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The Role of the Black Bourgeiosie in Coopting Our Movements

8/29/2020

This past week there was an extraordinary demonstration of bold militant action from professional athletes to speak out against police terror against the African masses. The National Basketball Association (NBA) called off its playoff games. Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Football League (NFL), Major League Soccer (MLS), individual tennis players, and even the National Hockey League (NHL) called off games, matches, and practices. As Sekou Ture told us years ago, these things happened because the athletes, being nothing more than conduits of the desires of the masses of people, felt compelled to act because the masses of people are acting. In other words, its pretty safe to say that if there were no mass demonstrations against police terror, the actions from the major sports leagues would never have happened.

And, those mass protests themselves always start out with a strong and uncompromising militancy. That spirit was felt at the 57 year commemoration of the original March on Washington held on August 28, 2020, just like it was felt at the first march in 1963. Despite the spreading of false narratives to define these protests as exercises in “rioting and looting,” by the capitalist system’s propaganda mechanisms, millions of people are apparently willing to openly support these protests. This is good because it proves that most people are refusing to accept the backward analysis that murdering protesters to protect property is ok, while damaging property to protest murder is an unforgivable act.

Still, there is a very insidious, almost invisible to the naked untrained eye, process taking place that always takes place whenever there is mass resistance to oppression. In the 1963 March on Washington, the spirit was one not very different than the spirit being articulated today. Two hundred and fifty thousand people descended upon D.C. in August 1963. Up until the Million Man March in 1995, that 1963 event was the largest ever held on the Washington D.C. Mall. People sold their belongings in 63 to get to that march. The reason they did this was because they had an uncompromising desire to see freedom resonate everywhere that we as human beings take breath. And, the original make up of the march was designed to ensure that mass militancy had voice. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had a very militant speech planned that contained clear references to the class question of “the haves and have nots” being the primary contradiction in perpetuating white supremacist policies and actions in this country. For any public speech, especially by an African organization, to express an open challenge to capitalism in 1963, during the height of the cold war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, was unthinkable. Yet, SNCC was prepared, as they always were, to step into that historic role. Writer James Baldwin was to be touted as one of the main speakers. And, calls from all over the country were being made louder and louder for the march to focus on challenging wealth disparities and a plan for the disruption of systemic white supremacy. This was in 1963. And, the question many will be asking is “if we were talking about the exact same things 60 years ago, why are we still talking about those same things today?”

A fundamentally sound response to that question can be found in looking at the role of the African bourgeoisie/petti bourgeoisie. By Bourgeoisie we mean those class elements within the African community who serve as either the spokespersons for the capitalist ruling classes (bourgeoisie) and/or the classes of African people who serve as capitalist’s middle level managers (petti bourgeoisie). These elements of African people benefit from aligning themselves politically with the capitalist system, but this system of class struggle is extremely complex. Its actually quite common for many of these bourgeoisie spokespersons, for example, to speak regularly about African upliftment, even to have programs allegedly committed to achieving this objective, while in actuality, their primary focus is on integrating as many of us into the system as possible. What doing this accomplishes is to preserve the sanctity and security of capitalism by eliminating militant action that would potentially threaten the ability of the capitalist system to continue to function unabated.

For the 1963 March on Washington what happened is the Kennedy Administration, being the liberal voice for that branch of the capitalist bourgeoisie class, became increasingly concerned about the moderate elements of the march planning process losing control of the message. As a result, the administration scheduled a series of meetings with the national Black bourgeoisie civil rights leadership to “order” them to get the march under control. By national Black bourgeoisie leadership we mean Roy Wilkins, the then Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Whitney Young, the National Director of the National Urban League. (NUL). Although each organization, particularly the NAACP, have reputations for the local chapters being often much more militant than the national leadership, in the case of Wilkins and Young, neither ever saw a statement for African self-determination that they liked unless it was endorsed by the capitalist class leadership.

So Young and Wilkins led the charge, at the orders of their puppet masters, to strive towards influencing Dr. Martin Luther King and others to submit to changes in the march format designed to soften the message. By others, we mean primarily the so-called “big six” i.e. the leaders of the major civil rights movements of that time. Those six were Young (NUL), Wilkins (NAACP) King (Southern Christian Leadership Conference – SCLC), John Lewis (SNCC), A. Philip Randolph (several organizations over the years), and James Farmer (Congress of Racial Equality – CORE).

A number of meetings were held, some of which reportedly had participation from members of Kennedy’s administration. And, ultimately, the six leaders came to a point where several compromises were made. I say compromise because what we know is there was resistance offered against smashing the militancy of the people made by Lewis of SNCC and even King, but eventually, as the threat of sponsors pulling out and losing the support of the Kennedy administration, these reductions were accepted. As a result, those 250,000 never heard the militant message of challenging and potentially dismantling the capitalist system. Instead, they heard a vastly censored speech by Lewis that, despite the deep cuts to the spirit of his speech, ended up being by far the most militant statement of the day. James Baldwin, a person of integrity who would never accept censorship of what he wanted and needed to say, was removed from the program at the direct request of the Kennedy administration. He was replaced by the moderate put you to the sleep speech given by actor Burt Lancaster. And, today, what is most remembered about a day originally designed to showcase the determination of a quarter of a million people to express the demand from the masses for a complete overhaul of this backward system, is a tame speech by Dr. King i.e. “I have a Dream!” For anyone who actually studies Dr. King, and by study I mean reading his books and studying his work in the SCLC, you know that speech was easily one of his lightest.

Yet today in 2020 and beyond, that speech King delivered has been paraded in front of us for the last almost 60 years as the groundbreaking statement of the civil rights movement. Countless multi-national corporations will include portions of that speech in their advertisements. And, today, people who 100% opposed everything King stood for during and after his lifetime, readily mischaracterize his words and actions to serve their anti-people agendas. And, central to their ability to accomplish this is us understanding the role these Black bourgeoisie like Young and Wilkins played then, and continue to play today, in selling out the militant and justified aspirations of the people.

And, those NBA players, who came very close to voting to cancel the entire rest of their season, something that would have been an overwhelmingly powerful act, instead will presumably resume playing this weekend or soon. And apparently it was that prince of Black bourgeoisie politics – Barack Obama – who helped convince these NBA players such as LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, etc., to return to the court. So, thanks to Obama’s influence, instead of a militant direct action, what we are left with is NBA arenas being set up as voting centers. Centers that give us the option of choosing an ignorant fascist or a neo-liberal. Centers that ask us to accept that a former prosecutor, who has played a hand in incarcerating countless numbers of African and other poor people, is now going to do something to bring us closure to police terrorism against us. Maybe those people believe locking us up is progress beyond just killing us on the street?

The original comment in this piece about the Black bourgeoisie is that their primary loyalty is, and will always be, to the capitalist system. Their job is to continue to convince us that the only problem we have is that we just have not worked hard enough, or even received enough support and incentives, to properly integrate ourselves into the capitalist system. As a result, they preside over programs and actions designed to further facilitate us putting into place mechanisms to supposedly quicken our capacity to just buy that piece of capitalism that has eluded us for 500+ years. From Young and Wilkins to Obama, the snake oil being sold to us is that our acceptance and ability to function effectively in capitalism is just around the corner. That same corner we have been turning for centuries. They are the rabbit in front of the dog racers. And, they will never entertain the reality that all the wealth here exists on stolen land with stolen resources, meaning even the few of us who will advance on personal levels through this system still do so while stepping on the necks of African people in other parts of the world. This Black bourgeoisie is trained well enough by this system to understand that in squashing our militant spirit, they will effectively wipe out our continued political maturation, thus eliminating any chances of us stumbling towards the type of international analysis of imperialism just mentioned.

