Ahjamu Umi's: "The Truth Challenge"
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Stand Your Ground Racism.  Practical Ways to Organize Against It

7/27/2018

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Let's start by acknowledging that these so-called "stand your ground" laws where certain people can use whatever level of deadly force they desire (simply because they claim they feared for their life) were initiated as a concept by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  ALEC is a right-wing political action committee funded by capitalist billionaires.  ALEC exists to ensure capitalists have a legislative organization to promote anti-worker, anti-women, and anti-African/Indigenous policies.  With stand your ground laws, the definition of legitimate fear for your life rests solely in the judgement of police and the entire judicial system.  This obviously means trouble for us and that is exactly what ALEC and their handlers wanted.  A majority element of their continued dominance is in dividing people based on race.  That way, people never rise to the point of recognizing our common economic interests as working people because they are so busy being fed a steady diet of lies about us designed to fuel their prejudices.  Stand your ground laws are a significant part of this strategy because those laws are based in the theory that we as African people are violent and prone to attack.  That Europeans must always be prepared to defend themselves against us.  This is an old narrative that dates back to their fear of slave revolts on the plantation.  This strategy works to perfection and the reason I'm saying it works on "they/them" is because the they/them are the masses of European working people who are always ready and willing to play whatever game the capitalists throw at them, regardless of how much they are harmed by doing so.  Meanwhile, under these so-called "laws" a deranged, unhinged, cowardly, frustrated loser European can literally arm themselves. And, despite their obvious flaws, shortcomings, and lack of character, that European can pick a fight with a "fearsome" African, immediately pull out a gun and shoot to kill, and be confident they will walk away free because they "feared for their life."  This has obviously happened repeatedly, the most recent case being the shooting at the convenience store last week.  The most famous example being George Zimmerman brutally and cowardly killing 17 year old Trayvon Martin in 2012.  Both of these executions happened in Florida, but virtually all 50 states within the U.S. have some version of "stand your ground" on their law books.

Our African people have to accept the reality that the word is out.  These racist Europeans know now that they will given the benefit of the doubt when they end our lives.  The fact we are unarmed - the brother McGlockin from last week, and young Trayvon were both unarmed - is immaterial.  These conditions are giving every European, or whomever it is who has a grudge against us, including some house negroes who do the master's bidding, a free pass to murder us at will.  So, we know this.  That means its time for us to prepare for how to deal with it so we can stay alive to fight another day.  First, its important that we remember that most of these people out here aren't operating on any level of integrity and courage.  The safest bet is that everyone out here is strapped, packing, whatever you want to call it, everyone has a gun.  Particularly older European men.  That's not stereotyping.  They are by and large the typical gun owner and the most likely person out here to be carrying a weapon.  And, by and large, most of them are so racist and full of animosity that they can't stand themselves.  Someone recently summed it up this way; "white men have had 500+ years of privilege and still most of them are not farther along than the rest of us.  If that was you, you would be frustrated and angry too!"  Of course, we know the reason they are not farther along is no working people get farther along in mass under the capitalist system, but since so many people here are swooned by that lie that prosperity is right around the corner, the fact they don't have it causes them to believe there are reasons beyond their control that are prohibiting them from achieving the easy life.  And, since most of these people lack moral backbones, its so easy for them to blame us for their miserable lives because doing so is sanctioned by this racist society.  So, they do that.  Their anger simmers against us while the capitalists, the real cause of their suffering, escape any scrutiny by these people because to challenge them requires consequences that most of these types of people just don't have the spine to carry out.  Instead, they take out their frustrations on us.  

What we need to do is when a European, or really anybody, but especially them, picks a fight with us, we have to start thinking automatically that it could be a set up.  We cannot permit ourselves to fall victim to an emotional outburst and reaction because this is exactly what these cowards are hoping for.  What we have to do is practice thinking through these situations.  I've done that for years.  What I do is think through scenarios.  For instance, if I'm in a coffee-shop, which I often am, and someone confronts me about where I'm sitting, how loud I'm typing, what I have on, or my good looks. what are the wide range of ways these attacks would come at me and what will be my response?  Then, I practice those responses over and over again.  How I'll respond mentally and physically.  And I practice both.  On the mental level, I prefer to limit verbal to the bare minimum.  In other words, you won't see me getting into an argument with anyone.  If someone starts one with me I'm going to be watching what they are doing. I'm not going to be saying anything to them because that would serve only to distract me.  Plus, the more you say, the more you lose the psychological edge.  Let them talk because by them doing that, they will reveal, whether they intend to or not, valuable information that will help you prepare for them.  While they are talking you should be observing them closely.  What are they wearing?  For example, if they have on a tank top, gym shorts, and sandals, its unlikely they will be carrying anything, but if they have a bag, backpack, baggy clothes, etc., you won't know if they have a weapon so just assume that they do.  Another benefit to not talking is if they continue to harass you, and you aren't responding, that's a clear sign that they are trying to bait you.  In this instance, the wisest thing is to try to remove yourself from the situation.  I realize this is very hard to do because no one with dignity wants to be disrespected and just leave without the disrespect being addressed, but its open season on African people and your primary obligation is to stay safe.  So, unless you have strong confidence in your ability to physically defuse a situation, meaning disarm someone, etc., its best that you just leave if that opportunity is there. And, usually, in the very beginning of a conflict, that opportunity is always there, but most of the time, people stay there arguing and don't take it.  Don't make that mistake.  If for some reason you cannot leave, you need to be making an assessment, based on your analysis of how they are presenting themselves, what they have on, what they have with them, if they have a weapon or not. If you are sure they don't, then you should still leave because they could still be setting you up.  They could have an accomplice who could supply them with a weapon.  If its not feasible or possible for you to leave and you are reasonably sure they have no weapon or accomplice than your next move is to mentally establish your demarcation line.  What is it that this person will do that will trigger you to take action?  You need to have that worked out in your mind.  Its best if you establish that when you are practicing your scenarios I mentioned earlier so that you can institutionalize it in your mind.  If you do that, you will perform with much more confidence when the conflict happens because you will have prepared for it.  That confidence will be evident to the sick person confronting you and that will influence how they proceed with you.  That happens to me quite often.

Once the protagonist crosses your demarcation line, you need to have established, during your practices, what your course of action will be.  Whatever it is, you need to do it and you need to do it without hesitation.  And please make sure your plan is complete.  Meaning, if your plan is to level the person, do that and make sure they can't get up, get to their car and get a gun before you can get away to safety.  You need to think through your scenarios all the way to you being out of the situation and how you will do that.  The more work you do on this when no danger is present, the better you will execute it when danger is present.  Or, as a friend once told me "the more you sweat now, the less you will bleed later."  

If during your assessment you realize chances are probably good that your protagonist has a weapon, you are going to have to have a plan in your head for distracting, disarming, etc.  The key to survival is not panicking.  And, by panic I mean not knowing what to do (so you react emotionally, stand in shock, etc.).  In 2015, when I got into that skirmish with that domestic abuser, that person made a serious attempt to run me over in their car.  The only reason they weren't successful is because when they drove at me, I didn't panic.  My head was clear and I was able to dive out of the way.  Had I frozen, no one would be writing this right now.  And, despite whatever you are thinking in your head that you will do, the only proven way to avoid freezing is to practice.  Sekou Ture said "quantity makes quality!"  Or, doing something over and over makes you better at it.  I have practiced getting out of pretty much anything you can think of and I'm adding more everyday.  That's why I have been fortunate enough to survive attempts made against me by deranged members of this society and you can too.  I feel utter sadness for that African in Florida who was gunned down by that coward earlier this week.  I don't know why the Africans parked in the disabled parking space.  And, that's another thing, take time to ensure you aren't doing things like that which gives these cowards grass under their feet to feel justified in confronting you.  Act in ways that respect everyone while at the same time demanding everyone respect you.  That was that African's first mistake.  Once the confrontation apparently started between the European and the African woman, its completely understandable that the African man would want to defend his partner.  I certainly would do the same for mine, but his second, and fatal, error was once he decided to push the guy down, he needed to finish it e.g. make sure the guy was disabled from getting to a weapon or doing anything to cause harm.  He shouldn't have assumed that pushing that terrorist down would end the conflict.  If the African would have followed and hemmed up the European long enough to disarm him while he was down, that African would still be alive right now.  Instead, he pushed the guy and stood there.  Even after the European pulled his weapon, that African spent his last surviving moments standing there, staring at this man who had a history of provoking confront.  That was evident by the fact the European didn't hesitate to fire.  This is what I'm saying here.  Have a plan.  That African's lack of a plan cost him his life.

