I read and digested the comments of large numbers of Face Book friends yesterday and this morning. African friends who live all over the world who participated in the women's march protests which took place yesterday across the U.S., Europe, Africa (although not reported much of course), etc. The themes expressed by these young, not so young, women, men, non gender brown folks were consistent. Everyone is glad and excited that people are apparently waking up some, but there was still this dominant feeling of alienation that was being discussed. The feeling that although people were there among thousands, they felt alone. They felt this way because brown people have centuries of experience to tell us we cannot trust a mobilization of Europeans that appears to be ready to confront injustice. And, the evidence that this mistrust is legitimate is present in the red flags our folks saw yesterday that reminded us that most Europeans are certainly not on the same page that we are. Sane brown folks won't be posing with police, anywhere, but Europeans commonly do because our perspective of the police and this society is very different. Many more of us know that the U.S. and all capitalist countries are empires that have been built and maintained off the backs of our peoples so we know the change we need is much deeper than just who holds an elected office. We know the institutions of this society, like the police, don't represent us. Still, the real contradictions go even farther than that.
As people come together to grapple with how to build capacity to fight back against those who wish to continue to oppress humanity, the forces who push multi-racial organizing as the solution continue to ignore clear historical facts. Don't get me wrong. The concept of all of us working together in one organization is a wonderful concept and it will be great when we can function socially, politically, etc., on that level, but that day is a very long way off for some very scientific reasons. Brown people are powerless in this world today. And, although most Europeans are powerless also, most Europeans don't see themselves as more aligned with our interests than they do with the interests of the capitalist classes, who look like them. Consequently, as long as this class contradiction exists, we can never trust them to represent our interests, especially when history is full of examples of their unwillingness to ally themselves with us over their masters (Europeans voting in mass for trump is just one example of this). And, this is an issue all the way from the petti-bourgeois European women who marched yesterday all the way to the socialists and anarchists who see themselves as the vanguard (or something) of the struggle today. They don't speak to our realities. We study and struggle to understand the concepts that Lenin, Marx, Trotsky, etc, articulated and include much of their analysis within our ideological frameworks where it fits. Where it fits! They, on the other hand, know nothing about Nkrumah, Ture, Cabral, Sankara, Fanon, or any of our cultural and ideological figures, unless they are attempting to force them within the Marxist-Leninist framework. As a result, they do not understand how to see the world from our standpoint and they fully expect (whether consciously or unconsciously) us to see the world from their standpoint. European/White socialist and anarchists have been expecting us to join their circles and just rise above or wait for them to advance beyond their racist disposition for centuries. Sorry, we have much better things to do.
The basis of this contradiction I believe is one of respect. Europeans have it and we don't. So, the question is how do we get respect? I do not believe people respect you because its the right thing to do. Think about that bully who terrorized your life. They never stopped doing it because they should stop doing it. If they stopped, it was because you, or someone, did something to force them to stop. I don't think we will ever be respected until the world has no other choice except to respect us and that means us having to do something to force that to happen. Clearly, most of our so-called European allies don't understand this because if they did, they wouldn't react with the level of indifference and/or intimidation that they do when assertive and independent Africans exert ourselves. That has been my experience. Europeans everywhere are always talking about how people need to listen to brown folks and accept our leadership, but what I learned a long time ago is what that really means is listen politely to us (so you can look like you are being humble), but only until the point you disagree. Then, you will do what Europeans have been doing for centuries. Exert your white supremacist option to ignore our assertions while expressing whatever you believe to be superior. I see this everyday because I operate and organize from a Pan-African perspective which means Africa is primary in my work and socialism will not be compromised. As a result, I always enjoy observing so-called European allies, even some of you who claim to be so close to us, wither away whenever we tell you something that's clearly grounded in truth that you don't want to hear.
