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Kendrick Lamar & African Culture as a Tool for Liberation

2/11/2025

What makes a revolutionary Pan-Africanist perspective much different from the other takes is our focus on the complete and uncompromising liberation of the masses of African (Black) people scattered and suffering all over the world. Along with that, its our unapologetic centering of the continent of Africa under a revolution that brings a unified scientific socialist development in Africa, no matter what language we speak, what faith we practice or don’t practice, and where we were born.

For a large number of Africans in the U.S., Kendrick Lamar’s presentation during the Superbowl was inspirational. Most Africans see it this way because the mass collective struggle of the 1950s/60s has given way to the individualistic and idealistic approach to interpreting our place in the world we exist in today. In other words, most Africans in the U.S. see progress today as being measured based upon our individual abilities to advance within the capitalist system. Since the capitalist system exploits and oppresses the African masses, its obviously controlled by the forces who don’t want Africans to see it as the enemy it is. As a result, we are conditioned 24/7/365 to see our entire existence stemming from the existence of this system so anyone who has the appearance of rising within this society is viewed by many of us as defining success. Or, it can be said that we believe that our success is defined by the degree in which the system that oppresses us permits our accession within it.

Under these dysfunctional circumstances, when Africans in the U.S. participate in highly financed movies, television, sports, music, etc., its seen through these lenses. And, because of capitalism’s vicious exploitation of Africans every day, most Africans enjoy seeing images of themselves appearing to rise above the obstacles that prohibit so many of us from having any opportunities whatsoever.

So, with this context established, we have nothing negative to say about Kendrick Lamar’s presentation. We say that because we believe that the masses of people make history, not individuals. We also believe – as Ahmed Sekou Ture and Amilcar Cabral told us – culture is the tool of the oppressed to achieve their liberation. This means that culture belongs to the people, not individuals and certainly not celebrities who serve as court jesters for capitalism.

People can debate what Kendrick was trying to say or not trying to say all day, but our point here is that as long as the masses of African people are disorganized and disunified, the issue cannot be what these artists are doing or not doing. The issue has to be what the masses of our people are doing or not doing.

In the 1960s, when mass movements for African liberation were common all over the world, the level of consciousness reflected the energies of those movements. As a result, the artists were forced to raise their consciousness in order to be relevant to what people wanted to hear, see, etc. By the 1980s, when this individualistic, idealism became dominant, those same artists shifted gears and made art that reflected that reality. Examples of this in the U.S. is music made by artists like the Isley Brothers and James Brown in the 60s compared to the 80s. In the 60s, at the height of the mass struggle, James Brown was singing “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud!” The Isleys were singing “The Pride, Fight the Power”, and “Harvest to the World.” In the 1980s that same James Brown was singing “Living in America” and the Isleys were giving us “Between the Sheets.”

So, whether you liked Kendrick Lamar or not. Whether you thought what was said was relevant or not. Whatever the individual takes on this are, for those of us genuinely concerned and working for African liberation, the only relevant question is what will art look like when the masses of African people are organized? Until that happens, it can never be about Kendrick the individual or Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg the year before, etc., because without mass consciousness and movements, no matter how great the individual performances are, none of what’s presented sticks. In 2016, Beyonce led a Superbowl presentation that appeared to pay tribute to the Black Panther Party and Malcolm X. Two weeks after that Superbowl, its not as if thousands of people were inspired by her performance to join and/or start organizations that would carry on the work of those African organizations and individuals she represented on stage.

Unfortunately, it’s the same reality today. In another two weeks everyone will have pretty much forgotten whether Kendrick Lamar was making a statement about mass incarceration, against Trump, for reparations, whatever. And slim to none people will be inspired solely by his performance to dedicate their lives to this struggle designed to facilitate our collective forward progress.
The change we are fighting for will not happen through sound bite capitalist culture. And, unfortunately, Lamar is incorrect in saying during his presentation that “the revolution will be televised.” Revolutions are about mass engagement. Television stations set up and facilitated through the capitalist system will never air propaganda that promotes revolution just like the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) will never air a performance that has traction around a truly revolutionary message.

Again, this is no critic of Lamar. Whatever he tried or didn’t try, the onus is on us to get engaged to hold all of these artists accountable to the integrity and culture of the masses of our people. The culture belongs to us collectively. As Ture and Cabral said many times, our culture can never be an individual commodity to be bought and sold to the highest bidder.

Until enough of us understand our collective responsibility to advance our culture, and that the only real way to do that is by advancing our people against this capitalist system that continues to hold us down, all we will ever be left with is individualism. And, individualism has never in the history of human existence solved any collective problems. Next steps? Stop talking about what Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Donald Duck did or didn’t do and start talking about what you are going to do and then do it. If enough of us can see the importance of that collective approach to our liberation fight, the art produced will reflect that and then we really start to see for the first time what true African art and expression is supposed to look like.

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I'm What They Are Calling a DEI Hire

1/30/2025

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I was born and raised in inner city San Francisco, California, U.S. My childhood was dominated by all the trappings of inner-city life. My parents did their best (may each of them rest in power), but they both spent their lives escaping the traumas of growing up in the legal and racial segregation of Louisiana, U.S.

Although they each valued education, neither of them had strong practical experience with it. Their rebellious spirits of dignity pushed them out of Louisiana and into California as teenagers. As a result, finishing high school, which neither of them did in Louisiana, was the best goal they could envision. My mother didn’t complete her general education requirements for high school until I was 12 years old. My dad never did. Yet both of them worked hard their entire lives and encouraged me to push for something better.

By the time I was 16, I had displayed flashes of intellectual potential, but most of that was buried underneath the trauma of growing up in inner city life. The racist and demoralizing experience of being bused into white neighborhoods from the 7th grade on. Having to be prepared to fight for my life after leaving those neighborhoods much later than the other youth from my neighborhood because I played school sports. And, often having to live up to that defense. Including fighting for my life as a 14 year old against three thirty-something white men who called me the n word so much as they beat me that day that I thought that word was a secret part of my name. That incident landed me in the hospital for three days with a permanent injury to my left eye that continues to this day.

Consequently, I rebelled. Not so much against my parents, but because I felt abused, disrespected, alone, alienated, and unprotected. Academics were not the priority and by the time I realized that I didn’t want to end up lost in the streets, I barely had time to correct my path. In fact, I didn’t know I was going to graduate from high school with my class until three days before graduation. I was standing in line with my girlfriend at the time (who was an honor student, yet extremely supportive). The line was to check out of the school. If you had not met the credit requirements, your name would not be on the list. It was the longest line I ever stood in. With my girlfriend offering words of encouragement the entire time we waited, I finally stepped up to the woman at the table, immediately offering excuses for how my name probably wouldn’t be on the list. I was overwhelmingly surprised when it was. I made it, just barely.

Summertime. What to do with my life. I didn’t know if I could succeed in college, but once I grounded out in my one at bat in the semi-pro baseball tryout, I knew my prospect of becoming a professional athlete were slim to none. I also knew I didn’t want to continue to be in San Francisco. I needed a new start. A recreation of my identity. I asked my mom if I could move in with my aunt in Fresno. My parents were concerned about my staying in San Francisco anyway, so my mother talked to her sister, my aunt, and by August of 1979, I was enrolled at Fresno City College as a freshman.

