tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12976889647982042852024-02-20T08:14:36.842-05:00FreetheLand"Free The Land!" is the miltant slogan of the New Afrikan Independence Movement (N.A.I.M.). The NAIM is the national liberation movement of Black People in the United States for complete political, economic, and cultural independence. NAIM is one part of the international People's Revolution.FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-85879357155907816892016-03-26T16:13:00.002-04:002016-03-28T19:28:37.398-04:00Class Struggle and National Liberation in the Movement for Black Lives<div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11834" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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<i><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Dedicated to and Inspired by </span><a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qazB9d-csg" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11856">Kwame Nkrumah</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> & </span><a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a0EbG7Y2Pc" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11858">Jalil Muntaqim</a></i><br />
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<span class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11868" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">One year ago the city of Baltimore rose up in righteous rebellion. Although the murder of Freddie Gray and police instigating <a class="" href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/how-baltimore-riots-began-mondawmin-purge" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11870">Black youth at Mondawmin Mall</a> was the catalyst, generations of structural racism and economic underdevelopment were the root causes of the insurrection. “Bmore” is an excellent illustration of the current contradictions within Black America. On the one hand the city is governed by a Black elite (including a Black mayor, police commissioner, state’s attorney, national guard commander, all the way up to a Black President), but is still unable to end the police killings and economic exclusion of a large section of Black Baltimore. <o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11872"></o:p></span><br />
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<span class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11882" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">At the same time, there are numerous examples of how racism impacts Black people of all social classes. For instance, Trayvon Martin was gunned down by a white vigilante with no consequences in a middle-class neighborhood. While this contradiction is often presented as race versus class in Black political circles, the two should instead be seen as having a dynamic relationship. This article seeks to contribute to the developing theory and practice of the Movement for Black Lives (MB4L).<o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11884"></o:p></span><br />
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<span class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11894" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Black people in the US are a <a class="" href="http://brotherwisedispatch.blogspot.com/2009/12/revolutionary-nationalism-and-afro.html" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11896">domestic colony</a>. Similar to former colonies on the African continent and the Caribbean, we transitioned from classic colonialism to <a class="" href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/41069111?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11898">neocolonialism</a>. Following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 Black Elected Officials (BEO) grew exponentially from <a class="" href="http://www.blackcommentator.com/9_nul.html" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11900">350 in 1964</a> to about <a class="" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/08/22/whats-changed-for-african-americans-since-1963-by-the-numbers" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11902">10,500 in 2011</a>. Most of the BEOs are affiliated with the Democratic Party (i.e. the party of financial capital.) Kwame Nkrumah defined neocolonialism as a nation that ostensibly has political independence but, in fact, is economically dependent. Furthermore, due to increased economic opportunities for a small sector of Black folk, studies show there is <a class="" href="http://www.amazon.com/African-Americans-Economy-Cecilia-Conrad/dp/0742543781" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11904">greater inequality within Black America</a> than between White and Black America. <o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11906"></o:p></span><br />
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<span class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11916" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In short, these contradictions can only be resolved through explicit, conscious <i class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11918">class struggle</i>. By class struggle we mean the attempt of a class, or at least a section of it, to make a conscious assertion to win and hold political power. The class struggle in this period will take the form of a fight for community control of institutions and demanding more than the minimum civil rights advanced by the Black Liberal Establishment. The class struggle has five purposes: 1) to erode the legitimacy of the Black Bourgeoisie 2) discrediting integration into the capitalist system 3) removing the means to control the Black colony (i.e. Black bourgeoisie) 4) to win the Black masses to Nationalism and 5) raising political consciousness.<o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11920"></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11831">While class conflict contributes to the forward motion and development of the Black nation, the primary contradiction in the world is that between oppressed and oppressor nations or the colonizer and the colonized. The US settler state is a prison house of nations. This means that Blacks, Chicano's, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans are oppressed nations and must be liberated as nations! We reject Stalin’s definition of nation in favor of that provided by Kwame Nkrumah in his book <i class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11930">Class Struggle in Africa</i> “</span><span class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11932">It is around the African peoples struggle for liberation and unification that African and Black culture will take shape and substance." In short, in the course of the Black movement we have created organizations and institutions which have in turned shaped the character of our identity, culture, and movement.</span><span class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11934"><o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11936"></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11946" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Racism has played such a crucial role in the oppression of Black people that even many of our White Left ‘allies’ have accepted it assumptions. For example, in the early 20<sup class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11948">th</sup> century, <a class="" href="http://www.jeffreybperry.net/_center__font_size__3__font_color__green___b_1__hubert_harrison___i_the_voice_of_76560.htm" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11950">Hubert Harrison</a>, a leading figure in the American Left, quit the Socialist Party, U.S.A. because in their own words <a class="" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1903/negro.htm" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11952">‘We have nothing special to offer the Negro.’ </a> Later in 1959, Harry Haywood, the chief theoretician of Black Liberation in the Communist Party, USA was expelled for trying make the right of <a class="" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/haywood/1976/x01/x01.htm" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11954">self-determination and white chauvinism (i.e. racism)</a> central issues in the party. So, it isn’t only right wingers like Donald Trump or Bill O’ Reilly that isolate and attack the Black Nation but the White Left as well. <o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11956"></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11966">Therefore, we must principally, though not exclusively, organize along national lines for dual power. <a class="" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/09.htm" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11968">Dual power</a> means creating popular assemblies that operate democratically-controlled institutions that fulfill the functions of the state. Of course, the state will not allow parallel institutions to exist for too long (see Tulsa, OK in 1921 & BPP survival programs) so at some point, there will be a confrontation. This will bring the oppressed and oppressor nations into direct conflict.</span><span class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11970"><o:p class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11972"></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11982" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Arguably, the greatest contribution of the M4BL to the larger Black Liberation Movement is its <a class="" href="http://www.thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/" id="yui_3_16_0_ym18_1_1458938816015_11984">Women and Queer leadership</a>. But at the same time, M4BL is often accused of <a href="http://raniakhalek.com/category/douglas-williams/" target="_blank">postmodern identity politics</a> which views the problems of working class Black folks as secondary. In order to overcome these criticisms the M4BL can integrate class struggle and national liberation into its theory and practice. The means to carry out the class struggle and national liberation is a Black Workers Party (BWP). The BWP would be a socialist, mass party that replaces the neoliberalism of the Black Bourgeoisie with the hegemony of the Black working class. In a great tradition of Black freedom fighters, BWP can use <a href="http://nyupress.org/books/9780814713181/" target="_blank">Nationalism</a> as a springboard to internationalism. Class Struggle for National Unity. National Unity for Self-Government. </span><br />
