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The Great Legacy of Cuban Revolutionary Harry "Pombo" Villegas

12/30/2019

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It was with great sadness that we learned about the physical transition this past weekend of Cuban revolutionary Harry "Pombo" Villegas. Pombo was 79 years old and although he was certainly virtually unknown outside of anti-colonial, revolutionary socialist communities, his life has provided strong inspiration to millions of us for the last 60+ years.

My own introduction to Pombo, which translates to "leaf" in Swahili, was after reading Ernesto "Che" Guevara's three diaries of his military activities during the Cuban revolution, the Congo, Central Africa, and in Bolivia. Of course, Guevara was killed in Bolivia and was unable to complete that diary, but the Cuban government was fortunately able to exert enough pressure on the reactionary Bolivian government to get the contents of that diary (as well as eventually, Guevara's physical remains).

In each of those three diaries, Guevara talked about the hardships of organizing guerrilla fighter campaigns in each country. The first diary on the Cuban revolutionary war was first published in 1963. It was in Cuba in circa 1958, that 17 year old Pombo joined the Cuban revolutionary war effort in the Sierra Maestra mountains above the city of Santiago de Cuba. In his Cuban revolutionary struggle diary, although admitting he was tough on the young Pombo at times, Guevara reaped significant praise on Pombo's courage, discipline, and dedication during the victorious battles that led to the Cuban revolutionary forces vanquishing the puppet Batista regime in 1959.

Based on the international success of Guevara's Cuban Revolutionary War diary and especially "The Bolivian Diary," Guevara's diary of the military effort in the Congo was also published. It was clear to me from Guevara's honest, yet exemplary assessment of Pombo's capabilities why Guevara made Pombo one of his first recruits for the mission in the Congo. The Cubans knew that U.S. imperialism was steering the reactionary forces in the Congo. They knew that imperialism was dropping anyone African from anywhere in the world into the Congo with instructions to pose as Congolese in order to portray opposition to the Lumumbist forces there. In their decision to support the Congolese people, as the Cuban revolution's first internationalist effort of solidarity to Africa, Che assembled a team of 100 Cubans to travel with him to the Congo. Obviously, in order to blend in, this team needed to consist of African Cubans. Since it wasn't going to be possible for Guevara to be visible during this mission, Pombo ended up playing a critical role.

Finally, the ill fated mission in Bolivia, which has been written about extensively in this blog, included Guevara's death. Pombo obviously survived that mission being one of only three guerrillas to make it out of Bolivia and this was only able to happen with the support of then Chilean President Salvador Allende who personally escorted the three combatants from Bolivia to Chile to Cuba. To further illustrate the dignity and morality of Pombo, after participating in military operations to advance humanity in three different countries, not one person could have blamed him had he decided then to retire from active military life. Yet, to the character of this courageous man, he enthusiastically volunteered to participate in Cuba's humanitarian effort to support the people of Angola and Southern Africa who were in the fight of their life in the 1980s to stop racists and mercenaries from turning all of the Southern continent into a racist apartheid state. Cuba contributed over 500,000 troops to Southern Africa in the 80s and 90s and their efforts ensured that Azania (South Africa) would eventually become independent, Namibia would become independent, the Portuguese would leave Angola, and Nelson Mandela would be released from prison.   Pombo carried out two tours of military duty in Southern Africa with the same pride, dignity, and courage that he displayed in the Cuban revolutionary war, the Congo, and Bolivia.

By 1992, I had learned most of what I had studied about Pombo's contributions. So, while spending a couple of days in Miami, Florida, U.S., preparing to leave for Cuba in July, 1994, myself and the delegates traveling with me, were all asked to write down who we wanted to meet in Cuba. I assumed the exercise was simply that, but I wrote down four individuals; Fidel Castro, Aleida March Guevara (Che Guevara's widow), Assata Shakur, and Harry "Pombo" Villegas. I had no pretensions that I would meet any of them, but within being in Cuba two days, I was honored to meet Sister Assata and comrade Pombo. I've written a lot about my encounters in Cuba with Assata Shakur and there is even a video on youtube demonstrating my conversation with her about living in Cuba and socialist development there. For now, I'll convey how emotional my meeting with Pombo was. Here was this man who exhibited courage and commitment to standing toe to toe with imperialism and he lived to tell about it. Here was someone who had placed their body on the line to defend Africa. And, such a quiet and humble man he was. He was much more interested in hearing about our low level activism in the U.S. then he was in talking about his outstanding contributions. Since I had read as much as I did about him, he did respond to my efforts to learn more about being a guerrilla fighting in so many places. Years later, when Pombo's own diary was published illustrating his time with Che, I felt privileged to have already heard directly from him the incredible stories about them having to constantly be on the run in Bolivia, drinking their own urine, due to lack of water. I had already been fortunate enough to hear Pombo detail in person how he had to master as much Lingala and Swahili as he could in a very brief time to try and portray himself as Congolese while in Central Africa. I remember thinking that these examples in Africa further affirmed the organic Pan-African nature of our existence as African people in this world today. Colonialism has convinced so many of us that we are somehow not the same people when in reality, all it takes is a few words in the local language and we can fit in anywhere within the African world.

When I returned to the U.S. from Cuba in August of 1994, I was focused on figuring out how I could educate as many people as possible about Assata Shakur and Pombo Villegas. I'm humbled and proud to say I have played at least a minor role in literally thousands of people either learning about, or gaining a greater understanding of each of their contributions in the 25+ years since that visit. I recall starting out that same month of August in 94. I went on a retreat with 70 young African men from the inner city areas of Sacramento, California, U.S. to the mountain areas above the San Joaquin Valley. I gave a workshop there in the country to about 45 of our youth. Since most of them present were involved in street life, gang banging, etc., and I had more than my share of hardheaded behavior in my background, I wanted to develop an effective strategy to get them to listen to me. I knew that due to sabotage from imperialism, most gang affiliated African youth wrongly believe that African revolutionaries desire them to put down their guns and develop some non-violent lifestyle. The irony of that has always stayed with me. Imperialism constantly paints us as violent crazed savages, but when it suits them to portray us as being scared of confrontation, they portray us that way to our youth. In other words, imperialism never has any interest in depicting revolutionaries as we are; people who stand up against injustice regardless of the consequences.

In my mind then and now, no one epitomizes those characteristics better than Pombo so I used that workshop occasion to tell those youth that if they needed to feel the need to portray themselves through a "strong" uncompromising image, they were wrong to think that the role models for that were Italian gangsters or even African gangsters. Instead, I suggested to them that they consider adopting the courageous, thoughtful, humble, and uncompromising revolutionary legacy of someone like Harry "Pombo" Villegas. I told them that he fought in four different countries for human rights and so he was the soldier that I gave tribute to. I explained that he deserves respect because he made his selfless contributions without reward to himself and/or his family, but solely based on his revolutionary ideals and commitment to bettering humanity. I made sure they understood the contradiction between the dignity Pombo represents compared to participants in the U.S. military who participate primarily because of the economic opportunities "serving" provides them while their military activities have absolutely nothing to do with bettering the world, but instead, they serve as shock troops for enforcing imperialism's domination of the entire planet. Those youth that day ate up that presentation which further confirms the truth that there is nothing wrong with our youth. They just want truth. How can these societies tell our youth they are thugs and criminals while they are only at best (in an extremely small way) imitating the behavior of every capitalist/imperialist country on earth. Those youth recognized that it is the U.S. military, that was then actively attempting to recruit many of them, who are the real criminals. Many of them I stayed in contact with so I still feel comfort in those of them who informed me that what they heard that day encouraged them to rethink their plans to join the U.S. military. What I really remember the most is how those youth told me they had never heard of anyone like Pombo before. Someone who fought fire with fire for justice. They weren't interested in hearing about us turning the other cheek to brutality and I understood that because I have never been interested in hearing that either. As I did then, and as I do today, I credited the remarkable contributions of Pombo and I gave thanks to him and others for providing those examples to us.

So, today I'm partly sad at his physical passing, but I'm also relishing in the glory of his spirit and the major love and power his existence has poured into my life and I know, the lives of so many other people dedicated to making things better for future generations. There is a saying within the African liberation movement. Its that the only way we can honor those we claim we respect is by carrying on their work. No one can fill Pombo's shoes, but we certainly commit to do our absolute best to try.

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How to Explain How Modern Police Descend from Slave Catchers

12/28/2019

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The issue of police terrorism (brutality) is an intense topic today in every part of the world. Although most people within the U.S. probably see this primarily as a concern within the U.S., there is clear evidence that this issue has impacts in Europe, Australia, and throughout every corner of the world. Supporters of police claim that the question is simply one of legality e.g. the police enforce existing laws and provided everyone follows those laws, in most instances, there would be no issues of police misconduct. In other words, these people believe that instances that we would call police terrorism are just issues where if the people in question followed the direction of police officers, no problems would have occurred. The purpose of this piece is to express that from a historical standpoint, the legality argument is obscenely untrue.

Specifically the position of "following the law" is especially flimsy. The contradictions can be addressed in variable ways, but using the U.S. as an example, this country was founded on illegality. This land was stolen from Indigenous peoples through naked violent terrorism. Africans were violently kidnapped and brought here to provide free labor to build up the capitalist empire. These practices were accompanied by the erection of settler colonial land trust laws that illegally and immorally took Indigenous and African people out of the equation e.g. prohibiting us from having the right to land. Again, this was done through "legal" means as well as consistent brutal violence against us, meaning those of us who owned lands had it violently and illegally seized from us with full support from the state. And, since land ownership is the major gateway to accumulating wealth in this society, the fact that we were denied access to land ownership for so long goes a long way in explaining the income inequality and resources gaps that exists between our communities and European people today. So, its clear that when white supremacist/capitalist society talks about "following the law" what they are really saying is following their rule, regardless of how lawless and immoral that is.

