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Guinea's unknown Influence on the U.S. Black Power Movement

10/31/2018

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Democratic Party of Guinea founder, and Guinea president from 1958 to 1984, Sekou Ture on right meeting with comrade Fidel Castro of Cuba in 1960 in Cuba.
Whenever you simply say the name Guinea, there is immediate confusion.  There are four countries in the world with Guinea in their title and particularly in the West, geography is basically extinct as a known science, so confusion around the name is rampant.  For this piece we focus specifically on the small West African country named Guinea, or sometimes - to distinguish it from other Guineas it is known by its capitol city - Guinea-Conakry.  Guinea is a small country of about 12 million people.  The country is bordered by Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast.  Despite imperialism's role in creating great poverty in Guinea, including a shortage of electricity on a regular basis, Guinea has some of the world's most consistent rainfall.  And that's not all Guinea possesses.  The country holds about 25% of the world's total bauxite reserves.  Bauxite is the mineral used to produce aluminum products like (fancy) car rims, foil, and other things you use regularly.  The country is also very rich in other raw minerals like diamonds and gold.  

Like all of Africa, Guinea was targeted for theft by European colonialists who had their eyes on the vast, cheap, mineral resources.  France became the "official" thief - or colonizer - of Guinea from the Berlin Conference.  It wasn't until 1958 when the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG) under the leadership of Sekou Ture, organized the people of Guinea to boldly reject continued "participation" in the French Union e.g. the continued colonization of African territories by France.  The degree to which France sabotaged Guinea for this brave decision is a full book all by itself, but the point here is to highlight the pride and determination of the people of Guinea, through the PDG, to be free.  Despite endless brutality from imperialism which continues through this day, that pride has always defined the people of Guinea.  And the basis of that pride was always concisely articulated by Ture who argued repeatedly for dignity to be the priority of our African movements for self determination and forward progress.  One can look simply at Guinea's initial interactions with U.S. imperialism to see evidence of this.  U.S. intelligence reports of the Guinea delegation's first trip to the U.S. in 1959 reveal the degree of confusion that dominated U.S. officials who could not understand why a poor African country like Guinea was not interested in the "aide" packages the U.S. was attempting to ram down their throats.  They heard, but didn't understand Ture's repeated refrain that Guinea wanted no aide from imperialism.  The people of Guinea wanted dignity and respect for their existence.  U.S. imperialism also had a very difficult time understanding why every decision the Guinea delegation made had to be discussed by the entire delegation.  Despite Ture being the lone spokesperson, he would never consult to anything, all the way down to when and where to go to dinner, without consulting with all the comrades in the PDG delegation first.  This is revolutionary Pan-African democracy practiced in the mass political parties, like the PDG, that emerged from the 5th Pan-African Congress in 1945.  Mass, revolutionary parties as opposed to bourgeoisie and/or vanguard parties.  Something most on the so-called left or right (especially outside of our Pan-African movement) really have no concept of today.  

It was this mass and revolutionary character that led the PDG to serve as one of the guiding lights against imperialism in Africa during the 1960s.  One of the early efforts the PDG made to develop relationships with the African diaspora was the PDG's invitation for a delegation from the U.S. Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to visit Guinea in 1964.  The delegation was developed between Sekou Ture and actor/singer Harry Belefonte.  The idea was to provide some guidance and inspiration to the young SNCC activists who were facing stiff opposition from all quarters of U.S. society for their courageous work to end legalized segregation within the U.S.  The persons who would travel to Guinea were chosen democratically.  Among them were then SNCC chairperson John Lewis (now a U.S. congressperson) and Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer.  Ms. Hamer had come to international prominence that year from her work in the SNCC supported Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP).  The MFDP was the organization that forced integration into the so-called two party process in the U.S. through its bold challenge to the delegate seating process in the 1964 Democratic Convention.

The SNCC organizers who traveled to Guinea were exposed to all of the developing work the PDG was doing to strengthen the Guinea revolution which was building upon the devastation left by France's wicked colonial exploitation.  What was not lost on the SNCC members was the pride and determination the people of Guinea had to fight through all the adversity in order to advance their people and all of Africa.  Ms. Hamer reported back that she was also highly influenced by the clear connection between Africans in Guinea and Africans in the U.S., particularly Mississippi.  She remarked to a young Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) that "they stand and talk just like us Stokely!  They even be holding they kids like we do!"

It was no accident that Sekou Ture made it such a priority to meet with and develop relationships with as many Africans fighting for freedom as possible.  From Eduardo Mondalane from Mozambique (one of the founders of the Mozambique National Independence Movement or FRELIMO), to Malcolm X, to the SNCC delegation, Ture was consistent with his sincere message of Pan-African support and the need to base our struggles not in attacking our enemies for what they do to us, but in salvaging and respecting the dignity of our people.   Ture's message was always that once we reclaim our dignity, the rest will develop organically from our work

Of course, it should definitely not be seen as any type of coincidence that the young Stokely Carmichael made the decision to go to Guinea himself in 1968 and to eventually move there a year later with his wife - Azanian (South Africa) born  Miriam Makeba to become PDG militants.  Under the guidance of Sekou Ture and Kwame Nkrumah, who Ture welcomed into Guinea as co-president after Nkrumah was illegally overthrown in Ghana in 1966, Stokely Carmichael took the assignment to carry out the work outlined in Nkrumah's "Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare" (1968).  That assignment was to build upon the African independence movements and the U.S. Black power movement to create the All African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).  Obviously, that work continues and advances today, but the point here is to highlight the contribution of Guinea to the enhanced militancy of SNCC (and the developing Pan-African consciousness of people like Malcolm X).  Of course, Malcolm's ideas played a major role in shaping the U.S. Black power movement.  SNCC, the Black Panther Party, the Republic of New Afrika, the Revolutionary Action Movement, and all organizations who contributed to the Black power movement acknowledge this.  What's not as widely discussed are the forces that further radicalized Malcolm after his break with the Nation of Islam.  Or, what pushed SNCC to move in 1965 to bring Malcolm to address their membership.  And SNCC's dramatic movement away from non-violence principles and towards militant African nationalism was certainly encouraged and guided by the revolutionary republic of Guinea, the PDG, and the leadership of Sekou Ture.  In 1966, a radicalized Stokely Carmichael defeated John Lewis as SNCC's new chairperson and a short time later, SNCC had replaced "Freedom Now" with "Black power!" as their official slogan.  After moving there in 1969, Stokely Carmichael stayed in Guinea working within the PDG and the A-APRP.  In 1977 he changed his name to Kwame Ture to honor Sekou Ture and Kwame Nkrumah. 

Today, the PDG still struggles to build in Guinea after being overthrown in a coup in 1984 shortly after Sekou Ture's death.  We have learned a lot from losing the PDG as a power base in Guinea and the lesson of the need for mass political education is more clear today than ever.  As a result, we continue to build on that work in Guinea and throughout the Afriacn world, but as we do, we stop and pay respects to Sekou Ture and the PDG for the boost they gave us as African people for their example.  
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Megyn Kelly & the Hopelessness of White People Waking Up

10/25/2018

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This Megyn Kelly women has a long and consistent resume of racism in her so-called journalistic career.  This is the same person who, while working in her natural environment of FOX News, said on air that Santa Claus and Jesus were both white.  The absurdity of that statement should be obvious to a 5th grader.  There are other examples of Kelly's cluelessness, but earlier this week, while on air with NBC, Kelly said wearing blackface was ok when she was young if you were dressing up as a famous person.  For those who would rush to defend this woman, she is 47 years old which means she was born in the early 70s which means its absolutely insane that she would not understand some aspects of the sad and disrespectful history of blackface in this country.  She's well past old enough to understand that blackface and "whiteface" are not the same thing, as she implied in her on air comments, because blackface is a part of a legacy of ridicule, disrespect, and oppression against African people.  There were white entertainers like Al Jolson and Bert Young who made careers creating blackface caricatures of African people as dumb. lazy, and slow.  The performance of those individuals and many others were mainstream entertainment in this country thus cementing the legitimacy of the dehumanization against us that those acts perpetuated.  This happened in concert with legalized segregation and the systemic oppression of our people.  On the flipside, there is no legacy, history, or institutionalization of whiteface as a dehumanization mechanism against European people.  There is absolutely no reason anyone white would see an African wearing whiteface as any type of insult because there's no history and legacy behind it.  

