There are numerous examples of everyday people organizing to successfully win against the most powerful entities on Earth. Here, Mutulu Shakur and Marilyn Buck represent the efforts of the African liberation movement and accomplices within the U.S. empire to successfully liberate Assata Shakur from the Clinton Correctional Facility, New York state's largest maximum security prison. Assata lives in Cuba today and her liberation should serve as a simple reminder that when we organize we win
Currently, we are unfortunately experiencing continued gruesome realities of unnecessary loss of life, not just within the U.S., but all around the world. Regarding recent white supremacist inspired mass shootings, people have lots to say about it on social media. Opinions are everywhere, but the sobering truth is for the overwhelming majority of colonized Africans, Indigenous people, Asians, Arabs, LGBTQ family, women, etc., the only thing most people are prepared to do when confronted face to face with this senseless violence is call the police, pray, or appeal to the very power structure that promotes anti-human violence to stop that same violence.
Needless to say, all of those options are complete failures. If you truly believe the role of the police is anything besides enforcing the interests of the power structure, you are definitely reading the wrong blog. There is so much evidence confirming that police are part of the problem, certainly not the solution, that we won't disrespect our dignity by continuing those arguments here (you can find much of that concrete evidence presented in countless articles on this very blog). Praying, within a capitalist society, is sadly just another way of pretending everything will be OK while releasing you from taking any accountability to do anything to solve the problem. And, pretending that the capitalist legislature is the solution is like saying the fox is the solution for guarding the chicken coop (same as the argument for "law enforcement."). The entire legislature, including those who are supposed to be progressive e.g. the "squad", Bernie, etc., all generically support the U.S. military industrial complex, meaning none of them are working for or calling for it to be dismantled. That military machine has been responsible for mass death and destruction and is a major part of the perpetuation of this American Exceptionalism which fuels the white supremacist ideology that these shootings evolve from. So, proposing the legislature as a solution is dead and immoral at this point.
There are true solutions for those who really want to find them. First, we have to abandon immediately this false concept that white supremacy is something new that has overtaken our reality with Trump's election. White supremacy is the foundation of the capitalist world e..g the U.S, Europe, occupied Palestine (Israel), Australia, etc. Its the ideology that drives policies against colonized and brown people all over the world. Its the practice that defines exploitation against colonized people keeping brown people poor and powerless all over the world. If we are going to change this backward tide, peace and justice people have to stop acting like this phenomenon is some sort of departure from what capitalism has been doing for 500+ years. The abduction and imprisonment of Indigenous families is a continuation of the slave raids and separation and imprisonment of African people during the transatlantic slave trade. The continuation of the separation and violence against Indigenous peoples. The terror imposed on Palestinian people and the violent policies of colonialism in Africa and Central, South America, and the Caribbean. None of this is new. What's happening is the continued decline of capitalism as a system capable of providing comfort, or at least the illusion of comfort, to the masses of European working people, causes more and more of them to readily buy into the lies of the ruling classes. When things are relatively stable, they may not listen as much, but when things are chaotic, they tune in. They begin to listen more closely to the same thing they have been told for hundreds of years, that the people perpetuating their suffering are powerless colonized people when the people they place their faith in - the capitalist ruling classes - are the true reasons for their suffering. Since these people cannot see this contradiction, they are continuing to serve as the shock troops for the ruling classes against the masses of colonized people, but even this isn't new. This is no different from the role the Ku Klux Klan, White Citizens Council, Black Legion, Afrikaneer racist organizations in Azania (South Africa) and other violent white supremacist groups have played for hundreds of years in terrorizing humanity. Those terrorists were working class white people like the shooters are today. As my grandmother always said, "there's nothing new under the sun."
The current presidential administrations in the U.S., Britain, etc. are a clear sign of the decay of this system and people are reacting to that. Some of them are acting out whereas before maybe they didn't feel like they had the same green light to do so, but the acting out is simply a reflection of the simmering ideology that has been the foundation of this system for hundreds of years (and for racists reading this, even violence in cities like Chicago is a manifestation of this same backward system. Its ideologies and practices for white supremacy).