Policing in this society is proof of this. Over the last few years, especially since the release of books like "The New Jim Crow", etc., many people have become aware of the historical reality that the institution of police departments have direct ties to the institution of enslaving African people in this country. The fact that "posses" were groups employed by Southern state plantation owners to harass, intimidate, and terrorize Africans into staying on plantations to pick cotton after the civil war concluded (and slavery as a "legal" institution was ended), and those posses were converted into the initial police departments across the country is undeniable. Many people now know this critical history, but lots of people may still struggle to explain how this process continues to manifest itself on a daily basis in terms of day to day policing.

The answer is up through the 1950s in the U.S., mass lynchings were a spectator sport. We are talking about literally thousands of Africans who were brutally murdered while hundreds, even thousands of Europeans cheered and watched. These events were often advertised. Food was sold. Tee shirts, balloons. Everything you would expect at any sporting event. Even the word "picnic" has been a source of contradiction. Defenders and apologists of white supremacy/capitalism have been diligent in pointing out that the word picnic has origins that identify the word as having meaning related to social outings, meaning it has nothing to do with glamorizing events that terrorized African people. Of course, we know that words have colloquial meaning - its historical and entomological meaning - and words also have popular culture usage. An example is the word "cool" has a colloquial meaning related to the temperature of a thing, but the popular meaning of the word is completely different. It means gauging something in terms of the positive way in which people wish to relate to it. The word picnic has this contradiction because its popular meaning and usage during this period of popular lynching was to signify a social outing of picking a n - g and this clarifies for anyone just how much these "events" were ingrained in the day to day culture of this society.

And, the reasons why practically all of these thousands of Africans were lynched had absolutely nothing to do with them violating any "legalities" and those guilty of carrying out these brutal acts, as well as their supporters, fully understood this wasn't about legalities. Instead, they simply used legality as a shield for their terrorist practices. Examples are Africans were typically accused of the types of crimes that would best inflame sentiments such as violating the racial code against engaging European women. So, alleged crimes such as rape or even just looking at or bumping into a European woman was enough to cause countless Africans to tragically lose their lives. In truth, often, no reasons were even given and/or required for this terrorism and the fact countless numbers of African women were also viciously murdered for no reason is proof of this. Even a slight investigation of these occurrences would reveal that the real reasons always were related to European (white) fears of African political/economic independence and had nothing to do with any transgressions against white society. Examples are endless. The Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S. 1921 massacre of 300 Africans occurred when an African shoe-shiner named Dirk Rowland was accused of assaulting a 17 year old white woman. Up to that point, Tulsa was a community of successful African business people which was destroyed after this white riot. The 1923 massacre of approximately 150 Africans in Rosewood, Florida, U.S., occurred after similar unfounded allegations against an African were made surrounding some white woman. Rosewood, like Tulsa, was another prosperous African community that was destroyed from white terrorism. The 1947 grisly murder of 30 year old African businessman Elmore Bolling of Hayneville, Alabama, U.S., is another example. Bolling owned a successful merchandise store as well as a hauling business. His customer base included Europeans as well as Africans. An economically depressed European neighbor of Bollings named Clarke Luckie, admitted pumping Bolling's body with dozens of buckshot and pistol rounds while also freely admitting that his initial charge that Bolling had insulted his wife over the telephone was untrue. Of course, no justice was ever meted out for Bolling's murder or any of these horrific crimes, but an even more telling historical element from the Bolling killing is important.

Up through the mid 50s, this spectator sport of controlling African lives through violent mass brutality began to be challenged by the more visionary elements of white supremacist communities. Intensified pressure from anti-lynching activities led by courageous people like Ms. Ida B. Wells and others, brought this issue into the public eye, even on an international level. The federal government, wary of being perceived as an oppressor nation against its efforts to portray this country as the beacon of freedom and democracy, began to place some pressure on Southern U.S. states to crack down on lynching efforts. Please recognize that placing pressure has nothing to do with eliminating the terror against African people. Instead, the focus was on eliminating the pubic spectacle of this oppression. Instead, Southern states began to discourage public lynchings. The terror was migrated to the newly emerged police departments because this cover could always be explained away as the police enforcing the law. And, since from that time through current day, police and active, violent white supremacists groups have run in the exact same circles, it became easy for police to do the initial arrests in order to then turn those Africans detained over to indiscriminate violence out of the public eye. Outstanding examples of this were the vicious murder of Tuskegee student Sammy Younge and of course, the kidnapping and murder of the three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi, U.S. in 1964. In each case, the initial contacts were made by police and this connection can be attributed to hundreds of thousands of violent encounters with African people. So much for legalities.

Police extended this work to providing intel on civil rights activists to violent white supremacists. This intel included license plate numbers, addresses, job locations, etc. Africans who dared register to vote in the 60s were routinely subjected to late night visits by racists. Due to the intensity of racist oppression, African communities and organizing circles tended to be small and pretty tight so the absolute only way those night riders could know those people's identities would be with the cooperation of police and other government agencies. Again, so much for legalities.

The model of police being the primary vehicle for repression eliminated the need for the appearance of separation between the state and violent white supremacy. Today, the exact same practices from police dominate interactions of oppression with the African masses. And, nothing has changed including the fact these interactions are ruled by ill-legalities while supporters of police continue to claim the problem is us not following "the law." Police routinely summarize events together after a shooting in order to organize their stories to protect themselves. This happened after the Eric Garner killing in New York, the Walter Scott killing in North Carolina (where an African police officer helped the European killer cop plant the fake gun against Scott). Portland, Oregon, U.S., where police met at a local diner to collaborate their stories on why and how 100 pound Kendra James needed to be shot and killed by police. Since these contradictions are public knowledge, its useless for these supporters of brutality against us to continue to try and convince us we are being brutalized for "not following the law." This was a lie in 1921 and its not true in 2020. In reality, we are brutalized whether we are quiet and mindful, like the residents of Rosewood, and/or Mr. Bolling, or whether we take bold public stances against white supremacy/capitalism, like the Black Panthers, so what that should tell us is this system is going to oppress us and lie about it whatever we do so we should just release any pretensions and fight uncompromisingly for our freedom, regardless of what our enemies say about us.

Of course, we know that there are always people who think they are being smart by suggesting "what about those Africans who are arrested committing actual so-called crimes?" Even that is a lie because as a well meaning white person pointed out in a meme recently, white suburbs are filled with people doing and selling illegal drugs as much as the inner cities. The suburbs are filled with the same types of crimes that accompany any communities with drug issues e.g. burglaries, assault, etc., but the difference is police agencies aren't choosing to target white suburbs like they do African and other brown communities so again, this isn't about legalities. Its about white supremacy/capitalism.

When I was 17, an elder told me that the Ku Klux Klan existed to terrorize Africans who dared move to the suburbs because "the police exist to terrorize us who live in the cities." This statement was more prophetic than possibly that elder even realized because it summarizes organized and systemic terror against African people for the last several decades. I was listening recently to an interview with Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) when he was the 24 year old newly elected chairperson for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in 1966. Ture was being interviewed on a panel with then American Nazi Party Chair George Lincoln Rockwell and other racists. Rockwell and the other racists, attempted to create false talking points that Africans (who rebelled against oppression in the inner cities) were the real instigators of violence against police. Brother Kwame, young, but courageous and convicted, refused to accept those talking points and when asked point blank if he supported police, Kwame responded with a resounding no. This of course sent the others into a tailspin. You can imagine being on a talk show today. All you have to do is look at the trash surrounding the perfectly tame and legitimate protest by Colin Kaepernick, etc, to see that saying no to police is just as controversial today as ever. You can just imagine how controversial it was for a 24 year old African 50+ years ago. What this should tell us is basing our convictions on the morality of these people is a complete waste of our time and energies. Its certainly past time for us to be helping them by continuing to uphold this myth. Police are not here to protect us and that's true whether your father, brother, sister, aunt, mother, and/or non-gender binary relative, friend, lover, neighbor, or whatever is the police. The existence of your loved ones in those institutions has done zero to prevent them from terrorizing us so it makes no sense for people to keep bringing that up as if its factor in this discussion. Those institutions are here for one reason and that is to uphold white supremacy/capitalism. And, make no mistake about it. Their function is to uphold those systems through force of violence. Doing that is the only law that matters to these people. Anyone who says our resistance to this oppression is unlawful is just gaming you.

We as a proud people have to move past this slave consciousness of feeling like we have to explain and justify our existence to the system that oppresses us and the people who support that system. Taking that approach is such a slap in the face to our proud people who have stood up for us against injustice. Yes, we pay taxes, but those taxes do not serve our interests when they go to supporting violent white supremacy/capitalism domestically and internationally. This issue never has been about following the law. 500+ years ago it was about white supremacy/capitalism. Its about the same thing today regarding criminal police departments and it will always be about that and nothing else. The sooner we accept this undeniable reality and stop operating in a fantasy world that has never existed, the sooner we can solve this problem once and for all. Its been written many times in this space the methods in which we can and should organize ourselves to protect ourselves against state terrorism as well as that coming from their vigilante allies. There are a growing number of us who don't believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and other fantasies. Its time to get to doing some real work.

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Elijah Muhammad is the Reason for Muhammad Ali's Draft Refusal

12/18/2019

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The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, as his supporters and followers call him, is probably one of the most confusing and misunderstood persons of the 20th century. Still, there were very few who had a greater impact on the U.S. political and social landscape than Mr. Muhammad. Adorned as the leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1934 until his death in 1975, Muhammad, regardless of people's opinions of him and the NOI, influenced much of African culture and ideology within the U.S. He was a major teacher and influence on El Hajj Malik El Shabazz aka Malcolm X as well as Muhammad Ali the boxer, Louis Farrakhan, the current leader of the largest NOI grouping, and Khalid Abdul Muhammad, the former national representative for Farrakhan and founder of the New Black Panther Party.