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<span class="" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: small;"></span><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144695" style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144694"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144693"><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144692">Benjamin Woods is a PhD candidate at Howard University and co-founder of Students Against Mass Incarceration. He is an organizer in Washington D.C. Benjamin can be contacted at <a href="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com">benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com</a>, or through his website </i></span></span></span><u id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144687" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'helvetica neue', 'segoe ui', helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://www.free-the-land.blogspot.com/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144686" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144685">FreeTheLand</i></a></u><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144704" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'helvetica neue', 'segoe ui', helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">.</i></span></div>
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FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-84323240797873782232015-11-25T13:22:00.001-05:002015-11-25T13:22:51.291-05:00 Working While Black: Reflections on 2nd Annual Black Worker Center Convening<div style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1.12em; margin-top: 1.12em;">
Black workers are one of the primary social forces in the Black Liberation Movement in the US. Historically and today, they experience racism on the job, in labor unions, and the most negative effects of ‘neoliberal globalization.’ At several points throughout their history, Black workers have analyzed their own conditions and concluded self-organization was key to gaining power over their own lives. In the tradition of autonomous Black worker organizing, the 2nd annual Black Workers Center (BWC) National Convening met on November 12-14 in Oakland, CA to strategize for Black Workers Power. The theme of the convening was “Black Freedom Dreams.”</div>
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<strong>The history and current conditions of Black people demonstrate the necessity of spaces like BWCs where Black workers can conduct popular education, organize campaigns, and create Black worker-owned cooperatives</strong>. The exploitation of Black workers and the ideological justification to maintain control of their labor is foundational to the US settler colonial project. In a workshop titled “Black Worker Centers Meet Organized Labor” respected labor organizer Bill Fletcher discussed how Black radicals and anti-racist Whites were excluded from the newly formed AFL-CIO in 1955 due to segregation in the labor movement and McCarthyism. Around the same time in 1951, Black workers created the National Negro Labor Council to fight job discrimination, racism in labor unions, and build what we today call Black Workers Power.</div>
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BWCs are slowly proving themselves to be spaces where Black workers can organize for power to overcome structural inequalities such as having twice the white unemployment rate, receiving 60% the white income, and Black median wealth 20 times less than that of whites. For example, the inaugural BWC in Los Angeles, in coalition with community groups, organized to win a project labor agreement (PLA) that requires 40% of workers hired onto Metro Construction projects come from ‘disadvantaged areas.’ The convening allowed all of us to compare notes and learn from each other so that we can infuse the concerns of Black workers into the emergent Movement for Black Lives.</div>
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<a href="https://storify.com/StevenPitts/pictures-from-the-2nd-annual-national-black-worker" style="color: #660000; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Click here to view photos from the Convening.</strong></span></a></div>
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A few months ago a report and hashtag called<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong> #BlackWorkersMatter</strong></span> was created in order to highlight the numerous challenges confronting Black labor in the context of #BlackLivesMatter. At the National Convening, a presentation called “A Glimpse at the Moment” by Bill Fletcher discussed ‘neoliberal globalization’ as one of the fundamental issues impacting Black workers. He described it as “a transformation in the regime of capitalism placing more emphasis on deregulation, privatization, subcontracting, casualization, and anti-unionism. It emphasizes the elimination of trade barriers and the unrestricted flow of capital.” This process comes in the form of relocation of industry away from large concentrations of Black folk or privatization of the public sector. Manufacturing and the public sector were two sectors where Black people traditionally could attain upward mobility.</div>
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Furthermore, over 50 years ago, radical Black worker James Boggs identified automation as a major threat to Black working people. This is why Kali Akuno, in an article called “Until We Win,” asserted that in US society the value of Black life is connected to how much profit we produce for the capitalists. In short, in the era of ‘neoliberal globalization,’ Black Lives don’t matter because unlike in the period of chattel slavery or segregation, Black labor produces less profits. The importance of self-organization and advancing our own initiatives could never be greater.</div>
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Steven Pitts, the founder of the National BWC project, presented a new National campaign that will be promoted by BWCs across the country called Working While Black. The title is a play on the common refrains ‘driving while Black’ or ‘walking while Black.' Central to the initiative is building coalitions or united fronts on local and national campaigns. The current approach of most US labor unions is business unionism or a narrow focus on gaining better wages or benefits. <strong>The initiative rejects this restrictive approach in favor of social justice unionism wherein workers organize around wider human rights issues such as mass incarceration, reproductive justice, and more.</strong> Black workers, like all workers, problems extend outside of the workplace and into their communities and day-to-day lives. <strong>BWCs have the potential to begin the process of building Black Workers Power in the work place and wider community so that we can confidently say that BlackLivesMatter AND BlackWorkersMatter.</strong></div>
FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-91756151325620623862015-07-08T07:58:00.000-04:002015-07-08T07:59:58.253-04:00Six Lessons #BlackLivesMatter Can Learn From Amilcar Cabral<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Amilcar Cabral
is widely recognized as one of the most creative and influential revolutionary
theorists that the African World has ever produced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was the co-founder and leader of a
national liberation movement in West Africa called the African Party for the Independence
of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Founded
in 1956, the PAIGC led an eleven year armed struggle against Portuguese
colonialism, culminating in political independence in 1974.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Although an
agent of the Portuguese political police assassinated Cabral before political
independence was won, his ideas influenced the entire African world including the
Black Liberation Movement in the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To an extent, his views have been appropriated by various ideological
tendencies from Afrocentrists to Post-modernists to Marxists. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The objective of this essay is twofold 1) to
properly situate Cabral in the tradition of Revolutionary Pan Africanism and Socialism
and 2) to demonstrate the lessons he can provide the emergent #BlackLivesMatter
Movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">1) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Revolutionary Political Party</b>.
#BlackLivesMatter has inspired and generated numerous mass mobilizations
throughout the U.S. The current discussion among organizers concerns how to move
from mobilization to organization. Mobilizations are based on mass assemblies
and spontaneity but organization includes continuous political education, a
unified political platform and clearly defined long-term objectives. Cabral
chose a political party as the organizational form and #BlackLivesMatter can do
the same. A party is composed of cadre or full-time organizers trained in revolutionary
ideology who root themselves among the working-class. The party must have clear
objectives of self-determination and the elimination of the capitalism system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">2) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Revolutionary Democracy</b>. The PAIGC had
two primary components: a) democratic centralism and b) village committees (VC).
The objective of democratic centralism is "democracy in discussion,
centralism in action." In his book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Unity
& Struggle</i> Cabral writes<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>"It means that each decision concerning a new question must be
taken after a full and free discussion within the bodies affected by it or from
the base to the top, if the matter is one which affects the whole life of the
party. After this discussion and in accordance with what emerges from it, the
central bodies take a decision which must immediately be carried out at all
levels concerned." And at this point discussion ceases and there is unity
in action. This method has been used in successful revolutionary movements in
Zimbabwe, Cuba, China, Mozambique, Angola, and many more. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The
purpose of the VC system was to ensure the democratic participation of the
majority of the population.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">They were
responsible along with party cadres for administering social services like
education, local defense, health etc. in liberated areas.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The VC’s were headed by five elected
representatives from the local community.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">To guarantee gender equality two of the elected reps. were required to
be women.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Even if the </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">VC
made a decision that was in contradiction with the party, the VC’s choice was
upheld and respected.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">In the US context,
popular assemblies that include a set number of neighborhoods can operate in
the same capacity as VCs did in Guinea-Bissau.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2015/04/01/chavez-and-the-communal-state/" target="_blank">Venezuela’s communal councils</a> and <a href="https://mxgm.org/peoples-assemblys-overview-the-jackson-peoples-assembly-model/" target="_blank">Cooperation Jackson</a> offer excellent
contemporary examples.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">3) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pan Africanism</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cabral was a staunch supporter of African
unity and Pan Africanism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his own
country he was able to organize the PAIGC cross ethnic and religious
lines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, the PAIGC was a
secular organization that included Christians, Muslims, and traditional
religions but Cabral was agnostic stating “I don’t believe there is a life
after death.” He was also a co-founder and spokesperson for the national
liberation organizations in Mozambique and Angola.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a speech in 1972 titled ‘Connecting the
Struggles: An Informal talk with Black Americans’ Cabral states “<span style="color: #262626;">It is also a contribution for you to never forget that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you are Africans</i>.” The important lesson
in this instance is for people of African descent to make practical connections
across national borders in their struggles for self-determination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Diplomatic relations can be established with
the African Union, currently chaired by the revered Pan Africanist Robert
Mugabe to, at least, make a statement about the ongoing police violence against
Black people in the diaspora.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman";">4)
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Culture & Ideology</b>. Cabral is
most often cited for his contributions in explaining the relationship of
culture and ideology to social movements and society in general.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike some sectors of the American Left that
promote a form of economic determinism, Cabral understood that there must be
self-conscious effort on the part of the masses and the party to transform the
individual and society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Culture and
ideas can be an instrument of domination or liberation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, individualism, consumerism, American
meritocracy, and the ‘illusion of inclusion’ are all instruments of social
control that must be challenged at the organizational and mass level in order
for #BlackLivesMatter to become a broad based social movement. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman";">5)
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Class Suicide</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A central component of Cabral’s scientific
worldview was the concept of class suicide or a rejection of the values,
status, and privileges of the dominant society and identification with the
working masses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is especially
relevant for the group he called the ‘petty bourgeoisie’ (i.e. senior civil
servants, intellectuals etc.) who generally are the most indoctrinated into
colonial values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He argued for a
‘Re-Africanization’ which, as he asserted, “is only completed during the course
of the struggle, through daily contact with the mass of the people and
communion of sacrifices which the struggle demands.” He warned against uncritically
accepting tradition and cultural determinism. Cabral understood the new
national culture would primarily be built through a process of protracted
struggle and have what he called a ‘mass character.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman";">6)
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Scientific Socialism</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Arguably his most important lesson was in a
speech ‘The Weapon the Theory’ given in 1966 at the Tri-continental Conference
in Havana Cuba.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He boldly proclaimed
“nobody has yet successfully practiced Revolution without a revolutionary
theory.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is extremely relevant
today due to the aversion to theory and ideological </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">deficiencies</span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> so prevalent in the US. Although
he didn’t adhere to any particular tendency (Marxism-Leninism, Trotskyism,
Maoism, etc.), Cabral began his analysis by applying the method of dialectical
and historical materialism or scientific socialism to Guinea’s objective
<a href="https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/cabral/1964/bassg.htm" target="_blank">socio-economic conditions</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, this
is perhaps of one his greatest strengths: his ability to be non-dogmatic and
flexible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similar to Cabral,
#BlackLivesMatter should understand that theory emerges from practice and be
sure to balance the essential role of political economy and culture. Cabral
claimed that the ultimate objective of the movement was “the liberation of the
process of development of the national productive forces (i.e. land, labor,
tools of production, natural resources).” A master teacher, indeed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cabral’s
life offers lessons in several other areas such as agronomy, women’s
liberation, armed struggle, internationalism, the nature of the state, revolutionary
ethics and more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, far too
often, he and other Pan-Africanists are reduced to icons or symbols and their
actual life and work are sidelined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
the next generation of revolutionary organizers step to the front of the line,
it is important we know the contributions and lessons of those who came
before us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
Luta Continua (The Struggle Continues)!!!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cabral,
Amilcar (1973) <i>Return to the Source: Selected Speeches by Amilcar Cabral</i>,
edited by Africa Information Service, Monthly Review Press, New York, New York.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cabral,
Amilcar (1969) <i>Revolution in Guinea: An African People’s Struggle</i>, Stage
1, London, England.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cabral,
Amilcar (1979) <i>Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amilcar Cabral</i>,
Monthly Review Press, New York, New York.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chabal,
Patrick (2003) <i>Amilcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People’s War</i>,
Africa World Press, Trenton, New Jersey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ed.
Firoze Manji & Bill Felcther (2013), </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Claim No Easy Victories:
The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral,</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. <span style="color: #262626;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Gleijeses, Piero
(2003) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #0e0e0e; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and
Africa, 1959-1976.</span></i><b><span style="color: #0e0e0e;"> </span></b><span style="color: #0e0e0e; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Chapel Hill,<b> </b></span><span style="color: #262626;">The University of North Carolina Press.</span></span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span>
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144695" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144694"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144693"><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144692">Benjamin Woods is a PhD candidate at Howard University and co-founder of Students Against Mass Incarceration. He can be contacted at <a href="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com">benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com</a>, or through his website </i></span></span></span><u id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144687" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://www.free-the-land.blogspot.com/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144686" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144685">FreeTheLand</i></a></u><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144704" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">.</i></div>
FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-53725475076676023402015-03-29T23:15:00.003-04:002015-03-30T11:52:29.374-04:00The Pan-African Cultural Revolution<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“<span style="color: #3f3f3f;">Let the martial songs be written, let the dirges
disappear. Let a race of men [and women] now rise and take control</span>.”