After months of militant protests, what we are primarily left with today is reliance on the bourgeoisie neo-liberal Democratic Party of mass incarcerators and international terrorists. And, this is supposed to be the platform that will bring us forward progress? And, for the most part, the only rationale being offered for why we should support this sham is to prevent a fascist from remaining in office. From a dialectical analysis, it can easily be argued that we would not have this level of political unsettledness if the current fascist was not where he is. People would not be seeing these contradictions at all if smooth Obama was still there, despite the fact police weren’t murdering any less of us during the Obama years.

Kwame Ture’s statement that true liberation only happens through “the power of the organized masses” is ill refutable. We have to get people to see that freedom is not like Uber Eats. It cannot be delivered to you. To achieve it, you have to be engaged in that process. It won’t happen until you happen. Until we can get people to recognize that reality, the Black Bourgeoisie, including the next generation of them after Obama, will continue to derail us with their empty promises of inclusion, all while they make sure to play their house slave role in ensuring that the rebellious slaves remained contained on the plantation.

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Maybe "We have Always Loved this Country" is the Real Problem

8/27/2020

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Glenn “Doc” Rivers, head coach for the Los Angeles Clippers Basketball team, went viral from his comments after Monday night’s playoff game when he emotionally articulated “we have always loved this country, but the country doesn’t love us back!” Most sensible African, and other colonized and European communities, who love peace and justice, understand the emotion and the history behind River’s statements. In a nutshell, what he was saying is that all African people have ever wanted to do in the U.S. is exist as respected participants within this society.

Its undeniable that we are here in the U.S. and the Western Hemisphere overwhelmingly because our ancestors were violently kidnapped and forced to come over here to serve as the human and material resources that would build this empire. Despite that fact, we have worked tirelessly to fit within this country that forced itself upon us. Or, as Kwame Ture said it, “African people have civilized this backward country!” We endured and continue to endure unspeakable trauma, terror, and death, for walking down the street, allegedly having a $20.00 counterfeit bill, selling cigarettes, riding BART trains, sleeping in our houses after a hard day’s work, playing with toys in Walmart, or just being children playing with toys on playgrounds. We respond to this brutality by simply asking this society to stop, look, and listen, and still, we are demonized and now increasingly, shot down for crying out in pain.

A critical point that will never be talked about in capitalist media is why African people continue to be terrorized and dehumanized? Why do so many European people see our existence as a threat to them to the point where us simply expressing our humanity has always been a normalized reason for us to be shot and killed to the joy and celebration of many, many Europeans? Why is it so easy for the established bourgeoisie political structure to find Africans on every street corner who are willing to come out and downplay the suffering of African people?

The questions above are answered by embracing some real truths about the concrete relationship between the masses of African people (not the African petti bourgeoisie) and the U.S. There is so much confusion today that a common refrain coming from seemingly well meaning people on the left is that “everyone except Native people here are immigrants!” Although we will always uplift and support any efforts to highlight the fact this land belongs to the Indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere, the characterization of African people as immigrants negates the hard truths about our history here.

There are 100 million Africans in Brazil. Approximately 50 million Africans in the U.S. And, millions more Africans in Canada, Central America, the Caribbean, and the rest of South America. We didn’t get here through immigration. We got here through the violent transatlantic kidnappings of millions of our ancestors. Our labor built up the initial wealth that fueled the development of the capitalist system, but clearly, we were never here to participate in this society. The fact we have been able to develop in all of these Western societies is a complete testament to our humanity, determination, and culture, but our existence in all these societies, including the U.S., is a reflection of our resistance to our oppression, not our integration into these societies. In other words, at no time in history has this system engaged in any humanity towards us without a demand pushing them to do it. Even those Africans who’s families came from Africa or the Caribbean, etc. in recent years don’t escape this narrative. The only reason there is even a need for Africans to come to Western capitalist countries is because of the exploitation that has subjugated Africa so the reasons all of us find ourselves here are still the same.

Understanding the above history is critical in being able to properly interpret the events taking place today. The current reality of police gunning us down like animals in the street and white supremacist vigilantes doing the same is nothing new in this backward society. Thousands of Africans have been lynched in the U.S. alone. This was such a normal occurrence that it was deemed a respected social outing to see an African brutally lynched in most areas of this country. The practice only ceased being public in the 1950s when the bourgeoisie political establishment in this country realized the hit they were taking in the eyes of the international community by literally having events where our bodies were torn apart. The Truman regime began placing pressure on state entities, not to stop lynching, but to take it out of the public eye.

Police, of course, evolved from the violent slave patrols who terrorized Africans seeking a better life into returning to the Southern slave plantations. The people who carried out these systemic and heinous acts were recruited to form the initial police departments and the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, so prized by the crazed right wing thinkers in this society, was largely written to ensure those slave patrols could remain armed to carry out their terror against us.

The point is the narrative that terrorism against African people could be explained away as “not who this country is” has always been a vicious lie. This country was built on terrorizing African people. Think of it like this. Someone has broken into your house and violently kidnapped you and some of your family while brutally killing your other family members. They forcibly take you and your family members across town to their house while maintaining control over your house that they seized when they kidnapped you. In this reality, you would strongly resist anyone who claims that the people who terrorized you own all the properties involved. That they worked hard to develop control over your existence and that they are justified in rising up violently against you to prevent you from voicing your opposition to the oppression they established against you. This is the reality for the African masses. This country has never loved us. It never will love us. And, it speaks to how sick we are that we would even want love from such a dysfunctional, violent, and immoral entity. Its time for us to face that reality full on so that we can deal with it and move forward.

No relationship can be successful if one party maintains such a disrespectful posture towards the other party. That is actually a relationship of abuse. African people have been abused by this country for 500+ years and us continuing to rollover to try and fit in is not only not working. Its helping to perpetuate the brutality against us.

What seems most viable is for the African masses to grow in consciousness in order to realize that we are on our own as a people. From an emotional standpoint, we recognize that history has been revised and the oppressors are depicted as the heroes/sheroes/theyroles. Everyone wants to feel like they come from the winners. I can easily recognize that being born and raised from San Francisco, a very prestigious city on an international level of recognition, there is a charge that has always come from telling people that is my origin. A charge that someone from Oroville or Redding, California, U.S. etc., doesn’t benefit from. I can also remember being a child in the 7th grade. Lacking any healthy knowledge about Africa, therefore being completely subjected to the dysfunctional and racist analysis of our history, I punched a dude in my class who told me “Africa hasn’t produced anything for the world.” And as shameful as that incident was, the part that I also remember is that when I hit him, I yelled “I’m an American! I’m not African!” Any dime store psychologist would decern that my reaction in that 7th grade class, despite what I said (just like despite what Africans always say publicly), the pain of being denied a true history about Africa, as well as feeling rejected by America, fueled that punch 100%. In a microcosm, this is the reality for African people in the U.S. We know nothing about Africa and we are not accepted in America. Yet because we at least have our lived experiences in the U.S., we rely 100% on those experiences to guide us into believing capitalism’s narrative that what exists here for us, regardless of how terrible, is all we have. Its all we can work with. As a result, we continue to forge ahead, trying to be respected and accepted here, despite all of the overwhelming evidence and history demonstrating how impossible that objective will be to achieve.