Yet, Muhammad has been practically written out of history except for those within the NOI and the broader African liberation movement. A major reason for this whitewashing of Muhammad's influence results from his focus on African people without (direct, anyway) regard for what European dominated society thought about it. If you look at African thinkers and activists/leaders, etc., who have a dominantly African focus, they are usually ignored, discredited, and written out of history by this white supremacist society as well as the so-called white left. This is true whether we are talking about capitalist reformers like Muhammad, Adam Clayton Powell, Booker T. Washington, or revolutionaries like Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, Kwame Ture, or pre-1971 Huey P. Newton.

Even among African liberation participants, Muhammad's role is still debated strongly almost 50 years after his death. For radical thinkers and actors like myself, Muhammad's conservative approach to addressing our people's problems have never been favorable to us. Also, his denial of our African identity has always been distasteful to ardent Pan-Africanists (and in previous years an obstacle to our work). Plus, his obvious dismissal, at best, and actual participation, at worse, in Malcolm's assassination is as unacceptable as many of followers sad efforts today to justify it. Still, we are revolutionaries which means we are scientific in our assessment of our struggle. And, there is no doubt that Elijah Muhammad made major contributions to our struggle, whether we acknowledge it or not, his movement and the development of the NOI was the initial introduction of the religion of Islam, on any level (whether so-called "pure" Muslims today admit it or not) to the masses of people within the U.S. The fact Islam is considered the fastest growing religion within the U.S. today, and the late Warith Deen Muhammad, the son of Elijah Muhammad, was the largest Islamic leader in the U.S. before his death, cannot be separated from the initial influences of Elijah Muhammad.

Also, what cannot be denied is the credit Muhammad deserves for influencing Muhammad Ali to refuse induction in the U.S. military to potentially fight in Vietnam. Muhammad Ali was roundly castigated for his decision in 1967. His boxing title was stripped from him during his prime fighting years. He was widely labeled a traitor to U.S. society and he was basically treated as public enemy number one. Since his position was a correct one, eventually, his status transferred to that of iconic, and his 1967 decision was later viewed properly as courageous and principled. His selection as the person designated to light the Olympic torch in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. to start the 1996 summer games was the acknowledgement of Ali's transition in U.S. society from villain in the 1960s to national hero, at least by most people. Much of the resurrection of Ali's image was charted by the white left in the U.S., particularly the petti bourgeoisie liberals who championed Ali's anti-draft decision as a center piece of the U.S. anti-war movement.

What has been lost in the adulation of the physically declining Muhammad Ali and the eventual death of Ali which prompted the presence at his funeral by people, like the Bush and Clinton families, each who vilified Ali during the 1960s, is the role Elijah Muhammad played in Ali's decision to refuse the draft.

The 2001 movie "Ali" where actor Will Smith portrayed Ali, gives the impression that the NOI's interest in Ali was specific to the social capitol they gained by his presence in their organization. Certainly, that was an issue, especially the contradictions in how Elijah Muhammad never wanted to connect the NOI to Ali (when he was still Cassius Clay) when he was prepping to fight Sonny Liston for the title in 1964. Muhammad said repeatedly during that time that Ali had no chance to defeat the heavily favored Liston and Muhammad didn't want the NOI associated with a "loser." After Ali's victory, of course, Muhammad immediately embraced Ali and the manipulation of Ali's boxing career by Muhammad's eldest son Herbert was certainly a factor in Ali's dwindling finances and possibly, his staying in the ring much to long. Still, what most people don't know is that Muhammad's directive to Ali to refuse induction into the U.S. military wasn't a case of Muhammad forcing Ali to do something that Muhammad himself never had to do. In 1943, Muhammad himself refused induction into the U.S. military during World War II. This war, which is widely and wrongly considered to be a principled war waged by the U.S., had overwhelming popular support within the U.S. that Vietnam, Irag, Afghanistan, and other military incursions since cannot match if all combined. Yet, Muhammad stood up against the U.S. government and told them he would not fight "yellow people" for "white people." For that decision, Muhammad was sentenced to, and served time in prison, something Ali never had to do for his decision in 1967.

That history is important because the liberal elite would have you believe Ali's courageous anti-war decision was an individual act, but we know better. As Ali said himself countless times during that period, he was always acting within the values, principles, and beliefs of his membership within the Nation of Islam. He was always acting on the guidance of his leader, teacher, and guide - "the most Honorable Elijah Muhammad."

In other words, its certainly logical to assume that had he never joined the NOI, Ali - still as Cassius Clay, would have accepted his induction and we probably wouldn't have much of an idea today who he was. So, despite the efforts by the liberal elite to write Elijah Muhammad out of the history of Muhammad Ali, the undeniable fact is, it was the elder Muhammad who not only influenced, but directed, Muhammad Ali to refuse induction into the U.S. military as a part of the Nation of Islam's long held stance that we as African people should refuse to fight in the wars of our enemies - the European capitalist power structure.

This distinction is quite different than that claimed by sincere NOI members today when they recollect Malcolm X. To most of them, Malcolm will always only be a product of Elijah Muhammad. The difference is that those people completely ignore that Malcolm developed an entirely different political perspective for himself - one of developing revolutionary Pan-Afrifcanism - after he left the NOI. Actually, during the time he was in the NOI, there is clear evidence of Malcolm's political evolution as early as the late 50s. In fact, we would argue that it was this development, not the exposure of Elijah Muhammad's affairs, that led Malcolm to leave the NOI in the first place. Or, as Louis Farrakhan himself once profoundly put it; Malcolm was the political person whereas Farrakhan sees himself as the spiritual person. In comparison, Ali never developed any level of political platform for himself. And, although he definitely deserves credit for his courage to join the NOI, and carry out its values e.g. refusing the draft, there is little to no evidence that he would have carried out such a position on his own.

Despite whatever position you take on Elijah Muhammad, one thing is beyond question. He was a major force in the African community for decades. There isn't one African who has come up in inner city communities, any of them, who hasn't been influenced in some way by the NOI. Whether you admit this or not is ill relevant. And, there is equally no way to separate Ali's courageous position in 1967 from his mentoring from Elijah Muhammad and his membership as a registered Muslim in Muhammad's NOI. For those today within the African liberation movement (both active participants and commentators who act as if they are active contributors), to add on to the discrediting of Muhammad's credentials within the movement demonstrates the lack of political sophistication on how revolutionary consciousness is achieved. For myself, I was exposed to the NOI before any other African organization, including the one I've belonged to for almost 36 years. It was through the NOI that I first learned about Malcolm X, although my knowledge of him and his work has since far exceeded anything the NOI is talking about regarding his existence. My exposure to NOI rallies and events were my first exposure as a child to independent African organization. It was only through all of those experiences that I learned from the NOI, including that their way would never be my way. So, in essence, the NOI is at least partially responsible for my assent in my political work and consciousness. And, that is true for the overwhelming majority of us within the African liberation movement today on all levels. None of that pardons any of the things Muhammad and the NOI have done and do that we don't agree with. What we are doing is consistent with Kwame Ture's directive that the largest crime one can make is being ungrateful. We give credit where credit is due and we give criticism where criticism is due. We have written extensively here on shortcomings, errors, and sabotage we believe Muhammad contributed to with his actions. For this particular space, we acknowledge his role in creating the Muhammad Ali that you know anything about today.

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Understanding Why Some of Our People Gravitate to ADOS

12/16/2019

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If you follow the articles I write and post here on even a semi-regular basis, you know I've written as many pieces on African identity, the so-called American Descendants of Slaves movement (ADOs), and our relationship as African people (revolutionary Pan-Africanism) regardless of what country and/or continent we are born, raised, and living in. As a result of the large volume of content I produce around these issues, I receive an overwhelming number of responses, primarily from people I don't know, providing feedback around these questions. I receive feedback from people all over Africa and the Caribbean and those Africans are running 100% in support of the clear Pan-African themes in these articles. From many Africans within the U.S., I get some support, but mostly arguments against what I'm writing and even straight up personal attacks against the positions I'm writing about. None of this, even the most vile vitriol, is an issue for me. I organize people for a living and I certainly dedicate most of my energy, time, and resources, towards organizing African people towards Pan-Africanism. As a result, I know from study and my own life the pain our people experience because of our oppression. In fact, I would tell you that every single problem we have - from diabetes (of which I'm afflicted), to unemployment, to depression, is the result of our oppression under this capitalist system. This worldwide oppression against the African masses and all of humanity, because of this worldwide capitalist system, and its never ending reliance on Africa to fuel its existence.

Its due to this understanding that I would never get offended at my people who wage these attacks. Actually, I'd like to talk about some of the reasons I believe our people have gravitated towards this so-called ADOs movement since that's where the majority of attacks I'm receiving are coming from. If you aren't African in the U.S. and/or you just don't know, ADOs is a movement that seeks to recognize the condition specifically of Africans in the U.S. as it relates to the wealth we contributed towards the rise of the U.S. to be the preeminent world power in the world today and this system's lack of wealth sharing towards our people for our work in building this empire. I phrase it like that because I believe that those of us who are Pan-Africanists have to recognize that and make a distinction between our people who are simply seeing the issue through those lenses as opposed to the framers of the ADOS movement. The framers e.g. Yvette Carnell, Antonio Moore, and some of their talking heads like Cornel West, Tariq Nasheed, etc., are representing themselves and this so-called movement by attempting to define and couch what I wrote above within an extremely dangerous xenophobic and anti-African born outside of the U.S. framework. Those people are covertly and overtly attacking Africans born in other countries and sowing the seeds of distrust among us as a worldwide people by doing the same thing the capitalist system does to us - push us into a fear based scarcity vision of the world. Convincing us that there is not enough wealth and that we must call out these "others" who are competing against us for these resources. This dysfunction operates within their talking points all the way from arguing for reparations from this government solely for Africans in the U.S. to attacking Africans born outside the U.S. who are starring in movies like "US", and "Black Panther", etc. insinuating that they are "stealing" jobs from Africans born here. Perpetuating the crabs in the barrel theory among Africans. In other words, these people are literally advocating that we compete against one another for the crumbs from the master's table. And, the most disgusting element of their approach is that they are in bed with absolute white supremacists, getting on their payrolls to promote anti-immigrant (in our case Africans not born here) rhetoric to advance the racist and xenophobic agendas of people like that racist woman political commentator Ann Coulter, who has come out on record as supporting the so-called "ADOs leaders" due to their anti-African immigrant messaging.

There are so many problems with the articulated notions of ADOS that its always so very difficult for me to even know where to start so what I'll say is there is no scarcity. This is nothing except the same fear mongering capitalism has attacked us with for centuries. We have more than enough resources to liberate every African body on earth. We have over 600 million hectares of arable land that is not even growing a single piece of fruit in Africa today. Just a tiny fraction of that land, developed and sustained, would provide enough ongoing food to wipe out hunger in the African world. And, just a little more of that land could contribute towards wiping out hunger everywhere on earth. I can go on and on with examples like that. The point is the problem isn't that we need to compete against our own family members. The problem is Africa is not free. And, she's not free because our enemies have convinced so many of us that she is ill relevant. Sadly, we have been misled to believe that the only pathway to salvation is through the valley controlled by the very enemies (the capitalist countries e.g. the U.S., Europe, etc.) that stole everything from us, including us, and placed us in this situation in the first place.

The soul/funk group "Brick" produced a great song in 1977 called "We don't wanna sit down, we wanna get down!" Well, we don't want to bargain with our enemies, we want to destroy them and take back what they stole from us. That's what Pan-Africanism is. Creating, organizing, developing worldwide African consciousness and organization to wage a relentless fight to reclaim our dignity by reclaiming our ability to build independence for our lives. We don't believe this can happen without Africa being center to our focus. And, since everyone reading this, including any non-Africans, knows that Africa isn't even on the radar for most Africans in the U.S., we know our central task today is bringing Africa into the primary focus for the masses of our people here and everywhere on earth.

That's why we have to understand why people gravitate towards ADOs despite how dysfunctional it is. I would argue that most Africans who support ADOs probably know very little about Carnell, Moore, or even Cornel West, etc. These people are attracted to this because to them it represents a vehicle to speak up for our suffering when they see no other vehicle working to do that.

This past weekend, I was at a labor conference that included elements of African existence within the labor movement. There was a sister there who posed a question to one of the speakers about supporting ADOS. After that section, I had a 45 minute conversation with that sister. And, as I indicated above, she knew who Carnell, Moore, etc., were, but those people were not, in her eyes, the reason she considered herself an ADOs supporter. To her, the issue is she wanted to attempt to create some dignity and ADOS represents that in her eyes.

As I thought about our conversation, I reflected on the fact that how else could I expect her to see this question? As I've indicated above, and probably about 5000 times in various articles posted on this blog, capitalism has worked for centuries to try and completely separate Africans in the U.S. from our Mother Africa on a spiritual, cultural, and certainly political level. Of course, as Marcus Garvey told us, "you can never separate the fruit from the tree", but our problem today is most of our people here see the fruit on the ground and believe it is isolated, alone, and unprotected. We don't understand the relationship of that piece of fruit to all the other pieces of fruit that have fallen and what all of those pieces have in common with the tree that produced them. All of that is by design to destabilize us. And, that destabilization is a painful process. I went through a portion of that pain in my discussion with the sister yesterday. She actually told me that although her family was from Mississippi, an unquestionable slave state, and her name was some German name, which is an unquestionable piece of evidence of her family's history of being bought and sold, she told me that she still believed her family has been in the Western Hemisphere for thousands of years. Her proof of this? There are no slave ships still intact. I explained to her that anything that hasn't been maintained that existed 500 years ago isn't going to be sitting around for us to see today. Nobody is living in a 500 year old house in the U.S. unless some serious efforts were made to preserve that house. There is a logical process of ship disintegration and recycling that is a part of the shipping industry that anyone engaged in that industry can easily explain to anyone who is interested, but the painful part of that to me is we are so ashamed of who we are. We are so embedded with the lies about Africa that we have been told. We are so convinced that Africa is a savage place where people eat each other and where no civilized people and societies exist - all lies pounded into us by our oppressors for centuries - that we have resorted in 2019/20 to making up history just to try and compensate for the pain and sense of loss that we live such a lonely life with today in this backward society.

The part that is our fault is our true African history is available for us to understand and be proud of, but most of us would rather believe fantasy than do the necessary research to eradicate the lies that keep us mentally shackled. A positive note from my discussion with the sister is that she agreed she had never read and/or studied anything comprehensive about Africa. She admitted that her information was primarily from colonized mentality Africans she knew (you know, four or five people) who came over from Africa and who parroted the lies of colonialism/imperialism. We had a great conversation about how people who are only concerned about individual advancement (as opposed to our collective liberation) learn quickly, no matter who they are, that the fast track to "success" in this capitalist society is standing on the backs of African people here. Every other brown community learns that and sadly, so do our own people who come here. This is one of the vestiges of colonialism and how they sustain our oppression. Its absolutely no different than the bourgeoisie and elitist attitude so many Africans born here go to Africa with.

Whats critical for those who are sincere about African liberation is that we cannot get caught up in attacking each other. These attitudes exist because they serve the interests of people who wish to advance in the capitalist system. Its our responsibility as Pan-Africanists to figure out how to convince our people that our struggle certainly cannot just be a struggle about our "race." Its actually a nation, class, gender struggle against capitalism. We have to help people realize that the class portion manifests itself in the fact some people who look like us are aping the master's system to advance themselves. This is the tactic of many of those Africans born in Africa promoting reactionary values and its the approach of the framers of ADOS.

I was able to effectively explain to the sister that I never have that problem of having Africans born in Africa tell me reactionary things like that because when I talk to them they know immediately that I am well versed on African history, politics, culture, etc. So, the only discussions I ever have with them are when I'm going back home (Africa) and what's happening with our Pan-African work. I told her I haven't had the type of reactionary response she receives from anyone since about 1981, when I, (no shade) like her, knew little to nothing about Africa.

Most Pan-Africanist understand clearly the contradictions with ADOs. And, truthfully, all Pan-Africanists are not alike. We are Nkrumahist/Tureist Pan-Africanists. We are revolutionary Pan-Africanists. We don't define Pan-Africanism as some nebulous concept of "Black people" all over the world coming together. We are very specific with our objective. Pan-Africanism is one unified socialist Africa, period. We are clear and focused about this and that's why we see clearly that ADOs followers are not our enemies. Misinformation is the primary tool for our oppressors. Our task, for those of us who truly wish to bring liberation to our people, has to be figuring out how to advance notions of African unity to our people and how Pan-Africanism is the real key to them finding the dignity they are searching for. Kwame Ture said it all the time. "Once our people learn anything about Africa, they will become more African any me!" We know this and our enemies like Ann Coulter and the system she represents know it as well. That's why she will support ADOs because ADOs as its being framed will always serve capitalism and our oppressors with just a few select tokens like Carnell receiving payment for keeping us on the plantation loyal and committed to serving our masters.

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Honoring the Uncompromising Militancy in Pro Sports Protests

12/12/2019

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Former U.S. professional basketball player Mahmoud Abdul Rauf protesting the playing of the U.S. national anthem by praying "for the oppressed of the world."

As Ahmed Sekou Ture said; bad organization is always better than no organization at all. So, of course, we agree that any protest of any kind that aims to bring attention to injustice of any kind is a good protest. Nothing being written here is meant to disparage and/or take anything away from any effort to accomplish this critical task. Still, its important we view everything at all times through a balanced viewpoint. In other words, any protest of any kind, whether we are talking about urban rebellions, or silent, individual protest statements, this power structure e.g. the capitalist bourgeoisie, will attack any and all protests we decide to engage in. When the urban rebellions happen, they say that's a completely unacceptable form of protest. When Colin Kaepernick, Eric Reid, etc., decided to mind their business and stage a simple, silent protest, they said that was disrespectful and therefore unacceptable. That reality should tell you two things. First, no matter what you do or don't do, they are going to have a problem with you because that's really the issue. They have a problem with you, not just what you are doing. Second, because again, no matter what we do, they denounce it and we receive unrelenting repression. So, although we honor all who protest, we should provide special attention and respect to those among us who engage in protests that call out the fundamental contradictions, without any level of qualification and justification.

Since we are going to focus specifically on professional sports protests in the U.S., we are talking about those brave souls who not only jeopardized their earning potential in the sport they play, but did that in the course of telling the unfiltered truth, regardless of who that truth offends. The first such protest we will focus on was carried out by boxer Muhammad Ali. In 1967, in concert with the position his organization - the Nation of Islam (NOI) - held against Africans joining the imperialist U.S. military, Ali, then the heavyweight champion of the world, refused to accept his induction order to report to the U.S. Army. Ali's famous retort that no Vietnamese "ever called me n - - - - r!" offered a clear rebuke against U.S. imperialism which has the audacity to demand that we help it plunder and dominant the world's poor populations while continuing to treat us on all levels like slaves. Today, with the clear exception of the most reactionary and hardcore racists within this society, Ali is widely considered a national hero of conscience and respect, but its important for everyone to realize that in 1967, Ali was public enemy number one for taking his bold stance. Everything they are throwing at Kaepernick today, they threw at Ali 50+ years ago with even much more vigor and hatred. This is true because unlike Kaepernick, Ali was an actual participant in the African liberation struggle by virtue of his active membership of the NOI. The fact he had an organizational vision guiding his actions helped make Ali's militant protest seem like the natural response it should have been. That's why his protest - a clear statement that we are not Americans and therefore should not support this country's offensive and immoral agenda of death and destruction - was so profound and powerful then and is still equally as powerful today. Ali's stance was even more impressive because he stood directly in the national spotlight and up to that point, no such bold anti-capitalist empire protest had taken place on such a stage.