Finally, all your practice and preparation has to be based in a philosophy of humanism and respect for humanity.  Unlike that European terrorist, you aren't out here looking for trouble at every turn.  Having a humanist philosophy is actually your best weapon.  These Europeans running around hiding behind these racist laws are complete cowards.  Everyone knows that Zimmerman provoked that young man to the point where a physical fight ensued.  Everyone knows that Zimmerman was weak and unable to defend himself against that teenager so his plan was to carry a gun and shoot him.  And, despite whatever all these spineless and soul-less defenders of Zimmerman vomit out their primitive mouths, everyone knows he provoked that situation because the 911 call clearly told him, multiple times, to not leave his house.  So, how the hell do you provoke a situation, then when you are getting your ass kicked, now you suddenly fear for your life?  This, and the fact Africans in Florida, like Marissa Alexander, had more evidence of stand your ground in their flatulence than Zimmerman had on his best day, and she was still convicted of a crime, should tell you the deck is stacked against us.  We have to organize to protect ourselves.  And, yes, part of that means us starting to do all the necessary things to prepare to be armed as well, but more than anything else, that will take serious organization, preparation, planning, practice, maturity, and discipline.  On a collective and individual level.  And, a philosophy of justice as your foundation.  Let's get going.  Let's organize to protect ourselves because if we don't, clearly no one else is.  Any of you still believing that the capitalist system is going to bring you justice at this point deserve whatever sad ending you end up with.


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Why the  Concept of White Allies is Nothing Except a Myth

7/25/2018

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Since science dictates that nothing is equal in the universe, we recognize and understand that there have always been, and will always be, Europeans (White people) who have a sincere interest in seeing oppression against humanity lifted.  Unfortunately, those sincere people do not drive the narrative as it relates to our relationships with the European community that calls itself "allies" to our African struggle for justice and liberation.  

First, we should dissect the word "allies."  Some people don't like the word.  I get that.  Use accomplice, partner, whatever word you like, my point here is that the concept is overwhelmingly nonexistent.  Whatever word you prefer to define Europeans who are engaged to support the African liberation struggle, or any struggle of colonized and oppressed people, the defining force of that word should be a people who help lessen the load for oppressed people who are fighting for freedom.  By lessen the load, we don't mean doing anything for us.  We have never asked for that, because that's never been what we need.  By lessening the load, we mean providing material support to our efforts.  For example, if you have someone who you are providing support in their efforts to complete an education, it would be reasonable to define "support" as you helping them study, creating conditions where they could concentrate, or helping eliminate other life stresses that could potentially distract them from focusing on the educational tasks at hand.  The argument here, is that the vast majority of Europeans who wear the "ally" mantle do none of those things to support our struggles.  In fact, most of them behave in ways that add more stress and pressure to our condition.  And when we say most, we mean most.  Practically all of them.  In truth, with the quality of "allies" we have today, we really don't need any enemies.

I realize these statements are going to sting to some people.  This is especially true since white feelings are clearly the most important element to most Europeans in the majority of their interactions with oppressed communities.

Look at the practical reality.  With even a cursory study of oppressed communities, its pretty easy to figure out what our communities need and don't need.  We don't need the purely egotistical and entirely subjective focus most so-called "allies" have on centering their perception of our struggles ahead of even our own articulated and lived experiences dealing with oppression.  We don't need advice on how to wage our struggles from people who have no experience engaging in the struggles we engage in.  And, those things provide a glimpse into the primary problems with this so-called "ally-ship."  Most Europeans, the majority of them, see oppression through the eyes of capitalism and white supremacy.  What this means is they view it through a racist dysfunctional perspective that we as oppressed people are helpless victims.  Consequently, although they tell themselves (and you see them saying this all the time) to listen to oppressed people, their practice clearly indicates they have absolutely no intention of doing so.  Oh, they will listen provided the perspectives we articulate line up with what they already believe, but the minute we are talking about things they don't want to hear, and I mean the literal second we do this, they immediately abandon this "listen to brown people" mantra as if they never said it.  Usually, examples of this behavior are exhibited when we have the audacity to call them out on their racism.  Since much of these people's ethos is tied up in their vision of themselves as being apart from the capitalist oppression process, their fragile egos cannot tolerate the slightest suggestion that they pose even the most minimal potential of being a part of the problem we face.  As a result, since their primary concern is their sense of self, not our liberation, then, their focus is in protecting their fragility, not acknowledging how they perpetuate the system that oppresses us.  Most Europeans who consider themselves - enlightened - on white supremacy are so engrossed in their self image that they are completely unaware of how quickly they prioritize themselves over our suffering.  Clearly, this behavior does not enhance our struggle one bit.  Actually, it drains the capacity of our people.

Keeping in mind our example of supporting the person pursuing an education, another example of "ally" dysfunction is in how these people believe they are honoring activists/organizers by attempting to use us to mentor them through their fragility, liberalism, and overall lack of spine.  Look, no one is saying we shouldn't provide direction and help to those who are sincerely trying to engage this work.  What we are saying is if we are a struggling people, with extremely limited resources, if you are truly our friend then you have to be thinking about how to replenish our scant resources, especially if you are part of the reason we cannot maintain them.  In other words, if you rely on us to help you sort out your analysis, figure out how to solve problems, etc., then why aren't you thinking about ways you can support our efforts, instead being content to be another drag on what limited energy that we do have?

The reason why I'm qualified to take such a critical view of these so-called "ally" efforts is because unlike most of these people, I practice what I preach.  I've participated with sectors of the oppressed community on all levels.  The Indigenous people's of the Western hemisphere.  The Palestinian struggle.  The Filipino struggle.  The struggles of the LGBTQ communities.  The women's struggle.  Even efforts by European people to organize their work.  And, the way I engage with these communities is in providing support to their efforts, whether that be security, security training, financial support, logistical support like loaning out my sound equipment, generator, etc.  I'm not just going to these communities pulling on the organizers, draining their energy in helping me figure out myself.  I hear all types of things while doing this type of work.  I've been at women's events where people have said all men are dogs.  Instead of acting like most European "allies" and deciding at that point that what is most important is my pain at being called a dog (centering myself above the suffering of women), I take it stride.  From my perspective, I would think it strange if women didn't see most men as dogs.  If I'm struggling to my full capacity to challenge and dismantle how women perceive us through my work with them and other men, then there should be no need for me to center myself the way these European "allies" do.  What I'm saying is you will never see me on social media arguing because a woman (for example) is calling out men.  What you will see is me taking that in and reaffirming the necessity for me to work harder to change the narrative.  That's a sincere effort to be a true accomplice, ally, whatever you want to call it.  There are examples all around us.  There are even examples within the European community.  Without embarrassing anyone, I'll just mention a dedicated European who lives in Oregon.  This person focuses their attention on educating other Europeans about white supremacy and their need to support African liberation struggles.  This person writes extensively about the suffering of our people and why Europeans need to be responsible for challenging that oppression, and (in their words) providing reparations to African people.  To me as a Pan-Africanist, reparations without a focus on Africa is off point, but that's not relevant to the sincere work this person is doing, all while never centering themselves in the consistent work that they do.  This person, and others like them are out here.  The fact most of these so-called "allies" don't see them and attempt to emulate their healthy behavior is further proof that these people are not nearly as  interested in supporting us as they are in validating themselves.