The aggressive stance so many Europeans are taking within the last few days i.e. praising the 17 year old terrorist in Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S., who shot and killed two unarmed protesters, is another case in point. There is going to be no outpouring of humanity towards us because most of these people do not believe we are human. Its that plain and simple. And, the sooner we can mature politically and accept this reality, the sooner we can figure out how to stop the carnage against us.

We of course believe that Africa’s redemption is key. No people have achieved forward progress while being disconnected and uneducated about their motherland. Africans in the U.S. are the only people on earth attempting to chart this unobtainable path. Africa’s liberation, regardless of where we live, will benefit all of us in every way related to how we are oppressed today. While we fight for Africa’s liberation, its important that we engage on the ground organizing efforts throughout the African diaspora. We must organize so that we can meet dehumanization and violence against us with comparable results. No one will respect you until you force them to respect you. That force comes from us becoming organized and presenting a united front that illustrates as Kwame Ture said at the Jackson, Mississippi, U.S. state house in 1966, “we have to build a power base that is so strong that we bring them to their knees every time they mess with us!”

We believe Pan-Africanism is primary and we also believe that non-Africans must abandon this backward and dysfunctional belief that you can be for justice while maintaining any type of loyalty and commitment to the U.S. imperialist state. There can be no anti-white supremacy coupled with American identity. America as a national entity automatically means endorsing the exploitation that has created the conditions we see playing before us today. The rejection of American identity says you recognize this system has to go. It has to be overturned and replaced. This is the fundamental question facing all of us today. Anyone who believes this upcoming bourgeoisie election is the primary concern is missing a lot. This is a question of humanity versus inhumanity. The oppressor, and those who side with the oppressor, against the oppressed. That’s what we are facing right now. And, at the core to this fight will be the willingness and ability of African people to grow to accept the reality of our relationship to this society. Power will never concede anything without a demand. Our best demand is not forcing this country to accept us. Its building our own independent movement for power that forces this country, willingly or not, to respect us because they are forced to deal with us on a mutual level. Something that has never existed here. Also, having non-Africans cease attempting to paint this moment as some sort of special moment that denies the well documented history of this country. When we can grasp this unescapable reality, we will then find our feet beneath us to move out ahead of this suffering so that we are no longer in the position of simply reacting to it. Once we can do that, victory will be visible on the horizon.

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Recognizing Power Structure Tactics to Coopt Mass Movements

8/23/2020

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Hillary Clinton, speaking to African activists against police terrorism during her presidential run in 2016. The fact that so many of us view getting audience with people like her as some sort of victory speaks directly to the system's tactics to disarm our militancy.

I first became conscious of this tactic as a 20 year student organizer in the Pan-African Student Union at Sacramento State University, many moons ago. We had spent weeks mobilizing with Indigenous (Latino), and Asian student organizations across the state to stage a huge anti-racism rally at the California State Capitol in downtown Sacramento, California, U.S., in the early spring of 1983. People were fired up all up and down the state and by the time the rally was upon us, we were even more inspired to see thousands of colonized students militantly chanting and marching around the Capitol building. Our demand was multi-faceted. We wanted Ethnic studies to be institutionalized statewide as a requirement to graduate. We wanted office space for colonized student organizations, statewide in all state universities and community colleges. We wanted Ethnic Studies in all high schools. And, we came that day in 1983 to say if we didn’t get those things, we would shut the state’s college system down with demonstrations, sit ins, protests, boycotts, whatever it took.

Then, a very interesting thing happened at that rally. After a series of inspiring speakers and the raising of the militancy in rhetoric and energy, a member of the California State Legislature, who I can’t remember, came down out of the building and requested to speak to the “leadership” of the assembled students. Since I was a part of that statewide team, myself and about 25 others went to a side area and this lawmaker began expressing their desire to “hear us out” on these demands. From that point, people began expressing their frustrations. There were media persons present. Many tearful testimonies, and by the time the session was over, we had a ton of empty rhetoric and no plan and/or commitments. Unfortunately, that sad reality didn’t stop some of the “leaders” who led the discussion with that legislator from reporting back to the crowd with hopeful (yet naïve) optimism, that “they are listening to us” and that progress was to be made. I became acutely aware that the entire mood of the crowd had shifted from one of uncompromising militancy and a commitment to go all the way, whatever we felt that meant at that time, to a mood of passive acceptance. Almost a resignation that we had done what we came to do.

For me, it was a defining moment. In just a few short minutes, all the energy and militancy that we had cultivated for weeks had been swept away. And, the actions of that legislator, wittingly or unwittingly, had played a significant role in sucking that militancy away just by coming out and spending a few minutes letting people vent their frustrations.

Fast forward to today and I can tell you that I have learned that the tactic employed that day in 1983 is standard fare for representatives of the capitalist system. Their approach, their jobs as leaders in this system, etc., is all about squashing militancy. They do this by promoting the concept that they and they alone hold the power to generate any change. And, anything outside of their purview and power is wicked, mentally unstable, and a betrayal to the best values of humanity. They are able to get away with this time and time again because the masses of people in this capitalist society, just like 20 year old me in 1983, have been conditioned to believe that an ear (even an empty one) from the capitalist system, or those who represent it, is a step forward. An example of progress. A beacon of moving forward. We are taught to believe this lie with such strategic effectiveness that even if nothing comes from that ear hearing us out, and nothing ever does come from it, we still believe wholeheartedly that just having them come out and hear us for 30 minutes is supposed to represent some sort of victory for us.

Most of us still believe this today as evidenced by what just happened in the national political arena within capitalist U.S. This country had been rocked by militant protests against police terrorism over the last couple of months. The Democratic Party, always the chief energy sucker of all grassroots militancy within the U.S., came to nominate Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris to lead its ticket for the presidency. The irony that Harris made a career for herself as a prosecutor is apparently lost on many people, particularly Africans, who are actively promoting this false narrative that any criticism of Harris from the African community, particularly African men, is anti-African woman. First, to expose how absurd that thinking is, those same people advancing that theory don’t believe that African men/people should support all African women. They don’t suggest that unhinged and insane African women like Candace Owens, or example, should be expected to gain the support of African men/people in order to permit us to avoid being labeled as being anti-African women. There are no calls for us to uniformly support Owens because those critics understand clearly that we should expose Candace Owens, despite her being an African woman, for the fraud and sellout that she certainly is. So, this clear reality demonstrates that most people do actually understand that there is a class, gender, and national analysis that creates space to scientifically critique Harris and Owens without betraying all African women.