–Margaret Walker in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For My People</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Let a
thousand flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend” –Mao Tse Tung <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Two weeks ago, Black
students at UC-Berkeley presented a series of demands to the university administration
including renaming Barrows Hall after former Black Panther, Assata Shakur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, after a student threw human
feces on the Cecil Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town in South Africa,
Black students began the “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of its main objectives is to remove the monument
of the mass murderer, Cecil Rhodes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While
both campaigns have clear symbolic meaning, they include larger issues like an
infusion of Black theorists in the curriculum, hiring more Black professors,
on-campus workers rights and more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The rise in
student activism must be seen as connected to larger global rebellions such as
#BlackLivesMatter, Economic Freedom Fighters, and NUMSA’s United Front.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Social movements help to produce a shift in
culture and consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example,
in the US, following the Ferguson uprising, hip-hop artists from G-Unit to
Lauryn Hill made songs to express their “Black Rage” at police terrorism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even rapper J-Cole openly espoused Anti-Capitalist
politics in an interview on mainstream radio in New York.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As movements emerge, new possibilities are
imagined, the impossible becomes possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Culture is a product of history.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Historically,
under capitalism, white workers were exploited to produce commodities, but
Black workers WERE commodities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So,
although the oppression of Blacks is primarily economic, slavery and
colonialism produced an ideological superstructure to legitimate and reinforce
white supremacy in general and anti-Black racism in particular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since all human beings have a history and
culture, one of the primary means used to exclude Blacks from the Human family
is to write Black people out of history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In response to
centuries of dehumanization, Africans have resisted white domination through
forming Maroon communities, plantation insurrections, Populist, Labor, Black
Power, National Liberation Movements and more. While the colonizer uses history
to deny our humanity, for us, Our Art and History is a weapon we use to cut the
throat of our oppressor. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The learning of
history helps us to de-colonize our minds but to be clear, there is no
pre-existing ‘African nation’ prior to slavery that we are attempting to
reclaim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our intent is to
supplant white imposed definitions of reality with Black definitions of the
world, therefore, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we assert that Black or
Pan African identity is principally a product of the Black Liberation Movement.
</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: #10131a;">Our common
oppression is not what makes us African, it is our movement for freedom that
give us consciousness of our identity. Therefore, we are not just acted upon
but are agents of history.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Cultural
Revolution is not a Negritude project wherein we attempt to return to an
idealized African past or promote what Leopold Senghor calls “intuitive
reasoning” (Emotion is Negro, Reason is Greek).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The primary purpose of the Pan African Cultural Revolution is to
transform the values, consciousness, attitudes, norms, mores, etc. of African
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">As we transform society, we transform ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Our Cultural Revolution has four goals:
1) To eliminate corruption and bureaucracy among leadership 2) To promote intellectual
independence 3) To encourage mass participation and 4) To instill a cohesive
identity and an anti-authoritarian ethic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Neocolonialism
and neoliberalism have taken firm root in continental and diasporic African
communities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neocolonialsim requires the
complicity of a comprador elite to facilitate labor exploitation and resource
extraction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our Cultural Revolution is a
class struggle in the realm of ideas and culture wherein our current leaders
must transform or be replaced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Furthermore, neoliberalism is more than a set of policies, it is an ideology
that presupposes the individual as the primary actor and unit of analysis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In opposition, mass-based social movements advance
the communal values of solidarity, cooperation, self-sacrifice, and
discipline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally, the neoliberal
policies that facilitated the growth of NGOs and non-profits have assisted in the
ideological and organizational domination of White Liberals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a perennial problem in Africa and the
diaspora that can only be overcome by developing independent All-Black
organizations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To ensure its success,
the Pan African Cultural Revolution must have concrete policy objections.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These include the creation of:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Independent
All-African mass based organizations (ex: labor, women’s, students, youth,
religious, fraternal, political party, etc).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Independent
Educational Institutions (universities, K-12, youth programs, cadre schools,
study groups, regular community political education, etc).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Independent
African Art Institutions (theatre houses, museums, publishing houses, music
labels, distribution companies, etc.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Independent
Systems of Communications (radio, television, movie studios, social media, etc).
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Self
Defense Networks and/or a People’s Army<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In addition, as
a central component of the Cultural Revolution, all of the above institutions
must create mass-based popular education regarding gender and sexuality in
order to challenge the patriarchal and hetero-normative ideas inculcated through
imperialism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The above organizations and
institutions are the primary vehicles to advance our Political Revolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, the Cultural Revolution does not
occur before or after the Political Revolution but happens simultaneously and
continues once we capture state power. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our Cultural
Revolution is inspired by the Black Arts Movement in the US, the Black
Consciousness Movement in South Africa, and the Cultural Revolution in
China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fundamental objective of Political
Revolution is to democratize the means of production i.e. the establishment of
a Socialist system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although we keep ‘Politics
in Command,’ without the Cultural Revolution the Political Revolution is
impossible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Amandla! (Power)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Black Power!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Asijiki! (Forward)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">#BlackLivesMatter!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A Luta Continua! (the struggle continues)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">References<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I Write What I Like</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Steve Biko<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unity and Struggle</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Amilcar Cabral <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wretched of the Earth</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Frantz Fanon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A Dying Colonialism</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Frantz Fanon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Black Aesthetic </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">by (Editor) Addison Gayle <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Class Struggle in Africa</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Kwame Nkrumah<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Groundings With My Brothers </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">by Walter Rodney<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Revolution, Culture, and Pan-Africanism</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Sekou Toure<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Unknown Cultural Revolution</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Dongping Han<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“On
Contradiction” by Mao Tse-Tung<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144695" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144694"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144693"><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144692">Benjamin Woods is a PhD candidate at Howard University and co-founder of Students Against Mass Incarceration. He can be contacted at <a href="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com">benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com</a>, or through his website </i></span></span></span><u id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144687" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://www.free-the-land.blogspot.com/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144686" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144685">FreeTheLand</i></a></u><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144704" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">.</i></div>
