Even within the two second attention span capacity produced by the capitalist system's mind-numbing propaganda mechanisms, surely - whether you follow professional football or not - you remember Colin Kaepernick. He's the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. And before several months ago, his claim to fame was leading his team within five yards of a Super Bowl victory in 2012 (the power outage Super Bowl after Beyoncé's performance) and then leading the team within five yards of another trip to the Super Bowl in 2013. In 2016, Kaepernick became famous and infamous for his courageous decision to refuse to stand for the singing of the national anthem before every football game. Despite the fact the song and the country it represents are riddled with contradictions around racist suppression and oppression, many people in the sports world, political realm, and even within the African community, took turns taking shots at Kaepernick for his bold stance. Kaepernick continued his protests before every game this season. He was blamed by pundits for the reduction in professional football television viewers. And although he returned to his starting position on the field, and played reasonably well for the most part, his team was a dismal failure so consequently, much of the attention that he garnered in September dried up by the end of the season, despite his consistent stance and the efforts by athletes on other football teams, in professional basketball, and even in college and high school sports to emulate his example.
Still, regardless of the fact many of you (especially those who weren't familiar with Kaepernick before the protests) have moved on, forgetting about him for the most part, its important to bring attention back to him and the efforts he continues to make to raise the question of police terrorism against African people and the need for mass movement to address these injustices.
First, we should commend Colin for his consistency. One of the biggest problems I've seen in this work and the most frustrating thing for me in movement building is the overwhelming number of people who talk, talk, talk, but engage in absolutely zero follow through to make their words a living reality. In fact, I would argue this problem is one of the very biggest we face in challenging our enemies because while they plan how to assault us, and ALWAYS follow through with their plans, we love to take up space engaging in intellectual masturbation while usually doing nothing to actualize our visions. This is why its important to continue to highlight Colin Kaepernick and the work he is doing because that footballer is building. He's putting his money and his energy where his mouth is.
Several months ago he pledged to contribute money towards the communities that are struggling against oppression and since that time he has contributed an estimated $300,000 per month towards causes engaging in organizing work. He's held a number of camps for hundreds of African youth in the Bay Area where he's been connecting them with Black Panther Party leaders and other respected persons from our glorious struggle. This work alone brings tears to the eyes of a seasoned organizer who knows the value of connecting the wisdom filled head of our people to the energy charged bodies of our communities, but Kaepernick isn't finished there. He's donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the water protectors in North Dakota, demonstrating again the unbreakable ties between the African and Indigenous struggles despite the very carefully crafted efforts of imperialism to derail those efforts with vicious and misleading propaganda (of which many of you are so unwittingly willing to perpetuate).
What Kaepernick is doing is planting seeds. Building capacity for increased consciousness around who we are as a people and what we must do to improve our conditions. This is the type of organizing work that is desperately needed among our people. Now, I can already hear the haters and naysayers complaining about his conciliatory comments about the imperialist U.S. military and some of the other reformist elements of his work, but the critiques are simply demonstrating how little they understand about consciousness building and revolutionary work. In other words, despite their efforts to come off as the most revolutionary in the crowd, to the trained eye, they are revealing how little they are actually involved in any day to day organizing work. The true revolutionary organizer understands that it doesn't matter in the least what work is being done because unlike many of the verbal experts, we actually work with our people so we have learned that our people deserve respect. They are qualified to make the right decisions about what needs to be done in our communities. We know that our job is simply to provide that spark and the people will take up the lead and handle everything else. So, we don't spent a single moment telling people what they should do. We just say everyone has to do something. We are focused on getting people involved because we know the majority of our people are not involved in any organizing work. The majority of us are just flapping our yams. So, we realize that once we get more people involved, people's actual experience will dictate to them the course of action they feel we need to take and their work will provide them the basis to engage that work. So, with that solid understanding, we know that Kaepernick's work is solid and that he is making a great contribution. We also know that as he does his work, he is being exposed to more and more of our cultural reality which is the tool shed from which we build our consciousness to strike back against the beast. So, as he becomes exposed more and more to ideas coming from our African culture e.g. wearing shirts honoring the Black Panther Party, Fidel Castro with Malcolm X, etc., those ideas will challenge him and advance him beyond his initial level of understanding about the imperialist military. This is how conscious raising works, but you have to engage in the work to understand that. Kaepernick is doing that, everyday. And, you can too. You don't need to be a millionaire to do it and anyone who tells you that you do is running a scam on you to get your money. We have plenty of scammers fooling our people. We run a wonderful school for African children with a shoe string budget. We are feeding our children intellectually and spiritually while black power pimps are convincing many of you that $500,000 that you contributed them isn't enough to start a school for our youth. You go for that scam because you have no organizing experiences. Kaepernick is gaining his and we await you so that we evolve from talk to action. Something our people sorely need and anxiously await.