Right on the wings of Ali's courageous stance, a very similar protest waged at the Olympic games in Mexico City in 1968 was carried out by sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith. Upon standing on the stage to receive their gold and silver medals, when the U.S. national anthem was played, those two Africans raised their fists in the black power salute. The impact of this may be difficult for people today to grasp, but like Ali's protest, this one single act signified a clear break by elite African athletes (representing the U.S.) who wanted to let the entire world know that that representation was a complete fraud. That this entire society is a complete fraud. Also, like Ali, the fact of these two Africans taking such a bold anti-imperialist stance against the U.S. empire caused each of them to suffer immensely for their protest. Still, and also like Ali, Smith and Carlos refused to back down, despite the enormous pressure leveled against them to attempt to force them to.

In 1996, Denver Nuggets (professional basketball) guard Mahmoud Abdul Rauf was doing his best to honor his Islamic beliefs as he learned and practiced them. In his studies, he learned that the U.S. is a demonic empire that exploits any and everyone that it can. As a result, he started deciding to go into the locker room while the U.S. national anthem was being played before each game. He did this because he felt it hypocritical to stand for a song that he believed (correctly) symbolizes the oppression of African people, Muslims, and all of humanity. A European reporter discovered Rauf's disappearing act whenever that song was played and reported it in a column. It was then that the league challenged Rauf to come out with the rest of his team when the song was played or suffer expensive fines. Rauf reached a compromise with the league where he came out to the bench like the rest of his team, but while the song was being played, instead of standing and/or standing with hand over heart, all symbols of respect for the song and the country, Rauf engaged in Islamic prayer for - in his words - "the oppressed people of the planet."

Rauf continued to play in the league a few years after his protest became national news and the number of death threats, etc., he received was incredible. It also brings back to light an important message about what people are really offended by when Africans protest anything, any way we choose to do so. To the majority of people who function within this backward society, they are ordained by God to plunder the entire planet. They feel that an African's audacity to support their belief system anything less than 100% is treason. I say African, or Indigenous person's, protesting because when we make uncompromising protest against this country, in the eyes of those who wish to see us still on slave plantations and forced to exist only by selling moccasins by the side of the road, we pose a serious threat to their security. They see it no different than the master saw a slave revolt on the plantation. How else can you explain why a silent individual protest, one that's not even carried out in front of anyone, like Rauf's, could still generate such outrage? Again, the answer is its not at all about how he was doing it. It was the fact that he dared do anything that wasn't lock step in line with ruling class bourgeoisie white supremacist and classist values. Certainly Ali, due to the well repeated political views of his NOI, as well as the others, knew and understood this on some level. That's why their conscious decision to continue to resist in whatever form they took, is so valuable. And, the still consistent support for the actions that Rauf, Smith, and Carlos still show for what they did today, makes their sacrifices that much more inspirational.

Those protests hold such importance today because much of what is happening with protest now is great, but not nearly as uncompromising as those aforementioned protests. Kaepernick's protest, and those of other pro football players, were and are great, but none of them, with the possible exception of New Orleans Saints Running Back Alvin Kamara, are waging protests with a clear message against U.S. empire. Kaepernick went to great lengths in 2016 to adapt his protest into a version that would not offend participants in the U.S. military and/or those who honor this country's rag flag. The discussion around his protest today still centers a "debate" about whether the protests are "anti-American" or not, and his continued inability to get another job playing professional football is militantly supported by his detractors who claim he was disrespectful to this country.

In many ways this current discussion has regressed from what it was 50+ years ago, or even just twenty years ago. With Ali, Carlos, Smith, and Rauf, there was no debate. Their protests were against U.S. empire, military, flag, anthem, everything. Today, we are supposed to tip toe around these questions so that the sensibilities of European white supremacy are honored and protected. That's why I separate those protests e.g. Kaepernick, Craig Hedges handing a complaint petition to then U.S. empire president bush, etc., from those protests of the 60s, and even Rauf's in the 90s. Kaep, Hodges, Jackie Robinson, etc., were great protests, but all of those were centered around making a demand of the power structure. All of them asked for recognition, even validation, from the power structure. Ali, Carlos, Smith, Rauf, all of them made a statement about our African existence and the statement was what it was, with or without European capitalist acknowledgement. The latter actions didn't make any demands. Instead, their messages were really directed at us as African people urging us to wake up and realize our conditions. This is an overwhelming and empowering message and even if we don't recognize it, the power structure does.

Its interesting that one thing all of these protests have in common is none of them caused a single shred of harm to come to anyone. No physical harm. No financial harm. Nothing. Still, all of them were universally condemned by this power structure. Over the last 50+ years, whenever one of these protests arises, no matter when, for what issue, or how the protest is carried out, you can tune into any sports talk radio show at any time of day in any part of this country and you will hear the same thing. We are wrong for doing it. And, you will be able to hear a never ending parade of European men, women, and whatever speak about what we need to do, how we need to see things, and what's wrong with us. The funniest thing about that is if you took all the millions of them who never hesitate to want to tell us how we should stay in our place, you wouldn't find 1% of them who have studied enough on the issue we are protesting to fill my you know what crack. Yet, we are supposed to act as if this charade poses as some sort of free speech and democracy? You can play that silly game if you want to.

What all of this should hopefully tell us is no matter how we protest the injustices against us, they will be against us. So, we may as well represent our dignity and stand up. And in the process of standing up, we have to learn the most dignified lesson of all. When we express ourselves, let's take their feelings and concerns into consideration just about as much as they always take ours.

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Perspective: What Actually Is & Isn't Cultural Hair Appropriation?

12/8/2019

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The first question people may have when reading this is since this is largely viewed as a question around women hairstyles, what does a dude have to say about it? Especially a bald headed dude? The answer is this question of cultural appropriation is obviously based in the larger question e.g. what is culture? If we permit ourselves to operate with only an arbitrary understanding of what culture is then its no wonder that confusion is so dominant around this issue. So, we start by attempting to address that question.

As always, we start any discussion about defining culture by looking at the materially grounded analysis on this question provided to us by Sekou Ture. In his historic presentation "Revolution, Culture, and Pan-Africanism" Ture defines culture as "the sum total of a people's experiences." We expand upon that to add that culture is the creative methods people use to manipulate the resources at their disposal in order to etch out their existence. In other words, by determining how to create a human experience, people develop and define their legacy. Since Ture's analysis is rooted in the belief that people take whatever they can develop to create that legacy, much of that experience is going to be tied to people's abilities to shape the existing material conditions they find themselves in. For example, if people live in severe cold or heat, the methods in which they go about providing for their needs in those conditions are probably going to be the same types of things any people living within those same material conditions would come up with. In fact, people's existence within these types of material conditions have much to do with how they create what we consider expressions of their culture.

So, with this operational definition of culture, it becomes clear that culture, although defined, expressed, and presented to us by the people who experience it, doesn't belong to those people like a material piece of property. Although its common practice in capitalism for many to try, its truly not something that can be bought and sold. And, if all things were equal, culture wouldn't be viewed as belonging to this group and off limits to that group, etc.

So what makes this issue about cultural appropriation a contentious one? We argue that the contradiction here is the presence of colonialism as the sharpening tool to uphold capitalism's stranglehold on the majority of people on earth. Colonialism has impacted culture in the sense that the resistance of colonized people to their oppression has come to define how those oppressed people express their culture. Another way of saying that is colonized African people living in European Judeo-Christian capitalist societies are not culturally free. We are not because the values, objectives, and acceptable forms of expression and existence are all defined by European norms and anything not identified as a European norm is considered barbaric and insane. This is the dominant thinking in colonized societies and its a thinking that's dominant in the colonized as well as the colonizer communities. So, in this colonized existence, any expression of African identify is going to be viewed with suspicion and contempt.

Those last two sentences are definitive because they negate the false equivalencies that function in bourgeoisie societies as sensible logic. For example, the basis of tension in this hair appropriation discussion is European (White) women lock/braid their hair and these are viewed, culturally, as African hairstyles. Meanwhile, African women "straighten" their hair and present in ways identified as European hairstyles.

There are Africans who object to all genders of Europeans locking their hair, wearing braids, etc., and these views are expressed often. As a result, Europeans have begun to question African people straightening their hair. Again, this is probably true with all genders, but we are focusing on women because that is where most of the tension appears to exist. The false dichotomy is due to colonialism, all people have been besieged by centuries of indoctrination that nappy hair is primitive and the only true way for a woman to reach her physical beauty potential is to mimic the hairstyles displayed by the poster pictures of beauty in colonized society - European women e.g. Marilyn Monroe, Farrah Fawcett, Charlize Theron, etc. Those women, and all who resemble their style and appearance, are labeled as "the most beautiful women on earth!" Under these uneven circumstances, all women, especially African women who are the farthest physically away of all women from the European beauty model, after the relentless assault on what is and isn't beauty, are going to feel pressure to be viewed by that dominant beauty standard. Especially since its important to understand that there are consequences to not meeting that standard. So, whether they pursue this consciously or unconsciously, this is all true. As a man, I recall with much pain and trauma the constant bullying and belittlement I received for having extremely nappy hair growing up. It was so painful to comb that I didn't, which made it much, much worse. It was the social equivalent of having warts all over my face and body. Those feelings were reignited when my daughter was a preteen. She was besieged by this same social pressure to "straighten" her hair and she was convinced that having to wear natural hair styles was the same as being sentenced to prison. I was so overwhelmed by her pain at her experience that honestly, I would have relented were it not for her mother who was steadfast that it was never going to happen. Eventually, my daughter outgrew that period and by the time she was 16, she was very proud of her natural locks and she continues to function that way today. Still, most people aren't going to have the support network, political, cultural, and social foundation, and information that we were fortunate enough to benefit from so without any study, just reflecting on my personal experiences in this area, even as a dude, I am immediately able to see the overwhelming level of social pressure on African women (especially) to be like Charlize Theron. By the time my daughter was a student at Tuskegee University in Alabama, she was in a positive place in her personal identity as an African woman. I do remember anyway, how often she and I talked during that period about just how many people, primarily African women, who pressured her that if she didn't "do something with her hair" she would "never find a man." To be honest, to a large extent, I believe my daughter grew to accept that narrative about not attracting men. I just think she decided she wasn't going to compromise herself around that question, but that experience demonstrates what African women go through on a psychological level to look as European as they can make themselves look. There are also other aspects to this phenomenon than physical confidence. The ability to find employment, living conditions, and to basically function without interruption in these societies are all related to how colonized people are able to navigate the colonial experience. If you present as an African you are considered trouble. If you present as a European, you may still be considered trouble, but that risk is greatly mitigated

On the other side, there is no social pressure for European women to lock their hair or look African. Actually, I believe European woman with locks probably increase the social criticism and scrutiny against them by adopting that look from their families, and certainly from potential employers, etc. It definitely doesn't do anything to improve their standing. With the absence of the colonial element as it relates to European women, their decision to lock is what it should be for everyone, a personal decision. Of course, how we decide to present ourselves physically is based largely in our insecurities, etc.. The difference is everyone has those challenges, but colonized people, especially Africans, have that along with the colonial pressure to be something we can never be.