So, I'm not waiting on Europeans to do anything. I'm organizing African people for revolution. If Europeans want to sincerely do something, demonstrate that willingness by moving towards organizing your people against white supremacy and capitalism. That requires you to do a lot more than just mobilizing for events, no matter how great the events. But, even if you start doing outstanding organizing work with your communities, we will applaud you, but we are going to continue doing what we do with our people because we know that's our only safety value. You have proven we cannot depend upon you for anything. And, we know that once we have a free, unified, socialist Africa, you will have absolutely no choice except to respect us. You will then have to listen to us. We know this so although we are excited at the prospect of European/White people finally appearing to be moving in the right direction, don't be offended if we keep one eyebrow raised. We definitely need to see more. A lot more. And while we observe you, we will continue organizing our people. Once we achieve Pan-Africanism, if you are still working in the right and sincere direction, then we can sit down together and talk about working together, but until that day, us trusting you would be akin to a chicken accepting a fox'es invitation to join his community. Of course, there will always be some chickens who take that risk, but most of us are going to have to pass.
As people come together to grapple with how to build capacity to fight back against those who wish to continue to oppress humanity, the forces who push multi-racial organizing as the solution continue to ignore clear historical facts. Don't get me wrong. The concept of all of us working together in one organization is a wonderful concept and it will be great when we can function socially, politically, etc., on that level, but that day is a very long way off for some very scientific reasons. Brown people are powerless in this world today. And, although most Europeans are powerless also, most Europeans don't see themselves as more aligned with our interests than they do with the interests of the capitalist classes, who look like them. Consequently, as long as this class contradiction exists, we can never trust them to represent our interests, especially when history is full of examples of their unwillingness to ally themselves with us over their masters (Europeans voting in mass for trump is just one example of this). And, this is an issue all the way from the petti-bourgeois European women who marched yesterday all the way to the socialists and anarchists who see themselves as the vanguard (or something) of the struggle today. They don't speak to our realities. We study and struggle to understand the concepts that Lenin, Marx, Trotsky, etc, articulated and include much of their analysis within our ideological frameworks where it fits. Where it fits! They, on the other hand, know nothing about Nkrumah, Ture, Cabral, Sankara, Fanon, or any of our cultural and ideological figures, unless they are attempting to force them within the Marxist-Leninist framework. As a result, they do not understand how to see the world from our standpoint and they fully expect (whether consciously or unconsciously) us to see the world from their standpoint. European/White socialist and anarchists have been expecting us to join their circles and just rise above or wait for them to advance beyond their racist disposition for centuries. Sorry, we have much better things to do.
The basis of this contradiction I believe is one of respect. Europeans have it and we don't. So, the question is how do we get respect? I do not believe people respect you because its the right thing to do. Think about that bully who terrorized your life. They never stopped doing it because they should stop doing it. If they stopped, it was because you, or someone, did something to force them to stop. I don't think we will ever be respected until the world has no other choice except to respect us and that means us having to do something to force that to happen. Clearly, most of our so-called European allies don't understand this because if they did, they wouldn't react with the level of indifference and/or intimidation that they do when assertive and independent Africans exert ourselves. That has been my experience. Europeans everywhere are always talking about how people need to listen to brown folks and accept our leadership, but what I learned a long time ago is what that really means is listen politely to us (so you can look like you are being humble), but only until the point you disagree. Then, you will do what Europeans have been doing for centuries. Exert your white supremacist option to ignore our assertions while expressing whatever you believe to be superior. I see this everyday because I operate and organize from a Pan-African perspective which means Africa is primary in my work and socialism will not be compromised. As a result, I always enjoy observing so-called European allies, even some of you who claim to be so close to us, wither away whenever we tell you something that's clearly grounded in truth that you don't want to hear.
So, I'm not waiting on Europeans to do anything. I'm organizing African people for revolution. If Europeans want to sincerely do something, demonstrate that willingness by moving towards organizing your people against white supremacy and capitalism. That requires you to do a lot more than just mobilizing for events, no matter how great the events. But, even if you start doing outstanding organizing work with your communities, we will applaud you, but we are going to continue doing what we do with our people because we know that's our only safety value. You have proven we cannot depend upon you for anything. And, we know that once we have a free, unified, socialist Africa, you will have absolutely no choice except to respect us. You will then have to listen to us. We know this so although we are excited at the prospect of European/White people finally appearing to be moving in the right direction, don't be offended if we keep one eyebrow raised. We definitely need to see more. A lot more. And while we observe you, we will continue organizing our people. Once we achieve Pan-Africanism, if you are still working in the right and sincere direction, then we can sit down together and talk about working together, but until that day, us trusting you would be akin to a chicken accepting a fox'es invitation to join his community. Of course, there will always be some chickens who take that risk, but most of us are going to have to pass.
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