Still, regardless of the fact many of you (especially those who weren't familiar with Kaepernick before the protests) have moved on, forgetting about him for the most part, its important to bring attention back to him and the efforts he continues to make to raise the question of police terrorism against African people and the need for mass movement to address these injustices.
First, we should commend Colin for his consistency. One of the biggest problems I've seen in this work and the most frustrating thing for me in movement building is the overwhelming number of people who talk, talk, talk, but engage in absolutely zero follow through to make their words a living reality. In fact, I would argue this problem is one of the very biggest we face in challenging our enemies because while they plan how to assault us, and ALWAYS follow through with their plans, we love to take up space engaging in intellectual masturbation while usually doing nothing to actualize our visions. This is why its important to continue to highlight Colin Kaepernick and the work he is doing because that footballer is building. He's putting his money and his energy where his mouth is.
Several months ago he pledged to contribute money towards the communities that are struggling against oppression and since that time he has contributed an estimated $300,000 per month towards causes engaging in organizing work. He's held a number of camps for hundreds of African youth in the Bay Area where he's been connecting them with Black Panther Party leaders and other respected persons from our glorious struggle. This work alone brings tears to the eyes of a seasoned organizer who knows the value of connecting the wisdom filled head of our people to the energy charged bodies of our communities, but Kaepernick isn't finished there. He's donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the water protectors in North Dakota, demonstrating again the unbreakable ties between the African and Indigenous struggles despite the very carefully crafted efforts of imperialism to derail those efforts with vicious and misleading propaganda (of which many of you are so unwittingly willing to perpetuate).
What Kaepernick is doing is planting seeds. Building capacity for increased consciousness around who we are as a people and what we must do to improve our conditions. This is the type of organizing work that is desperately needed among our people. Now, I can already hear the haters and naysayers complaining about his conciliatory comments about the imperialist U.S. military and some of the other reformist elements of his work, but the critiques are simply demonstrating how little they understand about consciousness building and revolutionary work. In other words, despite their efforts to come off as the most revolutionary in the crowd, to the trained eye, they are revealing how little they are actually involved in any day to day organizing work. The true revolutionary organizer understands that it doesn't matter in the least what work is being done because unlike many of the verbal experts, we actually work with our people so we have learned that our people deserve respect. They are qualified to make the right decisions about what needs to be done in our communities. We know that our job is simply to provide that spark and the people will take up the lead and handle everything else. So, we don't spent a single moment telling people what they should do. We just say everyone has to do something. We are focused on getting people involved because we know the majority of our people are not involved in any organizing work. The majority of us are just flapping our yams. So, we realize that once we get more people involved, people's actual experience will dictate to them the course of action they feel we need to take and their work will provide them the basis to engage that work. So, with that solid understanding, we know that Kaepernick's work is solid and that he is making a great contribution. We also know that as he does his work, he is being exposed to more and more of our cultural reality which is the tool shed from which we build our consciousness to strike back against the beast. So, as he becomes exposed more and more to ideas coming from our African culture e.g. wearing shirts honoring the Black Panther Party, Fidel Castro with Malcolm X, etc., those ideas will challenge him and advance him beyond his initial level of understanding about the imperialist military. This is how conscious raising works, but you have to engage in the work to understand that. Kaepernick is doing that, everyday. And, you can too. You don't need to be a millionaire to do it and anyone who tells you that you do is running a scam on you to get your money. We have plenty of scammers fooling our people. We run a wonderful school for African children with a shoe string budget. We are feeding our children intellectually and spiritually while black power pimps are convincing many of you that $500,000 that you contributed them isn't enough to start a school for our youth. You go for that scam because you have no organizing experiences. Kaepernick is gaining his and we await you so that we evolve from talk to action. Something our people sorely need and anxiously await.
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