If you are still asking how and what a good "ally" looks like.  I direct you to my ongoing character in my fictional works; the European woman named Boahinmaa (Bwa-hen-maa).  She is an activist/organizer living and working among African revolutionaries who have accepted her as one of their own.  She isn't some dysfunctional white clone who listens and follows anything any random African does (like many of these so-called "allies")  Instead, she sees her role as that of searching out and finding resources to support the genuine African liberation struggle.  Her mission?  To always make sure at the end of the day that she is providing more to the African liberation struggle than she is taking away.  She understands that African revolutionaries define their struggle, not her.  She recognizes that her role is to become uncomfortable in learning how to understand the best ways to support our work.  Not, stopping at the point that our work doesn't coincide with her vision of our work.

Translating my fictional character to real life, this means how many of these so-called "allies" spend five minutes thinking about how they can provide not what they want to provide, but what we need?  How many of them spend five minutes thinking "they are doing this work.  They lack resources.  I have access to other Europeans.  I'm going to raise some gas money for their work.  Not once.  Not only when they asked to do it, but I'm going to do it on an ongoing and consistent basis."  Gas money.  That means not coming to our events spending our energy asking if you can be in our spaces and taking up space in the process.  That means coming to the event with the gas money. Once you get there, you will easily be able to ascertain whether it is a place you should be and you can act in accord, after you present the gas money.  If you carry that out with integrity and consistency, I can guarantee you that you won't need to wonder long whether you are welcome.  And, don't be simple and interpret this as saying all you can do is raise money.  You should raise money, but there are so many examples of this that even a child could dissect, interpret, and implement.

If some of you want to salvage this "ally" title than start acting like you are here to support African liberation struggles.  Provide us what we need which is simply two things; material support, consistent material support, and your ongoing efforts to organize Europeans against this backward system.  If you didn't know before, that's what we need.  If you are not doing these two things on a consistent basis, you are no friend and "ally" to us.  More than likely, you are just a politically correct speaking version of your cousins who put white sheets over their heads.  At any rate, at the end of the day to us, the results are more or less the same.



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Racist Terrorists:  Time to Take Matters Into Our Own Hands

7/23/2018

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In the 1857 Dred Scott case, the U.S. court ruled that Africans have no rights that Europeans are bound to respect.  At that time, the ruling was simply an official stamp on common practice.  Today, some 160 years later, that ruling is confirmation of continued practices. The entire capitalist system makes clear statements everyday that we hold no value as human beings.  Examples can be seen in the actions of state sanctioned terrorists (police), disparate arrests, convictions, and sentencing, and in every other sphere of this backward society.

Last night, the most heinous example of this contradiction expressed itself when two young African women in Oakland, California, U.S., were minding their business, doing all the things that 18 year old young women do.  And, for existing, two low life, scum, alleged white supremacists engaged in the cowardly act of stabbing both young women, killing one, and seriously injuring the other.  Now, I'm here to tell you before these worthless pieces of snot are found, treated to McDonalds, and given sentences that are a slap in the face to justice, if they are sentenced at all, that if we stand still for that, yet again, the onus for this tragedy is on our shoulders.

I get the concept that the families of victims should be respected in times like this. I should say I get that on some levels, but on other levels, I think some of the values driving that thinking are imbued with bourgeois ideology.  Human beings are not property.  Not even of their families.  And, those precious babies were not attacked by those savages because of what families they belonged too.  They were attacked because they are African.  That by itself makes the crime all of our responsibility.  Not just the family, because they could have been any of our daughters, sisters, friends, family, communities.  Consequently, I do believe all of us must see something like this for what it is.  A call to action for us as people who care about our dignity.  The time is out for calls for us to let the bells of justice ring.  They haven't rang in this country for 500+ years so anyone saying that I'd like to know whatever the tone it is that they are listening to.  There's clearly no justice for us in this country and those barbarians know it.  That's why they kill us without fear.  Some devil just a few days ago plotted out the murder of an African man in Florida and that demon is walking around free today while our Brother's family is having to make funeral arrangements for him.  That's enough you'll.  Please don't forward a single video about this most recent tragedy, or any of the others we are forced to deal with.

Its time for us to move family.  And, for all the numskulls in our midst who are singing the tired and discredited tune about why we don't respond this same way when a youngster is killed in the ghetto, the very structure of that sentence provides a clear answer.  This capitalist system creates the ghettos we dwell in and the conditions that make them unbearable.  Under that stress and dysfunction, it wouldn't be hard for an alien from outer space to understand why violence occurs.  In fact, we already know from scores of experimentation that anyone placed in that same type of desperate situation would exhibit similar survival type behaviors.  So, although we absolutely hate to see what happens to us in our suffering communities, the reason we work towards that situation differently is because we know all of our people who suffer under those conditions are unfortunately the products of the situation itself.  Once we wake up our people and help guide them to the real causes of their frustration, those negative conditions will vanish overnight.  In the case of our youth killed by these white savages, those young women were not targeted because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the primary cause for casualties in the ghetto, but because they were sought out specifically because they are African.  And, they are perceived to be easy prey because they are young.  Unlike the ghetto violence, those white supremacists are targeting our people regardless of what work is done.  Regardless of what changes take place in the conditions.  White supremacists seek us out and brutalize us in poor neighborhoods.  This happens when we live in well to do neighborhoods (obviously, it happens more in those neighborhoods).  So, don't come here making false comparisons.  We are doing our work in our communities, but we need to start creating conditions that make it rough on these white terrorists when they target us.  And, the way we do that is available to us right now.

I received information from well known comrades in the Bay Area that as I'm writing this, the community is mobilizing to address this situation.  This is encouraging beyond belief, but we need to focus on planning on doing a lot more than just one event (and those folks are attempting to do that).  We need to start organizing door to door, block to block, in our neighborhoods.  Knocking on doors.  Signing people up for our multi-pronged programs of mass political education classes deigned to help us grow in understanding of the forces that seek to destroy us.  This process is critical because far too many of us are confused into thinking we have rights in this empire and often, we are shocked at the moment we are forced to realize that the ruling from the 1857 Dred Scott case still reigns supreme today.  Political Education is the vehicle to help us understand that until we come together as a community - that means all of us in our community e.g. women, men, non-men, femmes, queer, etc - we will never be able to collectively protect any element of our communities.

The way we prepare ourselves is organizing self defense networks in our community that will protect us not only from prowling white supremacists, but from terrorist police, and even predators within our communities.  There are more than enough people with skills to carry out this training on systemic levels.  What's lacking is the will to organize our communities to facilitate this program being carried out on a sustainable level.  Its time to develop that will.  The police will not protect us as they are as much a part of the problem as anything else.  The courts won't protect us.  The politicians won't protect us.  No one is going to protect us except us and by us I mean all of us, not just men.  In fact, my experience has taught me that my most trusted allies are African women and African non-men.  Those are the people who I've seen sacrifice the most.  Not saying men won't do that. I'm one who will and I know plenty of African men who will die for justice at the blink of an eye.  Just saying we need to see the importance of making everyone a part of this community organizing process (that political education piece again).

Until we get serious enough to see that its time to stop all this foolishness.  All this forwarding videos and memes of us getting our asses kicked.  Until we realize the system that oppresses us has absolutely no intention of helping protect us.  Until we finally accept that our future is in our hands only, and that we need to put aside our dysfunctions, our egos, our immaturity, and get ready to work.  Until we reach this level of commitment, we are going to keep having these unfortunate terrorist acts carried out against us.  I don't know about you, but I'm sick of it. I'm ready to enforce our dignity.  