​This contradiction is at the root of the problem with people like Kelly.  The fact so many so-called intelligent white people like Kelly could actually be so clueless and ignorant about the racist history of this country tells us a few very important things.  First, it tells us that most white people, meaning I'd estimate about 98%, don't have enough real information about racism to fill a thimble.  That 98% has never read one single book about racism, white supremacy, police terrorism, the prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex, Africa, Asia, Central, South America, or the Caribbean.  They haven't even read anything about Europe or the U.S.  Yet, that 98% has plenty of opinions about all of those places and the people who live there.  This is the social equivalent of me considering myself an expert on carrying a child for nine months.  Absolutely and unquestionably worthless.  Since we know this, we have to dedicate ourselves to creating a culture where these 98% of white people have no space from which to vomit their ignorance.  At least anywhere that we exist, this should never happen.  And, there are plenty of ways to shut that nonsense down so lets' start committing to do it because the rest of us have the right to live in a world where every place we go, we aren't disrespected by ignorance.  If we create an environment where this is no longer acceptable, people will have to change e.g. learn something and become better people in the process, but power concedes nothing without a demand attached to it.

​The second thing we need to remember is the fact someone as old as Kelly, and supposedly as educated, could actually be so dumb and ignorant says one thing.  It says that if a person is comfortable enough to be so arrogant about knowing so little, yet thinking they know so much, this signals how systemic white supremacy actually is.  At this rate, in another 20 years, these people will be saying the transatlantic slave trade never happened.  The fact they are currently arguing to reduce the impacts of the slave trade is setting up that next step.  What we need to take from this is if people are so easily taken in by such utter and complete nonsense, that should tell us that we are absolutely wasting our time attempting to try and revive these people, the 98%, on any level.  In other words, in 2018 and beyond, we are wasting our time if we are trying to talk to white people about racism.  The 98% of white men I'm speaking about have clearly demonstrated their commitment to white supremacy on every level.  And, white women who consider themselves radical feminists are walking around talking about "metoo" in a vacuum, completely ignoring the multitudes of white women who have historically and continue to accuse African men of rapes that never happened.  That's not to diminish sexual assault at all, but it is to say that patriarchy and white supremacy are the combined appendages of capitalism and white women continue to comply with white supremacy while they complain about patriarchy which should tell us they will never be dependable allies for us, especially for African women.  History has confirmed this to be true time and time again.

​The remaining 2% of white people we should wish well in organizing their people to do and be better.  We encourage them and wish them the best while we add that those white people who continue to complain about how hard it is to organize white people?  You are a part of that 98% because you meet all of the criteria e.g. you drain the energy and resources of brown people while doing nothing to get your relatives.  So, to us, there is absolutely no difference between you and the rest of the racist white people out there who are doing the exact same things just mentioned.  Back to the 2%, we support you and we are going to do that in the best way possible.  We are continuing to organize our people for revolution in the vision of one unified socialist Africa.  You see, we understand fully that the only reason someone like Kelly could say the things she says, repeatedly, is because there is no respect for African people anywhere on Earth today.  We can be shot down like dogs.  Disrespected in public.  Completely abused because we have no respect.  And we have no respect because we do not control our destinies.  African liberation under one unified socialist government is our way to control our destiny and once we have it, no white countries/institutions/people will be comfortable as they are now to disrespect us because if they do, there will be consequences.  Let's start down that road of self respect by agreeing and deciding that the days of white ignorance to our suffering being unchallenged are long over.

​The final piece of this is how we change this culture.  People like Kelly, that 98%, are sure they are right.  As previously mentioned, they really believe they have information.  They believe they understand African people (for example) without knowing any of us and/or  having done any comprehensive study and analysis of us.  This is a textbook example of insanity, yet this is where we are today.  Our task is to figure out how to turn the tables on this thinking, not because we have to prove anything to white people.  We most certainly don't and the reason for figuring this out is actually to accomplish something opposite to proving anything to them.  Its to prove to ourselves that we are not the crazy ones.  Franz Fanon wrote in great detail about the psychology of oppression.  The fact that they will demean and dehumanize us in such a consistent fashion that we cannot avoid believing it after a while.  The disrupting of this ignorant culture is part of our contribution to reclaim our dignity and defy their efforts to convince us there is something wrong with us.  We have to underscore our claims that this is an oppressive system while debunking their position that we are insane for saying so.  And, to place them in the light where they realistically belong; as the self serving ignorant problem children that they have always been.  Kelly, and all of that 98% just like her should bow down to their so-called statue of liberty.  Just like the statue, they just stand there, self righteous, completely oblivious to what's actually going on all around them.


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Going Deeper on the Question of Voting in a Capitalist System

10/20/2018

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Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), center, and Mukass Dada (Willie Ricks), right, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (left), during the march against fear in June of 1966 in Mississippi. Ture and Dada were frontline activists for the vote in the 60s and faced extensive violence and suffering as a result. Both of them evolved in their thinking and activism to seeing the vote as a tactic, not a principle. Strangely, those advocating the vote today, completely ignore the courageous contributions and later analysis of activists like these two. Instead, people today choose to frame voting strictly within the context provided only by the bourgeoisie capitalist system.
Every single election cycle that takes place within this country brings the same cry from every corner of the universe.  Vote, vote, vote.  Without the slighted intention of bragging, I can say confidently that I know the history of voting rights for African people better than 99.9% of those hollering with authority about the need to vote.  So, another lecture about voting isn't productive or necessary.  Instead, let's delve a little deeper.  Isn't the question really one of empowerment for disenfranchised peoples?  Isn't the ability to achieve that empowerment the reason those who put their lives on the line for the vote did so in the first place?  

You are not going to get a history lesson on voting rights here.  If you don't already know that history in very clear terms then you should stop talking about voting immediately and you shouldn't resume the discussion until you have strengthened your knowledge significantly about how we came upon the vote in the first place.  Instead, we are going to focus on this question of empowering the disenfranchised.  One of the reasons we can never get to the core issues around important issues like voting is because of the bourgeoisie liberal establishment and its dominance of left messaging within social justice environments in the West.  This bourgeoisie liberal establishment hates everything about capitalism except capitalism itself.  Of course, this is like saying you love everything about fried chicken except how it tastes.  The problem being there is absolutely no where to go in left politics discussions as long as you are operating within that bourgeoisie liberal framework because they will never permit anyone to even suggest there is something out here different from capitalism.  For the sake of discussion, let's just pretend the bourgeoisie liberal establishment doesn't dominate left discourse.  I can easily envision a world where they don't because from an ideological and philosophical standpoint they don't control the discourse within the revolutionary Pan-African movement, although they do control discourse within the broader progressive African community within the U.S.  So, lets step out and just pretend that they don't control any discourse anywhere.  In this new environment there are several things we would consider.  First, without question, voting is a tactic which means its a mechanism we use to achieve an objective.  It isn't the objective itself, meaning its not a principle of the movement that can never, ever be challenged in any way.  Not only should we discuss voting as a tactic, meaning we should talk about it in terms of how we can use it, or not use it.  And, we should talk about using or not using it in the context of building power for those disenfranchised communities. 

To have this discussion in a healthy way requires us to acknowledge that there are many different ways of engaging power for humanity.  There is revolutionary organizing.  There is mass movement building.  There is electoral politics.  There is anarchist work.  Many things.  And all of them have viability and all of them should always be on the table.  So, please stop this fantasy that the only viable method of community engagement is voting within the capitalist system.  Stop acting like anything else is the ravings of an insane person.  The insanity is suggesting that the only tool available to oppressed people is the electoral system controlled by the people doing the oppressing.  

The best possible solution to all of this is a multi-pronged movement where several of these things are taking place in cooperation with one another.  In other words, revolutionary organizing happens.  This is where revolutionaries are organizing to build capacity to destroy the existing political, economic, and social order to build something better in its place ala one unified socialist Africa, etc.  And, there is no reason for anyone to object to this because you have your own lane from which to engage from.  While that's happening, mass movement work is taking place.  This is where issues are mobilized around  police terrorism, housing justice, homophobia, patriarchy, etc.  We recruit people to engage in massive movement work to educate around these issues and to challenge the power structure in how it enforces the systems of oppression against these ills.  Meanwhile, in building these movements, we earn concessions from the system which makes it weaker while providing a venue for those who wish to enter the movements to have a place to do that while also giving them a pathway to pursue more focused work around the issues they care about.  How that looks is maybe the anti-police terrorism activist comes to the point where they no longer see going to city council meetings and demanding police accountability as viable.  Maybe they come to the point where they begin to see that the system that uses the police, the capitalist system, is the problem and they decide to become a revolutionary organizer.  Or, they decide they want to be a person who lobbies for better police accountability laws so they go to law school and pursue that in organized fashion.  We are for either pathway because each way gives us more capacity.  We are not even opposed to the person who decides that the path they wish to take is supporting certain individual candidates for office and/or initiatives to be voted on by the people.  They believe this because they are convinced using these methods to pursue policy changes is the best way to move us forward.  Our only issue with this approach isn't that its electoral politics based. Our challenge here is that the approach cannot just be individuals voting in individuals.  This  approach has to be tied to movement building in some way where there is a push for policy to address the problems.  The movement piece is essential because without a movement to push the people who are being elected, history is full of examples of campaign promises being about as good as the constitution that promotes the process - worthless.  And we must add that by movement we mean mass e.g. not everyone participating being only those sanctioned by the capitalist democratic party.  A true mass movement would include people from all segments described here and all of them would be welcome.  If that's not happening, that's not what we are talking about.