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FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-62270041501480043272014-12-30T16:15:00.001-05:002014-12-31T14:22:24.839-05:00#BlackLivesMatter: From Marikana to Ferguson<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">South Africa and
the United States are presently in the early stages of a militant mass Black
movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In South Africa, MPs affiliated
with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a self described revolutionary
organization, disrupted parliament chanting <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0yU73B8nNg" target="_blank">‘pay back the money’</a> to senior
officials in the ruling ANC government accused of corruption. Similarly, in the
US, militant activists commandeered the microphone at a march sponsored by the National
Action Network to protest their exclusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While both instances are portrayed as generational divides and
disrespect to ‘the elders’, these are ideological disagreements that reflect a
conflicting set of class interests and consciousness in the US and South
Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ronald Walters
in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Price of Racial Reconciliation</i>
and George Fredrickson in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">White Supremacy
</i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black Liberation</i> compare and
contrast the legal systems and Black Liberation Movement (BLM) in each country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both countries are white settler states that
had mass movements to eliminate racial apartheid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although the fundamental problem is global
capitalism, it expresses itself in three important ways: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>neocolonialism, neoliberalism, and militarism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Osagyefo’ Kwame
Nkrumah defined neocolonialism as a nation that has gained political freedom
but is still economically dependent on external powers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Last year</span>, Ronnie Kasrils, a national
leader of the ANC and SACP, acknowledged that in the 1980s & 90s ANC <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/24/anc-faustian-pact-mandela-fatal-error" target="_blank">‘gavetoo much away’</a> during its negotiated settlement with the apartheid
government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The negotiated settlement by
the ANC left the land, mines, banks etc in the hands of white monopoly
capital.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After 1994, the ANC promoted
Black Economic Empowerment (BEE).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>BEE
was a program that consolidated a Black capitalist class by establishing quotas
in the economic sector.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In essence, the
ANC transitioned from a liberation movement to a neocolonial government.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the US during the McCarthy era, Black
liberal organizations such as NAACP and the Urban League either assisted or
remained silent when Black radicals like Paul Robeson and WEB Dubois suffered
political repression for their uncompromising stand on human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without this ‘negotiated settlement’, the Black
liberal demands of the Civil Rights Movement would not likely have been
accepted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, in the 1960s, Richard
Nixon supported government programs that reflected his slogan that “Black
capitalism is Black Power.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This process helped to create the Black misleadership class that BAR consistently highlights and the
emerging movement must confront.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Since the 1970s,
there has been a neoliberal counterrevolution to undermine progressive and
radical social movements through the promotion of policies such as trade
liberalization, privitazation, deregulation, and cutting of social services.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The EFF has argued that the ANC abandoned the
redistributive policies of the Freedom Charter for the neoliberal policies of
GEAR and the NDP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the US
context, the Black misleadership class remained loyal to the Democratic Party
even as it transitioned to the neoliberal policies of the Democratic Leadership
Council and Blue Dog Democrats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While
the Democrats supported welfare reform, deregulation of radio airwaves in 1996
and repeal of the Glass Steegal Act, the Black political class said we must
support ‘lesser of two evils.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These and
other neoliberal policies not only deepened class contradictions in African
America but also the perceived need for police containment in both US and South
Africa. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">In the US and
South Africa, the domestic police force has become militarized.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The ANC government inherited the highly
militarized apartheid era police force and a culture of anti-Black racism.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Therefore, even with a majority Black
government the police terrorism against Black people remains a major problem in
the country.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">In order to combat the high
crime rates caused by economic dislocation and social alienation, in 2009, the
police commissioner once suggested the country adopt a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/21/south-africa-police-brutality-shooting" target="_blank">‘shoot to kill’policy</a>.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The most famous recent instance of
police terrorism in South Africa, was the case of 34 miners at Marikana
murdered while protesting for higher wages.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">
</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Stateside, calls
for law and order and the repeated refrain of ‘Black on Black’ violence
legitimated the militarization of domestic police.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This militarization began in the 1960s, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when the local police departments created SWAT teams in order to
contain urban rebellions and radical Black organizations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And even though the CBC is well aware of the
Black complaints of police terrorism in their districts, four-fifths <span style="color: #262626;">voted against an amendment that would have <a href="http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/267477/speedreads-the-congressional-black-caucus-voted-to-preserve-police-militarization"><span style="color: #b66120; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">halted Pentagon
military transfers to U.S. police departments</span></a></span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, there is an incipient mass Black
movement to challenge them and these colonial policies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Although these
two movements have several similarities, there are differences as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A significant difference is political
development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One reason being that the
South African Communist Party played a critical role in the anti-apartheid
movement and is one part of the Tripartite Alliance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This means the South African Left has a
higher level of ideological and organizational development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, the EFF is a revolutionary
socialist and Black consciousness organization with over 500,000 members and 25
members of parliament in just a little over a year of existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At its <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2014-12-18-eff-lays-out-strategies-for-growth" target="_blank">National Assembly held Dec. 13-16</a> in <span style="color: #181818;">Bloemfontein, the 33 year old Julius Malema was elected
President.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rank and file of the
membership appears to be in their early twenties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The protest
movement that has emanated from Ferguson, MO has captured the worlds attention
from Venezuela to North Korea to Palestine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It has hearlded a new generation of radical Black organizers who before
the murder of Mike Brown had never even attended a protest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In addition, the national discourse has
undergone a seismic shift over the past few weeks due to their grassroots
organizing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This movement is truly a
game changer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But because of the
political repression of McCarthyism and Cointelpro, this generation, my generation,
has not had the same the level of political continuity and mentorship as our
counterparts in South Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example,
Malema and other leaders in EFF received part of their political education in
revolutionary Cuba.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The South
African and US based Black Liberation Movement (BLM) have a lot to teach each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunantly, at the moment, the two
movements do not appear to be in conversation with one another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The EFF strategy of ‘economic emancipation in
