Exactly 50 years ago, Kwame Ture - when he was a U.S. civil rights/Black Power activist known as Stokely Carmichael, made a very clear and concise statement on this subject that is well worth repeating today. He said "Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement's work is based on appealing to the moral conscience of the U.S. The problem is the U.S. has no conscience!"
The U.S senatorial race in the state of Alabama that ended last night with the election of Doug Jones as the first Democrat to do so in 25 years is a case in point. There is little disagreement that Jones doesn't win that race were it not for the overwhelming allegations of sexual assault against young women looming over Jones's opponent in that race; Roy Moore. The local shopping mall in Moore's hometown had placed their security personnel on alert whenever Moore entered that mall because of his constant harassment of young women - translation underage - in the mall. Obviously, a mall doesn't enact a policy like that against a known public official for no reason. Yet, you saw Moore run for that office, openly castigating the women who continued to stand by their allegations. He had significant support from people all over the state of Alabama, despite the clear credibility of these allegations against him. Despite his clear and stated hatred of LGBTQI people. Despite his clear embrace of white supremacy and patriarchy. Moore and his supporters easily dismissed any questions challenging their integrity on these questions. Many of them bluntly stating that their commitment to certain reactionary policy decisions outweighs their concern about these allegations against Moore. The man got over a half a million votes and the full support of the Republican party and the president of this country.
If you understand Kwame Ture's statement in 1967, none of the developments in Alabama, or any similar contradictions regarding the U.S. president's own sexual assault allegations, and his, and his supporter's, similar dismissal of these credible charges, should surprise you in the least. Kwame's point with his statement is this country was founded on theft of land and theft of labor. And, this theft was carried out and institutionalized through systemic violence and terror. This is absolutely ill-refutable, yet today, a large percentage of this society acts as if none of that happened that way. For example, there are plenty of people who agree with Moore's sentiment that slavery was not much of a problem in U.S. history.
There is little doubt that truth and justice are completely separated from material reality in this society. As a result, the tactic of using human decency to appeal to people representing power in this society (either those who actually hold power or those who identify with them) is completely ineffective. Its ineffective because this society doesn't care one bit about truth and justice. It only cares about validating its agenda, regardless of how many people are murdered, maimed, terrorized, traumatized, etc.
In fact, if you understand this country's true history, you shouldn't at all be surprised that the current president embraces open neo-nazis or that the previous president bombed the most stable and prosperous country in Africa - Libya - into submission. There's no conscience. There never has been. So, the representatives of this empire will tell you one thing one day and change their position and deny what they said previously without twitching an eyelash. If you believe this can happen simply because the right moral appeal to these people hasn't happened, you are one naive individual, but there is much more to this.
For those who are looking at what happened in Alabama last night as some sort of victory, we recognize the logic that drives you to that conclusion. The fact African people and the large percentage of us who voted, ended up being one of the major factors in determining this race is significant. Not because of the electoral victory of this Jones person. His main (and often repeated) claim to legitimacy as it relates to African people was his prosecution of the racist murderers of four young children in the Birmingham church in 1963. I'm sorry, but Jones gets no credit from me. Those babies were viciously murdered 54 years ago. Jones's role as the U.S. prosecutor who put those murderers in prison 20 years ago is far to little to late. The climate 20 years ago was ripe for the convictions of those vicious thugs. I could have gotten them convicted with no legal training. Meanwhile, they got the chance to live most of their lives in an Alabama that Doug Jones and everyone else knew they existed in, despite everyone also knowing they were responsible for those murders in 1963. So, excuse me if I refuse to get excited about anything coming out of the Democratic or Republican parties. What is worth acknowledging is the power our people, and all dispossessed people, possess if they are mobilized and moved beyond that to organization. The lesson for those of you who just cannot wrest yourselves away from the Democratic party and the U.S. capitalist reformist movement is that you should tap into that desire from dispossessed communities to act in their interests. That desire should be organized so that a movement can be built that ensures that working people from all dispossessed communities have political vehicles to organize themselves to achieve power for their communities. Frederick Douglass told us two hundred years ago that "power concedes nothings without a demand." If you were confronted by brutal aliens you wouldn't rely on moral appeals to save your life. So, why do so many of you continue to rely on those appeals against an empire that has clearly proven to you that your morality is a foreign language to its ears. I'm not saying you must become revolutionary. You are clearly not ready for that. I am saying you should view last night as a call to action to organize for power, even within your reformist work. To ignore this call at this stage in history is the height of laziness and insanity.
