, Malcolm made sincere attempts to stall out the tensions between his people and the NOI.  Despite his going back and forth, an understandable reality for someone under the pressure he was under, some of his actions illustrated how much he understood the importance of not letting the conflict with the NOI get out of hand.  Many people today don't understand that.  The FBI is salivating at all this anti-NOI back and forth among our people.  We haven'' learned anything from the method in which the FBI used the same isolation against the US Organization to instigate them to shoot at Panthers.  Whether you like it or not, the NOI is the largest independent African organization in the U.S.  They can get millions of us together and we want to use those opportunities to talk to our people about our revolutionary program. There are no benefits to our people to isolating them and we will continue to talk to our people in efforts to challenge their consciousness.  While some of us are being polite to police when you get pulled over, something we would never do, we will continue to talk to our people.  We refuse to help the FBI and our enemies lay their eggs among our people.



2 Comments

    Picture

    Author

    I don't see disagreement as a negative because I understand that Frederick Douglass was correct when he said "there is no progress without struggle."  Our brains are muscles.  Just like any other muscle in our body if we don't stress it and push it, the brain will not improve.  Or, as a bumper sticker I saw once put it, "If you can't change your mind, how do you know it's there?"

    Archives

    January 2023
    June 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly