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They Keep Asking Me About These MAGA Hat Wearing Woman

10/26/2019

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I'm organizing an event on November 14th, 2019, here in Sacramento.  The objective of this event is multi-fold.  Its a book event to inform the public about my recently released 740 page novel "The Paradox Principles."  The event is also (hopefully) my big reintroduction to Sacramento.  Its been 2 1/2 years since I moved back here to Sac, but readjustment takes time on many levels.  For a variety of reasons, I haven't reintegrated myself into the activist work here anywhere near the level of work I was involved in Sacramento for over two decades when I lived and organized here between 1981 and 2006.  Since my book deals exclusively with a fictional group of Pan-Africanists who battle against government repression and white supremacy/supremacists, my hope for the November 14th event is it will serve to jump start me in getting going with engaging the Pan-Africanist organizing work, including community defense construction work, that I believe is my reason for breathing.

Energy around the event feels and seems good.  I'm hoping for a great turnout, not for personal ego purposes, but to provide the greatest opportunity for connecting with people who potentially wish to engage the type of work that needs to be done here.  We are revolutionaries which mean we recognize revolutions cannot happen without revolutionaries so I need to connect with people here if the work is going to happen.

The interesting thing about organizing this event is I chose to use the picture above to promote the event.  Its a picture of three European (white) young women that is floating around on the internet.  In this Trump era we are in where so many people have found it acceptable to reveal to the entire world how completely excited they are to be as ignorant as human capacity permits, pictures of these idiots wearing these "make america great again" or some variation thereof, hats, shirts, whatever, have become commonplace.  

What's interesting is how many people, upon seeing the picture in relationship to the event, have asked me about the women in the picture.  The people asking me this have nothing, I believe, except the best of intentions.  I'm convinced they are asking because of the sorry state of truth and justice in this society today.  As I've said often, truth and justice should always, 100% of the time, go hand in hand with the material reality we live in.  In other words, one plus one equals two.  That's objectively true and there is absolutely no way to discuss that question and conclude with a different result.  This is true because material reality demands that we recognize the truth that there is only one answer when you take one and add it to one and that universal answer is two, period.  The problem we have today is the enemies of humanity understand clearly that the dominance over the world that they wholeheartedly support is rooted in injustice, lies, murder, sabotage, terrorism, and immorality.  Therefore, in order to continue to perpetuate this fraud against humanity, these people have had to develop a propaganda mechanism that promotes bourgeoisie idealism as the dominant methodology in which to evaluate everything that happens on earth.  By bourgeoisie idealism we mean normalizing the absurd belief that whatever subjective concepts we have floating around in our heads supersedes the material truths that exist in front of us provided those subjective concepts fit the narrative we wish to promote.  That's the idealistic part.  The bourgeoisie part is those subjective ideas have been supplied to our brains courtesy of the capitalist system.  So, in this environment, European men who have been only ever so slightly pushed to make room for the rest of us, a just consequence of a system built on subjugating the rest of us to the benefit of the majority of European men, can claim confidently that they are being discriminated against.  White people as a whole can claim the same in this alternate universe.  Systemic oppression that is documented by unquestionable data can be summarily dismissed in favor of subjective and unsubstantiated individual interpretations of reality.  Material reality in today's realm means whatever confusion floating around in my head that I can convince you is real.  For most Europeans, this means they have every right to make us feel guilty for calling them out for supporting our oppression.  For us, this means us feeling guilty for calling them out for supporting our oppression.

In this dysfunctional experience, people can look at these women in the picture above and actually see them as potential victims.  Some people say they appear to be possibly intoxicated in the picture with their "keep america great" and pray to our savior white God messages.  Some people have suggested to me that possibly, these women didn't know what they were doing.  Some even consider the fact that I am harming these women by presenting them as the face of white supremacy.  And, everyone making these suggestions isn't European.  The discussions have resulted from all types of people because everyone under this capitalist empire is trained by the same so-called schools, churches, work places, and social environments that are all dominated by curriculum supplied by white supremacist indoctrination.  An indoctrination that trains us to elevate the conditions of Europeans above everyone on earth as policy, even if their interests collide with our own just interests.  

Honestly, I haven't spent two seconds wondering anything about these young women and I will never spend any time thinking about that.  To me, people like these young women and everything they represent, everyone they know, are walking breathing contradictions.  They preach individual choices e.g. people who are oppressed, incarcerated, poor, houseless, etc., are that way because they didn't make the right choices.  Well, these idiots chose to display themselves with racist messages.  Even a grade school child can understand that a country built on injustice and oppression has absolutely no potential to have ever been "great" so if you are wearing that stupidity you don't get to claim historical ignorance.  The information confirming your greatness is built on our shoulders is all around us.  If you don't see it, its at least partially because you don't wish to see it since it conflicts with the world you wish to see.  These people need to take responsibility for being this weak and sorry.  You have made a decision to side with the oppressors of the masses of humanity because this belief that "america is great, was great, and will be great" is nothing except the wicked and corrupt ideology of the ruling capitalist classes who wish to wipe away forever the true history of this backward country.  No one can convince me that these people have no clue about what I'm talking about.  They have made their decision and clearly, they don't care what trauma it metes out for the rest of us.

So, understand if I don't care how they are portrayed in the process.  I intentionally didn't want to use a picture of neo-nazis, etc., because that's a major part of the problem today.  Too many people mistakenly view systemic white supremacy as an action someone overtly takes against colonized people.  In other words, if a person isn't physically attacking a colonized person for being dark, or calling them names, etc., to far too many confused souls, there's no white supremacy taking place.  I chose this picture because the face of white supremacy should be all of those people who uphold Western capitalism because that system is inherently racist.  The neo nazis, klan, etc., are simply products of capitalism, but they are just different components of the system from the bankers, politicians, and bureaucrats who actually do more harm to us than the violent groups do.  

These women in this picture are white supremacy, no less than a robed klan member.  Plus, I think its important to challenge the myth that European women are any more an accomplice to us against white supremacy than their men.  Without question, the overwhelming majority of European women have consistently chosen over history to side with their men against us at every turn.  And, along with that, for those who argue for multi-racial class organizing, its equally true that the majority of working class Europeans have chosen consistently to side with capitalism against us.  The fact so many working class white people voted for Trump, including an overwhelming number of white women, says all that needs to be said to confirm this.  And, yes, the majority of men also choose patriarchy over solidarity and justice for non-men.  The difference with me is I will always fully acknowledge and will continue to fight against this contradiction.  You will never see me defending patriarchy the way most white people defend white supremacy.  White supremacy and patriarchy (and homophobia, ableism, ageism, are byproducts of capitalism and imperialism).

On November 14th, we will be discussing white supremacy, its historical origins, and the systemic way in which its upheld and carried out.  We'll also be discussing the ways we organize against this system.  A component of this will be what serious and honest Europeans need to do in order to side with the masses of peace and justice loving people in the world.  This is clearly the foundation of all of the work that we do.  No one can say otherwise and suggest we are in any way attacking white people.  We attack those who side with our enemies against justice. If you are white, and many of these people are, then yes, we attack you and anyone else who makes this historical error. 