What's critical for peace and justice loving people is how we can respond to this. There is no longer any question for even the most militant believer in the myth that the state institutions that exist to oppress colonized people are going to now magically protect those same people. No one can logically deny that the onus is 100% on oppressed communities to figure out how to protect ourselves and anyone who is still clinging to police, praying, and bourgeoisie politics is just someone who will possibly never accept reality over fiction. So, for those who see the world as it actually is, we have to decide that we are going to be ready, determined, and committed to organizing to build the capacity to protect ourselves. Since these problems are not new, we have plenty of successful models from which to build our capacities for community defense. Everything from the Maroon slave revolts, to the Bakongo revolts in Africa, the Lumbee Indigenous revolts against the Ku Klux Klan, the Land and Freedom Movement (Mau Mau), the Palestinian Intifada, the Black Liberation Army in the U.S., Hezbollah against zionist Israel, the Cuban operations in Southern Africa in the late 80s, the list goes on and on. We have plenty of examples of when the people came together, they were able to defeat anything the capitalist system threw at them and the fact they had no technology to compete against that of our enemies is immaterial. As Huey P. Newton correctly stated "the man's technology will never be a match for the spirit of the people."
What we need is for that spirit to manifest itself in people ready to take action. We don't claim to know all of the answers about how to implement community defense, but we have enough of the answers to get started. We have a wealth of history as indicated to help us work together to figure out the rest. And, we have the fact that we have no other choice that should serve as strong motivation for us to get cracking.
The first step is we have to start talking about how to build communication networks. We have to get people together who are willing to do work to set those networks up. Then, we have to establish protocols for community work, trainings, and procedures to implement what we are learning to protect ourselves. As Kwame Ture said "there can't be revolution without revolutionaries!" so the first step is recruitment. Asking you to be someone who steps up in this work. If you are ready and willing to do that, reach out here and we can start. If we don't do this, we cannot complain when things don't change. In fact, if we are not willing to take action to determine our own destinies, we should at least be courageous enough to log into those white supremacist sites and/or police agencies, and inform them that when they are prepared to venture to find us to brutalize that we will be efficient enough to provide them our names and addresses so that we can focus on coming to get us. If we refuse to live for justice than we should at least have enough dignity to die for it, right? Maybe then, we can at least make a contribution by delaying them from reaching those who are sincere and dedicated to trying to make a difference.
We don't desire that you make that type of sacrifice. If we are to sacrifice, let it be for the positive reason of building a way for us to ensure life is the priority. Time is of the essence and talk without action behind it is worthless at this point. Make your choice for the type of person you want to be and the type of world you wish to live in.
Needless to say, all of those options are complete failures. If you truly believe the role of the police is anything besides enforcing the interests of the power structure, you are definitely reading the wrong blog. There is so much evidence confirming that police are part of the problem, certainly not the solution, that we won't disrespect our dignity by continuing those arguments here (you can find much of that concrete evidence presented in countless articles on this very blog). Praying, within a capitalist society, is sadly just another way of pretending everything will be OK while releasing you from taking any accountability to do anything to solve the problem. And, pretending that the capitalist legislature is the solution is like saying the fox is the solution for guarding the chicken coop (same as the argument for "law enforcement."). The entire legislature, including those who are supposed to be progressive e.g. the "squad", Bernie, etc., all generically support the U.S. military industrial complex, meaning none of them are working for or calling for it to be dismantled. That military machine has been responsible for mass death and destruction and is a major part of the perpetuation of this American Exceptionalism which fuels the white supremacist ideology that these shootings evolve from. So, proposing the legislature as a solution is dead and immoral at this point.