The almost two years I spent at that community college produced a great deal of growth, emotionally and physically. I learned an awful lot about myself. I took economics and political science courses and learned that I liked doing research and writing analysis papers. I started to excel at something other than sports for the first time in my life. When I started at the community college, I took a sheet that provided all of the general education requirements to transfer to the California State University system. I didn’t have the confidence or desire to speak with a counselor. Authority figures had never helped me do anything before. So, I took that paper and kept it with me for each of those four semesters. I chose my classes carefully based upon the requirements on that paper and when it came time to apply I did, to Cal State University, Sacramento. I had matured quite a bit, being quite active in the Pan-African Student Union. My confidence was beginning to grow. I wanted more.

I was offered a tentative acceptance to Cal State Sacramento. I had a grade point average of 3.10, a vast improvement over the 1.75 grade point average I squeaked by with in high school, but the university wanted evidence that the tuition and board costs could be paid. There was partial athletic money and tuition then was only (believe it or not) $122.00 a semester or $244.00 a year, but that, plus living expenses, food, books, etc., was still going to be a challenge for my parents. They had paid my aunt a small monthly amount for me to live with her in Fresno which I know was a sacrifice for them, but we didn’t know anyone in Sacramento so that option didn’t exist here at the time. I had worked in Fresno, sometimes two jobs at once. So, I knew I would continue that in Sacramento, but I also knew all of that combined, plus general financial aid, wasn’t going to be enough.

There were programs in the Cal State system. One was the Equal Opportunity Program (EOP) and another was Student Affirmative Action (SAA). Those programs offered financial assistance. Someone informed me of those programs and suggested I apply. I found the paperwork and filled it out to the best of my ability. I poured everything I had into writing the required essays describing my aspirations and I submitted the applications and waited. There was no plan B if I didn’t get in. Find a full-time job somewhere, but I didn’t know what skills I had which would translate into a consistent income. I had made a lot of progress with growing my confidence, but I still had overwhelming doubts of what I could do. I needed more time. I needed someone to believe in me.

Both EOP and SAA sent me letter packets. I could read the many comments from multiple people on the review committees for both programs in those packets. They indicated that I had demonstrated my ability to perform academically and that all I apparently needed was financial assistance. I couldn’t have agreed more! Plus, I was extremely encouraged and bolstered by those comments. It was the first time in my life that someone had written down positive words about who I am and what I was capable of. Even my parents never had the capacity to do that.

I was granted maximum financial aid by both programs. They each held orientations at Cal State Sacramento. I will never forget driving into the city, anxious, yet excited, for the first time. After that, they had consistent check ins which were extremely beneficial for me. I never missed an appointment. They were encouraging and uplifting. I had never experienced anything like that from anything institutional, but I also knew these programs weren’t the standard institutional bureaucracies that are a prominent aspect of this capitalist system.

Of course there were challenges, but I thrived as a student activist in the university’s Pan-African Student Union and as a student. I graduated with a strong grade point average. And, after joining the permanent Pan-African political organization that I continue to work tirelessly for today, and raising my daughter, I went back to school in the 90s to achieve my masters in Economics/Political Science. Graduate school, parenting, working full-time, activism. These elements defined for me who I was and who I would continue to be.

The point of all of this is when I look at my life today, I have written and published five books. Working on my 6th presently. I have been an invited workshop presenter all over this country and in other countries in Africa, Europe, Canada, etc. I am an organizer for justice who is widely sought after for advice and guidance. I am a statewide leader for the labor union I have been employed with for over a decade. I am paid handsomely for my expertise at work and otherwise. I am consistently humbled by the number of aspiring youth activists from all nationalities who treat me like I’m some sort of celebrity (which I do my best to deflect).

The bottom line is without those programs, I probably wouldn’t have been able to go to college. And, without that I don’t see how my ability to grow my skills and confidence, to join my organization, which I did in college, would have happened the way that it did. If people respond to that by saying I could have found a way to get in college wthout those programs, you don’t know what you’re talking about. If someone has never driven a vehicle, even if you hand them car keys and point them in the right direction, its most likely still going to be next to impossible for them to navigate that vehicle safely to that destination. Nothing in my childhood prepared me to properly navigate college and the work world, but those programs and my activism prepared me not only for work, but to become the man and human being that I am proud to be today.

So, get out of my face trying to tell me that somebody gave me something because I got financial aid i.e. grants. There’s no way in hell that I would be earning the money I earn today, paying the taxes I pay, without those programs. Whatever financial aid I got, I had paid that back in the 80s. I’ve paid it back 10 times over in taxes. And, the most valuable contribution I’ve made isn’t just money towards taxes. Its the energy I’ve put into people. Energies that I needed when I was young. That’s the contribution I’m most proud of. This would almost certainly not be my reality without those programs. Nobody gave me a damn thing. What those wonderful people did in 1981 is decide to invest in the potential of an inner-city kid and their wise choice has paid off in dividends.

This piece isn’t a pitch for people to support DEI. This country was built on racism, patriarchy, class exploitation, etc. and those things continues to fuel its existence. I don’t see my education, activism, and experience as resources to do anything to further empower this backward society. I do see those things as a vehicle to encourage all peace and justice loving people to believe in our abilities to create the world that we and our future generations deserve. So, if you take anything from this, its that you shouldn’t see your future as one needing validation from any element of this capitalist system. We can fight for the types of programs that helped me as we should, we deserve that and so much more, but the larger picture is those programs came out of our struggle against injustice so don’t let people who know nothing of that struggle define its value. We need to rekindle that spirit of dignity that produced those programs. That’s how we got them and that’s how we can and will get something far more valuable for our future.

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How is Pan-Africanism Correctly Defined in 2025 and Beyond?

1/23/2025

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Since its initial organizational expression in 1900, the phrase Pan-Africanism has been expressed in many different forms. For some, its current meaning is defined as unity between all people of African descent across the world. For others, Pan-Africanism is an ideology defined by nebulous elements of the type of unity previously described. For still many others, Pan-Africanism is represented by social media famous individuals who claim Pan-Africanism as a set of beliefs without any clear defining criteria.

For those of who identify Pan-Africanism not as an ideology, but as an objective, we define Pan-Africanism as the total liberation and unification of Africa under a continental wide scientific socialist government. This is the framework for revolutionary Pan-Africanists who endorse the concepts of Pan-Africanism laid out by the ideas of Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Ture, Amilcar Cabral, and others.

The reasons we humbly, yet firmly, advance one unified socialist Africa as really the only serious definition of Pan-Africanism are connected to dialectical and historical materialism. By dialectical and historical materialism we mean the historical components that define matter and the conflictual elements that transform that matter. In other words, the history of a thing and the forces that have come to shape that thing’s characteristics over time.

For example, for African people (“All people of African descent are African and belong to the African nation” – Kwame Nkrumah – “Class Struggle in Africa), the reason we live on three continents and the Caribbean in large numbers in 2025 is not the result of higher desire on our part to see the world. Its not because God placed people who look like us in every corner of the planet. The only reason is because colonialism and slavery exploited Africa’s human and material resources to build up the wealth of the Western capitalist world. As a result of this ill-refutable reality, it makes zero sense in 2025 for African people to imitate the logic of other people in defining ourselves based solely upon where we are born. This approach is illogical because African people were kidnapped from Africa and spread across the world. Even the Africans who left Africa on their own to live in the Western industrialized countries, did so only because colonialism made the resources they seek unavailable in Africa. Consequently, an African in Brazil can and does have biological relatives in the Dominican Republic, Canada, Portugal, the U.S., etc. These people will most likely never meet and even if they came across each other, they probably could not communicate due to language barriers, but none of this changes the cold stark reality that they could easily be related. So, it makes no sense for Africans to accept colonial borders to define ourselves i.e. “I’m Jamaican and have no connection to Black people in the U.S., etc.”