And much of the above may or may not be intentionally distracting to divert people away from the cooptation so that people miss that irony that the woman who made a career locking up African people is supposed to also be the person who will rescue us from police terrorism. As a result, we should ignore those ill refutable realities in order to preserve some of our subjective emotional desire to see some of us achieve individual positions within the very capitalist system that reaps havoc on our people everywhere on earth. I can tell you today that this strategy, yet again, will work. Ten years from now, if we are all still here, there will be absolutely no tangible progress made against police terrorism, or on anything else impacting African people. And, by tangible we mean significant reductions in our mass incarceration rates, arrest rates (to at least become consistent with the actual percentage of crimes that we commit i.e. consummate with our numbers), and murder rates at the hands of terrorist police. I will take bets with you that any of these people assigned to “represent” us will have no victories of this magnitude on our behalf and if there is any progress, it will come from the place it always comes from; the struggles of the masses of our people.

If you still don’t get it, what just happened on the national stage is the Democratic Party highjacked and undermined a mass movement for accountability against police terrorism. The very same tactic used at the rally here in California in 1983. The very same tactic the capitalist power structure uses against every mass movement aiming at an uncompromising solution to our suffering. This tactic will continue to work against us until we develop enough political maturity to require ourselves to stay focused on our prize, which is the complete elimination of these problems that oppress us. We will never achieve this by consistently trusting and giving in to our emotional desires for symbolic victories. We will only begin to win this war when we develop the sophistication to require more respect from this system. Build those movements so that nothing short of institutional changes is acceptable, not just individual position holders who have demonstrated their presence means nothing tangible for our forward progress.

The Democratic Party, Republican Party, and all institutions functioning within the capitalist system exist to corral that mass energy and coopt it so that nothing outside of the range provided by capitalism will ever flourish. Any self-respecting people can never be satisfied with symbolism while they suffer the way we do. If symbolism is important to you, it cannot exist without actual systemic change for your demand. Otherwise, you really aren’t demanding anything beyond cosmetic changes.

Meanwhile, those of us committed to revolutionary change will keep pointing out these contradictions because we have faith in the masses. We know that properly organized with constant political education, many of us will awaken and realize this scam that’s being pulled on us over and over again. It happened with the launching of Black Lives Matter in 2014. It happened with the civil rights and Black Power movements of the 60s. In those days it was paper thin legislation (like the civil rights and voting rights bills) for the former and elected offices and poverty programs for the latter. With BLM its been more paper-thin legislation (like police wearing cameras which hasn’t saved a single life), etc. Soon, we will realize that nothing short of a serious threat to bring this system to its knees will really get more serious responses. Maybe by the time we get there, most will realize that there really is no demand that can bring us the justice we need from a system built on maintaining our oppression. Maybe, at that point, the realization that only complete systemic change is the answer will finally become something most people can begin to wrap their minds around.

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The Capitalist Class Scheme to Sabotage the Post Office

8/17/2020

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My deceased father – Richard Duhart – was born and raised in Streveport, Louisiana, U.S. He moved to San Francisco, California, U.S. in 1956, searching, like millions of Africans, for better economic opportunities. He struggled in the Bay Area, working as a fry cook for years before joining the Army during the early stages of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. When he returned, he continued as a fry cook for few more years before he took a test and was accepted as a U.S. Postal employee in 1969. From 1969 until 1996, he worked for the Post Office. Those years, coupled with his years in the military, gave him approximately 30 years for the federal government.

The thing I remember most about my father’s work is during the 70s, while I was in my formulative years, I would hear him talking, mostly to my mother, grandmother, and his friends, about his pride in working for the Post Office. One thing he stated often was that there were only two departments in the U.S. government that generated their own revenue. The Internal Revenue Service, and the Post Office. My dad spent that 26 years as a mail caser and for him, a child who had escaped the devastation of racial segregation in Louisiana, his work was his defining contribution to the success he envisioned when he talked about the Post Office.

My dad is one reason I seethe with contempt at the lies being told today about the dire economic condition the Post Office faces. Corrupt, bottom shoe scum politicians are claiming that the $2.3 billion losses the Post Office has suffered is proof that the Post Office is inefficient. Their argument, and actions are focused on dismantling the Post Office and turning over mail delivery to private delivery entities like United Parcel Service and Federal Express, etc. On the other hand, the Democratic Party, the so-called workers party, is advancing the weak lying position that the Post Office should be saved because it has such wonderful tradition i.e. being started with Benjamin Franklin as the first Post Master in 1775. These people are arguing something akin to the logic that the Post Office should be viewed as some sort of historical landmark that must be preserved, despite its economic challenges.

None of those absurd talking points are honest or conclusive in helping people understand why the Post Office is in economic peril today. And, the most offensive thing about that is there is a clear reason for the Post Office’s challenges and you can’t tell me the capitalist media is not aware of that reason. Yet, they continue to talk about the Post Office today and its challenges without even the slightest push back against the privatization segment of the capitalist class and their insane assertion that the Post Office is where it is because of government is inefficient.

Anyone who does even a simple internet search can determine that the cause of the Post Office’s economic woes is connected to the ill refutable fact that the last year the Post Office was in the black was 2006. Once you learn that, the next logical question would have to be what changed after 2006? And, the logical response is in 2006, the U.S. Congress voted to force the Post Office to fund its retirement (pension) account 75 years in advance. Now, retirement programs typically struggle with managing their unfunded liabilities. This is a very common problem with these programs which results in large part because a lack of attention by employers in ensuring the programs are properly funded on the frontend. Still, the decision to force the Post Office to do this in 2006, when no other employer anywhere is being forced to do something so dramatic, effectively eliminated the surplus environment the Post Office had enjoyed (that my dad always bragged about) for decades. Once millions of dollars had to be redirected to meet the Congressional mandate, the Post Office found itself in the red for the first time in its centuries old history. Still, despite this reality, it needs to be said that the Post Office today, even in its current condition, delivers more mail in a week’s time than UPS and Federal Express combined over a longer range of time. From an efficiency standpoint, using the numbers, there is no logical argument to suggest privatizing mail delivery will increase proficiency.

We would argue that the Congress knew in advance that this outcome would be forthcoming. Many of them who promoted this action were heavily financed by corporate interests who have advanced privatization for decades. In fact, there is an entire movement of capitalist interests who’s primary desire is to completely eliminate public services by privatizing everything. Part of their motivation for this is to increase profits since privatization is all about profitability while public service is about that; serving the public. Also, the last bulwark of strong union activity within the U.S. is in the public sector. These capitalist interests know that by wiping out the Post Office, they wipe out the Postal Union, thus striking another strong blow against the one entity in this society – Unions – that fights for better wages, affordable health care, pensions, safe working conditions, etc.
Clearly, the political efforts to sabotage the Post Office are motivated in full by capitalist interests who don’t like the fact that the Post Office, among other things, represents the people’s desires to have socialist principles driving their institutional operations. Yes, we know that whenever you say the word socialism, people are trained to have a visceral reaction. Still, this doesn’t change the reality that the Postal model, just like the public schools model, is based on socialist principles i.e. we pay taxes and we receive a service. This is the principle that drives all public sector work and that is the reason these capitalist interests are opposed to the public sector and wish to destroy it. They oppose because they know that the Post Office had worked wonderfully for centuries until they stepped in to destroy that model in 2006. They also know that most of the people you know will never spend enough time to try and find out the truth behind their efforts to sabotage the Post Office and public services in general. They live in fear that if people ever do take the time to figure out exactly what’s going on, they will recognize that the capitalist argument that socialist principles don’t work is a lie and once people figure that out, the capitalists know their days are numbered.