'm trying to do my absolute best to make these young women in this picture famous.  Like all of the villains who define this decadent society, they deserve no less.
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Two of the People I Respect Most are European & I'm Proud of It

10/22/2019

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Che and Fidel in the early days of the Cuban revolution. Two imperfect, but honest and dedicated revolutionaries who deserve respect that they will always receive here
No one with any degree of sanity can realistically question that I'm a proud African.  All one has to do is look at my life and body of work to determine that I have spent most of my time breathing working to uphold African (Black) dignity so my pride at being African cannot genuinely be questioned.  As a result of that, I uphold those who have given me inspiration my entire life.  From El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X), to Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, Assata Shakur, Kwame Ture, Amilcar Cabral, Franz Fanon, Carmen Peirera, Mbalia Camara, and many, many, others, this is true.  Still, I express with great pride that two of people I respect as much as anyone are people who identified themselves as European - white - men.  Those two white men are Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara.  There are other Europeans I have great regard for.  James Connelly, the Irish Marxist revolutionary.  Of course, Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Vladimar Lenin, Leon Trosky, Rose Lumumburg, and others, but I have a special place for Fidel and Che.  

I've had that special place for each of them for decades.  Yes, I'm no Johnny come lately when it comes to those revolutionaries and their contributions.  In fact, I can state confidently and without false modesty that I've made a significant contribution in helping so many people become aware of those two and everyone who contributes to the Cuban revolution and worldwide anti-imperialist efforts.  

Its been 25 years since I physically visited Cuba, but I've studied the revolution very closely.  Much closer than so many of today's 20 minute analysis experts who read one shoddy internet article and are suddenly subject matter experts on the subject.  I've read dozens of volume books on Cuba, Fidel, and Che and organized countless events exploring their work.  I've spent much time understanding their successes and failures.  So much so that you cannot come to me with these recent rightwing attacks against both men, that so many on the so-called white left accept with little critical analysis.  We have written much to debunk the foolishness of these baseless allegations against the integrity of Fidel and Che.  Worthless charges that both men were racist when the people leveling the accusations are about as racist as racist gets.  This is true because the people making these groundless accusations can point to absolutely nothing they have ever done to support the struggles of colonized people to achieve self determination.  Meanwhile, Fidel and Che have a lifetime of work putting each of their lives and the resources they had available to them at risk to better the lives of African and other colonized peoples.  This is ill refutable.  So, please miss us with foolish accusations against these men.  The only credibility your silly accusations carry is that we have to spend time helping honest people understand your lies.

Most recently, we came across a newer and even more crude attempt to attack the legacies of both of these giants.  Now, they are claiming that Fidel was working behind the scenes to sabotage the efforts of Che to aide guerrilla fighting efforts in the Congo, Southern Africa, and Bolivia.  Anyone who signs on to this absurd proposition demonstrates how little they have studied this history.  There are volumes of research here.  Che wrote extensive diaries on all of his military expeditions and there are plenty of books/notes from Fidel and independent sources on these issues as well.  There is overwhelming evidence that Fidel not only did absolutely everything to support Che in the Congo and especially in Bolivia.  There is also an equally impressive amount of evidence to prove that there certainly were extensive disagreements between the two men e.g. Fidel strongly and consistently urging Che not to pursue his efforts in Bolivia, but there is absolutely no evidence that Fidel didn't provide all resources available to support Che's efforts.

The promoters of this nonsense point to the changing political landscape in the mid 1960s related to the struggle between the Soviet Union and China as each country jockeyed to become the leader of the socialist world.  Cuba, receiving support from both countries certainly embarked upon a more militant effort, aligned more so with China, in the early 60s.  This is illustrated by Che's famous (or infamous if you are beholden to imperialist propaganda) United Nations speech in 1964 as well as China's open support for revolutionary insurrections in the Congo, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.  Finally, Cuba's open invitation to U.S. opponents to come to Cuba, like Robert Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, etc.  

It definitely appears that at some point, Cuba decided to chill somewhat on relations with China and Mao Tse Tung for a more favorable relationship with the Soviet Union and since Che was viewed as China's man in Cuba by the Soviets, it makes sense that the Russians would desire to see Che's role in Cuba diminished.  This doesn't mean that Fidel pursued sabotage efforts against Che as these reactionaries claim.  Instead, the actual evidence indicates that Che recognized the contradiction and being the principled revolutionary that he was, he intentionally sought to distance himself from Cuban affairs in an effort to protect the Cuban revolution.  His resignation from all his posts in Cuba and his letter to the Cuban people do nothing except confirm this.  And Fidel's principled efforts to convince Che to avoid pursuing guerrilla action in Bolivia, particularly after efforts to convince Bolivian Communist Party Secretary General Mario Monje to support Che's "foco" guerrilla effort in Bolivia, fell through.  Despite the tepid decision by Che to continue on in Bolivia, without the support of most Bolivian revolutionaries, Fidel still clearly did everything possible to support the Bolivian effort.  This is proven by the fact even the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), clearly one of the major sources attempting to damage the legacies of Fidel and Che, has documents confirming Cuba's role, at Fidel's behest, in serving as the initial base for Bolivian operations and continuing to support those efforts up to Che's assassination and the extracting of the three surviving guerrillas safely out of Bolivia.  Salvador Allende, the socialist political leader from Chile, escorted those three remaining guerrillas out of Bolivia and Allende was clear that he was acting at the request of Castro and the Cuban revolution.  Also, the Bolivian revolutionaries with a great deal of respect in Bolivia, the Peredo brothers - Inti and Chico - wrote about the level of support Fidel provided to them and this continued as Chico was killed in battle in Bolivia, but Inti was one of the three who escaped Bolivia.  He was determined to continue the fight from Bolivia so he re-entered his home country and hid in La Paz, Bolivia, for two years, with strong support from Cuba and Fidel, until Bolivian military forces, with support from the U.S. CIA, located Inti Peredo and assassinated him in broad daylight in 1969.

Without the slightest hint of bragging, I note that I know all of this history because I have spent my entire adult life belonging to an organization that encourages study.  Active, intense, and consistent study.  And, I received and have acted on that requirement with rigid discipline for decades.  That's why your one or two weakly written internet articles won't work here. 

The level of principled behavior and commitment to justice that just what is written here displays by both men is the reason why I hold them in such high regard.  The fact neither of them was perfect means about as much as the fact you aren't perfect.  Tell us something we don't know.  We take what they gave us and we build on what they didn't do right.  That's how progress is made.  There is no perfect revolutionary process and anyone suggesting there is clearly has no on the ground work doing anything.  We love Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara and if that bothers you we hope your irritation blossoms into uncontrollable discomfort until you do as Kwame Ture suggested; "when you are sick, you take an aspirin.  Why when you are ignorant do you not read a book?"




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The Lie that the U.S. Civil Rights Movement was Strictly Non-Violent

10/21/2019

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Right to left, Floyd McKissick, chair of the Congress of Racial Equality; Dr. Martin Luther King, President Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Chair Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and others, including SNCC leader Cleve Sellers (behind Dr. King), debate having the armed Deacons for Defense at the March against Fear in Mississippi in 1966
The struggle to combat U.S. racism was waged by a mass movement of people who permitted themselves to be brutalized without ever breaking non-violent discipline e.g. they got the you know what beat out of them, but they never fought back, right?  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the undisputed face of the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, was basically a pacifist who would prefer you savagely kill him rather than he fight you back for his right to live, right?  These are the lies...errr, stories I was taught in school about our civil rights movement and I know that's what you learned also.  Today, I know this was nothing except a complete pack of lies.  The narrative that we never fought back did nothing to serve our interests, but it certainly fed into the interests of our enemies.  

Our enemies are the U.S. government and the multi-national corporations that dominate the world economy today.  The one thing those entities fear more than anything else is mass, organized revolutionary struggle directed against their hegemony over the planet.  If you understand that, then it shouldn't be difficult for anyone to recognize why those interests would want to advance the notion that no one has ever felt the need to fight uncompromisingly against them.  No one has ever dared think they could defeat them.  No one has ever really been oppressed enough to justify going beyond conventional wisdom in how they fight back.  In fact, these people desire you to believe until your death that fighting back can only ever be defined as mounting nonthreatening protests against them that do absolutely nothing to challenge or even inconvenience normal business practices.  This is how they wish you to view the U.S. civil rights movement which is the greatest example of justified internal dissent in this country's history.

No one can deny that the civil rights movement certainly had a commitment to non-violent direct action.  The debate is over whether this commitment was one of principle or tactics.  For the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the organization of Dr. King, the commitment to non-violence was more so one of principle meaning to work on SCLC campaigns, you were expected to commit to non-violence 100%, despite what happened to you.  This was not the case for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), despite their name.  Or, even other organizations such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), or even the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  The NAACP was certainly devoted to the principle of non-violence on a national level.  The constant non-confrontational and even right wing pronouncements and actions of NAACP President Roy Wilkins during the 60s confirms this.  The actions of local NAACP offices tell a different story.  The Monroe, North Carolina, U.S. chapter of the NAACP practiced armed self defense among its members and their willingness to defend themselves led to local president Robert Williams having to flee the U.S. IN 1957 after his efforts to protect a lost European couple who were aimlessly driving through the African community during an uprising were used to target Williams with criminal charges of kidnapping white folks.  Despite efforts by Wilkins and the national NAACP to disparage and even support efforts to locate and arrest Williams, the defiant Williams and his wife traveled first to Cuba, and then to China, using the media platforms provided to them by those governments to denounce racial oppression in the U.S. and to call for armed resistance against our suffering.  

SNCC organizers like Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Ruby Doris Robinson, Cleve Sellers, Mukassa Dada (Willie Ricks), Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (H. Rap Brown), etc., clearly articulated that for SNCC, non-violence was a tactic, not a principle.  That they would commit to non-violence as long as it was an effective and logical tool to suit their organizational objectives, but that once that was not the case, they would instinctively fight back using any means necessary to do so.  This position was certainly made clear by SNCC's work in Loundes County Alabama in 1965 where they helped lead local residents to launch the independent Loundes County Freedom Organization which due to the fact 80% of the local Africans couldn't read or write, was more popularly known by its symbol - the Black Panther.  The new Loundes County Black Panther Party openly armed its members in the face of brutal violence against their efforts by racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.  Klan violence against Africans was so regular that the county was known as "bloody Loundes."  

According to Ture and others, SNCC organizers in Loundes County always had guns on them and they were trained and prepared to use them.  Their example was so inspiring that many of the youth who traveled to Loundes County to help with the effort returned to their local areas with stories about the armed Africans in Alabama.  One of those youth was Mark Comfort, an organizer from Oakland, California, U.S., who knew Huey P. Newton.  Comfort went back to Oakland from Loundes County telling Newton about "Black folks in Alabama who formed a Black Panther Party with guns!"  The idea resonated with Newton and he wrote in his autobiography - "Revolutionary Suicide" that he wrote Ture to ask for permission to use the Black Panther name for his new party which started in Oakland in October of 1966.  

SNCC, was having discussions in the early 60s about the question of non-violence as a tactic.  SNCC staffers were determined to find a way to maintain their dignity in the face of undeterred violence against them by racists.  These discussions led many of the staffers to turn towards the message of Malcolm X who was one of the most vocal voices at the time calling for African people in the South to fight back against "two legged dogs that sic four legged dogs on women and children!"  As Malcolm's contradictions with the Nation of Islam proliferated in 1964, he began to advance many of the political ideas he had harbored and alluded to for years.  One of those political ideas was Africans organizing around self defense e.g. "if the government cannot or refuses to protect us then we have the God given right to organize and protect ourselves!"  These ideas resonated strongly with SNCC staff members and they wanted to bring these concepts more squarely within the vision of SNCC's organizational vision and direction.  When Dr. King was jailed in early February 1965, SNCC invited Malcolm to speak at Tuskegee University in Alabama.  Their relationship with Malcolm had already been nurtured from previous efforts like Malcolm hosting SNCC member Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer in a rally in Harlem, New York, in 1964 where Ms. Hamer talked about "praying to God for straight aim when those crackers come through my door!"  In that Tuskegee speech, Malcolm unleashed his now famous "house slave/field slave" narrative which further contributed mightily to the desire among the SNCC youth to fight back for our dignity.  

SNCC's movement to the left and towards more militancy changed its character from that of being dominated by Southern Gospel themes of turn the other cheek to that of militant resistance to oppression.  Their developing consciousness led to Kwame Ture defeating John Lewis (now a Congressperson) as SNCC Chair in a contentious election in 1966.  Ture's election signaled the focus for SNCC.  One of the clear indicators of this direction was SNCC's welcoming of the newly formed Deacons for Defense to work to protect SNCC and other civil rights workers.  The Deacons were a group of African, primarily war veterans, who formed an organization in Louisiana in 1964 with the motto that "you shoot at us, we shoot back!"  The Deacons were trained and armed.  Dedicated to meeting Klan violence with intense armed resistance.  Deacons were local Southern Africans.  Many of them were ex-convicts who didn't adhere to King's non-violence principles at any levels of their lives.  Deacons had a number of armed standoffs with the Klan and other racist whites in which shots were fired.  In one instance in Alabama in 1965, a Deacon shot a klansmen point blank in the face.  Other national civil rights leaders like Wilkins from the NAACP and Whitney Young from the National Urban League, were aghast against the presence of a group like the Deacons at civil rights actions, but SNCC was adamant that the Deacons would be present.  There were many hotly contentious debates about the presence of the Deacons during this period, but its important to note that these discussions were about much more than the Deacons being present.  The discussion was about our right to stand up to violence by meting out our own violence in return.  Clearly, the majority of people thought we did indeed have that right and among them was certainly Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Despite very public and aggressive tactics by Wilkins and Young to influence Dr. King to turn against SNCC and the presence of the Deacons, Dr. King may have bent, but he never broke.  He never came out and said he didn't want the Deacons around.  In fact, SNCC organizers loved to joke with King about how when he had to move through the South, he first wanted to know if Charles Sims, his personal guard from the Deacons, would be coming with him with the 45 semi automatic pistol that it was well known Sims carried with him wherever he went.  

SNCC won out against the established civil rights leaders, bolstered by Dr. King's support, in having the Deacons present during the June 1966 March against fear through rural Mississippi.  And the Deacons served in engaging in multiple tense standoffs against racist whites along the way.  

People don't speak of it this way today, but there's no question that those activists were anti-fascist fighters long before the term developed the popularity it currently enjoys.  There's also no question that their emphasis on self determination and armed resistance wasn't new.  The Land and Freedom Movement, or what's more popularly known as the Mau Mau in Kenya in the 50s and early 60s.  The "Spear of the Nation" and the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, waging armed resistance against the apartheid regime in Azania (South Africa) starting in the late 50s.  The African Blood Brotherhood in the 1920s, the Maroon Slave uprisings such those led by Sister Carlota in Cuba in the 1700s.  The thousands of slave revolts we carried out from Central Africa to the Caribbean and throughout the Western Hemisphere.  The statement people make today about "We are not our ancestors" is an extremely ignorant statement if the inference is that our ancestors never fought back.  We have always fought back.  The Maroon uprisings influenced the Mau Mau which influenced the Deacons which influenced the Black Panther Party which influences our movements, consciousness, and struggles of today.  This is a continuum because people will always struggle for their dignity and when we fight back, as Franz Fanon taught us, that's exactly what we are doing.   The challenge we have is to develop and organize those efforts.  We also need to recognize that we cannot ever permit our enemies to articulate our history.  Its in their interest, not ours, to display our movement as a pacifist movement were we were willingly brutalized.  That's not serious and its not true.  Never has been and never will be.
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Real African Men/People Oppose Our Trans Women Being Targeted

10/13/2019

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Bee Love Slater's body was found on September 4, 2019, in a South Florida, US., community in a burned out car. She is one of dozens of transgender African women who are being systemically targeted and murdered. She was only 24 years old.
There is clear evidence that there is a concerted effort to target, pursue, and viciously murder African (Black) transgender women taking place.  Dozens of African trans women are being murdered and hundreds more are missing.  Not surprisingly, no one is being held accountable for these heinous crimes against our people.  

I watched with a mixture of anger and severe sadness as our trans sister grabbed the microphone at a recent bourgeoisie Democratic Party presidential event.  This sister gave a moving appeal to this Beto O'Rourke, Kamala Harris, and others there to do something about this assault against African trans women.  These politicians, as can be expected, gave pat political answers about beefing up police and other already proven nonsense to address this issue.  It was that part that turned my stomach.  Suggesting that police or any other capitalist institution is in any way a solution to any problem African and other colonized people face is like responding to the pleas from besieged chickens that you will beef up the fox patrol to ensure their safety.

The part that bothered me the most about that Democratic Party event was that we as African men and African people are largely to blame for the reality that our trans sisters are desperate enough for their very survival that they are forced to resort to appealing to these uncaring people for protection.  A protection that if it was going to come from those entities would have come a long time ago.

We are largely responsible because not only have we viewed this problem as we should - as an assault against African people, but we have reacted with indifference and even hostility which has opened the door wider for these attacks to take place.  Some of the more sick among us have even celebrated this tragedy.

Let me be perfectly clear that I consider trans African women, and all African people as a very important part of the worldwide African nation.  We exist today in over 120 countries in plentiful numbers.  We speak countless languages and practice numerous customs, and ways of life.  Yet, we are all still African people first and until Africa is free, untied, and socialist, we will continue to be isolated.  We will continue to suffer and be powerless.  Let us remind the weak minded among us that in every instance, we suffer where we exist because Africa was and is assaulted.  Let us also remind these shallow people that we have plenty of evidence to verify that our people existed in many different ways of life before the Europeans came to colonize us.  So, these trans African women are my sisters. My family.  And my position is in no way based on my individual existence.  I'm about as cis or heterosexual if you will, of a man - an African man - as you can be.  I just have a strong sense of self.  A vibrant self esteem, so that I'm not insecure and egotistical to the point where I see Africans and other people different from me as a threat to me.  I recognize that the only true threat to me is the capitalist, imperialist empire that subjugates my people and all of humanity.  No segment of the African nation is hampering me in any way.  I value, respect, and admire the beauty and diversity of all of our people.  I'm also sensible enough to understand that the best strategic way to attack our people is to attack us at the point where we are most vulnerable.  This is clearly our trans community of African women.  Attack us there and then dig the trench deeper to divide us farther.  A great strategy to weaken us and so many of you so-called Black nationalist superficial never really read a book or engaged in any real work for our people idiots are making it so easy for our enemies to use this strategy to come at us.  

Our strongest approach to liberation would be to agree that we are one African people, period.  No matter where we are born.  How we live our lives.  What our religion is or isn't, etc.  That's our strongest play.  Umoja.  Unity.  So many of us use those words, but have absolutely no understanding of what they actually mean.  Unity isn't just fake pretending to be down with African people up to the point where your personal values are pushed.  Real unity means we stand together in uncompromising fashion.  That means no force is strong enough to divide us on African unity, especially since the reasons they are attempting to divide us do absolutely nothing to make us stronger.  Real unity is being strong enough to stand with your disagreement to understand and recognize that our unity is more important than your personal values and ego. Its being able to be uncomfortable if that serves our people's interests. The reason why these instances represent stronger examples of unity is because up to this point you homophobes have nothing to show for how you are bringing us together.  Your isolation theories for how to approach elements of our people are worthless and have done nothing to advance us an inch.  As a fighter who has risked more life and limb for our people in one arm then 10 of you have ever done in all your lives, you aren't fooling me.  You have nothing outside of a toilet running mouth to provide our people.  You confuse your personal trauma and insecurities with what's best for the collective will of our people.  You only know how to view our existence as a collective people through your personal traumas.  Traumas that most of you have absolutely no idea how to process in healthy ways so they consume you and convince you that you are working towards something productive.  Your not.  You are sitting in scum and inviting the rest of us to join you.

What true warriors would be talking about is how we can bring our communities together.  How we can build Pan-African networks based on principles from our Revolutionary African Personality.  Where we organize and train our communities on community defense principles where we rely on each other to keep ourselves safe, especially the most vulnerable elements within our communities.  

Even the largest fool among us cannot argue that this level of organizing work will benefit every element of our communities.  Even the elements you don't agree with, but isn't that the entire point of liberation work?  Not to build some fake fantasy community where everyone thinks the same, but to build a community of mass participation, regardless of the superficial elements, that is united and determined to keep us all safe.  Anyone who doesn't understand this principle reveals to those of us who have actually done any real work how phony you are.  How ignorant you are.  How much of a tool for our enemies you are.  This argument doesn't deserve another second of our time.  There is no question about it.  Trans African women are our women.  They are a part of our community.  They are a beloved part of our community.  They need to be welcomed and respected as they are in our communities and we all need to come together to figure out how we can immediately stop this assault against this very valuable element of our community. And, anyone who doesn't see the importance of us doing that is an agent for the enemies of African people, no matter how much Black nationalist dogma you vomit out.


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The Democratic Party's Historic Manipulation of African People

10/10/2019

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The 2020 national presidential election is looming within the U.S. and with that comes the usual pandering by Democratic Party candidates for the African (Black) vote.  There hasn't been a Democratic Party president since Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 who has won without significant African votes.  Over the last 60 years this has evolved into the Democratic Party relying on upwards of 95% of a high turnout African vote to win.  In other words, no wholesale African vote, no victories for the Democratic Party.  Consequently, national election season in this country comes with a specific and transaction based focus on the African vote from each and every Democratic Party candidate.