Even this short analysis provides much more context and perspective than what generally passes as such in the greater society.  People who advocate voting should stop (immediately) telling people that if they don't vote in capitalist elections, they don't have a right to complain about the results.  This is the most unscientific and ill-logical argument ever invented.  There are scores of activists who have made outstanding contributions without voting.  The Universal Negro Improvement Association?  The Nation of Islam?  The Black Panther Party?, etc., etc.  Its not about whether you agree with any of those organizations.  The point is you would have to be an idiot to argue that none of them made significant contributions to our forward progress simply because they didn't endorse the tactic of voting.  Our criteria for evaluating people's right to talk about the problems cannot be based solely on whether our not they participate in the function sanctioned by the system oppressing them.  The criteria should be broadened to require us to participate in any one of the struggles for human progress articulated above.  And, it should include requiring the voting activists to build that movement to support their work.  These are the types of discussions we have to start having if we wish to get stronger and if we truly wish to win.  Yes, we understand the evilness and absurdity of those in power right now, but stop asking us to choose one rapist over another.  We want to stop all rape and everyone should support our right to want to do so.  Let's figure out how we can do that because this is the approach which will actually start to yield tangible results for us.  That capacity building to improve the lot for the disenfranchised?  No one in the electoral realm is in a bragging position as it relates to those disenfranchised and blaming those who don't vote is empty and weak.  Record people voted for Obama and the change he promised never happened for the masses of his people as well as humanity and no degree of window dressing and blackening of capitalism will ever change that.  

I can predict, successfully, that even if those cretins in power are voted out next month on all levels, this doesn't spell prosperity for the disenfranchised.  Since no one in their right mind can effectively argue otherwise, why don't we stop playing this stupid game and figure out how we can make all of the above discussed happen?  If you truly care about forward progress, this is without question the way to get it.  Its also the approach those who sacrificed the most for the vote advocated.  Stop being dishonest and ignoring the analysis of those people in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee like Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown), Ethel Minor, Ruby Doris Robinson, Cleve Sellers, Mukassa Dada (Willie Ricks), and others gave us about voting because they said an awful lot.  And, they went to jail and were beaten and tortured for the vote while those of you judgmentally bad breathing the need to vote today have sacrificed very little, if anything.  Clearly, your way isn't working so stop pushing it down everyone's throats.  Just because you happen to have the system providing you more resources to push your position doesn't validate it.  It actually makes it more suspect so let's talk more about that and all of these issues and let's talk about them now and going forward until we can resolve it.  That's who a true discussion about voting should and needs to proceed.  


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Let Me Tell You Why this Revolutionary Loves Disneyland

10/16/2018

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I'm going to Disneyland next week.  Of course, we know there are people out here who believe revolutionary consciousness is pretending to be something you think other people want you to be.  People who think like that probably read this title and dismiss it away, saying real revolutionaries cannot possibly like places like Disneyland.  There are many ways in which we can attack that logic.  The first one being that I've observed with humor for years now how easy it is for people to pick apart the things I like to do, because I'm honest about them, while those same people engage in hobbies, activities, etc., that pose a much larger contradiction to humanity than the things I do in my life.  I feel like that's a discussion that needs to be had, but its a conversation for a different piece.  The purpose of this venture is to explain why and how I can like Disneyland and be a revolutionary dedicated to the complete overthrow of the capitalist system at the same time.  

My love for Disneyland goes back to 1975.  That wasn't the first time I'd ever been there.  I have a very slight memory of riding a church bus from San Francisco to Disneyland with my mother and sister when I was a very small child of probably about six years old.  I remember that trip because the rundown hotel we stayed in had roaches crawling around everywhere, just like the building we lived in.  I remember taking that in as evidence that roaches existed everywhere and must be the guardians of the universe.  That's all I can recall from that trip.  As mentioned, the first Disneyland trip I actually remember was the one in 1975 when my mother, father, sister, and I drove from S.F. to Disneyland in a rental car.  I remember my father's excitement at being able to rent a car and a hotel room.  I was undeterred when we arrived at the hotel at 6am, after driving all night, just to be told there were no rooms available.  I was so excited I was unable to sleep during the all night ride.  Back in those days most people used Highway 101 which took hours longer than interstate 5 today.  Of course I knew nothing about hotel reservations, but I knew my mother had made one because I heard her and my father talking about it for weeks.  They had planned this vacation for months and the reservation had been made months in advance.  Today, I understand our family was racially profiled at 6am at that hotel that morning, but my parents didn't hesitate in finding us another hotel room at the Howard Johnsons close to the Disney theme park.  I remember seeing the big Disney sign.  I couldn't take my eyes off it.  I still remember its image that first time I saw it.  I also still remember how the European (white) people at that Howard Johnson's stared at us so much it became a joke between the four of us.  In those days, Anaheim was a high priced European enclave like all of Orange County at that time.  At least that's how it felt to me at 13 years old.  I had just learned how to swim that summer at the Boys Club on Page Street in S.F. so I didn't waste any time hitting the pool at the hotel to show off my newly acquired skills.  There was a European man there who started talking to me and my sister.  She didn't swim.  She still doesn't.  She just sat by the pool throwing insults at me.  I didn't mind.  That's how we related to each other.  And, besides, I was at Disneyland.  I was too oblivious to comprehend anything beyond this seemingly "nice" man spending time with my adult attention starved self.  That's why I didn't understand why my mother, never one to hold her tongue, went completely off on the man for telling her that we were "different" when she came out to check on us and questioned him as to why he was talking to us.  I understand now that his point, whether he knew it or not, was that my sister and I, as polite and articulate as we were, seemed different to him than what he probably envisioned in young African people.  I know my mother let him have it for that.  

You probably wonder why I would love Disneyland if all that happened were those types of incidents.  That wasn't all that happened.  I just feel its important to always remember that no matter what we do in this society, we are always confronted with white supremacy and oppression.  I did definitely have overwhelmingly positive memories of that trip, the only one our family ever made together.  I remember my father, who rarely said much of anything to me, always telling my mother and others that he was a strong swimmer.  As I was learning to swim at the Boy's Club, he did mention once that he never swam in swimming pools because there were no pools for African people in his native Streveport, Louisiana, U.S.  He talked about how he learned to swim in rivers and the other assorted wild waterways in rural Louisiana.  So the one day he joined me in the Howard Johnson swimming pool I recall his joke that as we went in, the white people would go out.  He was right.  I also remember him being the most crisp swimmer I had ever seen in my life before and/or since.  Nary a ripple of water moved when he stroked the water comparable to me, where water went everywhere with every move I made.  He was as graceful as an Olympic swimmer.  Maybe, had it not been for Jim Crow segregation, possibly he could have been one?  I thought about that a lot after that day.  Still, him spending that 20 minutes with me was the first time I remember us ever being able to spend time together and having fun doing it.  Other than the time he came to watch me play baseball my senior year in high school in S.F. and I smashed a double over everyone's head at "Big Rec" diamond in Golden Gate park. I heard him scream out when I didn't know he was even there.  That baseball game and that day in Howard Johnson swimming pool were the only two times I can remember us enjoying a father/son moment together.  Maybe that can help you understand why I love Disneyland and baseball to this day.