our lifetimes’ and a national assembly to create a political program, point a
way forward for the BLM in the US.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="color: #2a2f3c; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;">At this point, the radical sectors of the BLM
must develop organization, strategy, and concrete objectives. It should plan a
national assembly with four clear objectives:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2a2f3c; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;">1) Examine the historical weakness and strengths of the BLM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2a2f3c; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;">2) Assess the current state of the BLM<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #2a2f3c; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;">3) Create an independent Black organization (party, congress, united front
etc) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2f3c; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-effects-shadow-align: topleft; mso-effects-shadow-alpha: 40.0%; mso-effects-shadow-angledirection: 2700000; mso-effects-shadow-anglekx: 0; mso-effects-shadow-angleky: 0; mso-effects-shadow-color: black; mso-effects-shadow-dpidistance: 3.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-dpiradius: 4.0pt; mso-effects-shadow-pctsx: 100.0%; mso-effects-shadow-pctsy: 100.0%;">4) Develop a five to ten year plan for the Black Community</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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The organizations that have been created over past five
years to combat the prison system by young Black people (Dream Defenders,
Millineal Activists United, #BlackLivesMatter, Students Against Mass
Incarceration, Lost Voices etc.) and more established groups (MXGM, AAPRP,
Uhuru Movement etc.) can make such a call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They have the organizers and clout do so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hopefully, something is already in the
works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But for now, in the words of the
EFF ideologue Frantz Fanon, we “either must fulfill our mission, or betray
it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144695" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144694"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144693"><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144692">Benjamin Woods is a PhD candidate at Howard University and co-founder of Students Against Mass Incarceration. He can be contacted at <a href="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com">benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com</a>, or through his website </i></span></span></span><u id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144687" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://www.free-the-land.blogspot.com/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144686" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144685">FreeTheLand</i></a></u><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144704" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">.</i></span></div>
FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-22789070988766795962014-09-29T18:29:00.005-04:002014-09-30T03:15:37.833-04:00The Coming Revolution<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
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<span class="a-size-large" id="productTitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3 !important; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ed. Floyd Shivambu. (2014).<i>The Coming Revolution: Julius Malema and the Fight for Economic Freedom. </i>South Africa: Jacana Media. <i> </i></span></span></h1>
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A new book called <u>The Coming Revolution</u>, argues that, contrary to the dominant narrative in western media, the South African Revolution remains incomplete. Even a cursory examination of the current state of affairs in South Africa reveals that the racial and class inequalities have, in fact, increased and the commanding heights of the economy (land, mines, banks etc) are still dominated by a white minority. In short, the masses are still suffering. Since the advent of political democracy in 1994, the ANC government has promoted policies like G.E.A.R. and N.D.P. that liberalize and privatize sectors of the economy. The author boldly states in the book, “the ANC is committed to a right-wing, neoliberal and capitalist agenda which has kept the majority of our people on the margins of South Africa’s economy.” </div>
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In the past, ANC Youth League leaders like Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe promoted more militant positions during the liberation movement. More recently, in 2008 at the ANC Youth League 23rd National Congress a resolution passed that declared “the state should control and be in ownership of strategic sectors of the South African economy.” Once Juluis Malema and the ANC Youth League began to organize working class and unemployed Black youth to achieve these objectives, he was expelled for ‘disciplinary reasons.’ This treachous action demonstrates the unwillingness of the ANC government to live up to the stated goals of the Freedom Charter. At this point, they realized a new independent organization was necessary to complete the revolution. </div>
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Enter the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). In response to popular demand by workers, students, traditional leaders, youth, non-profits, and others the former ANC Youth league leaders convened a National Assembly on What is to be Done? July 26-27 2013 to create a constitution and founding manifesto. In its founding documents and actions the organization draws inspiration from a broad revolutionary tradition. The title for its National Assembly is taken from a seminal text <u>What is to be Done?</u> by V.I. Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia (1917). The founding date was selected to correspond with the beginning of the Cuban Revolution (July 26th Movement). Even the red uniform of the EFF with matching berets is a nod to historic and contemporary revolutions such as in Venezuela. In this vein, they adopted seven cardinal pillars:</div>
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6. Massive development of the African economy and advocating for a move from reconciliation to justice in the entire continent.</div>
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7. Open, accountable, corrupt-free government and society without fear of victimisation by State agencies.<br />
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In the book, the EFF references several important African revolutionaries such as Amilcar Cabral and Thomas Sankara who understood the dictum 'Without a revolutionary theory, there can be no successful revolution.’ Therefore, the EFF defines itself as Marxist-Leninist-Fanonian (M-L-F). M-L-F provides the movement with a scientific method of analysis and practice that identifies political economy as primary. </div>
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At the same time, they state “Black consciousness found a proper home in the EFF and is expressed through its Fanonian character.” In short, the EFF is not a dogmatic Marxist organization that blindly copies the Soviet Union or China. Instead, M-L-F is a living science that acknowledges the psychological impact of over four centuries of colonialism and seeks to build a sustainable cultural revolution. And demonstrating their Pan African dimension they “advocate for the ultimate integration of the African continent through the erosion and eventual elimination of unnecessary borders.” Kwame Nkrumah’s dream lives through the EFF. </div>
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After one year in existence, the EFF claims a membership of approximately 400,000 and counts 25 members of national parliament. Read that sentence again. Although EFF has an electoral component, they are clear “the nature and character of our struggle will be that of a grassroots movement- a Protest Movement for fundamental change.” In its short time, they have supported women’s rights, elimination of homophobia, and families of the 34 miners at Marikana. In conclusion, let us hope that the EFF vision of economic emancipation spreads throughout the African continent, the African diaspora, and, eventually, the entire world.<br />
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144695" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144694"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144693"><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144692">Benjamin Woods is a PhD candidate at Howard University and co-founder of Students Against Mass Incarceration. He can be contacted at <a href="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com">benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com</a>, or through his website </i></span></span></span><u id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144687" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.free-the-land.blogspot.com/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144686" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144685">FreeTheLand</i></a></u><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1411950996233_144704" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;">.</i></div>
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<u>The New Book</u></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Revolution-Economic-Freedom/dp/1431410373">http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Revolution-Economic-Freedom/dp/1431410373</a></div>