Any analysis about Africans and the Democratic Party must go without saying that none of this is to suggest, overtly or covertly, that the Republican Party or any political party tied to the capitalist system will offer any true solutions to the problems African people face.  The capitalist system is the enemy of all African people everywhere so any political party beholden to that system cannot seriously be regarded as a viable tool for African liberation and justice.  With that being said, as mentioned, the Democratic Party today enjoys almost the complete support of the African masses.  The point of this piece is that the Democrats have never deserved, nor do they currently deserve, our support.  And, we would like to challenge why and how the bar is so low that the Democratic Party can do so little for us while receiving our complete loyalty in the process.  

The reactionary and racist white right in this country are fond of pointing out that it was the Democratic Party that led African people to the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan.  Despite the fact the white right's motivation for making this argument has as much merit as an abuser arguing that the fact his abused takes self defense classes should cancel out the impact of his abuse, technically, those racists aren't entirely wrong.  

​In 1865, at the conclusion of the U.S. civil war, the Republican Party, infused by African activists who had fought their way into the so-called "emancipation party" of Abe Lincoln, rallied to create the Freedman's Bureau which sought to ensure the rights of newly freed Africans and poor Europeans (whites) would be protected.  Along with the bureau, the Republicans supported the 14th Amendment of the constitution which states that all U.S. "citizens" have rights that must be protected.  All of this was continually supported by the civil rights act of 1886 (the first of multiple civil rights acts including the one in 1964) which has similar citizens rights language.  This period was labeled reconstruction in the aftermath of the civil war and these paper gains came to a screeching halt in 1877 when Southern Democrats pushed to implement poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and other racists tactics designed to slow down the newly freed African ability to vote that was supported in the previously mentioned policy implementations.  This push by the Democrats led to the 1896 Plessy versus Ferguson U.S. Supreme Court decision which officially and unquestionably reversed any potential gains after slavery and plunged this nation into legal segregation.

The aforementioned activities from the Democrats and the post civil war history of the Republicans (at least on paper) caused Africans to stay on as committed Republicans.  This continued until the 1930s when Franklin Roosevelt, a Democratic candidate, received overwhelming African support in his presidential run in 1936 based almost exclusively on his support for the New Deal which was a series of policies that people in the U.S. take for granted today.  Social Security, medicare, aid to families with dependent children, worker's compensation, etc.  Safety net programs for the poor and disenfranchised. Programs that were originally developed and proposed by African activists organizations as well as the Communist Party USA.  Of course, the Democrats took credit for the programs and made them their own and for the African masses, Roosevelt represented the face of those policies.  This is an important point because since the ruling classes write history, this phenomenon has been documented as a victory for the Democratic Party when in fact it was nothing more than their ripping off of policies grassroots activists had developed.  Due to the reality of this nation in 1936, during the fallout of the great depression, the masses of people demanded support.  The Democrats had absolutely no choice except to adopt the New Deal programs.  In fact, doing so was essential to their very survival as a party.  So, them and Roosevelt doing so should not be seen as a sincere effort to improve the conditions of African and other poor people.  That was not then their motivation, nor is it their motivation today.

In the 1960s, the U.S. electoral process continued to be dominated by rich European men.  They were the only people to run for and hold offices and they were clearly the framers of policy.  This had been the case since settler colonialism seized this country hundreds of years before.  The courageous activists within the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a project of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, challenged this racist premise with their push for their delegates to be justifiably seated at the 1964 Democratic Party Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  Hubert Humphrey, and other Democratic Party leaders at the time did everything in their power to sabotage the African delegates from being seated.  It wasn't until the entire world responded with support and outrage to the testimony of Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer who told the world how she was beaten savagely just for wanting to vote that Humphrey and the Democrats were forced to compromise.  Again, this cannot be seen as any benevolence from the Democratic Party, but the power of the masses of people who when organized, can push for whatever result they wish for and deserve, despite the efforts of the power structure to prevent them from having justice.

As we come to today, there is a national election planned for a year from now.  There are about a dozen Democratic Party candidates running to challenge the Republican incumbent.  What's changed on a surface level is many of those candidates are women and colonized people.  Credit for this, again, goes to the student activists from Mississippi in the 1960s, not the Democratic Party.  Still, these are superficial surface changes.  The focus of the Democratic Party as it relates to the African masses remains unchanged has it has been for the last 150 years.  It can in fact be argued that the open hostility and racism from the Democratic Party during the reconstruction period is much more desirable than the hypocrisy and disrespect that dominates the interaction between Democratic Party candidates today and our people.  Still, much of the blame today has to fall on us because we refuse to demand that we be respected and thus far, we have proven unwilling to engage in the level of organizing work required to build the type of movement that would hold these politicians accountable to us.

Our movement of the 1960s, contrary to popular opinion, was not organized, but it was strong enough to garner some concessions from the Democratic Party and the power structure.  Today, we don't even have the fractured movement of the 60s so we have nothing except our individual votes for candidates who ignore us, lie to us, and completely disrespect us until we can do something for them.  Many of these candidates voted for mass incarceration policies that devastated our communities and this is true even of the candidate representatives from colonized communities. None of them have proposed a comprehensive employment bill or any legislation that attempts to directly confront the challenges we face from a white supremacist system.  Even the calls for reparations from some of the candidates are simply rhetorical tactics designed to win our emotional support since none of these discussions are backed by any serious strategy to make reparations policy on any level.  And even on the most basic level some of these disgraceful people have even been proven to have racist backgrounds themselves to which they nonchalantly explain away today, knowing that most of us are so gullible we won't require any more from them beyond a simple lie to keep things going.

For those last 150 years, the Democratic Party has done practically nothing to stand by African people.  This is proven by the fact that party still holds the support of large numbers of white supremacists and anti-African politicians.  No serious attack against police terror, mass incarceration, joblessness, community resources, nothing.  In fact, many of them sound like the Republicans, blaming us for our predicaments.  This was true even for the beloved Barack Obama who so many of our people believe can do no wrong (he did so much wrong for anyone paying attention beyond the sound bites).  

Every election these people within the Democratic Party structures tell our people that this election is the big one.  There isn't a single election that isn't the big one.  Even the so-called leaders of our communities parrot this ridiculous narrative.  In reality, we are long overdue at figuring out its time for us to chart the agenda for our own communities.  That would have to include deciding to establish and build that movement that would be in alliance with other oppressed communities, but would hold the political establishment, regardless of which bourgeoisie party, responsible to our interests as oppressed African people.  This type of movement would have to evaluate reform policies based on how they improve the conditions for our people, not based on whether they are acceptable to white supremacy as is most often the case today.  

Some may ask why we, who are revolutionaries, would advocate the construction of a reform movement.  We do so because we recognize the power of positive action.  Meaning, we endorse all action that is designed to get more people involved in conscious raising and movement building.  We know that the more people that move in this direction, the more people who will come to the place of being able to properly understand the revolutionary Pan-Africanist message that we work on daily.  That's why our message today is for us to get involved in organizations and if you feel that the Democratic Party is the organization then we have an obligation to organize the African masses inside of the Democratic Party so that we have our own agenda and are not just cannon fodder and pawns for the Democratic Party bourgeoisie to manipulate to sign off on their capitalist agenda.  An agenda that has proven time and time again, to devastate our people all over the world.

