Its like a circus puppet. Every single time these don’t have a pot to piss in white supremacists announce they are going to be somewhere, thousands of people make it their life’s mission to ensure those 10 or so idiots can’t have 20 seconds of peace. I’m not the person who needs a lecture on the value of stopping white supremacists from feeling they have safe haven to gather and promote their views. I was fighting them when many of today’s experts were at best suckling on Similac, or at worst, not even thought of yet. So, save that sorry lecture. The point here is to illustrate that reactionary politics e.g. reacting to the existence of white supremacy is not a bad thing, but that alone will never be sufficient.
Here are the concrete issues against this adventuristic “punch a Nazi” theme. How many of you have actually studied what happens to these people after you physically attack them on an individual level? I already know most of you, no – the overwhelming majority of you – haven’t studied this at all. If you had, than you would know that your punch them transition rate is extremely low e.g. slim to none. Instead, your efforts at physically attacking them as individuals serves to further deepen their ideas of persecution and alienation, the reasons why that lifestyle attracted them in the first place. Virtually none of them are so frightened by your punch that they renounce their racist views. This would have to mean that your efforts to punch and attack them are designed primarily to make you feel better. Not to do anything to eradicate white supremacy. And, that people is the issue. Too many folks are more concerned with centering their anxiety around one minimal level of white supremacy. Far too few of us are seriously concerned about eradicating the entire white supremacist system.
Since your objective is to have yourselves feel better that means you feel great that this neo-nazi, etc., that you attack goes back, regroups, finds other colleagues, and goes back out to enact revenge for being attacked. They aren’t hunting the Europeans who attacked them, they are looking for brown people, African people, etc., to attack. So, by you engaging in this selfish and ill-responsible behavior of physically attacking these people on an individual level, you actually make conditions more dangerous for us. Not that you care about that. We already know your concerns were addressed once your adrenaline rush was satisfied.
The proper analysis here is that ground level white supremacists e.g. neo-nazis, KKK, etc., are the rudimentary level of white supremacy. They are actually the manifestation of it. This entire system, from your 4th of July, to your constitution, to your Supreme Court, Presidency, Congress, police agencies, schools, churches, etc., are ALL white supremacist. Arguing that punching one idiot is doing something to address white supremacy, even showing up to stop them from showing up, is about as insane as arguing that killing one mouse eliminates mice and rat infestations on the entire planet.
No one is saying we should let them show up. What we’re saying is that cannot ever be the extent of our work against white supremacy. That should be considered the very minimal work that we do. The real work, the consistent work, the capacity building work, is engaging the problem on a much deeper level than showing up at a rally. We recognize that many of you can probably stop reading here because you have demonstrated clearly that you have no interest in solving the problem, but for those who do want to solve the problem, here are some things to think about. First, we have to get people to join organizations committed to eradicating white supremacy. Organizations are important because they are the vehicle available to us to initiate mass change. Individuals don’t make history, the masses of people do, so organizations are the method in which we can do that. Second, we have to engage work to make our organizations have institutionalized political education processes so that we can clearly understand that the neo-nazi is the basic manifestation of the capitalist/white supremacist/patriarchal/homophobic system e.g. one and the same system with the same objectives. Once this understanding is consolidated, it becomes impossible to see the problem as one idiot neo-nazi. And, once this is clear, it is no longer possible for people to think they are accomplishing anything by punching and/or attacking this person. Third, institute community defense processes within these organizations. This means implementing ongoing and sustainable training on how to strengthen your political education process and how to tie that process to self defense training e.g. hand to hand combat and much more. Then, how to develop a plan to ensure that your organization, individual by individual, has your plan in place, that everyone understands, on how to protect each other. Practice implementing your plan. Understand who will play which role, phone trees, etc. Then, expand your plan to include how to roll out a community defense plan for your communities. Recruit people in the communities to join your organization and become a part of implementing your plan on a mass level.
Don’t you understand that once you are able to put all of these pieces in place, these people will definitely not come to your community because they will understand its not safe for them to do so, but this is still the surface level of work that needs to be done. We have to begin to prepare our organizations in developing and implementing action plans to organize our communities on a block by block basis to build capacity to challenge this very white supremacist, capitalist system. When we have that level of capacity what we are talking about now is mass revolutionary struggle.
After years of politically educating and recruiting countless people into this struggle and battling white supremacists in every form possible, the work I’m describing here is the type of work I want to do now. We recognize that everyone doesn’t have the same level of experience and everyone has to start somewhere, but we also have a responsibility to do everything we can to make sure people start off at the right points. And, just showing up somewhere with no plan, totally at the mercy of police agencies, is not the right point. For me, my primary interest is in building this capacity in African organizations, but as always, I’m eternally open to assist anyone who wishes to engage in this important work. Of course, like most revolutionary organizers within the belly of capitalism, I’m under-utilized. Most people are stuck at that adrenaline stage, dedicated to giving the street racists the attention they desire by baiting you out there each time. That is an ill-refutable truth. The question we should be asking today is how many people are ready to engage in some community self-care by preparing ourselves to be proactive in protecting ourselves. Being proactive in organizing ourselves, instead of just continuing to react to the lowest common denominator of our enemy’s system?