Since many of these European women who lock/braid their hair, etc., are now expressing such dismay at the reactions to their "personal" decisions for how they look, what should be taken from the last couple of paragraphs is that colonialism tips the field considerably against African people in general, and African women in particular. Its the frustration about this reality that fuels much of that reaction because the double standard reinforces the same old narrative that European women benefit in ways they never seem to acknowledge. And, this is woven into a lot of related contradictions such as the degree in which European women, primarily, have benefited politically, economically, and socially from the sacrifices of African people/women in the civil rights, black power movements, etc.

In the interests of honesty, its necessary to point out that in today's world, far too many African people adopt our African cultural values without taking time to even understand the culturally resistant history of those styles. African women have paid a major price to wear natural hair styles to work, etc., in this society and for most Africans today, these are primarily just hair styles. For the most part, we fail to recognize that due to our history of being enslaved labor in this hemisphere, and therefore a constant threat to the security of this hemisphere, anything we did and do to express ourselves - from how and what we sang to how we presented ourselves physically - is and was viewed as an issue. This is why an African with an Afro pick in their natural hair style is still viewed as a political statement even if the person doing it has absolutely no conscious understanding or intent in that regard. This is still true for locks and braided styles, even if the intent isn't there. This is the part too many African people dismiss and don't understand today. If we are going to criticize Europeans for appropriating our culture, then we have an obligation to uphold the integrity and respect for our culture. In other words, you cannot rock locks, braids, etc., and then denounce or react indifferently to the political movements of Pan-Africanism, Black Nationalism, etc., that paved the way for you to have access to those cultural practices. That being said, the conclusion we present here is that this discussion isn't really a discussion about cultural appropriation. As was stated earlier, culture belongs to everyone no matter who creates it. This discussion is really about the oppressive manifestations of colonialism on the psychology and practices of people, particularly colonized people, who operate within these societies. The real question that we should take from these objections presented by African women is why our culture is so oppressed and disrespected? This is the real issue because in this society which is based on related contradictions, anyone who understands this issue should be able to see clearly why African women would object to European women wearing any style coming out of our African experience. Like so much in these societies, the European women are, intentionally or not, throwing it in the face of African woman that they can be themselves, augment, expand, etc., whatever they want. For African women, the choice is really assimilate or be a rebel and risk the consequences of making that decision. There is no comparison and all the centering European women want to do around this issue to make themselves victims in a system that has oppressed and exploited African women for centuries doesn't change anything.

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Tamara Bunke "Tania" & Her Unknown Relationship to Che Guevara

12/6/2019

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Oddly, my initial recollection of a woman freedom fighter named "Tania" came upon me in my youth as a 10 year old boy forced to endure the national so-called "busing" program to racially integrate schools throughout the U.S. In 1974, I was bused to A.P. Giannini "Junior" High school in San Francisco, California, U.S., for the seventh grade. One day, on the bus headed to my neighborhood clear across town, we were held up for about two hours. We were prohibited by police from exiting the bus. We were forced to just sit there for the entire time. All that we were told was that the then Crocker Bank on the next block was being robbed. There was a large police barrier and police, literally, everywhere. Later, after I had arrived where I lived and I able to watch local television news with my parents, I learned that the bank robbery was carried out by armed people who the news were calling the Sybionese Liberation Army (SLA). Central to that organization with the strange sounding name was a woman identified as "Tania." This person was actually Patricia "Patty" Hearst, a member of the Hearst family e.g. the Hearst Castle, owners of the San Francisco Examiner newspaper, etc. Even at 10 years old, I knew that the Hearst family was one of the bourgeoisie elite families in the Bay Area. There is a famous picture of Hearst, armed with an AK-47, and wearing a tam. This was a picture taken during that robbery of that Crocker Bank in 1974 in San Francisco.

In those days I struggled to understand the SLA, Patty Hearst, or why they kept calling her "Tania." As I got older and immersed within the African liberation movement, I learned through study that "Tania" wasn't Patty Hearst, but the real tam wearing revolutionary was actually a woman named Haydee Tamara Bunke. Ms. Bunke was a Spanish translator for the East German government. During the late 50s, East Germany of course was a part of the so-called Warsaw Pact, or Soviet Block. The countries of Eastern Europe who followed the Soviet Union in advancing a state capitalist model of economy that was generally seen in those days as the developing socialist movement. I would argue that the reason that the question of socialism in Europe still rages almost 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact, and the Soviet Union is despite the contradictions of state apparatus in the Eastern Block, there were many people, and there still are many people, in that region of the world who are dedicated socialists. One of them back in those days was Haydee Tarmara Bunke.

By all reports, Ms. Bunke excelled in Spanish and she became her government's logical choice to serve as a lead language interpreter in Cuba once the Cuban revolution was victorious in 1959. Ms. Bunke became an ambassador to Cuba for East Germany, stationed in Havana, Cuba. It was at some time during her service that she became introduced to National Cabinet Minister and Military Comandante Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Its not clear to what extent their relationship evolved, but what we do know is that as early as 1962, Guevara began thinking about ways he could best serve his revolutionary vision for all of Central and South America. In the early 60s, Cuba - like lots of the newly developed revolutionary/socialist countries - was balancing its relationship with the Soviet Union and China who were engaged in their own battle of sorts over which country would lead the worldwide socialist movement. At that time, at least rhetorically, China had more of an assertive position, pushing for more confrontation with the imperialist world which was then and is still led by the U.S. The Cuban government working through their early economic development plans, decided then to move in the direction of strengthening relationships with the Soviets over China. Che was smart enough to recognize that by the time these developments took shape, he was the face of China's relationship to Cuba. He knew this because the Soviets during this time were pressuring the Cuban's relentlessly about Guevara's relationship to decision making in Cuba. What's untrue is that Fidel Castro or anyone inside of Cuba's leadership placed any pressure on Guevara during this period. There is absolutely no evidence of this besides the claims of reactionaries and anti-Cuban revolution haters who wish to convince you that Fidel somehow laid Che Guevara out to dry. This didn't happen. Instead, Che was astute enough politically to recognize that his continued presence in Cuba was going to create difficulties for the young country which at that time depended upon its favorable trade relationship with the Soviets for much of its access to necessary resources. Plus, Guevara always had his vision of Pan-American revolutionary struggle. In fact, much of what is happening in Central and South America today e.g. imperialist coups in Honduras, Bolivia, and mass repression in Chile, and imperialist sabotage in Venezuela, was all exactly what Che wanted to overcome. Many people forget that although Che is historically inseparable from the Cuban revolution, he was actually born in Argentina. Since imperialism never intends to ensure you are properly educated, most people may know something about Che's early motorcycle adventures through the Americas (these have been glorified in motion pictures and books), but most people probably don't know that Guevara's political awakening occurred while he was hanging out in Guatemala and witnessed U.S. imperialism destabilize the legitimately elected government of Abenz to ensure the economic interests of the United Fruit Corporation were not compromised by Abenz's left leaning social programmatic thrust in government (1954). Guevara's street involvement in protesting the overthrow of Abenz's government caused him to be placed in jail, eventually in Mexico, where he was placed in the same cell as the Cubans, led by Fidel, who had been arrested after their failed attack on the Moncada Garrison in Santiago de Cuba in 1953.

Guevara saw the need to widen his visible separation from the Cuban leadership as the best opportunity protect Cuba while fulfilling his vision of revolutionary struggles taking place all over South America. Fidel Castro agreed with Che's vision, but he felt a more political approach beyond guerrilla warfare was also necessary. In the meantime, the role of U.S. and Belgium imperialism in destabilizing the political situation in the Congo, Central Africa, through the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and the liquidation of Lumumba's National Congolese Movement led Cuba to respond immediately in an effort to provide concrete support to the Congolese/African people. Che volunteered to lead a contingent of 100 African Cubans to the Congo to fight against the imperialist backed European mercenaries and neo-colonial armies fighting to maintain imperialism in Africa. Once the Congo mission was unsuccessful, Che, having resigned all his positions and citizenship to Cuba in a letter to the Cuban people read publicly by Castro in 1965, returned to Cuba undercover to begin planning his next revolutionary work in the Western Hemisphere.

After pulling together a team to develop an analysis, Che decided on Bolivia for his next course of action. He shared his plan with his friend and comrade Fidel Castro. Che, as he articulated in his writings on guerrilla warfare, had begun to pronounce a theory he called the "Foco" theory where he believed an armed insurrection could be fomented in a country like Bolivia and from that effort, a mass revolutionary armed struggle, including the necessary political components, could and would arise. Castro expressed his reservations about this theory to his friend, instead suggesting that a successful action in Bolivia had to be in solidarity with the Bolivian Communist Party led then by a man named Mario Monje. Che reluctantly accepted Castro's recommendations and arrangements were made for Che to travel undercover to Bolivia to meet with Monje to determine how a revolutionary political effort could be further developed in Bolivia.