Secondly, and more important, wherever African people are in 2025, we are at the bottom of that society. The reasons for this are not that there is something wrong with African people. That we don’t work hard enough and don’t have ambition. Anyone who has arisen at 5am on any day in Africa knows those conceptions of African people are bogus. Any bus depot at that time of morning shows thousands of people up, hustling, struggling to begin the day trying to earn resources for their families. The real reason we are on the bottom everywhere is because the capitalist system was built on exploiting our human and material resources. As a result, capitalism today cannot function without that exploitation. In other words, in order for DeBeers Diamonds to remain the largest diamond producer on earth, African people in Zimbabwe, the Congo, Azania (South Africa), etc., must continue to be viciously exploited to produce the diamonds. Its this system that has made the zionist state of Israel one of the world’s main diamond polishing economies despite the fact diamond mines don’t exist in occupied Palestine (Israel). Apple, Motorola, Samsung, Hershey, Godiva, Nestle, etc., all rely on similar exploitative systems that steal African resources and labor to continue to produce riches for those multi-national corporations while the masses of African people die young from black lung, mining these resources, often by hand.

Meanwhile, since the wealth of capitalism is dependent upon this system of exploitation to continue uninterrupted, the mechanisms of the capitalist system have to ensure that African people are prohibited from waking up to this reality. Thus, the maintenance of systems of oppression to keep the foot of the system firmly placed on the necks of African people everywhere. Whether its police, social services, etc., this is true.

All of this misery that African people experience results from Africa being exploited. That’s where the problem began so logic dictates that this is where the problem has to be resolved. In other words, we cannot acknowledge that the problem started in Africa, but can be resolved just in the U.S., etc. The solution must also be centered on Africa.

All of the above explains why one unified socialist Africa has to be the only real definition for Pan-Africanism. This is true because capitalism is the reason Africa and African people are exploited everywhere today so it cannot be the solution to our suffering. Instead, the vast resources of Africa must be organized into a planned economy which takes all the massive resources, the 600 million hectares of arable land, and the billions of African people everywhere, and organizes these components into ways to eradicate poverty and disease. Ways to educate all who need education to increase the skills to solve these problems. And, in accomplishing all of this, our pride as African people based upon our abilities to govern our own lives, coupled with the necessity for others to respect us for the same, eliminates the constant disrespect – internal and external – which defines African existence today.

This Pan-Africanist reality will eliminate the scores of African people who are ashamed of their African identity overnight. Now, what we will see is those same people clamoring to instantly become a part of the blossoming African nation.

And, this revolutionary Pan-Africanism cannot be mistaken in 2025 as a pipe dream or simply the hopes of Africans everywhere. Building capacity for this reality is the actual on the ground work that many genuinely revolutionary Pan-Africanist organizations are engaging in on a daily basis. The work to forge that collective unity based upon the principles cited by people like Nkrumah, Ture, Cabral, Sankara, Sobukwe, Lumumba, Garvey, Amy/Amy Garvey, Carmen Peirera, etc. Principles of humanism, collectivism, and egalitarianism. The Revolutionary African Personality articulated by Nkrumah. The understanding of how to build political party structures as documented by Ture. The understanding of the role of culture if guiding our actions as expressed by Cabral, etc. Many of these types of cultural and principle approaches to building society have been seen in recent times through the work of the former Libyan Jamihiriya and what’s currently happening in the Sahel region. These efforts will only increase and become even more mass in character.

We challenge a single person to express why revolutionary Pan-Africanism is not what’s needed for African people. Not just as one of many ideas, but as the single objective that would address all of our collective problems. Hearing and seeing no one who can refute that statement, the next step is how we collectively increase African consciousness around the necessity to contribute to on the ground Pan-African work. The first step is getting people to see the importance of getting involved in organized struggle. The second step is ensuring that those organizations have institutionalized, consistent, ideological training as a priority.

To seriously embark upon this work brings no individual recognition. It brings no prestige. It requires a clear focus and a commitment to detail, but what it will produce is an ever increasing capacity that will one day manifest itself in the type of revolutionary Pan-Africanism described here that will fulfill the aspirations of African people everywhere while placing us in the position to contribute to all peace and justice pursuing struggles across the planet earth.

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We Share Some of the Responsibilities for all These Sellouts

1/21/2025

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If you have been paying attention, you could see the ground swell building over the last several decades. During the 1950s and 1960s, Africa embarked on a courageous movement of mass independence that swept the entire continent. Some of those struggles were won legislatively, but several i.e. Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Zimbabwe, Azania (South Africa) required bloodshed to achieve independence. Similar mass movements swept across Europe, the Caribbean, and the U.S., equally non-violent, but also including Malcolm X’s refrain of freedom “by any means necessary!”

After that period of mass struggle, a new phase began to manifest itself. This period brought in the dominance of individualism and idealism. These beliefs, reinforced consistently by the propaganda arms of the international capitalist system, have promoted the fallacious concepts that the collective advancement of the 50s/60s that required freedom has been replaced. Instead, progress is now measured through individual advancement into the capitalist system. In other words, the strong, independent and principled representation of Malcolm and Betty has been replaced by the nonthreatening entertainment represented by the television show “Malcolm and Eddie.”

In this mindset, any methodology focused on individual advancement i.e. “getting paid” is a manifestation and continuation of our struggle to be free. And that individualism is augmented with visions that are firmly entrenched in idealist thought, meaning whatever subjective interpretation of reality that is developed and exists between people’s ears becomes objective and material reality – “your truth is your truth!”

Fast forward to 2025 and what this onslaught of idealism and individualism has brought us is religious leaders all throughout Africa today who openly call themselves prophets, meaning they speak directly to God. As a result, these people are treated like rock stars. In fact, celebrities are generally regarded within African communities everywhere as the mouthpieces for our people. This is true today despite Malcolm X’s clear refutation of this foolishness in an interview he participated in at the UC Berkeley campus in 1964. In that interview, the interviewers criticized him as not representing the African community. Malcolm’s classic response was that only within the African community are “ballplayers, singers, and trumpet players” given the status of leaders of our community. He continued that these people are created by “white society (the capitalist system)” to be our mouthpieces.

Along with all of the above is the proliferation of social media. Now, with no research required and zero organizing experience and work, with simply an internet account and the ability to manipulate social media platforms, every raccoon and fool now has an opinion about our people’s condition which is punctuated by all the form and no essence of a great presentation with no substance. Coupled with so many people’s unwillingness to exercise their brain cells beyond being entertained, these superficial social media analysts are able to enjoy viral status while activists who offer substantive and insightful analysis about the problems of the day work tirelessly to reach handfuls of people.

Where our complicity in all of this comes in is our unwillingness to confront and challenge this liberalism which has permitted these opportunists to thrive under this individualism and idealism. Where is the collective pushback against these so-called “activists” who have effectively reduced the collective interpretation of reparations from a collective movement for independent Pan-African power centered on Africa into an individual pursuit of a check that’s negotiated with the terrorists who are responsible for all of our suffering? Where is the mass rejection of all of these charlatans who openly and ignorantly claim that we are not Africans, openly disrespecting our African ancestors and the Indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere? Where are the people who are challenging these unchecked and overwhelming attacks against African women?