There are true solutions for those who really want to find them. First, we have to abandon immediately this false concept that white supremacy is something new that has overtaken our reality with Trump's election. White supremacy is the foundation of the capitalist world e..g the U.S, Europe, occupied Palestine (Israel), Australia, etc. Its the ideology that drives policies against colonized and brown people all over the world. Its the practice that defines exploitation against colonized people keeping brown people poor and powerless all over the world. If we are going to change this backward tide, peace and justice people have to stop acting like this phenomenon is some sort of departure from what capitalism has been doing for 500+ years. The abduction and imprisonment of Indigenous families is a continuation of the slave raids and separation and imprisonment of African people during the transatlantic slave trade. The continuation of the separation and violence against Indigenous peoples. The terror imposed on Palestinian people and the violent policies of colonialism in Africa and Central, South America, and the Caribbean. None of this is new. What's happening is the continued decline of capitalism as a system capable of providing comfort, or at least the illusion of comfort, to the masses of European working people, causes more and more of them to readily buy into the lies of the ruling classes. When things are relatively stable, they may not listen as much, but when things are chaotic, they tune in. They begin to listen more closely to the same thing they have been told for hundreds of years, that the people perpetuating their suffering are powerless colonized people when the people they place their faith in - the capitalist ruling classes - are the true reasons for their suffering. Since these people cannot see this contradiction, they are continuing to serve as the shock troops for the ruling classes against the masses of colonized people, but even this isn't new. This is no different from the role the Ku Klux Klan, White Citizens Council, Black Legion, Afrikaneer racist organizations in Azania (South Africa) and other violent white supremacist groups have played for hundreds of years in terrorizing humanity. Those terrorists were working class white people like the shooters are today. As my grandmother always said, "there's nothing new under the sun."
The current presidential administrations in the U.S., Britain, etc. are a clear sign of the decay of this system and people are reacting to that. Some of them are acting out whereas before maybe they didn't feel like they had the same green light to do so, but the acting out is simply a reflection of the simmering ideology that has been the foundation of this system for hundreds of years (and for racists reading this, even violence in cities like Chicago is a manifestation of this same backward system. Its ideologies and practices for white supremacy).
What's critical for peace and justice loving people is how we can respond to this. There is no longer any question for even the most militant believer in the myth that the state institutions that exist to oppress colonized people are going to now magically protect those same people. No one can logically deny that the onus is 100% on oppressed communities to figure out how to protect ourselves and anyone who is still clinging to police, praying, and bourgeoisie politics is just someone who will possibly never accept reality over fiction. So, for those who see the world as it actually is, we have to decide that we are going to be ready, determined, and committed to organizing to build the capacity to protect ourselves. Since these problems are not new, we have plenty of successful models from which to build our capacities for community defense. Everything from the Maroon slave revolts, to the Bakongo revolts in Africa, the Lumbee Indigenous revolts against the Ku Klux Klan, the Land and Freedom Movement (Mau Mau), the Palestinian Intifada, the Black Liberation Army in the U.S., Hezbollah against zionist Israel, the Cuban operations in Southern Africa in the late 80s, the list goes on and on. We have plenty of examples of when the people came together, they were able to defeat anything the capitalist system threw at them and the fact they had no technology to compete against that of our enemies is immaterial. As Huey P. Newton correctly stated "the man's technology will never be a match for the spirit of the people."
What we need is for that spirit to manifest itself in people ready to take action. We don't claim to know all of the answers about how to implement community defense, but we have enough of the answers to get started. We have a wealth of history as indicated to help us work together to figure out the rest. And, we have the fact that we have no other choice that should serve as strong motivation for us to get cracking.
The first step is we have to start talking about how to build communication networks. We have to get people together who are willing to do work to set those networks up. Then, we have to establish protocols for community work, trainings, and procedures to implement what we are learning to protect ourselves. As Kwame Ture said "there can't be revolution without revolutionaries!" so the first step is recruitment. Asking you to be someone who steps up in this work. If you are ready and willing to do that, reach out here and we can start. If we don't do this, we cannot complain when things don't change. In fact, if we are not willing to take action to determine our own destinies, we should at least be courageous enough to log into those white supremacist sites and/or police agencies, and inform them that when they are prepared to venture to find us to brutalize that we will be efficient enough to provide them our names and addresses so that we can focus on coming to get us. If we refuse to live for justice than we should at least have enough dignity to die for it, right? Maybe then, we can at least make a contribution by delaying them from reaching those who are sincere and dedicated to trying to make a difference.
We don't desire that you make that type of sacrifice. If we are to sacrifice, let it be for the positive reason of building a way for us to ensure life is the priority. Time is of the essence and talk without action behind it is worthless at this point. Make your choice for the type of person you want to be and the type of world you wish to live in.
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