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The Long & Undeniable History of Calling Police on Us for Nothing

7/22/2018

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We see videos daily of Europeans (whites) in Western capitalist countries e.g. the U.S., Britain, France, Australia, etc., calling the police on African and other Brown people for absurd reasons.  They call police on us for working in European neighborhoods, sitting in Starbucks, swimming in apartment pools, selling lemonade, and committing screens during pick up basketball games.  The common narrative about this in capitalist media is that these Europeans who are using 911 against us like Raid on roaches are suddenly emboldened by the racist rhetoric of right-wing political leaders.  That narrative spins well for night time news cycles, but it doesn't stand up to historical record.  Newsflash, Europeans have always seen police as their personal armed force to repress the African masses because essentially, that's exactly what police are as an institution.

On a personal level, I can recount several stories of Europeans calling the police on me throughout my life for nothing.  In 1982, while a college student, I had what was supposed to pose as a job as a canvasser for an insulation company.  Despite my objections to the company dropping me off in racist Roseville, California, to go door to door, I was forced to do so to retain my job.  The first door I knocked on the European woman told me she was going to call the police.  My young response to her was her kind criticize us for not wanting to work and then call the police on us when we do work.  I'll never forget her curious response to me when she said "You are right."  I'll also never forget that she still followed up and called the police on me.  Then there was the time when I was in high school that I was waiting for a friend in front of their aunt's house in Marin County.  One of their kind neighbors called the police on me for sitting there.  More recently, there was the time in 2012 when some comrades and I were riding MAX line trains in Portland, Oregon, talking to people about police terrorism.  Some tourist European family (I say that because I remember they had several boxes of "Voodoo" donuts and no self respecting person living in Portland would walk around like that), objected to our message to people on the train, so the great white father called 911 right there on the train to demand we be dealt with.  I have many more examples, but my point is my entire life has been Europeans calling the people on me for no reason so I know from experience that this isn't a new phenomenon.  In fact, it isn't even a phenomenon.

I could make this point based specifically on my personal experiences, but we are revolutionaries which means we don't develop our positions based on subjective and anecdotal evidence.  We rely on science.  And, the science that supports this practice being a historical phenomenon is rooted in understanding the history of police in the first place.  Police were never created as an institution to "protect and serve" African people (or any other working class people for that matter).  The history takes on a varied specificity in other countries, but here in the U.S., police were created as an institution specifically to terrorize African people, who bravely decided to seek out new lives away from the cotton sharecropping industry in the Southern U.S. (after slavery).  To prevent the whole scale loss of this cheap African labor force, the plantation industries hired gangs of European thugs who were commissioned to terrorize us into staying on the plantation.  These bands of posses (that's exactly where that word comes from) went out and physically and brutally terrorized Africans into turning back below the Mason Dixon line to continue working in the cotton industry.  The posses were hired and paid by the sharecropping industry businesses and their work was so "productive" that during reconstruction, municipalities began hiring these posses as police departments in towns and cities across the South.  Of course, there were plenty of Africans who made it to the East, North, and Western areas of the U.S.  For those Africans, organizations called "City Watch" and other names were created across the U.S. to serve as armed forces to keep Africans in designated areas and out of European areas.  Or, as an early African mentor in my life once said to me; "the police are for those of us who live in the cities because they have the klan and other outfits for those of us who live in rural areas."  So, from day one, the training, vision, focus, and mission of police was always to hold us down under thumb.  And, if you understand that, then it shouldn't be difficult at all to understand why they are so quick to use force against us.  This is a part of their police culture and history.  It is what they have been recruited and trained to do.  This myth that they are here to protect us is just another long line of propaganda designed to confuse us and any African and/or oppressed person who still believes that myth in 2018 probably and unfortunately deserves whatever sad fate awaits you for believing in these state sanctioned terrorists to serve you  when you call them.

The other critical piece to this sad scenario is the sick and primitive psychology of most Europeans today.  This society has no values and principles because it is impossible to have values and principles when your primary principle is that money is more important than human lives.  And, the crime of most Europeans isn't that you are white.  We don't believe in those types of fairy tales.  The crime is that the vast majority of you see the injustices this system inflicts on people and you are more concerned about preserving your comfort than doing anything about it.  To extend beyond that, in a society where Europeans, like the rest of us, are devalued and treated as commodities daily, far too many Europeans decide to compensate for that by reinforcing white supremacy's biggest appeal to them - that no matter what is going wrong in their lives, at least they are not us.  A significant element in this facade is Europeans feeling they have power over us.  This is a systemic manifestation of oppression.  Men do it to women and Europeans do it to us.  You have no power within the system except whatever power you exert over those less powerful than you. The masses of Europeans, angry at being pimped relentlessly by capitalism, and lacking the backbone and courage to do anything about it, choose the cowardly way out which is bullying those they know have less resources than they do.  Thus, the age old tradition of calling the police, the army for white supremacy, against the African masses for breathing and existing.

Now, I know from experience that whenever I write something like this, there are inevitably people who don't really read it in a comprehensive way, or some of them probably just didn't take their medication today, but they will respond with all types of way out, off focus responses to what is written here.  Save it.  I'm not interested or concerned about your hurt feelings because if you are defending these Europeans in any way, covertly or overtly, you are making it clear that your concern is for European comfort, not African survival.  

For African people, its high time we stop believing in fairy tales that have been dis-proven long ago.  This system wasn't built for you.  It isn't maintained for you.  And, no matter how much education and money you acquire, none of that changes this reality.  So, stop acting shocked because capitalism does what it has always done to us.  Start keying in on ways we can come together as communities to protect ourselves.  There are solutions all around us, but you have to start paying attention and that means waking up.  Our ancestors were not walking around with their heads in the sand as many of you are today.  They knew the posses (police) were not their friends and with nothing close to the level of resources you have at your finger tips today, they were able to organize effective strategies to keep our people safe.  The only way they were able to do that was by preparing themselves.  They didn't just start filming and gawking at our being mistreated by Europeans.  They had plans to act.  We need to return to that and if you are not going to help us prepare to do that, the maybe its you someone should video being brutalized next.

This phenomenon is no phenomenon.  Its America being what it always has been.  Its capitalist countries being what they always have been.  Its these capitalist countries experiencing severe states of decline.  Its Europeans feeling that pinch and taking it out on us because they are to selfish and cowardly to do something about it.  Recognize this and understand it.  Process it.  And then get serious about doing something about it beyond just videoing and sharing us losing when its time for us to be winning.

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A True Moral Threat to People in the U.S. & How to Address It

7/19/2018

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No, this of course isn't some tired retread of the baseless position that the central problem African people in the U.S. face is our "declining morality" as a community.  That idiotic position will never grace these writings because we are very aware of Kwame Ture's correct admonition; "any analysis of the conditions of African people without including our enemies (the U.S. led worldwide capitalist/imperialist network)."  The true moral threat facing us as a people within the U.S., and throughout the world, is the continued blurring of the lines between us establishing and maintaining our own morality and dignity, and repeated efforts by some of us to equate our morality with the (lack of) morality of this backward system that oppresses us.

Our people have provided the most principled, consistent, and justice based movements in the history of this settler colony known as the U.S.  That's the reason why today, every other people seek inspiration from our movements and culture.  This happens because this system of oppression was built and is maintained on African suffering on a worldwide basis.  Consequently, no matter what happens, we will always be the X factor in this country.  We will always be the one community that is always willing to burn thi splantation down to the ground.  We are not like any other people here because our history is not like any other people here.  This is why you will never see an overflow of U.S. flags hanging off houses in predominant African communities.  This is all the result of our position in this country and this is a great thing, but there are some areas that reflect serious concerns for the future health of our people here.

A deep concern rising among our people is illustrated in how we as a people are using social media.  All of these platforms are great e.g. Facebook, Intragram, YouTube, Twitter, etc.  They are great because they permit us the opportunity to communicate with each other outside of the realm controlled by the capitalist media.  Since we have these resources, we should be using them to transmit educational information designed to inspire and encourage our people to come together.  Some of our people are using these resources for that very purpose, but far too many of us are using these resources to promote extremely reactionary relationships among our people.