Also, once we made it to the theme park I remember riding the Tinkerbell ride with my mother and if I'm able, I'll ride that ride when I go there next week and I'll probably start crying when I do it because that was about the only time I enjoyed that type of moment with her ever.  The absolute best Disneyland moment came at night.  You see, back in those days, Disneyland always had concerts on Friday night.  I remember because my parents picked the days we would go based on wanting to catch the Del Phonics concert.  I was a little freaked out by the Del Phonics myself because they sang that song "Didn't I Blow Your Mind" and that song, with its unique synthesizers, was popular right at the time George Jackson was murdered at  San Quentin prison.  I recall my father watching the news coverage and I remember being traumatized by seeing the violence directed against those Africans.  For some reason, that song always reminded me of imagery of comrade George getting blown to bits.  So, I wasn't feeling the Del Phonics, but my parents were so excited.  Placing the interests of others above me has never been a problem to a fault, so I had absolutely no issue forgetting my timidness about the singing group once I saw how into it my parents were.  When the Del Phonics sang "La, La, La, Means I love You" my dad and mom danced together in front of me and that was the first and only time I ever saw them share a tender moment without concern for a bill needing to be paid, a problem needing to be resolve, someone needing to be confronted.  Just the two of them, happy.  That was huge for me.  A kid who didn't understand that their lack of daily attention to me wasn't a reflection of them not loving me.  It was because this backward system never gives people like them a chance to do anything except scrape, scrape, scrape.  For that moment, during that song, I felt, at least for a few minutes, that my parents didn't consider me a problem and a waste of a child.  I felt that they did enjoy being a couple.  Being my parents.  

I realize now that my parents loved me as best that they could, but I recognize that the moment during that concert was a glimpse for me to see that.  Even as a 13 year old.  The next year after that, I would experience being hospitalized by three deranged white men racists.  That incident opened the door to me spiraling out of control for a few years.  I won't ever forget that Disneyland trip though.  It was my last summer of innocence.  It was the first of only a few times I got to spend quality time with my parents and it was a time when I was able to see my parents get just enough space to enjoy each other.  So, I love Disneyland for those reasons and I can't wait to get there and I'm going to enjoy every moment I spend there.  When I come back, I'll continue dedicating my time, energy, and spirit towards doing work to dismantle this backward capitalist system that is the source of all the trauma everyone on Earth experiences every day.
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How Revolutionaries Know when We Fall In Love

10/13/2018

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With all of the critical issues facing Africa, African people, and all of humanity today, some short sighted souls may wonder why this topic would warrant space.  Its precisely because of the title of this piece that its a required topic.  As a revolutionary Pan-Africanist e.g. someone who lives my life for Africa's forward progress, I had many, many reasons why I felt the "Black Panther" movie from earlier this year was poorly made.  One of the major reasons was the way that the Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) character was portrayed.  As is standard fare in capitalist popular culture, the person who supposedly represents revolutionary change, or at least the overturning of the existing social order, is always portrayed not as a person or persons steeped in humanist principles, but someone who is pursuing social change to accomplish some blood thirsty revenge and/or personal grab.  The subtle message here is that revolution is never about making life better for the masses.  Its all about exchanging one problem system for another, probably worse one.  Another misleading formula used to evaluate the legitimacy of revolutionary struggle is to view the "revolutionary" as the rugged individual man.  The action figure.  The savior.  Men like Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Huey P. Newton, or Kwame Nkrumah.  They embody the popular culture image of what and who a revolutionary is.  Of course, all of those men possessed serious contradictions as individuals and significant flaws, just like all of us.  They also each made outstanding contributions to humanity.  My intention isn't to tear down any of them as I've spent my entire life studying and attempting the emulate the good they did while trying to understand and deconstruct their shortcomings.  I can only hope people after me can consider me worthy enough to conduct the same level of scrutiny on my actions.  What I've learned is its absolutely necessary for us to eliminate the patriarchal image of the revolutionary man being someone like Killmonger, or even Malcolm and the others.  A revolutionary is and can only be someone who operates not from a position of hate, revenge, or spitefulness against anyone.  A revolutionary must be a person who embodies all of the complex components of human existence.  Especially within a backward capitalist world.  Che, Malcolm, Nkrumah, and all of them represented this dialectical approach to human life as we all should.  So, its with that perspective that we think this discussion about revolutionaries and love is a critical part of all the work we must do because revolution is nothing if it isn't the struggle for happiness for all of humanity.  And, there is no higher example of human existence than one person's love for another.  A person's love for humanity.

Since the dominant image of revolutionaries provided to the masses today is that rugged individual man, most people do not even see women and non-men when they think of revolutionaries and its certainly unlikely that people think of falling in love when they think of revolutionary organizing.  I would counter that people genuinely pursuing a revolutionary consciousness and lifestyle are capable of exhibiting some of the highest examples of what a healthy relationship can look like.  For example, our revolutionary Nkrumahist/Tureist ideology (not Marxist/Leninist, get that right) inspires us as revolutionary Pan-Africanists to embrace the most healthy expressions of our revolutionary African personality and culture.  Our humanist, collectivist, and egalitarian culture.  Therefore, if we are serious about our work, we can never be satisfied to see people as a means to an end.  Our humanism always requires us to see people as the end all by themselves.  That means as men, we cannot see our mates as simply a vessel to channel our sexual desires, etc.  We have to be striving to see our mates as our life partners.  Our soulmates.  People we can build capacity with.  People we can make solid and legitimate contributions with.  People we can enjoy life with. People we can support to reach their fullest potential.

Revolutionaries cannot be satisfied with being self centered and/or egotistical.  Revolutionaries must strive to always be selfless and humble.  I'm certainly a work in progress, but I'll place my sincerity and effort against anyone at any time.  My commitment to our humanist principles doesn't make me feel strange about expressing my ability to fall in love.  Instead, I'm proud to tell all of you all that I'm very much in love.  Head over heels in love.  But, what does that mean in 2018 in a capitalist society?  For this Nkrumahlist/Tureist it means I have a person to build a covenant with.  Someone who is worthy of me placing my trust in them.  Someone who I am going to be very careful to always cultivate that trust and honor.  Unfortunately, we live in a patriarchal, racist, and capitalist dominated world and as a man, I do not possess the ability to escape the pitfalls of that backward system.  The beauty of revolutionary love though is having a partner who can and does see that I'm always trying to battle what this backward system has forced upon me.  She isn't going to judge me by one thing, but by my body of work.  She's going to have the patience to work with me because she knows and trusts I'm going to do the work to get better.  On the flip side, I know that this patriarchal system has caused her great pain.  I'm always going to ensure I'm as sensitive to that as I can possibly be.  I'm going to always go that extra step to make sure she's safe and that she knows I'm here for her the way she needs me to be.  Revolutionary love requires that level of humanism.  

I'm not saying all of this happens without struggle.  Revolutionary struggle is based on principles of dialectical and historical materialism.  If you want to become a better soccer player, a better pianist, a better writer, you have to practice.  Over and over again.  Sekou Ture told us "quantity makes quality."  We have to make mistakes in order to learn how to move forward and do things better.  I make mistakes all the the time.  I worry about things.  I have dysfunctional ways of looking at things.  I'm a product of this backward society.  The difference between revolutionary love and capitalist love is revolutionary love always acknowledges the dysfunction and continuously finds ways to work through it whereas capitalist love spends all its time and energy trying to cover up and dismiss the dysfunctions, thus making them more explosive in the process.

Another problem is that most people in this capitalist reality are unhappy with their lives and all the material possessions purchased do absolutely nothing to eliminate that unhappiness.  In fact, the pressure of having to pay for all that stuff usually enhances the stress.  As a result of all this trauma, most people, being unhappy themselves, are not positioned to be happy for you.  So, when you have a revolutionary love relationship where you are trying to embody the values I've discussed here, don't expect lots and lots of people to be there in support of your union.  Its not going to happen.  That's why that covenant between you and your partner is so very important.  Anyone who tries to create a problem and drama for my partner has an instant enemy in me.  And, I'm not going to be anyone's first choice for an enemy, ever.  I feel like I have the same value from her so the haters are just going to have to hate because we are committed to not bragging about what we have, but hopefully, helping others learn about what we are doing well.  And studying others to figure out how to improve what we can improve upon.  

Just imagine for a moment if all of our personal relationships were governed by humanist and collective principles?  Our communities would be vibrant and productive. Not destructive.  Our relationships would be powerful and forward moving.  Not divisive and negative.  This is what we all should be striving for.  I'm very thankful for the opportunity to make a very important contribution to this crucial area of our lives and our work.  The stronger our relationships, the stronger our organizations.  The stronger our organizations the stronger our communities.  The stronger our communities, the stronger our world will be.  So, if you are committed to us becoming stronger, the next time you feel that special something when you look at someone, be thinking about whether you are looking to build a revolutionary covenant with that person?  Or, are you just seeing them as a means to an end?  Push yourself to rise up.  Our future generations are depending upon us.
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Why We Say Kneel, Sit, Protest, White Women!  Time for You to Act!