What’s happening with the Post Office is a part of this larger scheme/scam to privatize everything, eliminate public sector unions, gain greater control over the workers in these industries, and increase profitability for the corporate heads who direct these corporations (UPS, etc.). What happens to the Post Office isn’t just about the Post Office itself (although that’s how neo-liberal bourgeoisie narratives are attempting to frame it). Its about what happens with our ability to create institutions that we direct. Its about people in the streets fighting for a new and different society. Its about us finally waking up and realizing that these worldly thieves are making their run to steal the entire planet right from underneath us and if we don’t get our heads out of the sand, they will accomplish this right before our very eyes. My union proud, African proud daddy is turning over in his grave right now because so many people are so easily having the wool pulled right over their heads.

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Revolutionary Politics & Critiques Against Bourgeoisie Elections

8/14/2020

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With the Democratic Party U.S. selection of current U.S. Senator, former California, U.S. Attorney General (top cop) Kamala Harris to the presidential ticket for the 2020 election, a lot of unprincipled behavior has emerged from those anxious to substitute real substantive change with symbolic upgrades. Meanwhile, revolutionary African organizers are doing what we do everyday of our lives. We are engaging in on the ground work to challenge the foundations of this backward capitalist system. We are conducting freedom schools for our youth. We are engaging in providing for people’s basic needs. And, in our opinion, most importantly, we are providing consistent political education to help people learn how to evaluate what’s happening on a broad and critical level so that we can figure out real solutions instead of just playing along with the crumbs give and take game that the capitalist system provides for us.

In response to these political education efforts, the liberal wing of the bourgeoisie Democratic Party is reacting to these principled criticisms about Harris, and her pro-mass incarceration career, by using people like movie maker Ava Duvernay to argue their case. She has been tweeting out criticisms of African revolutionaries, calling us people who think we are “too woke” to acknowledge the time. Her suggestion is that we aren’t politically sophisticated enough to understand that our unwillingness to play bourgeoisie politics is somehow the reason the masses of oppressed humanity continue to remain oppressed. This is coming from a film maker who endorses the mass incarceration manager – Kamala Harris – after making the film “13” that derides mass incarceration. She’s also the same person who made the film “Selma”, an absolutely terrible film that attempts to attack the militancy of Malcolm X and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) while upholding accommodationist politics. It continues to remain a mystery why – 50+ years after Malcolm X warned us – we continue to act as if entertainers and celebrities are legitimate voices about our movement for justice as a people.

As for Angela Davis coming out to support the Biden/Harris ticket for the Democratic Party, people like Duvernay are using this to critique African revolutionaries saying that if Angela, with her revolutionary credentials, is able to see the “practicality” of supporting a slightly lesser bourgeoisie ticket over the other bourgeoisie ticket, why can’t we see things the same way? The reason we can’t see things the same way is because we are not interested in substituting getting shot with getting stabbed when we know we can create a reality where no pain is necessary for anyone. We don’t blame Angela Davis for this because she is not the one making this analysis. People are using her resume to justify their bourgeoisie liberalism. We cannot speak to why Angela Davis has adopted her current position. We have seen many revolutionaries from the 60s lose much of their militancy. We don’t know how or if Angela Davis has continued to maintain a sharp revolutionary analysis, but we also know for every person who changes the way she has, there are also those – like Kwame Ture for example – who maintain their principled revolutionary politics up through their last breath. So, instead of focusing in on a subjective analysis – that because one individual who has represented one thing, decides to believe something else, therefore we should blindly follow that example – we suggest we focus in on why so many of the most visible voices coming from our communities continue to pressure us to support individual bourgeoisie candidates without ever coming up with a strategy to ensure the masses of powerless people have mechanisms to hold these individuals accountable to us once they are elected.

In the 2016 national election, approximately 27 million people voted for bourgeoisie candidate Hillary Clinton. Approximately 25 million people voted for bourgeoisie Trump (he won the 270 electoral college votes which is how you win the presidency). Meanwhile, there were approximately 100 million people eligible to vote who didn’t. No one, except us revolutionaries, ever asks why this is so? Everyone else continues to promote the elitist belief that just because those 100 million don’t do what you do i.e. vote in bourgeoisie elections, then those 100 million are ill responsible and not as dedicated to justice as you are. This is the accepted analysis by so many people despite the fact many of those 100 million are revolutionaries who dedicate their lives to more practical work to help people in one week than you bourgeoisie voters have done in your entire lifetime.

None of this written here is designed to pressure anyone from voting in these elections. Unlike the bourgeoisie voices, we don’t need to pressure people to do something while dismissing legitimate critical concerns. We say if you want to participate, do so, but you better figure out how to build a mass movement that will hold your beloved bourgeoisie politicians accountable. There are some genuine efforts taking place to do that. The Poor People’s Campaign is one of them, but most of these people criticizing us aren’t even a part of that. And, its interesting that those Poor People’s Campaign folks are not the folks criticizing African revolutionaries because they are doing the work. Therefore, they understand and respect the work that we do every-day.

The best weapon the capitalist system has against us is our absolute inability to properly understand the forces at work in our lives. We have to do a much better job at being pro-active and not just reacting. If you know that you don’t have any knowledge about revolutionary African work taking place, be honest and recognize and respect that. Learn more about this work. People who aren’t involved in bourgeoisie politics would be very happy to inform you about our work and why we take the approach that we do.

And finally, stop telling dedicated soldiers for justice that there is no value in the work that we do. You sound absolutely insane doing that. Instead, why not respond to the overtures we’ve extended for decades towards you for us to work together. We can build African United Fronts across ideological lines. Even multi-racial coalitions across ideological lines. We have always stood prepared to do that. There is clearly much about grassroots organizing that you can learn from us and we are willing to help you learn it. This approach is the correct pathway to empower us to move forward collectively. We need you to be successful with our revolutionary politics and you need us to win the reforms you seek. We should not be afraid of challenging those barriers. Let the struggle ensure and have faith in the masses of people. They are quite capable, provided the necessary resources are made available, to make the decision that best represents what’s best for all of us.

The above paragraph is clearly what we should be doing, but until we can all reach the level of political maturity to move in that way, which benefits us primarily and not our exploiters, then we will continue to do what we are doing. Engaging in work to build capacity for our people and all of humanity to fight back and win against systemic oppression. We will also continue to point out the contradictions within this system, especially when objectivity, not emotionalism, is necessary for us to see the latest tricks being imposed upon us. And, we will let our faith in humanity determine what pathway is the correct course.

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Kamala Harris; Class Struggle & the Illusion of Identity in Capitalism

8/12/2020

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With the announcement that U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden has selected U.S. Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate (Vice President), we are seeing that there is so much to unpack. First, I think its important to acknowledge that after 500+ years of systematized disrespect, many African (Black) identifying women, understandably, see any symbol of recognition as progress. For many non-men, particularly Africans, Harris in this role represents a good thing. Anyone who has even a cursory understanding of the struggles African face in this world today would be completely blind not to recognize that.
As a result, not only do we engage this discussion with respect to our sisters, we also point out that no matter what, African women identifying folks have a strong track record of standing up to our oppression. Consequently, we respect their perspectives on Harris, even though we disagree.