Examples of the above are how many of you reading this have watched videos of police terrorizing African people?  What about African people, particularly non-men, fighting each other for frivolous reasons.  This is not to mention the multitudes of n word dominant material that is supposed to pose as comedy.  How many of you have seen all of these examples?  I can answer for you.  All of you have, multiple times.  In fact, a whole bunch of you have established regular practices of resharing, reposting, and promoting this nonsense on a regular basis.  Meanwhile, there is so much positive information floating around the internet. I know this because I'd like to believe I contribute this is positive element of social media.  Obviously, I regularly write and contribute articles like this one from this blog.  I also record videos discussing this type of content and I know a large number of dedicated and dignified people who do the same.  Yet, even if many of you see that work, and reshare and repost it, if we are honest, most of you aren't promoting that work nearly as much as the police terrorism videos.

There's no judgment being expressed here, although I haven't shared or reposted a single piece of reactionary imagery of African people that I'm indicating here.  My point is to ask all of you, who if you are reading this it means you have some level of concern about the future of humanity, to consider something for a moment.

What I'm asking you to consider is would you start making a concerted effort to promote and advance positive material speaking to the dignity and integrity of our glorious African liberation struggle?  I'm not saying we cannot have fun.  There is plenty of African comedy that promotes positive messages as well.  What I'm asking is for you to make an effort to encourage people to focus on positive material.  To read more positive material.  And, to watch more positive material.  I'm asking how many of you are willing to commit to do that because just the fact most if not everyone is seeing the negativity is proof there are many more of us, including the so-called progressive folks, are spending a lot of time advancing us getting beat down, than us building up.

There are videos out here promoting African unity work all over the world.  It will take some developing research skills to find them and understand the work that is being done.  This work isn't just about entertaining you, but if you claim to want a better world, us being able to reclaim and redefine the narrative requires a much different focus than the one dominant today.  I see too many so called progressive people who forward the most reactionary imagery and/or literature about African people, women, all oppressed peoples, to blame this phenomenon on working class people, low income people, etc.  This is a problem that crosses class and race boundaries.  The question you have to ask yourself is how much you are willing to change your behavior?  Everyday, I see people who claim, for example, to believe that socialism isn't feasible and possible.  Yet, those same people are often unwilling to change even the most basic of their behaviors to make a contribution to forward progress.  My point in this instance is these socialism naysayers are the exact examples of why there have been struggles to change people's consciousness.  Revolutionary struggle is about conscious raising.  Its never been about coercing and forcing behavior on anyone.  We believe in the importance of ideological struggle to advance our consciousness.  Winning people over based on the correctness of our position.  This is the principled way that consciousness is raised.  So, consider this message a call to action for all of you.  If you do care about the emancipation of women. African people. Indigenous people.  Arabs, Asians, and European working people, then you will commit to stop resharing/reposting reactionary imagery and you will agree to start promoting positive imagery.

Of course, the publishing industry is a capitalist entertainment industry within the U.S.  The people within that industry have told me repeatedly that my books are "good" stories, but "not the stories people want to read about."  My responses to them are always that the reason people "don't want to read progressive literature" is because no one is promoting progressive literature.  If you force feed people hot-dogs everyday for years, those people will not select a seafood buffet, even if you present it to them.  So, the appetite of people today is focused and socialized around disrespecting women, African people, etc.  And as a result of this dysfunction, no one is prepared to respect and desire to see content that is rising us up.  The danger of this is our people are trained to think the foolishness if all we can produce.  Young women are trained to think the same, etc.  Every time you share one of those reactionary videos that show us losing, etc., you are contributing to this problem.  No matter what you say.  Its absurd to respond by saying you do it because if you didn't, someone else would.  Instead, why not think that if you don't do it, maybe it will influence the next person you speak with not to do it.  Why not believe we can change the tide in time?

We will see how many of us have the courage and discipline to change our behavior.  We will see how many of us truly want to win the hearts and minds of the people away from the negative belief that we cannot win to the positive realm of victory because we are promoting information and images of positive change.  By seeing that, we will see how many of you really want this change.  Or, maybe, secretly, some of you possess some sick demented enjoyment out of seeing people suffer.

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Smashing the Lies and Attacks against DuBois and Pan-Africanism

7/13/2018

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Shirley Graham DuBois, Kwame Nkrumah, an unidentified African, and Dr. W.E.B. DuBois in Ghana, after Ghana's independence in 1957. Dr. DuBois moved to Ghana and died there after renouncing his U.S. citizenship and embracing socialism and revolutionary Pan-Africanism.
Although these extremely strange lies and attacks have been waged from many directions for quite some time, it was an article written in the newspaper of an African organization that should know better that prompted me to write this piece (and no, I won't name the organization for two reasons.  First, if you are aware of the African liberation movement, you will already know who they are and although this group has attacked our All African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) for decades, we continue to have our long standing principle of not attacking other organizations.  Even though we could easily do so in the case of this group, but unlike many others, we refuse to do police work for the police).

The July 2016 article I mentioned was written to promote the lame argument that Pan-Africanism is a petty bourgeois movement.  A number of people have attempted this useless argument, but none of them have been able to provide a shred of evidence to support that claim besides their personal attacks against scholar/activist W.E.B. DuBois and his intellectual development.  I say intellectual development because the thesis behind these attacks against DuBois are his very early promotion of the "talented tenth" theory that the leadership of the African masses would emerge from an elite petty bourgeois Western educated group of African people.  The fact DuBois later clearly denounced this earlier position (just like you wouldn't subscribe to many of the positions you adopted in your early life), means nothing to these critics.  They still continue to drone on with this nonsense.  The second "pillar" to their argument is that DuBois had only bourgeois academic standing and no mass standing among the masses of African people.  Although the latter is an extremely undeveloped and absurd position for anyone to take, it requires more analysis to dissect.  

There is no question that W.E.B. DuBois, one of the early co-founders of the Niagara Movement, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was steeped in petty bourgeois ideology, as is everyone who journeys through the Western capitalist educational institutions.  And, since the early Pan-African Conference (1900), and first four Pan-African Congresses were dominated by petty bourgeois intellectuals, led by DuBois, the inference is that his work was equally committed to petty bourgeois ideals.  No one, including DuBois himself, has ever attempted to deny these assertions.  The important question though is did he and his work develop beyond this backward point?  And that, unfortunately, is where these so-called critics fall silent.  This is unfortunate because there is ample evidence to conclude that DuBois and early organized Pan-Africanism, without question, evolved to the spectrum of revolutionary international struggle that our movement represents today.

We will forgive DuBois for his unprincipled attacks against Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association because DuBois certainly was not alone.  Noted leaders like George Padmore, C.L.R. James, Harry Hayward, and Cyril Briggs all had their valid and unprincipled critiques of Garvey's organization, movement, and personality.  This is just an unfortunate byproduct of oppressed people fighting for capacity with limited resources.  Its also the same principle that has apparently motivated that other African organization to spend at least as much time (particularly up through the 1990s) on attacking the A-APRP as they apparently do on organizing the African masses.  The important things to remember are that DuBois clearly learned and evolved and the Pan-African movement did too.

All these critics always ignore the historic 5th Pan-African Congress (5th PAC) when making their criticisms of DuBois and Pan-Africanism.  This is interesting for several reasons.  First, 5th PAC, unlike the previous five Pan-African sessions organized primarily by DuBois, took on that mass character the critics always accused DuBois of lacking.  The key conveners for 5th PAC were Kwame Nkrumah, the young student from Ghana who went on to become the leader of revolutionary Pan-Africanism, George Padmore, and Amy Jacque Garvey, the widow of Marcus Garvey.  DuBois was elevated by the 5th PAC delegates to be the honorary chairperson of 5th PAC.  And, when we say delegates, we mean large delegations of trade union workers in Africa like the young Sekou Ture.  Young militant students and organizers like Patrice Lumumba.  The composition of this 5th PAC could never be called petty bourgeois.  The agenda adopted during this session included the working definition of Pan-Africanism e.g. one, unified, socialist Africa.  Clearly, the decision to have Mrs. Garvey and Dr. DuBois occupy such high level positions during this congress was a clear call by the primarily African born delegates, that these two historic figures were being honored for their separate and significant roles in helping foster and develop Pan-Africanism to the point that it evolved to occupy at this historic 1945 meeting.