10/10/2018

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There are two initial points about this subject that historical circumstances require us to clarify before saying anything else.  First, we have never stood, meaning we sit down, with hat still on our head, etc., whenever we are in the presence of the so-called U.S. national anthem.  We say sit, not kneel, because to us the U.S. has engaged in systematic disrespect against us for over 500+ years.  So, we see no reason to honor any of its symbols.  We also disagree that we should be expected to "honor" anyone who has "served" in any branch of the U.S. military services.  Contrary to the popular propaganda, we are not confused.  We know that any rights and privileges we have today in this country resulted from the sacrifices of those who struggled in the civil rights and Black power movements for us.  To them we always extend love and respect.  Despite the continued lie that the U.S. military "fights for our rights" we study history.  So, we know its ill-refutable that African people suffered in slavery during the so-called American revolution.  We were still enslaved during the civil war and we know that war was fought to ensure the North would be able to enforce industrialization throughout the Southern U.S.  The fact we were the labor force in the U.S. was a byproduct of the war, not its focus.  And Jim Crow legalized segregation operated during World War I, World War II, and the Korea and Vietnam conflicts.  In fact, my own father was drafted into the U.S. army during the Vietnam war during a time when he had no legal rights in his native Louisiana.  Institutional racism unquestionably continued during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  So, the absurd claim that U.S. military conflicts are fought to "for our freedoms" falls on completely deaf ears to us.  U.S. military conflicts are fought to ensure the dominance of capitalist corporations worldwide.  Nothing else.  And the fact the moneyed interests in this country have absolutely no moral dilemma in sending millions of young people off to war to die for their economic control is part of the reason we could never "honor" these symbols of oppression.  So, we are talking about not standing, not even acknowledging their nationalist displays of lies, ignorance, and continued oppression for the majority of the people on Earth.

Second, nothing written here is designed to let European (white) women on the hook.  Nothing here is about supporting them or elevating their suffering.  We are as much allies to them as they are to us which aside from a smattering of principled women among them, is virtually 0.  We are fully aware that the masses of white women have historically and consistently chosen to align themselves with the capitalist white power system.  So, we are the last persons who need any lectures from any of our well meaning people who wish to make sure that we are aware that those white women suggesting today that they kneel during the so-called anthem to protest the patriarchal behavior of their leaders previously had no intention of ever kneeling when we originally suggested the concept as a protest against police terrorism against our people.   We are fully aware of all of these contradictions.

Where we enter this discussion is around the question of empire.  To us, the U.S. capitalist system is an empire.  This means it cannot be reformed.  It cannot be rearranged.  It cannot be sufficiently improved.  It is a system designed to exploit and oppress and in order to stop that, it must be destroyed.  Completely destroyed.  This is revolutionary politics and since most of you are not only not revolutionaries, but you really don't even understand exactly what revolution actually is (despite the fact you are convinced that you do), this is why you fail to understand the point we are about to make.

To most of you, the objective is the protest itself.  So, you are stuck on who controls the protest because the ability to express your pain and outrage is your primary goal.  You are not really thinking about, or concerned, about how to solve the problem that brought you to protest in the first place.  Provided the political leaders of this system validate you by offering you a place at the table, that to you is the purpose of the protest.  Sitting at their table is an accomplishment to you.  We are not throwing shade at you for this approach.  We are just pointing out that the only way you can maintain this approach is because you are not interested in destroying this system, but we are.  Since we are, we recognize that any and all people who begin to oppose this system makes it weaker.  The weaker it gets, the more our work is assisted.  

Kwame Ture said in the 90s that the then rise of right-wing violence in this country would help our movement.  I was present many times when he said this and the crowd always had a very difficult time understanding his point which was that as we fight against the system on the left, the more people on the right who do the same, the weaker it is going to make this capitalist system.  He explained this from the standpoint that during the 1960s when he was a leader within the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the right-wing were the shock troops for capitalism's assault against civil rights workers.  It was those working poor whites who made up significant numbers in the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups that regularly terrorized our civil rights workers (the people we honor).  All the system had to say was that we were against the system and those people immediately went on the attack against us.  Many of them are still doing that, we understand that, but as more and more of them are openly opposing the very government they used to so diligently serve, it makes the challenge much more interesting.  So, what we are saying is imagine a reality where more and more white women began challenging this power structure.  Eventually, many of them will start to question the direction of their protests as many of us did.  They will want to develop more focus and dedication to their work.  That means increased political education and more of that means a crisper understanding of the contradictions.  That means more determined and militant approaches to finishing off this system.  Before some of you say that white women would never go down that road we will caution you to recognize that we cannot predict the future.  There is no time in the history of this country when white women were opening questioning the power structure as they are now.  That protest stage is of course simply the first stage of their political development just as it was the beginning for all of us.  Why wouldn't we sit back and see what they do?  No work is required on our part.  No one is asking or expecting us to organize white women.  We should be organizing our own people.  If white women do nothing except wear pussy hats we are no farther back then we already are in our own work.  If they move to develop something much more militant and determined, than we fail to see how that hurts us in any way.

What's important for us is that we learn not to let our trauma cloud our political vision.  Yes, we are mad at white women and we have every right to be, but we cannot let our emotional state prevent us from seeing the big picture.  How and why is it a bad thing if everyone on Earth "appropriates" our protest tactics if in doing so they move us closer towards liberation?  We would think we want them to mimic any and everything we do against this system.  I remember years ago when someone asked me at a Kwame Ture presentation if they could record and we told them that they could record, reproduce, distribute, and make it a best seller.  We are not in business to sell anything.  We are revolutionaries and we want the message to get out.  So, white women sit and protest.  Its long past time that you did something for justice. That you did more than just sitting back and upholding this capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal system.  You will have to understand that a lot will need to happen before we will trust you, but until that day, please do everything you can to prove us wrong.




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Settler Colonialism, Colonialism & Patriarchy

10/7/2018

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Descendants of European settler colonialists in Azania (South Africa) live there today on stolen land. Here, they are attempting to manufacture international sympathy for their "rights" to maintain dominance and control over the lands their people stole
It is impossible to understand capitalism without first understanding settler-colonialism and neo-colonialism - the dominant forms of colonialism still remaining in the world today. The earth's most dangerous imperialist power - the United States of America - is itself a former British (but also in some regions such as the southwest and southeast, Spanish and French) settler colony turned independent settler state and it's constellation of junior imperialist allies - which include Azania (South Africa), Canada, Australia, and the illegal state of Israel - are settler-colonies turned settler states as well. Every imperialist and junior imperialist European power - from France, to Spain, to Belgium, to Portugal, to Germany, and most notably Britain - has held settler-colonies at one time or another.

Settler-colonialism is a structure in which European invaders wear down an indigenous population through wars of attrition, steal their lands through military conquest, and later settle in that stolen territory and establish European-controlled republics. The defining feature of settler-colonialism is the systematic dehumanization, subjugation, and dispossession of the indigenous population - whether African, Palestinian, Irish, Aboriginal, Pueblo, or Huichol - and the destruction and/or manipulation of indigenous identities, practices, and cultures to further those aims.
 
The ultimate goal of a settler-colonial project is to completely replace the indigenous population with the settler one - by any means necessary - so as to legitimize and continue in perpetuity the theft of land and resources. Notably, this process of theft, murder, oppression, and destruction is a cross-class project for the colonizing power - while the settler bourgeois directs and most benefits from the process, the settler petit-bourgeois and working class act as the middle-managers and foot soldiers of what is ultimately an extended campaign of extermination. Through the expropriation of land, sharing of the super-profits generated by exploited labor, and participation in the industries which spring up to provide the economic, social, and political infrastructure for dispossession, the settler petit-bourgeois and working class materially benefit as well. This obviously presents a serious, but not insurmountable, problem for uniting on the basis of class with the settler working class during revolutionary struggles in settler-states.

An important way that settler-colonialism  (and later neo-colonialism) perpetuates itself is through the educational systems instituted post-conquest in settler-colonial projects. Through these institutions - including residential schools in Canada and the US and British public schools in Ghana and Zimbabwe - and also through the systematic criminalization of indigenous languages, religions, and cultural practices, imperialist powers are able to produce a segment of the colonized population that has been indoctrinated into the practices and values of the colonizer bourgeois. When the revolutionary struggle of an oppressed people forces the end of crude and settler-colonialism, this segment of the colonized population ultimately becomes the new managers under the system of neo-colonialism - the national pseudo-bourgeois and petit-bourgeois - willing black and brown figureheads for the capitalist-imperialist system.