Unfortunately for the forces for forward progress, that meeting did not go well. Monje was opposed to Cubans coming into Bolivia to lead any insurrection and Guevara would not relent on Monje's demand that he, not Guevara, despite Monje's lack of military experience, lead any military effort taking place in his home country.

Its difficult not to think about what could have been had Guevara and Monje been able to agree. The entire history of South America over the last 50 years could have turned out quite different, but it was not to be. Instead, Guevara left Bolivia determined to carry out his Foco theory without the support of the Bolivian Communist Party. Contrary to the lies of opportunists who continue to advance the story that Castro pushed Guevara into his death in Bolivia, Castro tried repeatedly to dissuade his friend from continuing the mission in Bolivia. Its easy to understand that with the political situation in Cuba, Guevara more than likely didn't feel as if returning there was a political option for him. As a result, he pushed forward for action in Bolivia and eventually, Castro relented while offering Guevara all the logistical support Cuba could provide this covert operation designed to elevate guerrilla war in Bolivia.

This support from Cuba came with many things, including supplying personnel to carry out the mission. Several dozen people, including Harry "Pombo" Villagas, Che's personal body guard since the Cuban revolutionary war was initiated in the Sierra Maestra mountains of Santiago de Cuba were assigned to Che's mission (Pombo was also with Che in the Congo and was one of only three combatants to escape Bolivia alive after Che was assassinated on the orders of the Central Intelligence Agency after being captured on October 8, 1967). The fact that people like Pombo wrote their own books on the Bolivian mission provides clear proof dismissing the silly rumors that Castro betrayed Che Guevara. Many of those Cubans were killed in Bolivia. Unless you are gullible enough to believe a leader of a country would permit ranking personnel from their military to engage in an unauthorized military mission in another country when that leader's objective (according to these reactionaries) was to make it look as if Guevara's actions in Bolivia were rouge.

Another resource Cuba provided to Guevara's mission in Bolivia was the services of Ms. Haydee Tamara Bunke who enthusiastically volunteered to help the guerrilla operation. Code named "Tania" Ms. Bunke's role was to arrive in La Paz, Bolivia, as an elitist socialite. Her mission was to gain favor and access to the Bolivian elite surrounding Bolivian President Barrientos. From her vantage point, Ms. Bunke was to find out as much as she could about what the Bolivian leadership was saying and planning about the emerging guerrilla movement and report that information back to the guerrilla movement e.g. Guevara.

For several months, Tania achieved much success despite the obvious and serious danger of her role. When the power elites in Bolivia first became aware of the presence of guerrillas fighting in Bolivia, she was able to communicate this information to Guevara. Her continued intelligence reports were vital in those early days in helping Guevara guide the guerrillas away from government military contingents. In the initial stages of any guerrilla movement this is essential because the chief recruiting mechanism in a guerrilla movement is the local people encountered. Until that process has time and space to germinate, the guerrilla forces are generally extremely vulnerable.

The painful truth is Guevara's political isolation from the revolutionary forces within Bolivia came back to haunt his Bolivian mission in immeasurable ways. Besides the talented and valuable participation of Bolivians Inti and and his younger brother Osvaldo Peredo, and a few other Bolivians, the majority of the participants in this guerrilla effort were Cubans like Pombo. This created challenges as the guerrillas had a difficult time building relationships with the peasantry in the countryside and a large percentage of the Bolivians who did agree to join the guerrillas along the way, defected with lots of intell on the guerrilla movement going with them into the hands of government forces. Guevara spoke to the political education difficulties in his diary which was later retrieved by the Cuban government and published into a book (as was the case with all of Che's military missions). He discussed how he tried his best to give talks to the guerrillas about the necessity to stay focused and determined, but as defectors continued to reveal information on the whereabouts of the guerrillas to the military, and basics like food and water became nonexistent, it became increasingly difficult to uphold guerrilla morale, especially the Bolivians, as well being able to stay away from military patrols. This reality, coupled with the peasantry being intimidated and bribed by the military, made it almost impossible eventually for the guerrillas to find food and refuge anywhere.

This lack of discipline as it relates to defections served to be the final blow against these courageous people as some of these defectors apparently found information about Haydee Tamara Bunke's identity and role and the urgency in which this was communicated to the imperialists required her to instantly abandon her post in La Paz and being unable to leave the country as she was hastily instructed, she was forced to scramble to find her way to the guerrillas. By this time, with the assistance of local peasants, journalists and Ms. Bunke were able to locate the guerrillas in the countryside without much difficulty, but those peasants were just as easily willing to reveal guerrilla contingent locations to the government forces. Once Ms. Bunke reached the guerrillas and explained her circumstances, she was assigned a weapon and sent out with one of the two guerrilla columns that had been created due to their isolation and inability to travel in larger groups. Their plan was they would meet up at a certain point, but that meet up never, ever happened. The story of how Guevara, Pombo, Inti Peredo, and another combantant, were cornered in a canyon where Guevara's weapon was rendered ineffective which allowed for him to be captured is well known. The fact that Pombo, Peredo, and the other combatant debated about whether to try and liberate Guevara, which would have surely led to their deaths, is also well known. And, the fact the three of them made their way to the Chilean border where then socialist President Allende escorted them into Chile, and then to Cuba is also well documented.

What's probably not common knowledge is that Inti Peredo, his brother killed in action in Bolivia, made his way back into Bolivia to continue to plan for guerrilla warfare there. He was cornered in a La Paz apartment in 1969 and shot to death by Bolivian imperialist forces. Also, that the other guerrilla column that was led by the Cuban Joaquin, had its whereabouts snitched to the military by a Bolivian peasant named Honorato Rojas who accepted money from the guerrillas for food from his farm just to turn around and accept money from the Bolivian military to reveal to them the whereabouts of the guerrilla column. Joaquin, Haydee Tamara Bunke, and about 10 others, were surrounded, bush-wacked and mercilessly and relentlessly machine gunned to death by Bolivian military forces in a lonely ravine in rural Bolivia on August 31, 1967.

Forklore has always surrounded the mysterious woman code named "Tania." Some people claim she was a love interest for Che. We don't know, nor do we care. What we do know for sure is that she was a woman, operating in conditions that were overwhelming dangerous and unusual for women during those times. We know she carried out her work with courage, dignity, and dedication right down to her final moments. We also know that she accepted her role without needing or wanting recognition or validation. As a result of her selfless contribution, which included her life, to the people of the world, we grant her the respect of a European accomplice afforded to people like her, Marilyn Buck, David Gilbert, etc. Study her example and let's create thousands of Haydee Tamara Bunkes while we wish her an eternal rest in power!

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Some Of Us Would Never Dream of Calling the Police

12/4/2019

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Today is December 4th. Its the 50 year commemoration of Chicago, Illinois, U.S., police carrying out a pre-dawn planned raid to murder leaders of the Illinois Black Panther Party simply because of the Panther's objective of bringing justice to African people. On that day, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed and this illegal and immoral assassination of respected African leaders came to serve as one of the most clear and ill refutable pieces of evidence supporting claims by the African community in general, and the Panther's in particular, of systemic police terrorism against our people.

Today, exactly 50 years after that terrorist act in Chicago, the top police terrorist in the U.S., the Attorney General, a man named Barr, declared that communities within the U.S. that "don't show respect for police" may not receive "police protection." Barr didn't elaborate, but it shouldn't take a college degree to figure out what he meant. Those 'communities" he referenced are the communities dominated by African and Indigenous people (and even poor European communities) who exhibit historical distrust for police agencies. And, these communities have every right to distrust police. They distrust because they know the entire purpose of police agencies is the enforce the will and interests of the ruling class (capitalist) elites who, rightfully so, perceive the African masses as a constant threat to this country. For the masses of European people in this society, they are programmed to see police, and this country, as something they must protect at all costs. So, based on their conditioning, our distrust for police is seen as treason.

Besides the irony that Barr's statements were made on a day that commemorates one of the best examples for why we distrust police, when I read what he said, my mind immediately jumped to Kwame Ture's statement that "capitalism makes everything normal seem strange, and everything strange seem normal!" Millions of Africans live in hundreds of urban areas across this country and a very low percentage of them believe they will achieve justice in their lives by calling 911. In fact, most of us who call police whenever there is a threat, do so because they just don't believe they have any other alternative to stop the challenges being imposed against them. Why do you think Public Enemy's 1991 record "911 is a Joke" was such a hit? Under these desperate conditions, we would argue that if we developed the ability to protect our own people, you would find it very difficult to find any of us who dial 911 under any circumstances. So, instead of us going along with these devils and pretending that police protect our people and that we even want them anywhere near any communities we inhabit, what today symbolizes to me is that its time for us to start implementing programmatic work to build self determination for our people against police terrorism.

Earlier today I read an article that said that cowardly terrorist George Zimmerman, who savagely killed young Trayvon Martin, is suing the Martin family because events since that 2012 killing have hurt Zimmerman's feelings. As Kwame's statement reminds us, only in this backward society can a racist killer achieve the opportunity to wreck further trauma on the family he victimized. Yet, Zimmerman's position as a neighborhood watch captain when he shot and killed Trayvon Martin provides a dysfunctional glimpse into what we as a people can do to build up our capacity to eliminate the chance our youth like Martin will be harmed ever again. As has been written multiple times in this blog, we accomplish this by organizing our communities with defense models structured after our Pan-African unification model written in Kwame Nkrumah's "Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare." In that classic work, Nkrumah calls for the creation of the All African People's Revolutionary Army (A-APRA) which linked to the All African Committee for the Political Coordination and the All African People's Revolutionary Party, will serve to liberate Africa and African people. The A-APRA will be formed by uniting all of the trained, both physically and politically, military forces into one worldwide fighting force for African liberation. These neighborhood community defense models in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Central, South America, and the Caribbean, would serve as branches to the Pan-African model of organization that will strengthen us to a point of action where no one among us feels the need to call terrorists to solve any problem that we encounter.