5th PAC was not a meeting of intellectuals and its agenda was not a reformist agenda, but true revolutionary organizers know that creating revolutionary consciousness is much, much, more than just making proclamations and declarations.  Any and all scientific understanding of human development recognizes that the work that came out of that 5th PAC is still taking place today.  Still developing today, just as the work to move Pan-Africanism from its infant stage in 1900 to its expression at the 1945 5th PAC was a work in progress.  No one with the slightest understanding of struggle would label Kwame Nkrumah as petty bourgeois.  And with this year marking the 50th year of his authorship of the "Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare" and the A-APRP he called for in that text, its time to put the idiocy to sleep once and for all.

Revolution is not some spontaneous event that explodes from a protest against police terrorism.  It isn't some automatic action that comes about with no work building it.  Revolution is a science.  It only happens with consistent and mass political education work.  The A-APRP understands this and that's why we don't look at revolution like its an action movie from Hollywood.  That's why we don't look at our organizers as celebrities.  Kwame Ture never acted like a celebrity.  Its up to every serious student of history to understand these contradictions and not be fooled by them.  When these critics attacked the A-APRP for organizing on college campuses (just in the U.S.) for several years, they dishonestly accused us of adopting the early theory of DuBois on elite leadership.  We made it quite clear that our theory differed completely from what DuBois wrote about in the early 1900s.  Despite the lies of these critics, you cannot find one videoed speech or one written piece from any A-APRP organizer anywhere that claims students as leaders of the Pan-African revolution.  What you will find is our scientific analysis that people with academic skills should be organized to commit class suicide.  They should be pushed into an ideological development process that challenges them to denounce the process that steers them towards the petty bourgeois lifestyle.  Instead, they should use the skills they gained from the people's struggle to advance the progress of the masses of African people.  This is what college educated Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) did.  This is what Macheo Shabaka - the African who's funeral is tomorrow in Los Angeles - did with the skills he acquired from his HBCU education.  And, this is what this writer has struggled humbly to do for the last several decades.  And, anyone who honestly studies our organizing style cannot dispute this.  We can never be accused of advancing ourselves individually which would have to be a primary action of anyone committed to petty bourgeois values.  Instead, A-APRP cadre develop other cadre and those cadre work with the masses of African people to raise our collective consciousness to create ripe conditions for revolutionary Pan-Africanism.  How else can you explain how one single work study group with Kwame Ture, Amilcar Cabral, Kwame Nkrumah, Lamin Jangha (rest in power), and others, in Guinea-Conakry, in 1968, evolved to A-APRP work study circles in several cities and countries in Africa.  Cities and countries in Europe, Canada, the U.S., the Caribbean, and South America.  The A-APRP's objective of revolutionary Pan--Africanism, or one unified socialist Africa, is being organized around in dozens of languages worldwide.  This is the day to day work and there is certainly nothing petty bourgeois about it.  There is absolutely nothing elitist about it.  And, the objective of Pan-Africanism is as mass an objective as we can achieve.   As Nkrumah correctly stated in the Handbook, Pan-Africanism will result from organizing the workers, peasants, and revolutionary intelligentsia.  And, our Pan-African governing structure will be the fusion of revolutionary Pan-African parties, which are mass parties, meaning every African is invited and encouraged to join and take leadership.  This is our organizing model all over the world and no one can refute and/or deny it.  For us, all of this serves one purpose.  To make Africa one nation where her vast mineral resources are cultivated and organized to serve the interests of the African masses.  Where those masses have a structure that organizes that wealth in a socialist development fashion leading to and contributing to world communism.  I'll wait for anyone to demonstrate the petty bourgeois element of that vision.

I'm not going to claim that these so-called critics are working for our enemies.  Instead, I think the issue is massive egoism and a strong lack of political education.  A lack of understanding of the principled position the A-APRP operates under.  We never attack anyone, although please believe me, we could do so very easily.  Instead, we encourage people criticizing us to join and/or start some other organization working for justice.  This line is about as anti petty bourgeois as a line can get.  This is a mass line if there ever was one.  We encourage you to study up and get a clear scientific understanding of Pan-Africanism.  There are far too many organizations under our Pan-African banner who have lost many soldiers violently in struggle e.g. the Pan-African Congress of Azania-South Africa, the Democratic Party of Guinea, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau, the Azanian People's Organization, the Pan-African Union of Sierra Leone, etc., for us permit these critics to go unchallenged.  Especially since the people leveling the critiques haven't risked anything close to what many of our soldiers have lost.  

We have to learn to reject the scarcity model our enemies force upon us.  Its very easy for us to embrace Pan-Africanism and whatever other fictional and/or real objective we think is best for African people.  We don't need to think we have to choose between DuBois and Booker T. Washington.  Between DuBois and Garvey.  We don't need to choose between Malcolm and Martin.  Between Amy and Amy.  There is more than enough room for any and all ideologies and people who can make a contribution to African people to exist. This is actually the most healthy way.  And, if the critics themselves are not elitist and petty bourgeois, then they will acknowledge the brain capacity of our people to figure out the best path for themselves without lying to them to get them to look in other directions. Anyone promoting otherwise, you need to check a little deeper. You need to recognize that the negativity really only serves our enemies and some of us should be experienced and mature enough by now to realize that.



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Let's Revisit Why We Decided to Change Our Names

7/10/2018

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For me, last month represented 34 years since I chose Ahjamu Umi as my only name.  The minute I consciously accepted my name, I went through the bourgeois legal process and immediately changed my name from Richard Darrell Dewhart II to Ahjamu R. Umi.  Going on four decades later, I have never looked back, but what I unfortunately see far too often is a fundamental lack of understanding of why persons such as myself decide to abandon our European names and reclaim our African identities.

Yes, despite the constant ramblings of confused souls in Youtube videos, without question, we descend from Africa.  And one of the countless measures of proof we can evaluate to substantiate that reality are the names African people living in the Western Hemisphere possess.  If you query 99.9% of us, including those who claim no ties to Africa, you will find us wearing European names.  That's right, names like Smith, Jackson, Johnson, Henderson, Jones, etc.  British, German, French names, etc.  The common denominator?  We hold the names of those who enslaved our ancestors.  Like the method in which you select a dog and name them, our former owners did that to our ancestors.  Consequently, today, we have no idea what our real names are.  All we know is our European slave names.  My former slave name was Dewhart, or actually Duhart; pronounced Da-hort.  Its a French name which makes sense because my family came to California from Louisiana and the French had a strong colonial history in Louisiana.  Somewhere between my grandfather and my father, the spelling of that name got changed.  My father never said anything about it so I have no idea why or how that happened, but it makes perfect sense.   The concept of us having our identities stolen and then us making every attempt to try and adjust our slave identity to be a better fit in this slave society is a defining characteristic of our existence for the last 500+ years.  