It is important to understand colonialism in all forms - settler, neo, and crude - as a as tactic of imperialist expansion and exploitation under capitalism, and to understand racism and white supremacy as the ideological justification for that expansion and exploitation. It wasn't the Curse of Ham that doomed those of us with darker skin, it was the institution of capitalism as the world's dominant economic system through colonialism and imperialism. Wherever colonial structures exist, you will find an oppressed population being systematically denied their humanity and identity in order to facilitate their dispossession. Africans on the continent and in the diaspora represent one such population, the Irish in Ireland another, the Pueblo people in New Mexico another, and Palestinians in occupied Palestine are yet another - but such populations exist in every corner of the world. Colonialism forms the backbone of the global imperialist system: the system by which the expropriation of land and resources and the exploitation of colonized labor provides the seed capital for monopoly capitalism. Marx described this process as "primitive accumulation." In practice it is theft and genocide on a global scale.

There has never been a moment in history where an oppressed and exploited people voluntarily submitted to this dispossession and exploitation. Though most settler states include in their origin stories myths of voluntary indigenous submission, colonized populations have resisted European invasion since the moment the first invader set foot on their shores. In 1510 the Khoi Khoi of Azania successfully repelled an attempted Portuguese invasion of Africa - killing 65 would be conquerors armed with steel weapons. In 1680 the Pueblo nations of the southwest US organized one of the largest indigenous uprisings in the history of the Americas - driving off the Spanish for over a decade. There are hundreds of thousands of examples of organized resistance large and small throughout the entire history of colonialism and imperialism. With oppression comes resistance, always.

In colonies where enslaved Africans and other oppressed peoples were subjugated alongside indigenous peoples facing extermination, we also see throughout history a high level of multinational collaboration.  One example of this are maroon colonies - settlements comprised of formerly enslaved Africans who had liberated themselves, indigenous peoples who had occupied the land for centuries, and at times a small number poor and working class Europeans. Because of their level of organization, many of these formations were able to successfully repel imperialist attacks for years and in some cases  - like in the Seminole territories of Florida and the quilombos of Brazil - for many decades. Maroon colonies in the Americas and the Caribbean represented sort of proto-contested zones - areas where Africans and indigenous peoples were able to develop and defend independent societies, but which were still usually heavily dependent on economic engagement with colonial centers in order to gain supplies like weapons and ammunition - a point of weakness.
 
There is a strong historical precedent for revolutionary solidarity between Africans in the diaspora and indigenous peoples in the Western hemisphere which should be studied and applied to our strategies today. While alone neither people has the capacity or organization required to constitute a serious internal threat to US & Western imperialism, united - and moving in coordination with revolutionary struggles in Africa and throughout the global South - we could bring the beast to its knees. Such collaboration in the modern day would necessarily require first struggling against contradictions between our communities - chauvinism and mistrust created by colonialism and imperialism - but it is important to understand these contradictions as ultimately non-antagonistic. With a commitment to developing a shared analysis of our respective histories, cultures, and struggles through organized study and political work in formations such as the African & Native Solidarity Group (active in Portland, OR and Albuquerque, NM), COPINH (active in Honduras), and OPSAAL we can begin to build a strong foundation for principled unity. Building multi-national unity with other oppressed and colonized peoples would also provide us with the collective strength and organization needed to advance and decisively win revolutionary struggles in settler and neo-colonial states - in Africa and throughout the world - regardless of the current political position of the settler working class which has historically aligned with capitalism,  imperialism, and fascism. If we’re good together we can be good without them if needed.
 
The maroon colony model should also be systematically studied, updated, and applied in the present day. We now have the technical capacity to overcome the economic dependence which characterized these formations in their earlier forms and we should pursue a strategy of creating contested and liberated zones throughout the diaspora in areas like the south and southwest US and the Caribbean coast of Honduras where colonized people represent the majority of the population and where internal points of weakness in and important infrastructure for the imperialist system exists -  just as we should on the continent. These contested zones under multinational political control could represent base areas out of which we could coordinate and wage escalating revolutionary struggles.
Nationalism and National IdentityAs the process of colonization intensified, subjugated populations responded with higher and higher levels of organized resistance. It was during this time in both the Western hemisphere and throughout the continent of Africa that we begin to see revolutionary nationalism - and revolutionary national identities - in their earliest forms emerge. Nationalism is the ideological foundation of a national liberation struggle - that is the struggle of a colonized people to liberate themselves - and a national identity in the simplest terms is a "body of people who consider themselves a new nation," unified by a common struggle and a common destiny.

The existence of a common enemy prompted populations facing enslavement and annihilation to develop a common identity that was deeply rooted in the aspects of their cultures that gave them strength and a sense of their own independent history and destiny. These national identities were revolutionary because they formed a philosophical foundation for organized resistance which intended to overthrow the imposed colonial order. These identities in many cases also unified populations who previously had considered their differences intractable. 
 
It is important to note that nationalism itself isn’t inherently revolutionary nor should it be considered an endpoint for struggle. Because it acts as a means of uniting a colonized people across stratas on the basis of their subjugation by imperialism, it also has the pitfall (quoting Fanon) of obscuring internal contradictions, most notably class but also importantly gender. Time after time, as national liberation struggles were won at one stage in Africa, we saw the cross-strata unity dissolve and internal contradictions come to the fore. National bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie who had united with the masses of poor and working class Africans in the name of anti-colonialism, stepped into positions which enabled them to benefit from and facilitate the exploitation of their own people as neo-colonialism emerged. This history repeats itself not just in Africa, but all over the colonized world and displays a clear need for us to redefine national identity and revolutionary nationalism in the age of neo-colonialism. Luckily, Pan-Africanist revolutionaries like Amilcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon, and Sekou Toure have provided us with a clear ideological basis for this redefinition, rooted in their experience with a developing neo-colonialism.
 
Let’s look at Cabral’s definition of national liberation: “the people's control of the forces of production: land, labor, and resources” alongside Sekou Toure’s conception of the People, given in Strategies and Tactics of the Revolution:
 
“Individuals or groups of individuals having interests that are opposed to the outlook of historical evolution are excluded from the class of the People although they are still Guineans. Thus, in the philosophical sense of the PDG, it is not all Guineans citizens that constitute the People whose virtues and qualities are praiseworthy and who are considered the decisive force which has to decide everything, guide everything, and control everything. Here it is simply a matter of the laborious masses only, those which  are toiling, those which are aspiring for full justice, democracy, true solidarity, and which are only starving to full liberate themselves from all forces of exploitation and oppression, where as the strata of individuals favourable to exploitation would be automatically excluded from the class of the People with the view to constituting an anti-People's class. And those who find themselves outside the People can only be the target of revolutionary action which aims either at forcing them to an inevitable, necessary, decisive, complete reconversion or annihilating them in order to pave the way of freedom to the advancement of the true laborious People.”

This definition of 'the people' would notably exclude the African bourgeois and petit-bourgeois aligned with capitalism and imperialism. Using this conception of who actually comprises the “masses of African people” means that if your success comes at the expense of the people, you are not of the people. You are, in fact, anti-people. This definition of African identity would exclude class enemies like the Obamas and the Carter-Knowles of the world, people who are African by blood but not by action or political alignment. It’s important to note that Toure doesn’t frame this as a permanent exclusion - the struggle of the masses of African people forces the Obamas of the world to pick a side - the people or capitalism-colonialism-imperialism. If they choose the people, they win with the people, if they choose the enemy, they fall with the enemy.
 
Neo-colonialism forces us to redefine who we are and who are people are. We should develop a conception of African identity that is rooted in the experiences, culture, and primacy  of the masses of poor, peasant, and working class Africans.
Patriarchy and National LiberationIn How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney describes in agonizing detail how European invaders were able to exploit existing contradictions in order to turn indigenous African nations against each other and gain a foothold on the continent in the midst of the chaos this created. In pre-colonial times those contradictions were largely tied to class position, hierarchy, patriarchy, and property ownership, in the modern day they have expanded to also include gender contradictions exacerbated by colonialism, color hierarchies in settler states, ableism produced by capitalist relations, and many more. We must understand victory in the struggle against internal contradictions as a necessary prerequisite for national liberation. Each time we allow liberalism and chauvinism to influence how we conceive of and treat our people, we create a point of weakness that can be exploited by imperialism.
 
This means that our conception of who is African and who is ‘the people’ can not include any caveat excluding or marginalizing any poor or working class African person on the basis of gender identity, sexuality, color, ability, or any other identity marker. In practice this means not just rhetorically upholding the liberation of African women and non-men as primary within the struggle for African liberation but also creating movements and organizations where we are not preyed upon, disregarded, or marginalized. This means strictly adhering to number 10 of Nkrumah’s rules of discipline given in the Handbook “Do not take liberties with women” - with serious consequences when we fall short - but it also means taking up the struggle against patriarchy in a systematic and organized way - WITH STUDY - so that women and non-men are no longer viewed as sexual or lesser objects within the formations we commit our lives to.
 