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Who's Attacking Witnesses in Botham Jean's Case?  Look at Police

10/6/2019

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What's ill refutable is the two African men in this picture, both of whom never harmed anyone, are gone and are never coming back. The European woman pictured will serve a short time for her terrorism before being released to a hero welcome by the police agency she worked for
Recently, there's alot of focus on this horrendous case, where a European (white) woman police officer marched into an African man's apartment (Botham Jean) and shot him dead, claiming she thought she was in her apartment.  The woman received a filthy 10 year sentence for killing this African man in cold blood and the entire African world had to endure watching Jean's brother, as well as the judge in the case, hug this killer cop, in another example of African dignity being subverted for European validation.

Meanwhile, we have learned that Jean's neighbor, an African named Joshua Brown, who testified effectively at killer cop's murder trial, has been shot and killed.  This has happened to a young African man who, according to everyone, had no enemies and absolutely no explanation for why or how this could happen to him.  Also, the African woman, identified as "Bunny" who videotaped the killing, has been terminated from her job.  For this piece, we wish to focus on the tragic turn of events for these two Africans who simply tried to contribute to bringing justice to the loss of life of Mr. Jean who was killed for just returning to his house safely as all of us wish to do each and everyday.

The capitalist media is continuing to depict the circumstances of Brown and Bunny as unexplained or random.  We instead suggest people take a somber and sober look at the Dallas area, and even national/international, police agencies as the culprits for the attacks against these good people.  We recognize fully that this allegation will shock and even offend some people.  In this backward society, truth and justice is completely divorced from material reality.  So, most people operate under subjective narratives e.g. "my dad is a cop, so therefore they all aren't bad."  This type of thinking is equally as absurd as me claiming that I'm a man so all men are not capable of rape and other forms of sexual assault.  Clearly, when we talk about police agencies, we are talking about the institution of people, on all levels, which has never been, nor will ever be, there to "protect and serve" the masses of oppressed people.  The role of all police agencies is to control the populace for their continued exploitation by the capitalist system, plain and simple.  And, the evidence supporting this definition of police is overwhelming, starting with the origins of police agencies and that connection to enforcing terrorism against Africans liberated from slavery, and the unending examples of institutional police terror against colonized and poor people.  Then, there is also the reality that so many of us still operate under the fantasy that police agencies, despite their clear history and practices to the contrary, are still here to help us, or at least there is potential that we have to figure out to force them to protect us.  

The subjective desires some of us have to gain acceptance from the system that was built and is maintained on keeping us oppressed aside, there are overwhelming examples of police agencies engaging in terrorism against the populace to intimidate and/or punish people for standing up against them.  When this happens, police always have the benefit of cover from being detected.  Either by having most people believe police terror is not a possibility because of the benevolence of police e.g. "my father would never do something like that" or because most people are just plain naive about what the militaristic arms of this capitalist system will do.  The lengths it will go, to preserve capitalist dominance and continued operation and control. 

Again, examples are endless.  Declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents confirm that reactionary anti-revolutionary so-called Cubans, as well as common car thieves from inner cities within the U.S., were recruited and utilized to pose as opposition fighters to the legitimately elected National Congolese Movement i(MNC) n the Congo in 1961.  This was done to convey the image internationally that there was massive opposition to the progressive politics of the MNC and Patrice Lumumba.  Since this was the lying rhetoric used by capitalist media to justify the continued sabotage against the MNC, including the brutal murder of Lumumba, the images of these fake Congolese resistance fighters served to support the narrative capitalism wanted to promote.  Examples like this are everywhere.  In 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the urban rebellion in the city of Los Angeles, in California, U.S., the Bush administration dispatched over 300 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents from work in Eastern Europe to Los Angeles.  Despite repeated efforts by activists, and even politicians, to secure the reasons for this, no explanation was ever provided by the FBI as to what exactly these agents would be doing in L.A..  What we do know is none of this happened until after the thousands of street organizations in L.A. began seriously working for a city wide treaty that extended even beyond just African street organizations to include treaties with the Indigenous street organizations as well.  For those who aren't getting it, this represents the development of a people's army.  What we also know is once these agents made this switch, driveby shootings in L.A., which were at an all time low since the 1960s, began to happen consistently again.  And, despite the efforts by local activists to highlight the point that no one could identify or recognize the culprits, meaning they probably didn't even live in L.A., tensions arose again, thus stalling the sincere efforts to stop the street violence, taking the focus away from fighting the system, and back on fighting each other.

The point of the above is to demonstrate that police agencies have always utilized counter intelligence to punish their enemies.  Whether its the unexplained killings of Furgeson, Mo, U.S. activists who brought pressure against racist police there, the framing and harassment against the person who filmed Eric Garner being killed by police in New York, or the tragic instances happening to innocent people in the Dallas area around the Botham Jean murder trial, police will certainly act against the populace in violent and terrorist ways when you challenge them.  And, we know that police have a history of having serious problems with people who hold them accountable.  The almost 300 illegal counter intelligence actions against the Black Panther Party from 1967 through 1971 are clear evidence of this.  

Unlike some of you, we have no illusions about police agencies.  They are the enemies of the masses of people everywhere on earth.  Most of their function is to ensure crime continues because that's the only way to ensure their continued existence.  They do constant political work to fan the flames of racism and fear in all communities and these practices go hand in hand with gentrification land grab practices that are happening everywhere.  We know that the police are not our friends.  They are not here to help us and even your dad, brother, sister, friend, whatever, who is the police cannot effectively argue for their credibility when the departments they work for are engaged in wholesale terror against our people.  Your people on these police forces have proven worthless in being able to stop this terror with just their shear presence.  In fact, they cannot even expose the corrupt practices of their "colleagues" because of the so-called "blue wall of silence."  In other words, the police, who criticize and complain about the unwillingness of people in communities to snitch to them, actually have the strongest and most developed anti-snitch network of anybody.  

With this context, its easy for us to conclude that police, who effectively operate as gangs, would retaliate against people that they deem held their colleagues accountable for their criminal actions.  Its in the interests of police to engage in this nefarious work because it frightens others from stepping up and being willing to testify and provide evidence against police misdeeds.  This is no different than the age old practice of not testifying against the mob because of what they can come back and do to you and your families.  

Sadly, just like all of the previous examples provided, the actual proof to demonstrate police roles in terror are very difficult to come by, especially due to the blue wall.  The proof usually isn't tangible until decades later.  For most people, its much more convenient for them to believe in mythical concepts like "black on black" crime to explain Joshua Brown's sudden death, but we have history to serve as our guide.  We know police have been guilty of these types of things often in the past.  We know that many of these crimes that are passed off by racists as us killing each other, are actually police instigated.  The largest obstacle we have is in reminding people of this so that we can effectively attack this blind faith in the benevolence of police.  The system works overtime to tell us police agencies, military, etc., are here to protect us and that we should "honor their service" as a result.  The truth is those agencies are here strictly to uphold capitalism and imperialism.  And, anyone who challenges their ability to do whatever they damn well please is placing their lives in danger.  For everyone who refuses to believe and accept this reality, it further protects these illicit criminals while making it extremely dangerous for anyone who decides that truth is more important than personal safety.
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Hugging Racist Killers has Nothing to Do with Forgiveness

10/4/2019

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There is a ton of reaction to the stomach turning scene of African people wanting to make emotional and supportive connections with those who mercilessly take our lives.  I'd like to add my voice to this important dialogue.  Whether its the family members of slain Africans like the brother of Botham Jean - the African killed by the European (white) women police officer.  Or the Azanian (South African) Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or any numbers of examples where our African response to white  brutality against us isto tell them its ok, this problem is mostly being framed in the context of our willingness to forgive those who do us harm.  