Our inability to organize any type of cohesive responsibility for the Candace Owens and Akito Dangotes of the world have to bear some responsibility for the Snoop Doggs and Nellys. This is true because in being so liberal and doing everything to avoid any conflict, because it does nothing to advance us individually, we have helped create an environment of subjective reality where truth, and even study, is regarded as unnecessary and even elitist. And, this liberalism is the direct result of so many of us prioritizing our individual desires against the interests of the masses of our people. For example, so many of us in the U.S. see the accension of people like Barack Obama as some sort of symbol of advancement for African people. We want to buy into this corrupt individual model so much that we ignore the serious damage and suffering Obama’s presidency reaped upon the entire planet, especially Africa. Some of us are so invested in this idealism and individualism that while we criticize Trump supporters for displaying blind loyalty to him, we cannot even see how what we do with Obama is no different. No critical analysis. No independent thought. No courage required.

Its easy for us to blame people like Dangote for being a billionaire while the masses of people in Africa have nothing. Its equally easy for us to blame Snoop and Nelly for making career moves at the expense of the African masses. What’s not so easy is acknowledging the class contradictions that exist that permit so many of us to refuse to support genuine efforts at dignity and self-determination for our people. The liberalism that permits us to create alternative realities of idealism while we ignore the real work required to uplift the masses of our people. All of this makes all of us equally responsible. So, if you are mad at Snoop, Nelly, or any other sellout today, and you are not involved in organizing work to build capacity for our people to fight back against these ills, then your next move has to be directing your anger at the image staring back at you in the mirror.

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Capitalism and the Myth of Individual Saviors

12/15/2024

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Social media is crowded with drop in your feed videos of luxury houses, apartments, and condominiums for sale or rent in Ghana, Tanzania, and other parts of Africa for alarmingly low asking prices compared to comparable properties in Europe, Canada, the U.S., etc. At the same time, many so-called progressives and revolutionaries are celebrating the murder of the Chief Executive Officer of United Healthcare – one of the largest private health insurance companies in the world – by an alleged lone assassin.

What are the common trends between these two situations? In each case the underlining assumption is that our collective problems as African and exploited/oppressed communities can be solved through individual actions taken within the capitalist system.

In the example of marketing these properties throughout Africa, the strategy is clear. The segment of the world’s population naturally inspired to consider moving to the African continent are the descendants of those Africans kidnapped and transported to the Western Hemisphere. And it is within certain geographies in the West i.e. the U.S. Europe, Canada, Australia, that a considerable percentage of the Africans living in those countries possess access to the financial resources to follow through on that dream to move to the motherland. The contradiction here is that this push to have Africans from the West move to Africa isn’t motivated or centered around any genuine and collective Pan-African struggle to revitalize Africa. Instead, this work is centered around a collection of Africans, most of whom were not born in Africa themselves, who have mimicked the investment models of the capitalist systems. Models that encourage investment rooted in exploitative practices that raise your individual financial portfolio without regard for the impact your actions have on the masses of our people and humanity. The end result of this strategy is the creation of an elite class of primarily Western born petti-bourgeoisie Africans, with some locally born petti-bourgeoisie Africans thrown in, that grows to represent a new type of settler colonialism in Africa. We say settler colonialism because none of these transplanted Africans have any plans or intentions of getting involved in anything designed to collectively uplift Africa. In fact, their best contribution is one of offering low paying exploitative jobs to local people to work on their properties (while their individual financial portfolios continue to grow). An objective continuation of the colonial model that has kept the majority of Africans throughout the continent poor and dependent for centuries. For these individual African investors, Africa is merely a means to an end, just like the capitalists and colonists who are responsible for the condition of Africa and African people today.

Regarding the death of the U.S. healthcare executive, many people on the left within the U.S. are lauding this action as if it represents some triggering consciousness that speaks to the awakening of the masses of people to the need to take up arms against the capitalist class. The cold reality is an individual was most likely distraught about one of millions of examples of mistreatment and disrespect the U.S. money over people healthcare system practices daily. As a result, that individual took an action that will ruin the rest of their life while United Healthcare will hire another Chief Executive Officer who will more than likely be just as bad a human being, if not worse, than the one who was killed.

Unfortunately, the left in the U.S., particularly the white left, has a long history of this type of idealism and fantasy. There is this unfortunate and consistently misguided belief within those communities that individual acts can blossom into mass revolutionary change despite the lack of one single example in history where this has happened. At least, not one successful example.

The best example of change in a society in 2024 and beyond is the Cuban Revolution and this is objectively true. Far from perfect, because no one who knows anything about revolution has ever claimed that revolutions are perfect, the Cubans have demonstrated for everyone who is willing to pay attention how a successful revolution can be carried out. Despite the crippling impacts of the 62 year old U.S. economic blockade against Cuba, that small island nation of 11 million people has managed to develop what even the capitalist supported World Health Organization has called the most accomplished healthcare system on earth. They are the only country to effectively neutralize mother to child HIV infections while also stunting cervical cancer. They have accomplished so much more in the health field while being prevented by the blockade from purchasing pharmaceuticals on the international market. Their education system has been praised by the capitalist supported United Nations as being among the best on earth. They have accomplished this by including curriculum on African and Indigenous histories and LGBTQ communities in their core learning. Their objective behind this approach is without question revolutionary. After this level of mass education for multiple generations and the subsequent dying off of backward ideas, in a few short years, they will be best positioned to have raised the collective level of consciousness in their society while the U.S. is still denying stealing these land from Indigenous people while continuing to attempt to deny the devastating impacts of the transatlantic slave trade on Africa and African people everywhere.

The absolute truth is Africans buying lands in Africa without those efforts being connected to a concrete plan for collective revolutionary Pan-Africanism is nothing more than another capitalist scam to build wealth for a few on the backs of the many. Equally true is that our existence cannot be solved by action movie sequences where the good guy vanquishes the villain. Its only when the masses of people are properly politically educated and organized, like they are attempting to accomplish in the Cuban Revolution, where we will create a qualified population that will reclaim Africa and all of her resources for collective use and advancement. It is also this model that will create an organized force that can topple the collective and exploitative corporate machine in a way where it cannot be replaced instead of just an individual leader of one entity who will be immediately replaced.

The collective approach is always harder, but history has shown us that there are never any shortcuts. Not for collective advancement. The shortcuts like buying land in Ghana or sentimental actions against symbols of state power only serve to make some of us feel better and others of us convince ourselves that we are making a contribution. For people genuinely concerned about collective forward progress this could never be enough.

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Who Are the 100 Million People Who Didn't Vote?

11/17/2024

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Its November, 2024, and another presidential election has just concluded within the U.S. Approximately 81 million people voted successfully for the person representing the Republican Party. Another almost 70 million voted for the Democratic Party candidate. A few million others voted for a variety of options. The 81 million or so Republican voters seem to have proudly and confidently voted for fascist leadership grounded in principles of the most exploitative capitalism known to human history. Such capitalism is of course rooted firmly in principles of white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia, and every form of anti-human ideologies and practices imaginable.

The 70 million who voted for the Democratic Party represent themselves as the option for working class people including European women, colonized communities, LGBTQ communities, etc. The fascist right in the U.S. is making their case quite clear. They are opposed to any efforts to forge towards justice. My grandmother always told me that if a dog barks it’s a dog. Using this unquestionable African logic, its completely insane for us to hear the constant barking, feel the pain from the consistent bites and then continue to try and perceive the dog as anything other than it is.