Further, we have an analysis within the AAPRP which on the one hand recognizes that colonialism and capitalism imposed European constructions of gender based on biology, divided labor into reproductive and productive modes, and used that as a basis to dispossess and oppress African women and non-men but which on the other, upholds uncritically the very binary biology-based gender roles created by that process of conquest and exploitation.
 
Our acceptance of the biology-based binary gender roles created by Europeans imperialists in service of capitalism and colonialism for the explicit purpose of subjugating African women and non-men is thus a contradiction. If we understand that these constructions of gender were imposed by European colonialism and a developing global capitalism, using them as the basis for our line on how to liberate women and non-men from these systems makes no sense.  There is, indeed, a hard limit to how far our analysis and interventions around these questions can go if we are using such a poor foundation as our starting point for thinking about them. We have a revolutionary responsibility to further develop our line on gender and reject the binary enforced by colonialism.
 
This all necessarily means developing autonomous political organizations that exist for the express purpose of building the revolutionary consciousness and independent political power of women, non-men, and queer folks - like the All African Women’s Revolutionary Union. It is my experience that the systematic struggle against patriarchy and gender contradictions called for in the previous paragraphs straight up will not happen if women and non-men and queer folks do not have an organized and independent political force that is present and pushing that process forward.
ConclusionThe only way to destroy settler-colonialism - as a system and as a structure - is to return the land and resources stolen to the indigenous population. Many European-dominated (and some African) socialist parties aim to institute 'progressive' socialist governments post-revolution in settler states, while sidestepping the question of decolonization. These state formations would continue the dispossession and colonization of indigenous peoples - no matter their politics or intent - and such can not be considered progressive. Decolonization and the ultimate destruction of imperialism requires the return of land and sovereignty to indigenous peoples - land was taken, land must be returned. We must assert as primary the right of all indigenous and colonized peoples to self-determination based on their own histories and cultures and that right should form the ideological foundation of our unity.  Anything less is colonizer half-stepping.

The only way to destroy neo-colonialism is an internal class struggle within the colonized population which takes power from the indigenous bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie and places it in the hands of the organized masses of poor and working class colonized people. It is essential to struggle against and ultimately destroy internal class contradictions as they represent - alongside gender contradictions produced by patriarchy and colour hierarchies produced by colonialism - a point of weakness in colonized populations that can be exploited by imperialist powers seeking to divide and subjugate us. The initial invasion of Africa and the nations of the Western hemisphere would not have been possible without these exploitable internal contradictions. The project of decolonization and ultimately national liberation necessarily requires overcoming them. 
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The Sad Disconnect between Men and Justice against Patriarchy

10/5/2018

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There is evidence all around us and the way men respond to this evidence makes it overwhelmingly clear that we just flat out don't have a clue.  Women and non-men everywhere on Earth are crying out for justice.  The women's wings of every legitimate liberation movement in Africa; from the General Union of Guinea-Bissau Women, to the Organization of Angolan Women, the Pan-African Women's Associations around the world, and the All African Women's Revolutionary Union, have all questioned patriarchal institutions such as polygamy.  Trans-women are vilified by men and murdered without impunity everywhere, everyday.  Even in bourgeoisie societies, women are openly expressing their pain and suffering from systemic sexual assaults.  These assaults are so common they have become normalized to many people.  Still, far too many of us men remain arrogant, self-righteous, and simply in the way as it comes to justice for women and non-men.

First, lets define patriarchy.  There is much confusion about this term, particularly I know this to be true in the African communities.  Patriarchy is a system of male domination which traces its origins back thousands of years to coincide with the emergence and dominance of slavery as the dominant economic institution that replaced communalism.  This slavery I speak of was not the transatlantic slave trade.  It was slavery strictly as an economic science which surfaced about 15,000 years ago.  At that time, every country on Earth had some form of slavery.  Most of those systems were serfdom based systems, but they existed everywhere.  This system evolved from the realization by people, primarily men, that if they utilized physical domination, they could control others and make them generate wealth for them.  Thus, the development of class structures and the beginning of the era of physical domination of women (and non-men) and the controlling of their bodies.  What makes patriarchy institutional is that this dominance of men in real life is reinforced by the education curriculum which suggests that men are responsible for all major advances in society.  And by men we of course mean European or white men.  And by white men we mean bourgeoisie white men, not poor working class white people.  Patriarchy is reinforced in religious teachings e.g. the book of Ephesians which tells us the story that women emerged from the ribs of men and that the role of women is to follow men as the man follows the church/God.  Patriarchy is reinforced through every channel of every society on Earth and the results are women are trained to see themselves as servants and sexual objects of men and men are trained to see women as commodities.  That's what patriarchy is.  What it isn't is some restoration of the man's place as a leading member of the family structure and society.  There is no scientific evidence that confirms that men should lead anything.  And leadership can certainly never be based on affirmative action.  Leadership must always result from sincerity and qualifications, period.  Those of us who know world history know this to be true because most societies in the world evolved from matriarchal societies.  Matriarchy isn't the opposite of patriarchy.  In matriarchal societies women held leadership, but men had all opportunities to participate fully in those societies.  There is absolutely no evidence of the dominance of women and the oppression of men in matriarchal societies. In other words, men, if you wish to play a leadership role, do the necessary work to develop yourself and do that work so that people will organically recognize you as a leader.  That's how you do it through the hard work and if you do it right, you will learn that the core value of leadership is respect for others and an undying sense of justice for all of humanity.  Those are the values needed and those are the values lacking.  And its true leaders who exhibit those values because in today's world, to do so requires extensive courage and character.  These are the attributes most men are lacking.  Instead, you would rather rely on favor and affirmative action.  That's disgraceful.

Its time for men to display some estrogen and start standing up for what's right.  Its absolutely disgusting that so many African men in the U.S. are talking non-stop about why Bill Cosby was convicted, but all the European sexual predators are not?  Don't you see that this argument indicates you are using the values of the system that oppresses us to determine your positions on justice?  How can you ever expect to win freedom while using the tools of that which keeps you enslaved?  Of course those white predators should face justice, but if we are ever going to be free of this oppressive capitalist/imperialist system, we are going to have to learn how to think independently from it.  That means recognizing that regardless of whatever they do, since we know nothing they do is based on justice, we should establish standards in our communities based not on what our oppressors do, but based on justice.  I'm trying to liberate our people, not bourgeoisie white society.  So, why would I establish my institutional values based on what they do?  Absurd.  And, we already know that most white men are absolutely worthless along with the majority of white women so they are not even worth discussing here.  They will have to figure out their own issues and whether they do that or not, they will not stop and should not stop us from doing what we need to do.  Doing what's right.

Men who are serious about liberation have to realize that we are not competing against women and non-men to achieve it.  Its incumbent upon us to demand our comrades of all positions are extended an equal opportunity to participate on all levels of our existence.  Ensuring this happens is the absolute only way we will be able to win our liberation because the minute we start sacrificing elements of our communities for our own positions of power, we compromise the integrity of our struggle and once that's done we are no different than the people we are fighting against.  And, if that's true, we cannot win, nor should we win.  And, I write this recognizing my own shortcomings of learning I can't trust anyone and that everyone is going to try and destroy me.  I can't even trust the person I love and that I have to impress them and/or compete against them.  I'm fighting and doing my work to move beyond those insecurities.  Strong women just want to be with at the table. They don't want to replace us.  We have got to recognize and institutionalize that.  

And finally, it cannot just be people defined biologically as women who we extend justice towards.  Every person, men, women, non-gender, need justice.  And by justice we mean recognizing that gender along with race is a social construct.  This is proven in history.  Even in Africa, there are countless languages where women and men have been identified by the same phrase for thousands of years.  What I'm saying is it is quite possible for a person to be born biologically as a women, but to determine that they are actually a man in a women's body.  It is quite possible for that person to become a man, but to also decide to have a baby.  So, since gender is a social construct, in this example, a man can have a baby.  For the men reading this, it doesn't matter if you understand or agree with that.  The point is the person living that existence believe in it.  And, if we wish to alleviate our suffering we need them as much as we need you.  So, get over yourself and recognize that they have as much right and place in our movement as you do.  In fact, I'd actually rather work with them than most of you.  Because most of you have very little actual heart for struggle.  That's why you continue to bully those you feel cannot defend themselves.