The police never make our conditions better. They are not here to do that. They are here to control us. Now, we know that Barr is making his statement not strictly at us, but at the masses of trained European working class white people, who are a human tempting a hungry dog with a slab of meat. His statement was classic Southern Strategy. Dog whistle against African and other colonized people by "threatening" us that you are going to ensure police do not function within our communities. Feeding meat to the racist white masses by reaffirming to them that they are the true "Americans" who deserve all of the services that this country has to offer and that we, as burdens on this society, will no longer "benefit" from the police. Of course, the truth is we don't benefit from police. We don't need police and we don't want police. Its time for us to organize so that we can keep these bloodthirsty animals away from our people. So, we are not alarmed by comments by racists like Barr, Trump, any of them. We know that none of them hold the key to our future. Only we do. So, hopefully these times can serve as the wake up call for us to start taking action to eliminate this false security by creating real security for us and all of humanity.

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A Pan-Africanist Perspective on the "So-called" Hong Kong Protests

12/2/2019

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About twenty years ago, I attended a local book event. The author was an African who had written his personal experiences with police terrorism throughout his life. As I have customarily done throughout my life, I supported the Brother, bought his book, and offered encouragement until a point in the program came where the Brother said he wanted to consider himself a revolutionary. In response to that statement, someone in the audience stated that if the author wanted to call himself a revolutionary, he has a right to call himself that. At this point I expressed my disagreement, indicating that being a revolutionary comes with principles and requirements. One of those basic requirements is if you are going to claim a desire for revolution, you have be working within a revolutionary organization. In our view, to claim to be a revolutionary without organization is like claiming to be a driver while never having operated a vehicle/vessel, etc. As to be expected, several people at the event could not understand my logic.

The reason why those people, and probably many of you reading this, have difficulty understanding the logic is because we live in a bourgeois society where reality is whatever people have the capacity to make people believe. In other words, in this society, reality has nothing to do with truth. This is how you can have a holiday in November where thieves and killers are either consciously, or unconsciously, honored. Along with that, the way most people operate within this society is we receive soundbite definitions on critical terms like "democracy." By soundbite I mean we literally learn that democracy is "freedom" without that freedom ever being defined. Since most of us don't take time to study these concepts on any level, we are stuck operating on this extremely superficial level of understanding about practically any and everything of importance in this world. For example, if people are protesting in Hong Kong today, and those people claim, as they do, that the purpose of their protest is to ensure "democracy" in Hong Kong, most of us have absolutely no critical capacity to analyze this beyond that basic concept that democracy is freedom. Since that's our foundation, than many of us automatically drift to thinking we must support these people in Hong Kong because we are for freedom right?

As usual, the events in Hong Kong are much more complex than the simple soundbites we receive regarding these events. So, the purpose of this piece is to hopefully provide people with a ground level understanding of what's happening in Hong Kong, specifically from our revolutionary Pan-Africanist perspective.

Its important to begin with some historical information. Hong Kong is a city in China which was seized by Britain from the Qing Dynasty in China in 1842. From 1842 until 1997, Hong Kong operated as an independent entity from the Chinese mainland. In the 1980s, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's government initiated a policy designed to reintegrate former China entities Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong, back into China. In 1984, the Sino-British Declaration was ratified. This declaration required Britain to transition Hong Kong back to China in 1997 with conditions. Those conditions are that based on Hong Kong "Basic Law" Hong Kong was to remain committed to its "capitalist way of life" and "freedom" for 50 years from 1997 (expiring in 2047), before Hong Kong would be fully integrated into China.

This reintegration push by Deng was successful for the Chinese Communist Party as Macau and Hong Kong are on track to reintegrate. Only Taiwan - the entity established by Chinese opposed to the 1949 Chinese revolution of Mao Tse Tung - still remains completely separated from China.

When the protesters in Hong Kong claim that their protests are focused on ensuring "democracy" in China, their claims deserve serious analysis and reflection. We are convinced that most of those people taking to the streets and/or supporting those who are, are people who genuinely believe they are correct in their convictions. Economic life in Hong Kong has seen some reduction of value in recent years and for most of these protesters, this fear reflects the incompetence of socialism in general and the Chinese government in particular. These people are also expressing fears about Chinese efforts to limit personal freedoms like artistic expression and expression as a whole. All of these claims must be analyzed correctly. There is clearly much debate about China's status as a socialist country as well as the question of socialist countries properly figuring out how to address opposition without repression. If you ask hard-line supporters of Chinese revolution e..g as people currently interpret the revolutionary theories of Mao, most of those people would say China, particularly under Deng's leadership, has abandoned socialism and is vying to develop upon a capitalist pathway. We argue against that position, instead claiming that this question is still very much being struggled upon by the Chinese masses, but regardless of which side you find yourself on, the reality today is for the people in Hong Kong, they are convinced that China is 100% opposed to the capitalism that has governed their lives for the last 150 years. They are on the streets to ensure that any semblance of socialist revolution does not find its way to the shores of Hong Kong today, or in 2047.

The actual economic reality for Hong Kong is much different than what is being articulated and believed by the protesters. In 2019, China has become the second largest economy on earth and regardless of what people say, Hong Kong has always benefited mightily from its close physical proximity to China. Most Hong Kong multi-national corporations, like the IRC Limited Corporation which facilitates mining projects for Hong Kong, do 75% of their business in China. In fact, China across the board is Hong Kong's largest trading partner. Also, due to the "Basic Law" agreement which essentially prohibits China from having any real policy say so in Hong Kong for another almost 30 years, contrary to the emotional beliefs many people in Hong Kong may have, China currently has very little influence in Hong Kong's business and political affairs.

This phenomenon is similar in form to the masses of uneducated people who live within the U.S. If there was a similarly imminent relationship between the U.S. and a world power country perceived to be socialist, many of these uneducated people within the U.S. would be out on the streets protesting also. In U.S. and Hong Kong, the popular meme is correct when it states that people are afraid of socialism when its capitalism that is causing their quality of life to decline. The irony is even China's hard-line critics have to agree that China has figured out how to provide services to its over one billion people and some of the fears from Hong Kong are connected to beliefs that their access to what they need will be eliminated once China governs Hong Kong.

Kwame Nkrumah talked about "a plenum of forces in tension" in his 1964 book "Consciencism. He was talking about the scientific fact that every piece of matter in existence is in struggle with other elements of matter. Consequently, Nkrumah argues that the highest expression of this contradiction is the class struggle between the haves and have nots. In Hong Kong, much of the high quality of life the people in Hong Kong have become so accustomed to results from the exploitation of Chinese workers that is dominant based on the close relationship between the two economies. As an African revolutionary, I'm also obligated to connect the dots that Hong Kong corporations like the previously mentioned IRC Limited Corporation advises Chinese mining entities on China's efforts to continue to mine African resources all throughout Africa. As we have indicated in previous writings, we understand China is tasked with feeding its population which is over 20% of the total world population. Still, as long as the dominant process of economic interaction is still capitalism, any type of industry in operation is going to be an exploitative enterprise. Any and all mining today in Africa is without question an example of this. So, again, Hong Kong exists in all its lights and splendor, like everywhere else in the capitalist world, based on its position of benefit from exploited regions of the world. No one protesting in Hong Kong today is calling for an end to that contradiction. Instead, they are focused on forwarding a decades old anti-communist (socialist) message.

And, the worst part about that is their message is being crafted by the same old evil and criminal characters. The U.S./North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the military/political entity representing the capitalist countries that enforces imperialism's dominance over the world, along with the Hong Kong billionaire class, are the forces pushing support for these so-called demonstrations. The main organizing entity for the protests is an organization called the Civil Human Rights Front. This organization has strong ties to the National Endowment for Democracy which if you look up that organization you will instantly find it to be a front organization for the Central Intelligence Agency (criminals in action). These imperialist entities, along with every collection of bottom shoe scum white supremacists from Ukraine, Russia, Western Europe, and the U.S., are the main sources of financing and propaganda support for these so-called protests. And, even if you didn't know any of this, contrary to imperialist propaganda, there are plenty of people in Hong Kong who are genuinely opposed to these "protests." The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Workers (HKFTU) is the largest labor formation in Hong Kong, representing over 250 labor organizations and almost 500,000 workers which with Hong Kong's overall population (a tad over 7 million), HKFTU is almost 10% of the total population. HKFTU is 100% opposed to these so-called protests and has been since their inception. The labor organization has resisted protest calls for a general strike indicating that any worker issues in Hong Kong around manufacturing, infrastructure, construction, etc., (all the areas of workers HKFTU represents in Hong Kong) are related to the decline of capitalism, not any existing policy influence or the impending Chinese governance in Hong Kong.

In conclusion, its disgusting how legitimate mass protests in places like Bolivia, where poor people there are in the streets protesting imperialist sabotage of their country, receive no financing and support, yet these legitimate protests receive scant the attention compared to that provided to events in Hong Kong. Any confusion around this question that still lingers is answered when just asking yourself why it is that white supremacist groups within the U.S. - like the so-called "Proud Boys" and others, support these Hong Kong events while these organizations physically show up in the U.S. to prevent marginalized people from protecting themselves against fascist repression? Its like Kwame Ture was fond of saying often; "capitalism will make everything that seems strange seem normal while making everything that should be normal seem strange." The fact so many people think what's happening in Hong Kong is legitimately about rights and justice is so very strange indeed.

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Some Of Us Would Never Dream of Calling the Police

A Pan-Africanist Perspective on the "So-called" Hong Kong Protests

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