On the other hand, the 70 million who voted for the Democrats provide a much more difficult challenge for us because these people are by and large people who are close to us i.e. our friends, family, etc. The right wing makes no effort to pretend that we are on the same page while the Democratic Party supporters genuinely see themselves as being on the side of justice. They demonstrate this perspective by their self-righteousness. The Africans supporters of the Democratic Party have drank the kool aid that has been prepared by the corporate elite. That kool aid argues that the primary thing that emerged from the U.S. civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s was the fight for the vote. Of course, this is far from the truth. That movement certainly had voting as one of its objectives, but it also had a focus on reclaiming our African identity (the Black Power movement), changing the racist immigration policies in the U.S. (the 1965 Immigration Reform Act), dismantling racist Jim Crow segregation laws, etc. Despite this unquestionable reality, the capitalist system and its mass propaganda mechanisms have spent the last 30 years pumping out nonstop messaging that our only viable option in life is to participate in U.S. capitalist elections i.e. the Democratic and Republican Party (not even third party consideration). As a result of this propaganda effort, voting in the U.S. for African people has developed into a practice of principle and anyone who refuses to participate in doing it is written off as someone who is ill-responsible, apathetic, and selfish as if that simple minded analysis contains even a shred of logic to it.

Our history in the U.S. is full of rock solid examples of constant struggles for justice that produced very effective results that had absolutely nothing to do with the capitalist electoral process. The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) provided mass consciousness that we are African people tied to the future of Africa and we must develop ways to concretize that understanding. People like W.E.B. DuBois gave us the visionary Pan-African perspective that Marcus Garvey’s UNIA attempted to create in our daily reality 100 years ago. Malcolm X and others built on the UNIA/DuBois model expanding African consciousness and real life Pan-African work that was based on the African continent as it properly should be. The Black Panther Party of course taught an entire new generation that we can effectively stand up against police terrorism. In fact, there would most likely not be any consciousness today about the value of African lives if there had not been a Black Panther Party. It can even easily be said that the thousands of African politicians who currently exist are only the result of the type of independent activism displayed in this paragraph.

So, to restate, what all of those organizational examples have in common is none of them were focused on voting in bourgeoisie capitalist elections. What they actually did is provide models of work that intentionally functioned outside of the capitalist society, instead building independent capacity to challenge the system. Their correct logic being that we cannot ever seriously believe that we can build our liberation using tools sanctioned and provided by the very people who hold us in a position of oppression. Still, despite this ill refutable logic, millions of our people – connected at the hip to the Democratic Party and its strange political agenda – have demonstrated repeatedly that they cannot see any of these historical examples. They are equally blind to the reality of how those activists who actually fought for the vote envisioned voting being used as a tool in our interests. There was never among those brave activists this belief today that voting is our only option. Those activists from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, etc., engaged in all levels of organizing and mobilization work. As a result, they understood the limitations of voting. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. tied voting to mass movement work. Although he led efforts to push through the 1965 Voting Rights Act, this is the only aspect of his work that is ever highlighted. His efforts to build a poor people’s campaign, although that campaign still exists today, is completely ignored.

Mass organizing beyond just voting is ignored by the capitalist system in framing our history because as long as they keep us convinced that voting (within a system they completely control) is our absolute only option, we will never be any serious threat to concrete social change. And, its this point that brings us to some basic math as it relates to capitalist elections within the U.S. Although the capitalist system has most people in this country believing that the responsible majority votes and the others are the scum of the earth, the truth is much more complex. In other words, the continuous efforts to shame those that don’t vote isn’t lining up with conventional math. By all demographic sources like the 2020 U.S. Census, and operating within predictive models that allow an acceptable social science range of highs and lows, the approximate population living in the U.S. today is 350 million people. Of that number, approximately 100 million are ineligible to vote because they are either too young, convicted of a felony, or in some category of immigrant status, etc. Of the 250 million people remaining, about 150 million of them combined voted. These results would reveal that about 100 million people eligible to vote did not. The significance of this last number is that 100 million represents more people than either the Republicans or Democrats can claim as supporters.

If anything, this revelation demonstrates that neither bourgeoisie capitalist party is appealing to a majority of people. In other words, there was no mandate about anything. And, although the liberal elite from the Democratic Party would like nothing more than to assume that a significant portion of that 100 million belong to their camp. The truth is little to no analysis of this 100 million is ever made in this country. It should be stated clearly that the 100 million isn’t a new phenomenon. Its still never going to be discussed by capitalist media because their job is to convince everyone to buy into their system and that becomes a much more difficult task when more people are deciding to ignore the process than support either bourgeoisie party.
As for the 100 million themselves, who are they? Well, we know what they aren’t. They aren’t millions of apathetic people. Of course we have already pointed out that the lack of participation in the bourgeoisie process can mean many different things. It could mean apathy, but more likely, it means a lack of faith in this process that is consistently shoved down our throats as our only alternative. Our people do not lack agency. People see the misery being inflicted on the world, very disproportionately against our people. They have seen politician after politician make promises with no delivery. It has been 50 years since Dr. King stated publicly that he was afraid that all his anti-segregation/voting rights act work had served the purpose primarily of “integrating our people into a burning building.” Could it be possible that those 100 million people of all nationalities are people who understand Dr. King’s statement?

The truth is a significant number of those 100 million are involved in consistent political work. The type of work that far supersedes just becoming political one day every few years. The type of work that builds upon the contributions of past organizations and individuals who shunned the capitalist political process. Along with that, the vast majority of that 100 million are folks who may not be yet engaged, but if we say – correctly – that a lack of activity to engage against injustice is an objective vote for injustice, its equally logical to say that the refusal to participate and support the capitalist electoral process is itself a vote against the validity of that system.

On this last point the 100 million are certainly on to something because whatever reason they choose not to participate, they have successfully severed the hold of the capitalist system over their agency. The one criticism that must be waged against those within that number who are not engaged in consistent independent organizing work is that not participating in the enemy’s system is never enough. Its essential that those within that 100 million accept their position as shock troops for the emancipation of African and all opposed people’s from slave plantation electoral politics within the capitalist system.

There is no middle ground. Just seeing the contradictions with the capitalist system will never be good enough. Once you see and understand that both the Republicans and the Democrats are both different ends of the same stick, you then have the unending responsibility to lend your talents to helping more and more people understand the importance of all of us creating our own independent stick which will effectively wield power for the masses of people on earth who are tired of being extorted into compromising their entire future just to appeal to the whims of a liberal population which refuses to entertain the prospect that they are being pimped. That sometimes, not permitting yourself to be used and manipulated is indeed better than continuing to believe in fantasies that cover up continued and serious damage being inflicted against all peace and justice loving people by a political party process that represents – as Malcolm X told us – two different versions of the canine family.

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We Ask & Expect Nothing From this Capitalist System/Supporters

11/13/2024

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There is a ton of chest thumping going in the right wing world in the U.S. today. Plenty of people are making it known that they thrust a middle finger towards any attempts by African people to push back against the oppression we’ve experienced in this Hemisphere for 532 years.

Let’s start by contextualizing the European, African and other supporters of this capitalist system (they are simply supporters as being a capitalist requires one to have capital to which 99.9% of these people have none) all into a couple of categories. First, there are the folks who are just confused by the never ending barrage of capitalist propaganda. For those people we continue to work to bring about consciousness. The other category is for people who enthusiastically support the capitalist/colonial empire and will never listen to a single word being said that doesn’t agree with them.