Well, its time for all of us to defend all of our family members.  We are stronger that way and if you don't see that, you really won't be able to convince me that you care at all about true liberation.  We have to start organizing in a way that forces men to be accountable.  We know power concedes nothing without a demand.  We are going to create that demand.  And, the way we can initiate that is by doing everything we can to strengthen our women's organizations.  Strengthen them and prepare them to take over.  Build a movement around women and non-men. That must be the priority of all organizations that call themselves working for justice.  And as men our role in this process is to consistently challenge our brothers.  To push for resources and focus around supporting women and non-men.  To create no-tolerance for assault and oppression of women and non-men.  That's our role as men, not justifying that oppression.  From here forward, we need to just assert that any man justifying rape and oppression of women and non-men has committed rape and oppression of women and non-men and that is why they take the position they do.  We men must play our role in stamping out this cancer.  If you don't, you are nothing except a weak and cowardly glob of spit who is only taking up valuable oxygen that could be put to better use in another human being of better moral value and stock.  What men are going to heed this challenge?  What men have true heart and courage to do what's right?  Or, which men will double down with confusion to protect yourself from having to grow and develop?  Which men will side with bourgeoisie oppression to preserve your individual status in this backward patriarchal society?  Time will tell who among us can and will rise above the abyss.  


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Ghana v.s. the U.S.  Which One is the Real S - - thole Country?

10/3/2018

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It's not about whether some idiot somewhere across the village known as the land of white supremacy said it or not.  The reality is most people in the U.S., including many of the brain dirtied African people living in this country, believe that Haiti, Africa, Jamaica, etc., are countries that offer significantly less in the areas of quality of life than the U.S.  Much of this is of course fueled by American Exceptionalism which is rooted in white supremacist ideology (in order to justify the devastating systems of colonialism and chattal slavery).  Its the belief that there is nothing on Earth smarter, better looking, more highly favored by God, and better suited to rule the world than the flawless empires set up by the descendants of Europe on the backs of all of the rest of us.  You can see instant demonstrations of this by engaging in little tests wherever you are right now.  Just ask people to talk about why they think Africa is so poor and the drivel will be overwhelming.  All of that and there will be a less than 0.01% chance that those opinions have a single shred of evidence, research, and analysis backing them.  Its sort of like yesterday morning at the gym when the European man asked me to define the term "patriarchy" because I had a workout shirt on that read "F - - k Patriarchy."  I told him its the system that oppresses and subjugates all women and non-men.  To that he immediately disagreed that such a problem existed to which I responded that two seconds ago he didn't even know what patriarchy meant and now he's an expert on it before I quickly reinserted my ear plugs and proceeded to completely ignore him.  Its the same thing as it relates to what people in the U.S. really know about Africa.  The histories of this country and Africa are forever mingled.  There are 50 million Africans living in the U.S. and whether those Africans were born here or immigrated from other countries, the reason we are all here is because of the legacies of slavery and colonialism.  As a result, Africa and the U.S. are forever linked, but although people throughout Africa generally have very strong working knowledge about the U.S., 90% of the people in the U.S. couldn't tell you a single fact about Africa.  They believe all of the above because this has been spoon-fed to everyone for hundreds of years through the schools, churches, popular culture, etc.  This is all why you won't have any problem finding people today who are gladly and shamelessly attempting to justify the "s - - thole remarks and/or concepts.  Including many foolish, shouldn't ever open their mouths, African people.  I can say this about them  because I know, you know, and they know, they know absolutely nothing about Africa.  So I thought it would be fun to just look at a few facts to determine what actually should qualify as a s - - thole country.

First, let's look at education.  In Ghana, the standard based schools there start placing children through a grueling and disciplined daily regiment that lasts hours each day.  Children as young as seven or eight are fully expected to participate completely in this process.  And, the results are children in Ghana are respectful, disciplined, and highly knowledgeable.  My conversations with them revealed their extensive knowledge of the U.S. despite the fact they will most certainly never actually come here.  Their math, science, and literature skills, despite a consistent lack of books and other academic materials, would make the average Ghanaian student embarrass the average student at the same level in this country.  Meanwhile, the U.S. educational system remains mired in the lowest categories in every measurable metric as it relates to quality of education.  Although most students in Ghana can tell you something about any place on Earth, the overwhelming majority of people in the U.S. couldn't even tell you that Ghana is located in Africa and that Africa is a continent, not a country.  And that last statement is true whether people have graduated from college with a minimum of a four year degree, or not.

How about work ethic?  People in the U.S. love to point to the extensive wealth within the U.S. as a measure of the quality of work ethics in this country.  And, without question, the masses of low wage workers in the U.S. e.g. fast food workers, food servers everywhere, custodians, care givers, work extremely hard, but those people have no wealth to speak of.  The people with the wealth in this country demonstrate absolutely no evidence of hard work.  In fact, most of them simply own and control corporate mechanisms that permit them to profit madly from other people's hard work while most of them have never done a hard days work in their entire lives.  The women of Ghana, as well as everyone in Ghana, is forced to rely on creativity, determination, and integrity, to produce remarkable methods of self reliance to earn livings.  Scores of women at major intersections, toll booths, street corners, etc., sell everything from delicious plantains, to tiger nuts, to BBQ shrimp, to laundry soap, breath mints, and even floor mats for your vehicle.  And, their entire inventory is located smugly on top of their heads!  Despite the massive stress (and extreme heat) of standing for 12 hours per day in high volume traffic areas, these women are always diligent about making sure you get your correct change, all while dealing with three or four people at once, with that store on top of their heads.  Compared to what these amazing people do, people in the U.S. have absolutely no freakin idea what work ethic actually means and there is really nothing more that needs to be said about that.

How about public safety?  Besides the fact mass shootings are an unknown in Ghana and murders themselves are extremely rare (Accra, the capitol city of 4 million people has only a handful of murders per year.  Los Angeles, a city of very comparable size to Accra, well, you already know what I was going to say).  Compared to the U.S., there is no such thing as a public safety issue in Ghana.  

What about healthcare?  As we know, Ghana is a poor country, but still, their system has been very efficient at providing health needs for its people.  Most medicines, instead of being monopolized and savagely overpriced and unattainable as they are in the U.S., can be purchased over the counter at any drug store.  Anti-malara medicine, viagra (not that I have bought it.  Its just right there on the shelf in the stores), etc., can all be purchased, and are affordable, over the counter.  Extensive healthcare is affordable.  Despite limitations on medical equipment, medicines, and trained professionals, people receive what they need when they need it and Ghana has even figured out how to make health care available at little to no cost to elders, disabled, and others who need help fulfilling their medical needs.  Meanwhile, with equipment fully available.  With medicines accessible at your fingertips.  Millions of people die and are forced to file bankruptcy every year in the U.S. because of the profit first healthcare system that exists within this backward country.  And, to add insult to injury, insurance companies like Aetna charge huge premiums when that country got its start from seed money produced from the transatlantic slave trade.  No African should ever owe Aetna and the others one crying penny.

Finally, lets discuss the general well being of the people of these two countries.  By well being we mean what type of people are these country's producing?  In Ghana we know you can assume that most people you encounter are going to be honest and will want to look out for you.  Most people see themselves as having responsibility to you and they will go out of their way to ensure your needs are being met.  Passive aggressiveness is non-existent.  If people have something to say, they say it and everyone is always willing to take time to talk through issues.  Obviously that's a pretty important quality because it will serve to stave off serious conflict when it arises.  Meanwhile, this country is overwhelmed with racist sentiments and practices.  Anti-woman hysteria coupled with intensifying homophobia is common today.  Truth and justice in this society is completely divorced from our daily material reality.  Truth here is whatever you can get people to believe, despite the damage it does to people and the harm that it causes.  Nobody here cares because people only have concerns about themselves.  This is indicative of the most primitive of human characteristics and reflects a general lack of maturity and quality on the part of the masses of people who populate this country.

Hip/hop artist KRS-1 said something profound once.  He said civilization and technology have absolutely nothing to do with one another.  The U.S. has the world's most advanced technology, but it also has the world's most advanced ignorance among its population.  This country and no one within it is in the position to accuse any country anywhere of being a s - - thole.  Ghana doesn't have money, but the basis for an advanced society exists there as it does throughout Africa.  The point there is Ghana won't be without resources forever.  One day Ghana, and all of Africa will have all the resources they need.  How do I know this?  Because those resources are already there. Its just a question of the people of Africa gaining control of them.  Do you realistically believe there will never be a day when that control changes hands?  Either willfully or not, that is going to happen.  On the flip side of that coin, the U.S. has a vastly under educated and woefully ignorant populace.  All the wealth and technology on Earth cannot make up for that deficit.  The U.S. needs an awful lot.  More than it can ever generate.  All Ghana needs is control of its resources.  Something that will surely happen in just a matter of time.  You tell me which one is really a s - - thole?



  
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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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