Here are the concrete issues against this adventuristic “punch a Nazi” theme. How many of you have actually studied what happens to these people after you physically attack them on an individual level? I already know most of you, no – the overwhelming majority of you – haven’t studied this at all. If you had, than you would know that your punch them transition rate is extremely low e.g. slim to none. Instead, your efforts at physically attacking them as individuals serves to further deepen their ideas of persecution and alienation, the reasons why that lifestyle attracted them in the first place. Virtually none of them are so frightened by your punch that they renounce their racist views. This would have to mean that your efforts to punch and attack them are designed primarily to make you feel better. Not to do anything to eradicate white supremacy. And, that people is the issue. Too many folks are more concerned with centering their anxiety around one minimal level of white supremacy. Far too few of us are seriously concerned about eradicating the entire white supremacist system.
Since your objective is to have yourselves feel better that means you feel great that this neo-nazi, etc., that you attack goes back, regroups, finds other colleagues, and goes back out to enact revenge for being attacked. They aren’t hunting the Europeans who attacked them, they are looking for brown people, African people, etc., to attack. So, by you engaging in this selfish and ill-responsible behavior of physically attacking these people on an individual level, you actually make conditions more dangerous for us. Not that you care about that. We already know your concerns were addressed once your adrenaline rush was satisfied.
The proper analysis here is that ground level white supremacists e.g. neo-nazis, KKK, etc., are the rudimentary level of white supremacy. They are actually the manifestation of it. This entire system, from your 4th of July, to your constitution, to your Supreme Court, Presidency, Congress, police agencies, schools, churches, etc., are ALL white supremacist. Arguing that punching one idiot is doing something to address white supremacy, even showing up to stop them from showing up, is about as insane as arguing that killing one mouse eliminates mice and rat infestations on the entire planet.
No one is saying we should let them show up. What we’re saying is that cannot ever be the extent of our work against white supremacy. That should be considered the very minimal work that we do. The real work, the consistent work, the capacity building work, is engaging the problem on a much deeper level than showing up at a rally. We recognize that many of you can probably stop reading here because you have demonstrated clearly that you have no interest in solving the problem, but for those who do want to solve the problem, here are some things to think about. First, we have to get people to join organizations committed to eradicating white supremacy. Organizations are important because they are the vehicle available to us to initiate mass change. Individuals don’t make history, the masses of people do, so organizations are the method in which we can do that. Second, we have to engage work to make our organizations have institutionalized political education processes so that we can clearly understand that the neo-nazi is the basic manifestation of the capitalist/white supremacist/patriarchal/homophobic system e.g. one and the same system with the same objectives. Once this understanding is consolidated, it becomes impossible to see the problem as one idiot neo-nazi. And, once this is clear, it is no longer possible for people to think they are accomplishing anything by punching and/or attacking this person. Third, institute community defense processes within these organizations. This means implementing ongoing and sustainable training on how to strengthen your political education process and how to tie that process to self defense training e.g. hand to hand combat and much more. Then, how to develop a plan to ensure that your organization, individual by individual, has your plan in place, that everyone understands, on how to protect each other. Practice implementing your plan. Understand who will play which role, phone trees, etc. Then, expand your plan to include how to roll out a community defense plan for your communities. Recruit people in the communities to join your organization and become a part of implementing your plan on a mass level.
Don’t you understand that once you are able to put all of these pieces in place, these people will definitely not come to your community because they will understand its not safe for them to do so, but this is still the surface level of work that needs to be done. We have to begin to prepare our organizations in developing and implementing action plans to organize our communities on a block by block basis to build capacity to challenge this very white supremacist, capitalist system. When we have that level of capacity what we are talking about now is mass revolutionary struggle.
After years of politically educating and recruiting countless people into this struggle and battling white supremacists in every form possible, the work I’m describing here is the type of work I want to do now. We recognize that everyone doesn’t have the same level of experience and everyone has to start somewhere, but we also have a responsibility to do everything we can to make sure people start off at the right points. And, just showing up somewhere with no plan, totally at the mercy of police agencies, is not the right point. For me, my primary interest is in building this capacity in African organizations, but as always, I’m eternally open to assist anyone who wishes to engage in this important work. Of course, like most revolutionary organizers within the belly of capitalism, I’m under-utilized. Most people are stuck at that adrenaline stage, dedicated to giving the street racists the attention they desire by baiting you out there each time. That is an ill-refutable truth. The question we should be asking today is how many people are ready to engage in some community self-care by preparing ourselves to be proactive in protecting ourselves. Being proactive in organizing ourselves, instead of just continuing to react to the lowest common denominator of our enemy’s system?
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