For that latter category of sub-humans we have a simple message for those concerned about them. We think about them just about as much as they think about us. In other words, we couldn’t care less about how they feel about our ideological and practical positions about this backward system. We aren’t listening to them when they tell us to “go back” because their capitalist system has built and maintained its wealth by stealing everything from Africa (all of its human and material resources). We are here to continue to do work to wake our people up so that once we as the African masses can collectively understand that we are being systemically robbed, we can effectively organize to get our resources firmly under our control. When that revolutionary Pan-Africanist reality takes hold, there won’t be an empire for those people to pretend to own. And in that world, these lands return to the Indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere that their rachet European ancestors stole every inch of these territories from (Alaska down to Chile). We don’t care about them and what they think so the best thing they can do for themselves is get that kayak or canoe ready so that they can paddle their way back to Europe.

We are not moved by their efforts to destroy African history and we will never be derailed into thinking that their attacks against women, other colonized people, and LGBTQ folks are not tentacles of the same attacks being waged against us. We understand class struggle. We realize that there are a number of confused Africans – from Waka Flocka to Ye (Kanye West) to whoever the hell you want to name – who are going to do their bidding. Any African with a conscious mind has written off those clowns long ago. In fact any conscious African would never look towards any celebrity for any analysis about the capitalist system. Malcolm X told us 60 years ago that the role of these people is to perform as jesters for the capitalist system in exchange for money. Anyone trusting their analysis on anything having to do with our people should seek psychiatric treatment immediately.

We are not interested in any of the confused Africans who instantly jump up to declare they are not Africans. We have understood for decades that that these people couldn’t tell you anything comprehensive about African history, culture, and politics if you put a gun to their head. Actually, most of these people couldn’t even point out a specific African country on a map if their lives depended upon it. As a matter of fact, we should just be completely real here. These people know they haven’t read anything since they were forced to do so in one of these colonialist schools so don’t think you can fool us today. All we have to do is bring one of our African history books to you and ask you to read it out loud and, well we already know the tragic result that would come from that experiment.

We are not the least bit intimidated by Europeans who would use these times to act out their long dormant terrorist white supremacist fantasies. The best advice we have for them make sure they pick on the right one because enacting their pathetic efforts against a proud and conscious African will result in a very bad day for them.

As Arrested Development sang in the song “Ease My Mind”, “To resist this wack society. I ain’t accepting it, I keep my focus, I ain’t accepting it!” They can continue to throw their capitalist institutions at us and they won’t make a dent. Their Veterans Day is useless to us because we know the sole purpose of the U.S. military is to enforce terror on the planet earth to ensure capitalist interests are protected. They don’t respect the people they send into battle which is why so many of them commit suicide, domestic abuse, etc. They use them up fighting their criminal and worthless battles then leave them out on the battlefield of life. We are only sorry that so many of them continue to be committed to symbolism. Unfortunately for the system, we understand why. They have given their life’s energies to this backward system and have nothing to show for it so they create this mythical image that they have performed honorable service to humanity mostly just so they can live with it. Most sad indeed.

We reject their thankstakings, their fourth of the lie, and all of their justifications for colonialism and terrorism. No matter how many books they remove from the schools, we are training our children all over the world to see this system as it is – an enemy of humanity.

Finally, we will continue to struggle resolutely against their zionist oppression against Palestinians, their settler colonialism against the Indigenous people’s of the Western Hemisphere and within Africa. We will continue to struggle against their neo-colonialism in Africa and their police terrorism around the world. We are not intimidated or afraid one bit by the works they are carrying out against us. We know who they are so we would be confused if they didn’t continue to work against our efforts to bring about justice. The few of us who are afraid are only that way because they don’t yet know what we know, but many of them will and the system knows that. This is why it works so hard to control the narrative. They are a cesspool of contradiction. They criticize Kaepernick for eight years because (according to their warped thinking) “the job isn’t the place to be political, but they praise Bosa for wearing a MAGA hat on the field. They praise police and vigilantes who shoot us down, but when we shoot back and take a terrorist down, there’s silence from them. They criminalize immigrants while still expecting the fruits and vegetables to be reasonably priced when none of them would ever consider doing the work immigrants do. Don’t get us wrong. We are not complaining about this capitalist system and its supporters because again, they are who we thought they are. We are just pointing out these contradictions for those who still need to see and understand them. And, that leads to the most important portion of this piece. If you are a defender of capitalism, this really isn’t even for you. We just tricked you into reading this. This piece is for the coming generations who will be doing the work to bring about a better world that we wouldn’t even waste time attempting to explain to someone who thinks like you do.

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Ideas for Preventing Counter Intelligence Against Movements

11/12/2024

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The domestic and international intelligence agencies from the capitalist/imperialist countries – from the FBI/CIA to the Israeli Mossad – are well known for their terrorist tactics against freedom fighters over the previous several decades. Common techniques like badjacketing – where honest organizer/activists are labeled by intelligence agencies as corrupt, dishonest and/or police informants. This particular tactic has worked extremely well resulting in internal (surrogates of the state) murders against trusted activists like the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, Maurice Mpolo, and Thomas Okoto, or the American Indian Movement’s Anna Mae Pictoh Aquash, or the Black Panther Party’s Alex Rackley.

In 2024 and beyond, these same tactics will continue to be utilized against us, but look for more digitally based tactics. The digital world is a much more desirable arena for intelligence agencies to exert their terrorism because they can do so behind the cloak of the internet, being thousands of miles away from their intended targets. Since plausible deniability has been a go to response by these terrorist agencies forever, the digital approach offers them ample opportunities and space to sabotage our efforts to build effective social movements.

Their pathway to internet based terrorist tactics is of course aided by the fact there are many newer activists on the scene who have little to no guidance and direction. Take the outpouring of support for the Palestinian people for example. This is excellent conscious raising and action oriented work designed to help people see the immorality of how the zionist movement oppresses the Palestinian people while zionism continues to use the religion of Judaism as shield for their criminal program. More people are aware of these contradictions today than ever before, but at the same time, most of the seasoned voices who first articulated this problem (while providing strong analysis to define the problem) are quiet now. For example, much of the anti-zionist fervor within the U.S. today can be directly credited to the work of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s, but the architects of their anti-zionism – Ethel Minor, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) etc., have all made their physical transitions so these younger organizers are left to their own devices. And those devices often include a ton of energy and passion surrounded by inexperience and a lack of knowledge. These are fertile ingredients for imperialist intelligence agencies to take root and there are plenty of signs that this is happening. With many of these newer activists having little to no hesitation expressing everything online from their distrust and dislike of activists to their wildly underdeveloped and flat-out wrong analysis about social issues, intelligence agencies are using this lack of discipline and inexperience to discover the weak spots within movements. With that knowledge they can then use informants to prick those weaknesses causing schisms to develop that often have the potential to rip a lot of effective work too pieces. And, the most insidious element to all of this is all of that sabotage can happen without anyone being targeted by this devious work having the slightest clue where the sabotage is originating from.