This image of us as benevolent and pacifist people who will let you snatch our very souls out our bodies while smiling at you and wishing you the blessings of the Lord, is a carefully crafted image created for us by our oppressors.  And, this image has absolutely nothing to do with forgiveness.

This sick concept of forgiveness suggests that our spiritual beliefs are so benign and so warped that we can endure centuries and oppression and all we have to show for it is our abilities to be bigger human beings than those who terrorize us.  The truth is this image of us is beneficial to imperialism and its appendages (capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, etc.) that rely on our passiveness to perpetuate their power over us.  For centuries, the institutions in the capitalist world, which influence all the institutions on earth, have taught us that any thought we can generate that contains even the slightest suggestion that we could dare have just enough dignity to slap the hell out of someone who slaps us.  Stab the hell out of someone who stabs us.  Shoot the hell out of someone who shoots at us.  Why, we are coerced into believing that us allowing any of those thoughts to permeate our cranium will result in an automatic exclusion from any trip to heaven for us. Forgiveness is something reserved for those who make an error.  Five hundred years of systemic oppression is no error.

Of course, getting back to this question of hell, Malcolm X told us in clear terms that hell is the experience we have had as a people for the last 500 years in captivity and heaven is the fruits of justice that we create for ourselves.  Its been 39 years since that cop in Philadelphia, Daniel Falkner, was killed and almost as long since Mumia Abu Jamal has had to serve a prison sentence, framed for the killing of that cop.  Falkner's wife, just a few weeks ago, almost 40 years after her husband was killed, and certainly after all the evidence one could ever ask for has cleared Abu Jamal from the crime, this woman is still calling for Abu Jamal to be executed.  Any time any action is taken to provide him even the slightest humanity, she rises up and challenges it.  I don't know if this woman truly believes Abu Jamal to be guilty or if she's just a tool for capitalism (I tend to believe its probably some sick and twisted contortion of both), but I've never had any problem understanding how she could take such a position.  Even though I believe she's 100% wrong.  People, even when incorrect, have the right to uphold their dignity as they see it.  So, if that confused and bitter woman can do that, the proper question we have to ask is why so many of us are steadfast in believing that any effort on our part to stand up for dignity that confronts and challenges the comfort of those oppressing us is wrong?

The issue isn't just surrounding killings like those of Jean either.  For far too many Africans and other colonized people, if you do something as simple as suggest organizing an event to discuss white supremacy (which I'm currently engaged in organizing), without even knowing the skill, experience, and vision of those facilitating an event like this, many of us will immediately react by suggesting we shouldn't do anything that can potentially upset Europeans.  If you don't believe this, try it.  Get in a group of colonized people and talk about building our self determination in ways that doesn't give a flying leap what Europeans think or feel about it and you will undoubtedly have at least one person in the group challenging you on being insensitive.  

All of this happens because we have been trained to be the caretakers for Europeans which is about as insane as a chicken being a caretaker for a fox.  Guess who's going to win that meet up every single time?  None of us are suggesting that we lose our humanity as African people.  Even if we wanted to lose it, humanity is an integral part of our national culture as African people.  We cannot lose it anymore than we could lose our affinity for dance and music.  Humanism is our legacy and our culture, but we must learn to understand the connection between humanity and dignity.  

The first laws of human nature dictate that we have to learn to respect the concerns and interests of other people only to the degree that they respect ours.  If they don't respect ours and they are inflicting brutality against us, our mindset has to become one of being able to force them to suffer consequences for their actions against us.  All of us know that this is the only way to get the abuse to finally stop.  

For anyone who is arguing that our spiritually requires us to accept our enemy's brutality, we say we prefer going straight to the devil to that worthless version of Christianity, Islam, or whatever form of so-called religion that's promoting our self destruction.  We have to learn to teach our children that our salvation will only come when we can demand that people respect us.  And to demand that we have to be organized to mete out consequences for those who mess with us.  This is the type of power we need.  Collective power.  Mass collective power.  For anyone waiting and hoping that our oppressors will become civilized based on our efforts to let them brutalize us in order for them to become civilized, I suggest that anyone attempting harm against us can become mortal really fast when we place them in the dirt.  And, this goes for even those among our own people who prey upon us because that sickness is a manifestation of the same dehumanization.

So, for those who had some sort of sick feeling from watching the situation with Jean's family and his killer, your feelings are not wrong.  They are human.  They are a cry out for our dignity.  Don't repress or dismiss those feelings.  Nurture them.

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What Role did Pan-Africanists Play in the 1960 Congolese Crisis?

10/1/2019

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Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah together before the traumatic events of the Congolese crisis
Patrice Lumumba.  He was the one principled leader in the political struggle for independence in the Congo, Central Africa, in the late 50s and early 60s.  Lumumba, unlike, Joseph Kasavubu, Moises Tshombe, and the then Joseph Mobutu (later Mobutu Sese Seko), was a genuine leader for the National Congolese Movement (MNC), the organization that would lead a fractured Congo to independence in 1960.  By genuine we mean Lumumba was motivated by a sincere desire to help the people of the Congolese region.  And, we mean all Congolese, not just those from his Katako-Kombe region of the country, but everyone.  Lumumba wasn't concerned about gaining personal position and privilege as a neo-colonialist puppet for imperialism.  And it was that principled stance by Lumumba that led to his capture and grisly murder on January 17, 1961, but beyond that general story, not much has been said and/or written in clear terms about what actually happened to Lumumba.  Or, the practical role Kwame Nkrumah, the then president of Ghana, and other Pan-Africanists like Sekou Ture (president of Guinea) played to try and support Lumumba.  On this last point, there is much misinformation.  Many people blame Nkrumah for what happened.  This is truly a case of no good deed going unpunished.  The objective of this piece is to hopefully shed some light on these events from a revolutionary Pan-Africanist perspective.

Its important to note that a major influence on Lumumba's work within the MNC came from his participation in the All African People's Conference sponsored by Nkrumah and the Convention People's Party in Ghana in December of 1958.  From his own words, Lumumba left that gathering, which was essentially a calling for the resolutions from the 5th Pan-African Congress of 1945 to continue to come into existence (for all of Africa to form mass organizations that would bring immediate independence to all of Africa from European colonialism), fired up to fight against colonialism.  Lumumba wrote that the conference gave him confidence that he could help bring freedom to the Congo.  It was also at this conference that Lumumba's relationship with Kwame Nkrumah was strengthened.  The then Ghanaian President, as he did for movements all over Africa, promised Lumumba that he could depend upon Ghana's support for independence efforts being waged in the Congo.  

The story of Lumumba's MNC winning the majority of the seats in Parliament in 1960, gaining independence, and then being immediately sabotaged by imperialism e.g. its efforts to wrestle the mineral rich Kinshasa (then Katanga) region from the Congo in an effort to destroy the MNC is well documented.  The capture of Lumumba and the fact that troops under the jurisdiction of the United Nation, including Nkrumah's Ghanaian troops, were actually the ones who prevented Lumumba from being able to use the Congolese radio station to speak to the Congolese people is also well documented.  And, the sad truth that these troops allowed Lumumba to be handed over to the neo-colonialist forces, led by Mobutu, that murdered him, is also well known.