Many of us have taken the time to study and properly understand our history.  Consequently, we have made the mature decision to not perpetuate the identities of those who subjugated us.  Instead, we choose to empower ourselves by claiming our actual identities as African people.  And for most of us, since Africa's colonization means we could have come from literally anywhere in Africa, it doesn't matter much to us which ethnic group we choose when we change our names.  We claim all of Africa.  This is especially true for those of us who are actively involved in the struggle for Pan-Africanism or the fight to liberate all of Africa.  What's more important to us is what our names mean.  Most of us want them to mean something that describes what we represent as human beings.  Ahjamu is Yoruba for "he fights for what he wants."  Umi is Yao (Malawi) and means "life" or "life giving."  Together, my names mean I fight for life.  People who know me now, people who knew me before I changed my name, all of them quickly acknowledge that the person I am today is much better represented by Ahjamu Umi than Richard Darrell Dewhart.  And, that's by no means any disrespect to the legacy of my experience before I became Ahjamu.  There are some people who believe that we disrespect or disregard this legacy by changing our names, but that thinking is motivated by an emotional reaction e.g. having no knowledge of Africa, not a rational and logical analysis.  A clear perspective has to acknowledge that we were violently and illegally stolen from Africa.  In the course of that horrific tragedy, we fought back.  And, as that great African revolutionary Sekou Ture taught us, the definition of a people's culture is the method in which they assert their humanity in the face of oppression.  For us, that assertion is responding to the efforts of our colonizers and enslavers to dehumanize us by forcing their reality onto us by rejecting their reality and reclaiming our own.  That's what I did and that's what millions of us have done when we changed our names to African names.  We reclaimed our dignity to determine who we are which is a major step in diminishing the power of colonialism over our thinking and our spiritual well being.  My daughter has an African name and she understands why I did it so well that she took initiative not to long ago to inform me that when she decides to get married, if the man of her life doesn't have an African name, she will decide to keep our name.  

That explains in specific detail why we change our names.  If you still don't understand why it can only be because you don't want to understand it.  And if that's who you are, we couldn't care less.  In fact, you should ascertain by the foundation of this argument that we are not the people who need your validation or approval for anything.  That's why we will close out this discussion by chastising those, specifically among our own people, who chose to remain lazy and continue to call Africans who have clearly named their names, their previous slave names.  Examples?  Sanyika Shakur, formally Cody Scott from the best selling autobiography "Monster" about his life as an Eight-tray gangster Crip.  Or even Europeans like Yusef Islam who people probably know from his previous entertainer name of Cat Stevens.  I can go on and on, but I'll focus on Kwame Ture (of course) who was more famously known as Stokely Carmichael.  I get that most people don't do much serious study so they know him mostly by the name that grabbed the most headlines, but just because people may be a little intellectually lazy, that doesn't mean we should just submit to that laziness.  The man changed his name to Kwame Ture in 1977.  He lived a full 21 years after that as Kwame Ture and it has now been 41 years since he changed his name, yet most of the time, he is presented as Stokely Carmichael.  This is true even from people like Peniel Joseph who wrote a biography on Kwame in 2014 entitled "Stokely - A Life."  Even someone like hip/hop artist Talib Kweli, who has a "cultural" name, repeatedly and consistently referred to Kwame by his slave name while Kweli narrated the shameful documentary "The Black Power Mixtape."  When an African changes their name to an African name and you, for whatever reason, refuse to recognize that, what you are saying, whether you mean to or not, is that their European slave identity is most important.  What you are saying is you are choosing to acknowledge slavery and oppression over freedom and self-determination.  What you are doing is insisting that this African submit to the master.

It takes little effort to be respectful.  Do as I do, and I write about Kwame much more than most people.  Say Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) the first time and then you can say Kwame Ture every time after that and people will know who you are talking about.  Problem solved.  Respect in tact.  If you refuse to do this and respect and acknowledge who we are defining ourselves as, you are on the side of the enemy.  And, when people approach me with any scent of disrespect to my free and African name, I'm going to let you know about it in a way you aren't going to like.  We are free thinking people.  If you can respect Christopher Wallace aka the Notorious B.I.G. when he instructed you to "say my name right!" (and his name was a clown slave name) then you better respect and say our names right.

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Wake Up & Accept It.  America and Capitalism have no Conscience

7/6/2018

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From stealing their land and brutally repressing and terrorizing the Indigenous peoples of this hemisphere to immorally and criminally locking them and their children into cages today.  From violently kidnapping African masses to criminalizing and incarcerating us for breathing to shooting us down like rats in the street.  Dehumanizing and making women commodities to controlling their bodies and denying their capacity to function as full human beings.  To fomenting hatred against LGBTQ and non-men communities and creating conditions where they're very existence in society is a  crap shoot as it relates to basic safety and security.  The capitalist system today is the dominant economic system on Earth.  It is a system where the air, water, food, and resources needed for human beings to live, survive, and even flourish, are owned and controlled by private corporate entities for the sole purpose of personal profit.  Yes, these people have established a system where they charge you to use water when the water was here long before they got here and will be here long after they are gone.  And in the process of establishing and maintaining this capitalist system, the owners of it - we'll just call them the ruling classes, or the bourgeois - ensure that no force on Earth is ever able to prevent them from continuing their rule.  That means they will discredit, miss-educate, rape, beat up, imprison, terrorize, and murder any people, anywhere, who pose any type of threat to their empire.  Certainly, on top of that list are the people indicated above for who's blood, sweat, and tears, this empire was built on and is sustained upon.

Oftentimes, whenever there is some heinous crime committed against individuals in this society e.g. a vicious murder against children, etc., the question that is always asked is how is it that people could commit such inhumane crimes against other members of humanity?  That's not the right question.  The correct question is why it is that honest people haven't yet figured out that those people committing those heinous individual crimes are only implementing the skills and tactics they learned from the master of inhumanity - the capitalist system.

Every time this system commits a heinous act e.g. locking up the children of innocent Indigenous families seeking refuge from the carnage caused by capitalism in their host countries.  Or, a colonialist inspired massacre between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda?  Or, a weekend of capitalist cheered upon violence in Chicago, Ill, U.S.  The savage sacrificing of human life in New Orleans after Katrina or Puerto Rico after the 2017 hurricane that caused such trauma for those people.  What all these atrocities have in common  is they were either instigated, encouraged, or supported by either the active involvement or sabotage of capitalism/imperialism.  And, this is not even to discuss the brutal wars imperialism has carried out for hundreds of years leading all the way of the most recent ones in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  Millions of people in those countries killed for simply standing up for their dignity and self-determination.

The only way all of this carnage could ever happen is if the forces carrying and/or responsible for it happening have absolutely no concern or regret for their actions.  That is the legacy of the capitalist system wherever it exists.  The ruling classes see themselves as directors of the universe.  They wholeheartedly believe that their vision of dominance over humanity is the absolute and sole vision that is viable and legitimate.  They have convinced themselves, and many of you, that their mission is the only one ordained by God and they are determined to prevent any force from stopping them in their quest of world domination.  Not only have they convinced and recruited many of you to work in the interests of helping them maintain their dominance, they have created a narrative that purports that they have the right to do whatever to whomever dares challenge their manifest destiny.  With those types of ideological gears in place, there is no questioning on their part that they are correct.  And, any effort anyone makes to try and use morality and logic to convince them otherwise is at best, misdirected.  At worse, its naive and suicidal.  

The ruling classes see demands for justice as weakness.  They are completely immune to the suffering of the masses of humanity.  As hard as it is, we have to become politically mature enough to recognize that they see our suffering the same way many humans see the suffering of ant or roach when you spray them with raid.  If you confront insects in that fashion, you probably don't spend a lot of time lamenting about the suffering the chemicals you just inflicted upon them are causing to their lives.  You aren't stressing about the pain they feel when they scramble to hold onto those last few breaths before they succumb.  You aren't tormented by the destruction of their homes if you see their homes as conflicting with the areas you call yours.  Philosophically, you see their existence in your space as absolutely unacceptable and you therefore don't see anything you have to do to eliminate them as too extreme.  Well, believe it or not.  Accept it or not.  Want it or not.  That is precisely how the ruling classes see you and me.  We are no more significant to them as a roach or mouse/rat is to many of us.  Just something in their way that has to be eliminated.  Can you see the absurdity of a mouse or roach pleading with you to recognize their rights to live?  The rights of their children?  The same way you aren't listening to that, the ruling classes aren't listening to you.