The disagreement is related to the critical need for African people to develop a much stronger class analysis of politics. For most people, our analysis is shaped by superficial factors like race or skin color. Factors that do absolutely nothing to clarify what a person’s position on issues actually is. In other words, many of us view someone who looks like us advancing within the capitalist system as progress and there are several deep-seated issues with this approach.

First, since the masses of African people hold no collective power, the fact that individuals within us can advance in this system speaks to their connections and commitment to upholding this system, not any leverage we have to hold politicians accountable to us. That analysis explains why someone with the clearly problematic history that Harris holds – in terms of locking so many of our people up – can be viewed through a positive lense by African mothers who’s children she helped incarcerate. This contradiction occurs because for most of us, we have no tools to make a class analysis. We don’t understand the popular phrase “all skinfolk ain’t kinfolk” or as Chuck D rapped in Public Enemy’s “Welcome to the Terrodome” – “every brother ain’t a brother cuz the black hand squeezed Malcolm X the man. The shooting of Huey Newton, cuz a hand of a n - - - - r pulled the trigger!”

To illustrate the above point, no one can deny that any African anywhere who says the right things at the right time, no matter what their actual behavior, actions, and record, we accept them simply because their physical presence validates our personal desires to be respected by the very power structure that oppresses us in the first place. This is problematic because its dysfunctional. Any slave who seeks validation from the master’s system is a doomed slave. Yet, this is our reality and any African who denies that we view individual progress and attainment of positions within the capitalist system as collective forward motion for us as a people is just being dishonest. There’s no question that whether we acknowledge it or not, we view the power structure, and what it respects and recognizes, as the proper gauge for what holds actual value.

So, we are not shooting down our people’s desires to feel better. We certainly deserve nothing less. We just humbly suggest that we can accomplish this with a clear class analysis that doesn’t center the individual placement of people who look like us at the master’s table as signs of progress. Especially when we have so many African women like Assata Shakur, Carmen Pierera, Ruby Doris Robinson, Elizabeth Sibeko, Teodora Gomes, Imbalia Camara, Carlota, Nanny from the Maroons, Gloria Richardson, Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer, etc., who embody the spirit and principles of justice that we should look up to and respect. The fact most of us cannot even identify or say anything factual about most of those sisters speaks volumes about the contradiction.

Another troubling element that Harris’s selection is exposing is our utter confusion around identity. This capitalist system has taught us to evaluate identity based on its definition that identity is where you were born geographically. This limited and ahistorical definition of identity serves the backward interests of the capitalist system because it protects the system’s abilities to hold us hostage to its interests. If we believe that we are “Americans” and that’s all we know, than we will tolerate whatever the U.S. throws at us as it relates to disrespect, oppression, etc. We will do this because in our minds, our entire struggle is one of finding acceptance here. This approach explains why so many people define identity through this extremely limited view of where we are born. For example, Kamala Harris comes from a mother who is East Indian and a father from Jamaica. This capitalist system has convinced many of us that this information for anyone with similar history, separates them from the rest of us Africans born here in the U.S. This is nothing except a classic example of us using the master’s criteria to define our people’s reality.

Of course, we are just using Harris as an example here (not to illustrate anything specific about her because we have already discussed the class contradictions between her and the masses of African people). We wish to use her to further discuss our people’s confusion about our identity. Since most of us understand identity through the bourgeoisie definition provided to us by our enemies, we don’t understand comprehensively that any African born in Jamaica, or anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, is there because the slave ship dropped their family there. Since the colonizing slave masters didn’t kidnap us from Africa with any regard for maintaining our biological family ties, the stark reality is Africans in the Caribbean are blood relatives to many of us in the U.S. just like a large percentage of the Africans in Canada are there because their ancestors went there to escape slavery in this country (which means many of them are our blood relatives also). With this understanding, it serves nothing except the political and economic interests of our enemies to view Africans in the U.S. and Jamaica as somehow different. Clearly, we are simply displaced Africans dispersed throughout the Western Hemisphere by the colonial system that continues to subjugate us collectively today. Also, I don’t know the specifics of Harris’s mother’s background, but most dark-skinned people from India are descendants of Africa i.e. the Dalit people or what is commonly known as the “Untouchables.”

What all of this summarizes isn’t any particular point about Kamala Harris. As was previously stated, we use her simply to identify some interesting elements that define our people’s consciousness today. We strongly desire role models of progress. Unfortunately, no free-thinking people will ever effectively gain those role models from the criteria provided by the system oppressing us. That’s why a class analysis is important. With that, we come to understand (and this is going to be touchy for many) that some of us identify with people like Harris because we see our class interests, as she does, as being intertwined with the interests of the American capitalist system. Of course, there are others of us who see the U.S. as an empire built and maintained on exploiting African people, Africa, and the rest of humanity. Clearly, its this analysis that defines how people see Harris and the many more like her, despite whether people understand the analysis articulated here or not.

And, finally, as long as we continue to let our enemies tell us how identity is formed we will remain confused. How can they tell us that identify is where you are born when the system they built to control the world today was built based on disbursing us all over the world to serve as the empire building slave labor? Clearly, any logically thinking person would have to conclude that our definition of identity would have to be different from anything they say. For us, this proper identity comes from Kwame Nkrumah when he said that identity is defined as “common history and culture.” With that definition, Africans in Jamaica, Cuba, Brazil, Canada, the U.S., Africa, etc., can easily (with just cursory research) find commonalities in how we view the world philosophically, through our faith, and politically, economically, etc.

If nothing else, this low level of political education around Kamala Harris reveals the amount of work necessary for us to grow to the point of being prepared to truly fight for our actual self-determination and forward progress. And, its important we recognize that as this happens, many of us will end up on opposite sides of the divide and that’s ok. That’s human history. And, the sooner we understand this, the sooner we can begin doing the serious work necessary. People like Harris, Obama, etc., do not represent the interests of the African masses worldwide and we strongly suggest it is this consciousness that must come to define how we view the world. Some of our skinfolk will forever roll with Harris, Obama, etc., to preserve this empire. And, some of us will decide that our focus is on dismantling the empire and building something we believe will be much better for humanity. If nothing else, the purpose of this piece is to hopefully help us along with this process.

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How Our Enemies Use Dead Revolutionaries Against Movements

8/8/2020

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Cuban Revolutionary Leader Fidel Castro and Malcolm X, meeting here in Harlem in 1960, were both in different ways, used by imperialism to advance the perception that they were contrary to (in the case of Castro) the "principled" elements of forward progress. And (in the case of Malcolm) that current movements do not demonstrate the values they praise us and kill us for having

The funeral last week for U.S. Congressperson, and former civil rights activist John Lewis was yet another clear example. Former U.S. empire president – Bill Clinton, unfortunately given the opportunity to speak at Lewis’s funeral, suggested that John Lewis’s accommodationist approach to social change was a superior and praiseworthy approach compared to the militant and uncompromising ideas of Kwame Ture, who was previously known as Stokely Carmichael (please don’t calling him Stokely Carmichael today. The man changed his name 43 years ago).