What's not talked about enough is the sincere efforts Nkrumah, Ture, and others, made to attempt to prevent the events that ended in Lumumba's murder.  Its important that people realize that this was a very new and fresh time for Africa.  Ghana had been the first African country to gain its independence and that happened only three years prior to the Congo.  Guinea, just two years prior.  Nkrumah, Ture, Ghana, Guinea, and the other emerging African nations were struggling to gain their own footing as newly independent countries that were still controlled by imperialism.   By controlled we mean the political independence didn't come with Africans achieving full control over the economies of these countries.  The foreign (imperialist) corporations that dominated economics everywhere in Africa didn't leave once political independence was achieved.  Instead, they worked overtime to establish mechanisms that would  ensure their interests continued to dominate in these countries.  The objective of imperialism during this era in Africa was neo-colonialism which we define as capitalism in blackface in Africa.  Same exploitation with blackface leadership.  Nkrumah, Ture, and a select other newly developing African leaders and parties were not at all interested in being tools for imperialism.  They wanted complete freedom and self determination.  And, despite the consistent efforts of imperialism to prevent them from achieving true independence, they struggled mightily to fight back,  Ghana and Guinea were early and often major suppliers of material aide to the MNC, before Congolese independence, and certainly after Lumumba came to power.  And, this happened despite the severe challenges Ghana and Guinea themselves faced from their daily struggle for freedom.  In the midst of these adverse conditions, the Congolese situation arose.  At this point in history, the United Nations (UN) was only 15 years old.  It had not yet been revealed to be what we all know it to be today, a political tool for imperialism.  At that time it was genuinely viewed as a vessel of democracy where nations are supposed to collectively decide the outcome of conflicts.  Instead, we know today that the UN was always intended to be imperialism's tool to control outcomes.  And for all intent and purposes, the Congo served as imperialism's first real opportunity to use its UN to play its game in Africa.  

Since neo-colonialism wasn't yet a thing anywhere in Africa in 1960, its reasonable to accept that our newly developing African leaders would have faith that the UN would be an honest attempt to mediate issues as it was advertised to be.  So, under this context, we find absolutely no valid reason to criticize Nkrumah for seeing the UN as a viable vehicle to help solve the Congolese crisis.  Especially since at that time he was one of the world leaders of the newly developed non-aligned movement which sought to avoid taking sides in the cold war between the United States and imperialist countries and the European countries of the Soviet Block. For Nkrumah, the UN probably represented at that time a pathway to address problems without becoming embroiled in cold war politics.  Another factor to consider is that Lumumba was a very young man, only in his mid thirties.  There were countless conversations between Nkrumah and Lumumba during the most stressful periods of 1960 and the crisis where Nkrumah tried desperately to get Lumumba to carry out actions a certain way.  For example, Nkrumah knew that Lumumba's support among his Betatela tribe was strong, but fractured with other large ethnic groups in the Congo (that last part largely because of imperialism's instigation).  Consequently, he begged Lumumba to concentrate on building solid unity among other ethnic groups before attacking the representatives of those other groups like Tshombe or Kasavubu who were appealing to their own ethnic identities to support their efforts, which were fueled, financed, and supported by imperialism, to oust Lumumba as the country's prime minister.  

Although the adverse conditions surrounding the political work made things extremely difficult, it just simply cannot be argued that Lumumba was able to carry out Nkrumah's repeated organizing pleas.  In fact, Lumumba's public denouncements of the neo-colonial puppets without being able to secure strong support from their ethnic bases as well as his hurried and unsuccessful efforts to bring in the Soviet Union as a tool to assist his political efforts without the firm support of the Congolese people on a national level, did a lot to further fracture and isolate him in the political process.  The results of all of this were Nkrumah's greatest fears for the young Congolese leader.

After the neo-colonialists deposed Lumumba as Prime Minister and once the UN troops prevented Lumumba from having access to the radio station so that he could give his version of events to the Congolese people, Sekou Ture argued with Nkrumah that Guinean and Ghanaian troops should be immediately pulled from the authority of the UN and used to form an all African command that would restore Lumumba and the MNC to power.  As much as Ture's desires appeal to our emotional need to confront imperialism, the reality told Nkrumah we were not ready.  Nkrumah's position was that doing so would give imperialism a license to involve its military forces directly in the Congo so he effectively argued that the UN should be given a chance to use their respective troops to resolve the crisis. One of the sinister tricks used by imperialism is the communication between Nkrumah, Ture, and their respective troops was blocked during the critical periods so that each of these leaders were basically in the dark about the extent their troops were being used to upset Lumumba's efforts instead of helping him.  Again, in 1960, Nkrumah's fundamental position was more than logical.  Nkrumah recognized that our Pan-African forces would be at a severe disadvantage if forced to fight against imperialist forces head on in our disorganized state at the time, so he tried to see that the situation was resolved using what he thought at the time to be sincere diplomatic methods.

Of course, we know today that there is no such thing as sincerity when imperialism is involved, but much of the reason we have been able to figure that out is because of the work and experiences of people like Nkrumah.  Today, the Congo is still very much reeling from the consequences of imperialism's assault against the democratic desires of the Congolese people in 1960.  After the election that placed Lumumba in office in 1960, the Congo didn't have another election until 2007.  And for that 47 year period the entire country was besieged by imperialist land grabs for the vast mineral resources, reactionary neo-colonialist tribalism for the same, and the lack of complete infrastructure to run a country like safe roads, schools, security, food production, mail delivery, etc.  This is the sad and unfortunate story for much of Africa, but as bad as the crisis in the Congo was 60 years ago, the lessons learned and articulated by Nkrumah, Ture, and others have given us much ammunition to understand how to build capacity to stop these tragedies from happening in Africa.  Nkrumah's 1968 "Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare" and 1970 "Class Struggle in Africa", while he served as co-President of Guinea with Sekou Ture (after imperialism illegally overthrew his Ghanaian government in 1966), were both largely influenced by the events in the Congo (and Ghana).  What Nkrumah learned from those experiences is that imperialism is never going to leave Africa until we force them out.  And, imperialism will never be destroyed until we destroy it.  Consequently, he called for a revolutionary, mass, political party.  A Pan-African party built from joining together mass Pan-African parties and organizations across Africa.  The purpose of this mass party is to wage war on all levels - ideologically and militarily - against imperialism.  The creation of an All African Committee for Political Coordination and an All African People's Revolutionary Army, facilitated by an All African People's Revolutionary Party.  For Nkrumah, this approach would be necessary to eliminate reliance on imperialist forces like the UN and the African Union.  The latter, Nkrumah discovered since he was one of the founders, was built on the basis of neo-colonial governments and not mass political organization, which would always make it beholden to imperialist interests.

As much as idealists refuse to admit it, we clearly were not prepared to understand and act on these necessities in 1960, but after witnessing and studying those unfortunate events, we have absolutely no excuses for why we cannot get prepared in 2019 and beyond.  Instead of ignorantly blaming Nkrumah, Ture, and others for the unfortunate loss of Patrice Lumumba, we are fortunate today to have their guidance to help us move together to achieve the freedom and liberation Lumumba lost his life for.




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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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