The ruling classes have no conscience.  They are the most advanced terrorist entity that is only consumed with their interests.  So, since that is historically and materially undeniable, its time for us to stop living in this fantasy world where we continue to apply norms of humanity on these people.  Stop acting surprised when they do what they do.  They don't possess any humanity so how can we be surprised when they act in ways absent of human values?  Stop expecting them to do the right thing.  To wake up and decide they have been wrong.  That is never going to happen and by continuing to believe these dysfunctional and childish beliefs, you place all of us in further danger.

They have no conscience.  And, the only way we are going to have our way is to recognize that.  We start doing that by preparing ourselves to fight back on their level.  We have to stop seeing the struggle as one of making a moral appeal to people who possess no morality.  We have to acknowledge that all the institutions in these capitalist societies are controlled by the ruling classes.  You may vote in somebody, but at the end of the day, the system belongs to the super rich so that person, even with the best of intentions, is not going to be the solution to our suffering.  Only we can provide that solution.  And the way we do it is by appealing to each other.  By learning how to build up infrastructures that permit us to learn how to have the type of healthy patience with each other that some of us continue to provide in dysfunctional ways towards the ruling classes.  We have to learn that patience to work together and we have to build independent structures that permit us to rely on each other to fight back for our liberation.  We have to learn how to expect nothing from our enemies except a relentless struggle to the end.   We have to prepare ourselves for that protracted struggle and we have to learn how to build up and support each other in that process.  That's the only way we can build capacity to really challenge these beasts.  And in the process we definitely have to accept and understand that there is no level to low for them to stoop to attempt to stop us.  We cannot be shocked at their brutality.  As astounding as it sounds, we have to train ourselves to expect that from them because in doing that we can teach ourselves to prepare in how to deal with their brutality in ways where it doesn't derail us from continuing our struggle against them.  If you study roaches, that's exactly what they have evolved to do.  That's why they are some of the most relentless creatures on Earth.  We certainly aren't comparable to roaches, but there is something that can be learned here.  We have the capacity for reason so unlike roaches, we have the ability to take our survival skills and advance upon that to create some sustainable and development capacity for humanity.  We only get there though when we learn to recognize where we are in relation to the people we are fighting against.  Its us against them.  Anyone who doesn't yet understand and accept that is prolonging our suffering.

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The Naked U.S. Contradiction of Jamis Winston & Colin Kaepernick

7/1/2018

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Just to be clear, this article isn't an attack against Tampa Bay, U.S. National Football League (NFL) quarterback Jamis Winston.  There are any number of NFL players I could use for this comparison.  He is just the latest example of the hypocrisy.  Winston was just suspended by the NFL for three games for the 2018 season because of pending charges against him for sexual assault.  This isn't the first time around the block for Winston with this type of accusation.  And, for a multi-millionaire star player like him, three games is certainly nothing more than a slap on the wrist.  The issue is so many people were up in arms in this backward country when Colin Kaepernick protested against police terrorism.  So many people criticized him and were turned off from watching football due to the protests he helped inspire, that football revenues plummeted enough for NFL brass to institute a seriously lame policy in 2018 of fining teams when players choose not to stand for the so-called U.S. national anthem.  

These millions of people who oppose Kaepernick are not even required to address the legitimacy behind his protests and the NFL, concerned only about profits - not justice - has done absolutely nothing to attempt to educate its overwhelmingly ignorant European fan base about police terrorism in this country, and world.  The most astute among this mass of white people (and that's using the term astute very loosely) act as if its a mic drop to point out that their issue with Kaepernick is his wearing "pig" socks or shirts with Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on them.  Again, no one is demanding why these people are never required to discuss the core issue of police terrorism.  If this were to happen, even a statue would understand why people would be inclined to dehumanize police by calling them the name of a cute, but sometimes disgusting animal.  And, I would bet that the percentage of people in the U.S. who have read even one comprehensive book about Cuba and Fidel Castro is in the single digits so I'll just leave that right there.

Not that I'm at all surprised or upset at the masses of Europeans and the institutions representing them in this country.  I would expect nothing less than institutional racism, no matter who the Europeans are.  Or, as we used to jokingly say "left or right, still white!"  So, that's not the point.  What's worth indicating here is the millions of other people, particularly the African masses, who by their unwillingness to acknowledge the contradiction between how Winston is treated as opposed to Kaepernick, are quiet conspirators in this injustice.

Kaepernick hasn't worked in the NFL since 2016.  And, don't try that weak argument about his skill level.  Without question he is better than a number of quarterbacks currently working within the NFL.  If he wasn't, he wouldn't even have been offered a meeting to discuss employment by teams like Seattle and Baltimore.  Each team has acknowledged in public that they had no issue with Kaepernick's skill set and that the reason they didn't go further in hiring him was because of his unwillingness to commit to not protesting if offered a job.  Yeah, my problem is with you African and other oppressed communities who will be watching football in 2018 and beyond as if none of this I'm writing about is even happening.  I'm not saying you should be criticized for wanting to take a break and watch a game once a week.  Lord knows we need some distractions to get through this vicious capitalist system we live in.  I've decided I'm not watching, but that's an individual decision.  What isn't individual is you cannot stand idly by and not do anything about this blatant contradiction against humanity.  By pushing Kaepernick out like the NFL did (and now they apparently appear to be doing the same to Eric Reid, Kaepernick's 2016 teammate in San Francisco who also now suddenly cannot find a job), they are saying that a young man who had zero run ins with the law and was a great teammate according to all who played with him is such a problem because he took a principled stand for justice that they want nothing to do with him.  Meanwhile, with people like Winston, what the NFL is saying is these guys can beat, kill, and abuse women and non-men all they want because all the NFL will do when that happens is slap them lightly on the wrist. And, the primary reason this contradiction has legs is because the NFL knows millions of people, including many women, don't give a damn about Winston beating and/or raping women, provided he throws that football with at least 60% accuracy.  They know people couldn't care less about how bad of a person he or anyone else on the field is and that's the part you should have trouble digesting.  

Kaepernick is standing up for something that is a serious problem and we should want to be inconvenienced for a cause like that.  We should be talking about how we are going to respond to the NFL openly treating adverse issues against African people as a simple question of how discussing it impacts their revenues.  As a community, we should be discussing this, but we aren't.  We are discussing training camp and how good our teams are going to be.  We have no respect for the dignity of our people and so why are we surprised that people outside our community don't respect us?

In a healthy way of living life, we would be making as much noise about women beaters and rapists as the European community (and some lost Africans) is making about Kaepernick.  We aren't.  We are so disorganized as a people that we have no response for this.  For traitors like Clarence Thomas, Kanye West, Bill Cosby, R Kelly, etc.  We should be talking about how we can deal with all of those fools, yet we aren't.

This issue isn't about Kaepernick getting another job in the NFL.  Its about our dignity as African people. Its about us capitulating to a racist country of Europeans that cares more about their discomfort than our lives.  Its about us sitting there every Sunday next to those vile human beings and us acting like we all have the same things in common.  Again, I'm not saying you can't watch, but you damn well better be figuring out how you can do something to address this contradiction, but we probably won't.  And, if not, it would be entirely appropriate if the police came into the sports bar where you watch your games and/or your house, and harassed and terrorized you right there during halftime.  The Europeans sitting next to you aren't going to care when that happens.  They don't like politics mixing with their sports.  As long as the African athletes catch and run that ball, they don't care what happens to us, even if those players are the worse types of human beings, they'll still cheer them on the field.  So, they won't help you when the police terrorize you.  No one will help you because most of us watching are equally compliant.  Hopefully nothing like that ever happens to you, but if it does, while its happening, think about how watching that game was so much more important to you than being uncomfortable enough to question why our struggle for dignity and justice is more offensive in this country than rapists and women abusers.  And, then think about why you never had much of a problem with that contradiction yourself.

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    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?"

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