The U.S senatorial race in the state of Alabama that ended last night with the election of Doug Jones as the first Democrat to do so in 25 years is a case in point. There is little disagreement that Jones doesn't win that race were it not for the overwhelming allegations of sexual assault against young women looming over Jones's opponent in that race; Roy Moore. The local shopping mall in Moore's hometown had placed their security personnel on alert whenever Moore entered that mall because of his constant harassment of young women - translation underage - in the mall. Obviously, a mall doesn't enact a policy like that against a known public official for no reason. Yet, you saw Moore run for that office, openly castigating the women who continued to stand by their allegations. He had significant support from people all over the state of Alabama, despite the clear credibility of these allegations against him. Despite his clear and stated hatred of LGBTQI people. Despite his clear embrace of white supremacy and patriarchy. Moore and his supporters easily dismissed any questions challenging their integrity on these questions. Many of them bluntly stating that their commitment to certain reactionary policy decisions outweighs their concern about these allegations against Moore. The man got over a half a million votes and the full support of the Republican party and the president of this country.
If you understand Kwame Ture's statement in 1967, none of the developments in Alabama, or any similar contradictions regarding the U.S. president's own sexual assault allegations, and his, and his supporter's, similar dismissal of these credible charges, should surprise you in the least. Kwame's point with his statement is this country was founded on theft of land and theft of labor. And, this theft was carried out and institutionalized through systemic violence and terror. This is absolutely ill-refutable, yet today, a large percentage of this society acts as if none of that happened that way. For example, there are plenty of people who agree with Moore's sentiment that slavery was not much of a problem in U.S. history.
There is little doubt that truth and justice are completely separated from material reality in this society. As a result, the tactic of using human decency to appeal to people representing power in this society (either those who actually hold power or those who identify with them) is completely ineffective. Its ineffective because this society doesn't care one bit about truth and justice. It only cares about validating its agenda, regardless of how many people are murdered, maimed, terrorized, traumatized, etc.
In fact, if you understand this country's true history, you shouldn't at all be surprised that the current president embraces open neo-nazis or that the previous president bombed the most stable and prosperous country in Africa - Libya - into submission. There's no conscience. There never has been. So, the representatives of this empire will tell you one thing one day and change their position and deny what they said previously without twitching an eyelash. If you believe this can happen simply because the right moral appeal to these people hasn't happened, you are one naive individual, but there is much more to this.
For those who are looking at what happened in Alabama last night as some sort of victory, we recognize the logic that drives you to that conclusion. The fact African people and the large percentage of us who voted, ended up being one of the major factors in determining this race is significant. Not because of the electoral victory of this Jones person. His main (and often repeated) claim to legitimacy as it relates to African people was his prosecution of the racist murderers of four young children in the Birmingham church in 1963. I'm sorry, but Jones gets no credit from me. Those babies were viciously murdered 54 years ago. Jones's role as the U.S. prosecutor who put those murderers in prison 20 years ago is far to little to late. The climate 20 years ago was ripe for the convictions of those vicious thugs. I could have gotten them convicted with no legal training. Meanwhile, they got the chance to live most of their lives in an Alabama that Doug Jones and everyone else knew they existed in, despite everyone also knowing they were responsible for those murders in 1963. So, excuse me if I refuse to get excited about anything coming out of the Democratic or Republican parties. What is worth acknowledging is the power our people, and all dispossessed people, possess if they are mobilized and moved beyond that to organization. The lesson for those of you who just cannot wrest yourselves away from the Democratic party and the U.S. capitalist reformist movement is that you should tap into that desire from dispossessed communities to act in their interests. That desire should be organized so that a movement can be built that ensures that working people from all dispossessed communities have political vehicles to organize themselves to achieve power for their communities. Frederick Douglass told us two hundred years ago that "power concedes nothings without a demand." If you were confronted by brutal aliens you wouldn't rely on moral appeals to save your life. So, why do so many of you continue to rely on those appeals against an empire that has clearly proven to you that your morality is a foreign language to its ears. I'm not saying you must become revolutionary. You are clearly not ready for that. I am saying you should view last night as a call to action to organize for power, even within your reformist work. To ignore this call at this stage in history is the height of laziness and insanity.
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