Clinton’s subtle jab wasn’t missed by trained eyes. What he was really doing was expressing, to an overwhelming African audience, the idea that change is only acceptable at the rate and extent that the capitalist system is willing to accommodate it. And, anything or anyone who suggests anything outside of that parameter is mad, violent/bloodthirsty, and insane. Imagine the contradiction of this man, who pushed through the most comprehensive and successful mass incarceration legislation in history, the man who led some of the most murderous bombing campaigns against sovereign people, lecturing us about acceptable tactics we must use to win our freedom?

Yet, it happened. And, you would be naïve to believe Clinton’s strategic approach fell entirely on deaf ears. His point was clear; Black Lives Matter and any movement for African liberation, must operate solely within the realm of acceptable practice to the European Judeo capitalist system. Anything else, is a betrayal to humanity. And, it wasn’t unique that Clinton used the funeral of a deceased former fighter for African freedom to make this point while pitting that African as the acceptable son of capitalism, against Kwame Ture, who Clinton suggested was the anti-Christ. Ture, defeated Lewis as chairperson of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), arguably, the cutting edge civil rights organization at that time. SNCC’s work focus was on the ground organizing outside of the day to day eye of the capitalist media. SNCC activists faced raw terror. They were regularly and savagely beaten, jailed, tortured, and murdered. As a result, SNCC organizers became radicalized and the organization found itself moving rapidly in a more militant direction. Its projects illustrated that. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was SNCC’s attempt to integrate the Democratic Party in 1964. When this effort failed, SNCC moved to Loundes County, Alabama, U.S., the next year to help initiate the Loundes Country Freedom Organization, or the original Black Panther Party. The Loundes County Freedom Organization was a more militant manifestation than the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party because the Loundes County organization wasn’t seeking to integrate into the Democratic Party. It was seeking to create an independent African political party. Kwame Ture’s defeat of John Lewis as SNCC chair was representative of that organization’s push towards more militancy. A militancy that was less and less willing to compromise with capitalist oppression against our people. A militancy that recognized that since the U.S. capitalist system cared nothing for the African masses, it was time for us to learn how to care nothing about the current and future existence of this country until we were freed from oppression and all exploited people were liberated from this system. This is the independent and revolutionary consciousness that Clinton was speaking against and from a tactical standpoint, he used the recently deceased Lewis to attack the revolutionary African consciousness represented by Kwame Ture. Clinton, and the bourgeoisie establishment he represents, had the desire to make a contribution to cut the head – Kwame Ture – off from the body – Black Lives Matter and all current movements today.

There is nothing new about this tactic capitalism employs to use deceased revolutionaries against current movements. In 1967, Ernesto “Che” Guevara was executed under the direction of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA – reactionary anti-Cuban revolution Felix Rodriguez – a CIA operative engaged in terrorist activities against the Cuban revolution – oversaw Guevara’s assassination). From the moment he was assassinated, Guevara’s legacy began to grow. Today, he is one of the most iconic symbols of resistance against capitalist exploitation and oppression. The mere presence of his face on a tee shirt, etc., makes a clear statement of anti-imperialism/capitalism. Although the capitalist system obviously had an intense hatred of Guevara and all that he represented, they did kill him for these things, they were still astute enough to figure out how they could use Guevara to work against the ongoing socialist Cuban Revolutionary process.

While on the one hand, capitalism was working overtime to tarnish Guevara’s image by digging up ignorant comments he made at 22/23 years old against African people (as if anyone of us didn’t say stupid things in our younger years before our journey towards political consciousness), they still developed a strategy to use Guevara. Despite their evil lies about Guevara being a hatchet man against war criminals from the Bautista regime that the Cuban Revolution overthrew, they still managed to figure out how to use the deceased Guevara against Fidel Castro.

The CIA created a rumor during the 1990s that Castro abandoned Guevara during Guevara’s Bolivia mission where he was assassinated. Imperialism was telling you that Guevara’s cries for assistance during his efforts in Bolivia were ignored by Castro and that Castro instructed Cubans not to assist Guevara. Their logic was that Guevara was a burden to Castro’s efforts to solidify Cuba’s relationship with the then Soviet Union. Guevara was firmly on China’s side in the Sino-Soviet conflict and this was unquestionably an issue with Cuba’s relationship with the USSR. Guevara recognized this and that was at least one of the reasons he wanted to leave Cuba and pursue his Pan-American revolutionary vision which Bolivia was to be his first South American manifestation with his ill-fated “FOCO” theory (initiating an armed insurrection to create a revolutionary movement). Imperialism used the truth in that reality and built lies on top of it to try and create anti-Fidel Castro sentiment in Cuba (where Guevara remains loved and respected on an amazing level today).

Anyone who does even a cursory level of study about this history knows the lies contained in the narrative that Castro abandoned Guevara. Its well documented that Castro struggled mightily with his good friend to convince him to slow down in his revolutionary vision with Bolivia. Once it became clear to Castro that Guevara was convicted in moving forward, Castro gave Guevara every level of support imaginable to help ensure the mission was successful. Guevara didn’t go to Bolivia alone. He went with some of the most honored soldiers of the Cuban Revolutionary struggle as well as veterans from the Guevara led efforts to assist the Congolese fight against neo-colonialism. Harry Villegas, better known in Cuba as “Pombo”, who just made his physical transition months ago, was with Che from the Cuban revolutionary war to the Congo to Bolivia (he was one of only three combatants to escape Bolivia alive), wrote extensively about the level of support Castro and Cuba provided from combatants to equipment to international contacts, training, etc. Again, cursory study shows that the major downfall of the Bolivia mission was the inability of Guevara to get critical support for the guerrilla struggle from Bolivians on the ground in that country. The Bolivian Communist Party refused to support the mission once Guevara refused to permit the inexperienced Communist Party chair – Mario Monje – to lead the guerrilla mission. This reality isolated Guevara in Bolivia beyond a handful of Bolivians who joined the guerrilla forces. With that development, Castro again made every attempt to change his friend’s mind, but it was not to be. Imperialism knows this history as well as we do, but their cruel and immoral lie has gained traction over the years. There are more than a few people who today still believe Guevara is dead because Castro abandoned him in Bolivia and by promoting this, capitalism desires to discredit Fidel which discredits the Cuban Revolution. And, if they can discredit the Cuban Revolution, you can discredit socialist development which is the primary objective in everything capitalism and imperialism is doing.

Its important to note again that imperialism is completely immoral in how it utilizes this tactic. They will use people they killed, like Che Guevara, against existing movements. They have no shyness about doing this because they know most of us will never take the time to study our own history and learn the truth. This is why they were also able to assassinate Malcolm X and then turn around and use his memory to try and discredit modern day revolutionaries and Pan-Africanists and even the Nation of Islam. They have done this by attempting to portray Malcolm as a model of self-discipline and unprecedented personal development, citing his self-education – reading the entire dictionary. And, his disdain for drugs and alcohol, etc. They highlighted these elements in an attempt to portray the Black Panther Party for self-defense as undisciplined and lacking the type of character that led Malcolm to have the principles they killed him for. Also, imperialism, who without question orchestrated and facilitated the assassination of Malcolm X, would have you believe that the Nation of Islam was 100% behind Malcolm being gunned down. They have supported and promoted the promotion of multiple books that have advanced this thesis and the very short sighted Netflix supported documentary “Who Killed Malcolm X” which made major contributions towards placing the entire blame for Malcolm’s death on the Nation of Islam while ignoring the prominent role the U.S. government played in carrying out the assassination. Regardless of what you think you know about this situation, its ill-refutable that the U.S. government would have killed Malcolm with or without the Nation of Islam, but there is no scenario where the Nation of Islam could have assassinated Malcolm without the explicit support of U.S. imperialism.