With the capitalist world in a continued state of perpetual decline we are observing all of these capitalist states moving farther and farther to the right. This strategy from them is designed to consolidate control over resources for the capitalist multi-national corporate world by squeezing any possible opportunities for working people to achieve justice out of existence. Consequently, the need for mass movement is more relevant today than ever and we will continue to see these movements develop with clear anti-oppression foundations. What will be necessary within this work is for activists and organizers to consider new ideas for how to effectively engage the work in ways that are inclusive because mass strength is our only true defense. As Kwame Ture often said “only the masses of people make history, not individuals!” So to build this strength we will have to commit to:

Building mass movements/organizations. This is a hard pill to swallow, especially for the white left which has a history of elitist organizing approaches which feed directly into this false narrative that people cannot be trusted. Imagine attempting to build a mass movement while believing that you are the only person who can be trusted? This model clearly does not work and African and other colonized people who operate within this sphere would do well to Return to the Source as Amilcar Cabral advised us. Begin to build collective organizing circles where revolutionary consciousness and development is heightened and individualistic based perceptions of people are de-emphasized.
Number one happens by building structures within our organizing circles designed to strengthen our commitment to the work. This includes regular and consistent political education processes that are collective and designed to build collective consciousness and cadre leadership, not individual decision makers.
Instituting strong criticism/self criticism processes that are designed to build and strengthen our abilities to hold ourselves and each other accountable to our vision and our work thus decentralizing bourgeoisie idealism which is so prevalent today while emphasizing collective consciousness and work.

The simple focus on these principles in our work will do wonders to strengthen us, making it much more difficult for us to be manipulated by imperialist intelligence work. For one, we will develop ideological analysis and discipline which will prevent us from reacting emotionally when things don’t go the way we believe that they should. In fact, even the concept of believing things should go as we believe they should at the rate we want them to is elitism which a strong ideological struggle foundation (political education) helps us eliminate.

Once we begin to build this capacity, we develop much more steeled and skilled organizers/activists/ People who cannot be derailed just by a random person no one really knows coming into our circles generating acts of confusion and sabotage. In circles developing and practicing the revolutionary principles laid out here, the rise in collective consciousness will make it much more difficult for one or two persons acting to disrupt the work to sway everyone. We have seen many organizational models where this has proven to work. The work/study process of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) being one. Much of the ideological training being developed within the A-APRP comes from the work of our older and more experienced sibling parties in Africa like the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau (PAIGC) or the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG). On a consistent basis since imperialism and neo-colonialism acted in the summer of 2023 to illegally refuse to seat the democratically elected president and National Assembly of the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau, we are seeing the police and military engage in continuous harassment and sabotage against the PAIGC, but we are also seeing the PAIGC demonstrate its ideological commitment to its revolutionary path by its militants refusing to be intimidated and thrown off their mission. Imagine consistent police raids against U.S. activists to the same magnitude. It would probably only need to happen once to completely dismantle any potential for positive work. What’s the difference? The ideological commitment to all of the principles identified here within PAIGC structures like the General Union of Guinea-Bissau Women
(UDEMU), Amilcar Cabral African Youth (JAAC), the A-APRP workstudy circles there, etc.

True progress is never easy. In truth, nothing in life worthwhile is easy, but for those serious about change, this approach is absolutely necessary if we intend to continue to build capacity to fight empire while keeping ourselves as safe as we possibly can. You can always find out more detailed analysis of this approach in my 2021 book – “A Guide for Organizing Defense against White Supremacist, Patriarchal, and Fascist Violence.”

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We Ain't Afraid or Concerned about Their MAGA Machine

11/6/2024

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Today in the U.S. after the latest national election, my phone has seen a flurry of activity. People are reaching out asking “what are we going to do?” regarding Donald Trump’s second election victory as president of the U.S. in the last eight years. The fact people are reaching out is exciting. The reason for the excitement is unlike most of these people, my political activism isn’t limited to just voting in these capitalist elections every two and four years. My activism exists on a daily basis. The planning and executing events, traveling, speaking, organizing, risking harm to build capacity, writing about our conditions, and mentoring countless young people on how we organize to build our revolutionary Pan-Africanism movement. The people reaching out to me know all of this. They also know that I’ve been doing this work for decades. These people are working class people with families. People who are African, Indigenous to the Western Hemisphere, European, all types of people. What they all have in common is I’ve never felt that many of them held much value in my politics since my engagements with them have been overwhelmingly about their fears, concerns, and actions over the years with little to no engagement around the solutions we offer.

Yet, this morning, here they are. A lot of people would view this as insulting. You pour your soul into working for humanity and most people around you couldn’t appear to care less. Never do they ask you about your work or show any interest in it. Even the people closest to you. Despite this reality, any revolutionary organizer would relish these moments. The reason why is the question we always search for in our work is that one I have been getting all day – “what do we do?”
We certainly welcome the opportunity to offer our insights into this question. When all is said and done, approximately 80 million people will have voted for the Trump ticket. That’s about 22% of the 350 million people who inhabit this country. There are a few important takeaways here.

First, our revolutionary organizing and demographic work informs us that of the 350 million people, approximately 100 millions are ineligible to vote i.e. to young, convicted of felonies, immigrants, etc. Of the 250 million left, approximately 150 million of them participate in the voting process in national elections. What this tells us is particularly as it relates to people with higher incomes, or the perception of higher incomes, and with primarily European communities, and/or those who desire to relate to the European capitalist paradigm in this country, the overwhelming majority of those people have made it crystal clear. They agree with a rightwing fascist agenda that is anti-African, anti-Indigenous, anti-women, anti-LGBTQ, anti-humanity, while being pro-capitalist and big business. These people represent over 50% of those who voted in this country. This isn’t just the sentiments of one man. Its much more than that. This is what this country wants. These are ill refutable facts and as African and other oppressed peoples, its our responsibility in 2024 and beyond to accept this cold hard reality. What that means is its far past time for us to continue pretending that this is a country where we have a place. From our perspective, its incredible how a single person with any sense of dignity would even desire a place in such a backward country, but for those who do, you at least owe it to yourselves and your communities to approach this question from a position of the dignity just mentioned. That means you have to stop begging these people to fit into a society where you don’t fit. Stop playing exclusively by their rules because those rules were never configured with you in mind. Instead, if you continue to insist upon participating in this electoral process then start coming into it with intentions to advance the masses of our people, not just a few individuals. Get serious about building a movement to hold this corrupt system accountable to our interests. A movement that is mass in character and committed to tearing this system down to the ground when they mess with us.

If people are not serious enough about our future to build such a movement than at best, you are only upset because what’s happening makes you personally uncomfortable and if this is who you are, you should continue to be uncomfortable. Extremely so because why should our enemies take you seriously if you don’t have enough regard for us to ensure we are fighting for the legacy that so many of our ancestors lost everything to provide for us.

The other significant factor we need to be cognizant of is the 100 million people who don’t vote. They are not voting because they are apathetic. This is a pathetic and elitist analysis that originates from the capitalist system itself. What a large percentage of these people are telling us from their refusal to participate is that despite all the capitalist propaganda efforts to shame them for not voting, they are taking the courageous position that they don’t want to have to choose between the violent rapist and the rapist who talks nice to you while they rape you. Both are rapists. Both are terrorists. Or, as Malcolm X
told us “both are canines.”

For us, these 100 million represent the potential converts in the population. People who w/could be open to revolutionary messaging. Africans within this number who would be open to joining the African revolution. Non-Africans who could accept that a revolutionary change is truly the only solution.
What all of this actually means is this country today is the same country it has been for 531 years. A terrorist settler colony bent on protecting its interests at the expense of all of humanity. There are no more excuses. No more lame justifications. If you are committed to reform than you have to accept that a mass movement dedicated to disrupting this system on all levels is an absolute necessity. If you are ready for something else beyond that, then there is plenty of work needing to be done to build the revolutionary consciousness and capacity necessary to bring empire to its knees. Anything else is simply voting for our continued demise. We are so much better than that. Its time for us to stop moping and prove it.

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A Simple Vision for Understanding Bank Failures

3/19/2023

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According to a February 2023 Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation (FDIC) audit, 563 U.S. banks have failed and/or come under regulatory authority since 2021. Here in California, U.S., the latest casualty has been the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). This latest rash of bank failures, especially within the software start up SVB, have alarmed apologists for capitalism all over the world. With this piece, we are hopeful we can bring some fundamental understanding of what’s happening for everyday working people.

First, it should be explained that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is an institution of the U.S. federal government. Its reason for existing is to provide some level of guarantees against bank failure. They do this by regulating banks, auditing them, and insuring bank deposits for up to $250,000 USD (aggregate deposits per institution). What this means – for example is if you have $275,000.00 in liquid asset deposits in any U.S. bank, if that bank fails and/or comes under FDIC jurisdiction, your deposits for up to $250,000.00 are insured by the federal government, meaning the government should issue you a check for that amount. The remaining $25.000.00 in deposits that you had in the failed bank makes you now a creditor for that bank, meaning they owe you that money just as you owe your credit card companies, car finance institutions, etc.

Of course, like any creditor/borrower relationship, your ability to get repayment has no guarantee. The bank can come under bankruptcy protection, etc., which means you would lose all or most of that $25,000.00 using that hypothetical example, but that is a fundamental definition of the role of the FDIC. Its worth noting that credit unions are governed by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), which serves the same general purpose for credit unions that the FDIC serves for banks, including insuring deposits for up to an aggregate $250.000.00 per customer/member per institution.

Its important to also note that the FDIC was formed in 1933 as a result of the Banking Act legislation. This happened four years after the great stock market crash of 1929 which means the FDIC was created as a vehicle to encourage renewed trust in the U.S. banking system. Its that question of trust that provides the basis for creating a simple way of analyzing and understanding what is happening with banks within the capitalist system and how to interpret these bank failures.

When we look at the operational functionality of the banking system, we have to start with its origins. Contrary to popular opinion, the international banking system, and the concept of capital as the foundation of that system, did not start from the creative and intellectual genius of the fathers of the capitalist system. Instead, the start up capital for the international banking system came directly from proceeds produced from the enslavement of kidnapped Africans. The labor of their work was converted to revenues that were invested to initiate the banking system and the capital it would rely on to facilitate its existence. Every large international bank today from Chase to Barclays owes its origins to this nefarious beginning. If we understand and accept this ill-refutable history, it should be easy to understand that the capitalist banking system, from its beginning, has been about exploitation and its that reality that paves the way for greater understanding of what’s happening today.

Banks operate by taking your deposits, no matter how large or small, and investing those deposits to generate capital. The more money you have to deposit, the greater incentives the banks provide you for doing so i.e. no fees, more services, slightly higher dividends (returns on your deposits), etc. Regardless, whether you have $250,000.00 deposited in a bank, or $25.00, the process works the same. Your money is used by the bank to invest in any number of financial projects designed to provide a positive return for the bank on your deposit. For the overwhelming majority of us, this is done with little to no return for you. In other words, if you have a job where your paycheck is direct deposited into your bank account every two weeks – say $2500.00 twice per month. And, from each check you have $300.00 automatically transferred into your savings account, that means you are saving $600.00 USD per month. You will receive next to nothing for that money sitting and growing in that bank, but the bank will use your deposits and invest them in any number of profit generating projects – primarily exploitative projects around the world because those types of investments are the best suited to produce the highest return on the dollar. Think exploitative companies that steal resources from Africa for example. Companies like Dutch Royal Shell, or Shell Oil, rob Nigeria’s Niger Delta blind drilling for oil. There is no over-sight and the workers are paid peanuts. As a result, Shell’s profits continue to break records. Well, a bank will invest in Shell’s stocks and profit from Shell’s theft of resources from Nigeria. So, as Shell’s profits grow, the bank’s profits grow. And, by profits we mean capital i.e. money the bank earns that serves the sole and specific purpose of being reinvested for additional profits.

That’s why when the capitalist commentators talk about most U.S. banks being “well capitalized” they are primarily telling the truth. These banks have millions of dollars – dollars they made investing your deposits – sitting around ready for them to invest to make even greater profits. Meanwhile, you get slim to nothing from them using your money and you will even be penalized if you come upon rough times and cannot maintain the minimum requirements they demand to keep your account(s) going. They have to make those demands of you because if your money isn’t available to them, they have nothing to invest and profit off of it. If you think about it, the banking model is basically the same as someone coming to you, taking your paycheck when you cash it, using your money to make additional money from it, and just returning to you what they took from you in the first place. And, if they are unable to get a return on your paycheck, they are usually supported by the government in their financial challenges while you are left to figure out how to proceed on your own with no help or support.

That’ still not even the full story. Besides the example of investing in the exploitative practices of Shell and other criminal multi-national exploitative capitalist corporations, the banks invest heavily into shady and high risk ventures like securities from the secondary market. These type of investments are often bundled high risk mortgage loans – meaning loans provided to buyers who’s repayment potential is questionable, but who agreed to repayment terms at much higher, and profitable, interest rates. These types of unscrupulous business practices by banks have resulted in devastating consequences such as the 2008 mortgage crash in the U.S. where everyday consumers were left houseless while the banks were bailed out by the 2009 multi-billion dollar gangster deal – compliments of the Obama Administration – the most lucrative welfare scheme in human history.

As it relates to banks like the Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, California, U.S., the same principles apply. This bank was the home for software start up companies who invested incredible sums of money in highly questionable ventures for most its 40 year existence. As has been alluded to, this has always been the program of capitalist banks, but in recent years we are seeing the limitations of this strategy much easier because the decline of capitalism i.e. its inability to meet production demands and produce on a consistent basis (due to contradictions with labor, resistance to this exploitation, global insecurity, higher costs of production, etc.) has created conditions where the once assumed stability of capitalist banks is now more and more in question. This is a reality that will continue to create hardship for millions of people, worldwide, but in the long run, this also has the potential to represent a new day for the masses of humanity where capital no longer controls the narrative everywhere on earth. There are a lot of variables to unpack in order to create that reality, but for now, the best thing all of us can do is engage every effort that we can to educate our communities about the role of banking institutions to profit from our continued exploitation and how the system is set up to support their existence, and failures, while making us the main source of accountability for ourselves and their greedy exploitative practices. This problem, like every other problem we face, cannot be resolved through any level of individual initiative. It cannot be resolved by any other approach to stabilizing the capitalist system. This problem is a reflection of the exploitative basis from which capitalism developed hundreds of years ago and its simply a manifestation that this profit over people model of operation is existing in its final days. This may be a scary thought to many, but at the end of the day, Kwame Ture was 100% correct when he said that “if we don’t struggle for revolution, we suffer so why don’t we organize and take the suffering as a pathway to our liberation and forward progress instead of just continuing to suffer with no end in sight?” Capitalist banks are viewed as vehicles to provide us with houses, cars, loans, etc. What they are in reality is a criminal operation that is 100% supported by the U.S. government which is nothing more than a mouthpiece for international capitalism. The sooner we can do the necessary work to create broader consciousness around this, the sooner we can reclaim the resources that rightfully belong, not to a small and criminal elite, but to the masses of people on earth.

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