This backward system has survived as long as it has, despite its atrocities against humanity, due to its resilience. They know that they are in trouble today. So, they go after our weakest points which they know are our lack of comprehensive political education. As a result, they work day and night to convince us that they are our friends and that anything not in their interest is not healthy and viable for you. The only way to overcome this confusion is for us to get organized. It starts with us getting involved in organizational work on a consistent basis. And from there, building mass political education so that we can continue to build our capacity to become stronger at challenging their efforts to keep us off balance and under their control. Our deceased soldiers are ours. With the proper political education we can create and maintain their legacy with the respect that our dignity deserves.

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Calls For Police Defunding/Abolition Can be Complete Fools Gold

8/4/2020

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The absolute beauty of mass movements focused around issues of injustice is that it doesn’t matter how disorganized, how uneven, or how raw, when the mass is ready to disseminate a message, that message is going to move forward. And, that’s going to happen despite whatever efforts the capitalist power structure makes to stop that message.

The worldwide demand by millions that African (Black) lives matter can be vehemently disagreed with by whomever, but the demand definitely cannot be ignored. That rawness is such a wonderful thing in its sincere expression, but we cannot forget that the reason the capitalist system is so resilient is due to its ability to make adjustments. It can absolutely oppose something and use its massive violent mechanisms to attempt to crush that something. Yet, if that tactic is ineffective, as it is with these protests against police terrorism (the more violence inflicted on the people from local, state, and federal agents, the more people who are hitting the streets), capitalism has plenty of other tactics up its sleeves. One of those other tactics is for this system to prepare itself to make cosmetic concessions that appear to represent real progress while ensuring that those changes do absolutely nothing to threaten capitalism’s stranglehold on power to oppress humanity.

The question of police defunding, or even abolition is an example of this capitalist subterfuge. The people marching have been basically demanding that this question of police be addressed or else the threat of this country being burned to the ground is eminent. And, to demonstrate how much the people’s leverage around this has evolved over the years (whether people recognize this or not), the people burning down capitalism today are not just the oppressed African masses as in year’s past. Today, its some of everyone (speaking in terms of sincere movement activities, not provocateurs). You may see this as unquestionably savage, but the power structure recognizes (even if you don’t) that power concedes nothing without a demand. They know that this current reality means they have to give up some ground. They have no problem doing this because they know they can determine and define what that ground give actually looks like. And, they know most people won’t have the political sophistication to decipher exactly what’s happening.

Regarding police defunding/abolition, this is one of the concessions capitalism is willing to concede to. To many people on the street, sincere, but inexperienced in understanding how the capitalist system actually works, these people see calls to defund or abolish police naively as police going away and never existing anymore. For the capitalist system, what they mean is changing the form while keeping the essence the same. Eliminating public police and replacing them with private security companies, which was the primary tactic utilized before police departments were created when private racist slave posses (the forerunners for police) roamed the plains terrorizing our people back to the plantations.

There are plenty of reactionary forces at work today who would like nothing more than to see this happen. For the ruling classes, privatizing police is really nothing different than the anti-public sector policies they have been pursuing for years anyway. Look at how they have sabotaged the U.S. Post Office. In an effort to privatize mail delivery, the reactionary U.S. Congress voted in 2006 to force the Post Office, previously an agency that ran in the black every year of its existence up to 2006, to fund its retirement program 75 years in advance. This is something unprecedented, but a move that was designed to bankrupt the Post Office as a means to justify closing Post Offices and replacing what they do with private entities like Federal Express, UPS, etc. From their perspective, this is the same strategy they will use with defunding/abolishing police. From the standpoint of the ideologues for white supremacy, for example white/right militia groups, you will see many of them seeming to abandon white supremacy to support calls for police defunding/abolition. For these militias – groups like the Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, etc., their allegiance to white supremacy is found easily in their mission statements. And, for someone like yours truly, who has had plenty of confrontations with these people, I can tell you that their strategy is rooted in gaining public support for their militia groups. These groups stand on a full anti-government platform. So, for them, it makes sense to support police defunding/abolition because they see their militia groups gaining that support and stepping in to serve that policing role. With that in place, they have full reign to operate with their evangelical white supremacist/patriarchal/homophobic views. Certainly, anyone can see that this reality creates no positive developments for any of us.

The disconnect is any call for defunding and/or abolishing anything in capitalism that is divorced from an actual revolutionary process designed to organize for the seizure of power by the masses of humanity to replace capitalism with socialist development is nothing more than a pipe dream. Thinking we can defund/abolish police without addressing the capitalist system which is the reason police exist to terrorize people in the first place is like thinking we can wipe out hunger by feeding everyone McDonalds everyday. Capitalism is the engine that powers the oppressive institutions like police. The reality that profit is more important than people and that any people who realize that and challenge profit over people must be brutalized is a clear indication that capitalism is where the problem exists. And, to eradicate capitalism requires a revolutionary movement that focuses on the actual work to overthrow this system while also dedicating equal resources on creating new hims/hers/thems who develop a human over profit mentality and system to carry out those values. That system is scientific socialism leading to communism.

If you disagree with the above at least have done some serious work to understand exactly what we are talking about here. We cannot continue to react to the programming the capitalist system has indoctrinated us with whenever we hear the words revolution, socialism, and communism. We are now at the point where we need to make sure all of us truly begin to understand what these concepts mean. If you reading this and you haven’t read a single book on any of these concepts then stop pretending that you have a position worth respecting.

You cannot separate capitalism from white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia, etc. Those isms are appendages of the capitalist system. Police terrorists are simply carrying out the will of the capitalist system. They always have and they always will. As long as we are stuck and don’t have an analysis on these concepts, the power structure will continue to lure us into believing progress is tied to their definitions on things like defunding/abolishing police, etc.

The role of capitalism is always to take the legitimate frustration and anger from the masses and redirect that anger so that we are believing the bourgeoisie electoral process, 100% controlled by the capitalist system, is the absolute only answer to any grievance we have. A healthy and well thought out strategy would suggest that some of us should continue to evaluate and utilize the electoral process in ways that benefit us while others of us should be engaging in door to door, community to community revolutionary community defense work to ensure we can start building capacity to create real community consciousness and skill building so that no outside mercenary force is required to “patrol” people when people are organized and capable of organizing safety for communities ourselves.

So, don’t be confused by calls by right wingers to side with Black Lives Matter and support defunding/abolishing police. Understand that when they say that they aren’t saying the same thing that you are saying and they aren’t saying it for the same reasons you are saying it. And, they certainly aren’t calling for and supporting any systemic change away from the capitalist system that perpetuates the violence against the entire planet every single day. For all peace and justice loving people, your responsibility is always to question why this is so and the answer will always lead you back to the question of this backward, oppressive, capitalist system.

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