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FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-22965745073422140102014-06-14T15:22:00.001-04:002014-06-15T11:10:40.534-04:00Creating the 'Cuba of Africa': The Life and Work of Mohamed Babu<div style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In 2014 Pan Africanists will commemorate two seminal events in the history of the African liberation movement: 1) the 50</span><span style="font-size: 7.3px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> anniversary of the successful revolution in Zanzibar and 2) the 90</span><span style="font-size: 7.3px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> birthday of Mohamed Babu. Although he passed away in 1996, his life is an excellent illustration of the connections between the various movements and figures in the Black World. Sadly, so much of Babu’s immense contributions to Pan Africanist, Leftist, and progressive movements has been forgotten. This is unfortunate because of his enduring love and commitment to Zanzibar, the African continent, and humanity at large.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Babu was born in 1924 in Zanzibar, a small but historic island on the east coast of Africa. Since the 1830s, Zanzibar was dominated by Omani Sultans who were middlemen during the era of British colonialism. While studying abroad in London, Babu was attracted to radical Left wing ideas. After returning to Zanzibar, he soon became a leader in the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP), one of the preeminent Nationalist organization on the island.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As Secretary General of the ZNP, he promoted a socialist ideology and built international networks of Black and radical organizers. For example, in 1958 at the founding conference of the Pan African Movement for East and Central Africa (PAFMECA), Babu was elected secretary. Later that year while traveling to the historic All African People’s Conference in Accra, Ghana, his delegation would have a chance encounter with future Congolese head of state and Pan African icon Patrice Lumumba in Leopoldville. At this point, Lumumba was isolated and virtually unknown outside of the Congo but the invitation and travel support provided by PAFMECA allowed him to network with liberation movements throughout Africa. Lumumba would later be assassinated in a CIA-backed coup. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Once at the AAPC, Babu quickly connected with the most radical forces such as Frantz Fanon and the FLN of Algeria. Fanon, Babu, and others convinced those who had achieved independence using non-violent methods like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana that in some circumstances armed struggle is a necessity. The official slogan adopted for the conference was “Independence, by any means necessary.” Malcolm X and other Black activists in the diaspora would hear and popularize this slogan. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Furthermore, Babu was a close friend and comrade of Malcolm X. They first met in July 1964 at the second summit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Cairo, Egypt. Later when Malcolm visited Tanzania it was Babu who introduced him to other governments officials and when Babu came to Harlem, Malcolm introduced him to the activist community. It was radical African leaders such as Babu who helped push Malcolm to the Left after his departure from the Nation of Islam. In his final months, Malcolm would claim “the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck” so it wasn't a shock to him that “all of the countries that are emerging today from under the shackles of colonialism are turning toward socialism.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Babu’s international organizing was directly connected to his political work in Zanzibar. The ZNPs rival was the Afro-Shiriza Party (ASP), a British backed right wing formation that used the slogan “Uhuru Zuia” (Kiswahili for ‘stop the move to independence’). Although Babu and others promoted a progressive anti-imperialist platform in the ZNP, by mid-1963 reactionary forces exacerbated long standing racial tensions between Africans and Arabs on the island to gain the upper hand in the organization. Therefore, months before Zanzibar gained independence in December 1963, Babu co-founded the revolutionary socialist Ummah Party. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The party’s creation was a correct analysis of the potentially revolutionary conditions. On January 12</span><span style="font-size: 7.3px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> 1964, the unemployed and oppressed youth of Zanzibar rose up in spontaneous rebellion. The Ummah Party leadership used its organizing experience and training in Cuba to teach the youth revolutionary tactics and gain leadership of the insurrection. The Ummah party and disaffected youth removed the Sultan from power. <i>This was Africa’s first successful revolution to overthrow neocolonialism</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After these game changing events, Frank Carlucci, a US state department official, openly stated that US policy was to prevent Zanzibar from becoming the “Cuba of Africa from which sedition would have spread to the continent.” A few days later, officer mutinies in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika fed into US fears about a communist conspiracy. One US state department memo asserts “our central purpose is to strengthen Nyerere” (the new President of Tanganyika). Then as the US had hoped, if not outright engineered, Nyerere asked the British for military assistance to put down the officer mutinies. The US fundamentally thought he, Nyerere, was a leader they could control. After several private meetings in May 1964 , the US, Nyerere, and right wing leaders in Zanzibar engineered an Tanganyika-Zanzibar Union. The union transferred most major foreign and domestic policy decisions to mainland Tangayika and away from the revolutionary forces who captured state power in Zanzibar. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Although Nyerere is considered to be one of the African continents most progressive independence leaders, history presents a different story. He promoted a unique brand of ‘African socialism’ based on the notion of a communal, classless traditional African society. His economic policies of ‘self-reliance’ led to Tanzania having a food surplus to importer of food. Babu, on the other hand, saw no contradiction between Pan Africanism and scientific socialism. For him, socialism was not based on a traditional African past or even the Soviet Union but the social conditions in contemporary Africa. In addition, unlike Nyerere who associated with the moderate gradualist in the Monrovia group, Babu supported the immediate unification of Africa. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After the Tanganyika-Zanzibar union he was appointed to what were in his opinion powerless positions in government primarily in order to watch him. He and his comrades functioned as the Left within the Tanzanian government shaping several of the regimes perceived progressive policies. But in 1972, following the murder of the President of Zanzibar, Babu was arbitrarily incarcerated by the allegedly progressive Julius Nyerere. It was because of an international campaign under the leadership of people like the Guyanese and Pan African freedom fighter Walter Rodney that Babu was released after six years. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Babu’s life is a reflection of the dialectical method he adopted in his life and work. His political work is an example of someone who found a fundamental unity in what appears to be opposing tendencies. He was a Zanzibarian Nationalist and a staunch internationalist. He claimed that Socialism would come through African unity and vice versa. He was miltant and uncompromising but argued radicals had to address the bread and butter issues of people. In conclusion, one of the major lessons of his life we should take away is encapsulated in the slogans of the 7</span><span style="font-size: 7.3px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><sup>th</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Pan African Congress he co-organized in Kampala, Uganda in 1994: ‘Resist Recolonisation’ and ‘Don’t Aganise, organize!” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Babu, A.M. 1981. <i>African Socialism or Socialist Africa</i>. London: Zed Press</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ed. Salma Babu & Amrit Wilson. 2002. <i>The Future That Works: The Selected Writings of A.M. Babu</i>. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Campbell, Horace. “Abdulrahman Mohammed Babu 1924-1996 A Personal Memoir” <i>African Journal of Political Science</i> (1996), Vol. 1 No. 2, 240-246.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Wilson, Amrit. 1989. <i>US Foreign Policy and Revolution: The Creation of Tanzania</i>. Winchester, MA: Pluto Press.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">____________. “Abdul Rahman Mohamed Babu: Politician, Scholar, and Revolutionary” <i>The Journal of Pan African Studies</i>, vol. 1 No. 9, August 2007. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">____________. 2013. <i>The Threat of Liberation: Imperialism and Revolution in Zanzibar</i>. New York: Pluto Press. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Benjamin Woods is a PhD candidate at Howard University and co-founder of Students Against Mass Incarceration. He can be contacted at </i><a href="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com"><span style="color: #196ad4; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com</i></span></a><i>, or through his website </i><a href="http://www.free-the-land.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #196ad4; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>FreeTheLand</i></span></a><i>.</i></span></div>
FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-57227432033951354242014-01-09T09:50:00.000-05:002014-01-09T09:52:00.998-05:00Who and What is “The Left”?<div class="yiv2250997822MsoNormal" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1389278696799_4935" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1389278696799_4934">The January 1<sup>st</sup> edition of the <i>Washington Post</i> published an Op-Ed titled “The Resurgent Progressives.” The writer, E.J. Dionne, claims “the emergence of a Democratic left will be one of the major stories of 2014.” The author bemoans the rightward shift in American politics and admits the US “needs a real Left.” But do progressive local referendums, the ascendancy of individuals like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and NYC mayor Bill De Blasio represent the “the real Left.” Hmm, I don’t think so. Once upon a time these figures would have been, at best, referred to as liberals even moderates by some. </span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1389278696799_4931">Although the terms Left and Right are regularly applied in the white corporate media, they are rarely defined. Throughout most of the twentieth century, particularly the Cold War, “the Left” meant some form of socialism, communism, or anarchism. We should return to this definition. The central unifying factor of the “The Left” should be anti-capitalism. Speaking only of income inequality just. doesn't. quite. cut it. “The Left” must question private ownership itself and demand a complete redistribution of land and wealth including, but not limited to, the nationalization of banks, factories, and communications systems etc.</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1389278696799_4927">As previously stated, this was once the criteria. For example, Howard Zinn claims that one hundred years ago in 1914 the Socialist Party USA had over 1200 office-holders in the US. Twenty years later, during the era of the popular front, Robert Cohen in <u>When the Old Left was Young</u> writes that in 1936 half of all college students in this country participated in a one day strike and rally to protest fascism and war. At the height of the anti-war movement in 1970, over 10,000 people gathered in Philadelphia for the Revolutionary People's Convention to write a new US constitution. The keynote speaker was Black revolutionary, Huey Newton. These are examples of a truly insurgent Left. </span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1389278696799_4879">None of those remarks are meant to belittle the accomplishments, impact, and possibilities of the liberal policy's that have been enacted. A case in point, eighteen states have legalized gay marriage, Washington and Colorado legalized marijuana, and like other municipalities, Washington DC has raised its minimum wage to $11.50. Similar to industrial unionism in the 1930s, if the SEIU and other labor unions commit hundreds, perhaps, thousands of young organizers to organize fast food, low wage workers there could be a strong multi-national labor movement in the US. The beacons of hope for a truly resurgent Left are socialist alternative city council woman Kshama Sawant in Seattle, WA and Revolutionary Black Nationalist Chokwe Lumumba in Jackson, MS. But what does a truly resurgent Left mean for the Black Liberation movement?</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1389278696799_5061">In <u>Reluctant Reformers</u> Robert Allen argues that US social reform movements from abolitionism to labor has been sabotaged by racism/white supremacy. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing impact of the southern strategy perfected by Ronald Reagan AND the Democratic party, racism hurts the chances of the success of multi-racial organizations even today. Moreover, it illustrates the continued relevance of Left Nationalist formation(s) (ex: African Blood Brotherhood, Black Panthers, MXGM). Following the strategy laid out in the Jackson Plan of participatory and economic democracy, the election of Chokwe Lumumba offers possibilities and potential lessons for "The Left" generally and the Black Left in particular. With the correct definition and strategy for "The Left" we can organize to smash capitalism and end national oppression, once and for all.</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1389278696799_5071"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1389278696799_5070"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1389278696799_5069"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1389278696799_5068"><i id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1389278696799_5067">Benjamin Woods is a PhD candidate at Howard University and co-founder of Students Against Mass Incarceration. He can be contacted at <a href="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com">benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com</a>, or through his website </i></span></span></span><u><a href="http://www.free-the-land.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank"><i>FreeTheLand</i></a></u><i>.</i></span></div>
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FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-89533145434453009122013-07-07T12:19:00.002-04:002013-07-07T17:26:18.903-04:00Pan Africanism: A Two-Line Struggle<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1961 sociologist E. Franklin Frazier wrote “We
have no philosophers…who have reflected upon the fundamental problems which
have always concerned philosophers such as the nature of human knowledge and
the meaning of human existence.” To a large extent, this lack of engagement
with philosophy, among intellectuals AND organizers, has produced several
misunderstandings that has even led to fratricidal violence. For example, the fact that many Pan
Africanist do not have a grounding in philosophy has had a negative impact on
ideological struggle in the movement.
This article is a corrective that will, hopefully, provide a brief
history and understanding of the nature of the two-line struggle in the Pan
African community.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Kwame Nkrumah stated that two worldviews have
existed in human history: materialism and idealism. Another fancy, academic GRE
word for this concept is ontology.
Ontology asks the question ‘what is the fundamental nature of reality’
or ‘what is real’? Idealists assert that ‘ideas’, ‘consciousness’, or ‘spirit’
are the fundamental reality. For
example, in her book <u>Yurugu</u> Marimba Ani declares “spirit is primary!,”
similar to Hegel in <u>The Philosophy of History</u> who explained that a
‘universal spirit’ or 'consciousness' is primary.
Although they represent two very different set of political interests
and constituency’s, when it comes to ontology, they share the philosophical viewpoint of idealism. A few notable
African idealists are Marimba Ani, Cedric Robinson, Molefi Asante, Mwalimu
Baruti, Asa Hillard, and Marcus Garvey.
Western idealists include Plato, Friedrich Hegel, and Gerald Massey. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">However, materialists claim that ‘matter’, ‘nature’,
or the ‘physical world’ that humans perceive with their senses (taste, touch,
sight, hear, smell) are real. Ideas, in
the materialist conception, are principally a reflection of ‘matter’ or the
‘physical world.’ Of course, several
African materialists were scientific socialists influenced by Karl Marx and
Fredrich Engels but, as Theophile Obenga in <u>African Philosophy </u> and S. Radhakrishnan
in <u>Indian Philosophy Vol 1. </u>demonstrate, philosophical materialism as a
distinct school of thought existed in African and other non-western societies
prior to the development of Western philosophy.
African materialist include Kwame Nkrumah, Fred Hampton, George Jackson,
Huey Newton, Claudia Jones, Kwame Ture, Thomas Sankara, Amilcar Cabral, and
Walter Rodney. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Robert Alexander in his <u>Ethiopian
Manifesto </u>(1829) was the first to articulate a form of idealism called
Ethiopianism. The doctrine originates in
a biblical prophecy from Psalm 68:31 “Princes shall come out of Egypt and
Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God.” Ethiopianist believe that Egypt (Kmt) and
Ethiopia (Kush) were great ancient African civilizations and that soon the
Western world will fall and Black people will once again be leaders in world
civilization. Ethiopianism was
influenced by romanticism. Romanticism
was a European reaction to the Enlightenment which asserts that each race or
nation has its own unique characteristics and should follow its own model of
development. For example, Alexander
Crummell was an Ethiopianist who emigrated to West Africa in the nineteenth
century and a self-described Platonist.
He stated “The Negro Problem in the US is a problem of ideas...there is
a present, but fleeting move to give it the respect of materialism.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">By the early twentieth
century, the ideological struggle began to intensify. In 1914, Hubert Harrison left the Socialist
Party(SP) claiming that rhetorically the SP was class first but, in fact, has “insisted
on Race first, and class after.” Later, he would give Marcus Garvey one of his
first platforms at a major speaking event in NYC and become co-editor of the <i>Negro World</i>. Eventually, he broke with Garvey over, what
was in Harrison’s view, utopian idealism.
While espousing a race first philosophy, Harrison remained committed to
historical materialism. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The UNIA, under the
leadership of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, was the largest mass movement
of Africans in history, before and since. The ideology of the UNIA, African
Fundamentalism, was a direct descendant of Ethiopainism urging Africans to
pursue ‘racial independence’ in art, politics, and all areas of life in order
that a fallen people will rise to their original greatness. At its core, the
UNIA was a spiritual/political movement that attempted to engender in its adherents
a mental transformation and cultural return to Africa.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In addition to Harrison,
the UNIA had major disagreements with the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB). The ABB was a scientific socialist
organization whose objective was to establish an independent Black state in the
US. The debate became so hostile, that
the ABB disrupted the second international convention of the UNIA. Following the merger of the ABB with the
communist party (CPUSA), there were regular street brawls between Garveyites
and the CPUSA in Harlem in the 1930s. In fact, in 1930, one physical
altercation led to the death of a Black communist, Alfred Levy. Therefore, there was a historical precedent
for the shootings at UCLA between the US organization and BPP in 1969. The ideas of Garveyites and Communists
influenced later generations of Black Power advocates and independence leaders.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Similar to the US, the
African continent experienced the two-line ideological struggle. The principle debate was between scientific
socialist and those who advocated African socialism and Negritude such as
Leopold Senghor. Senghor, the first
president of Senegal, asserted that prior to slavery and colonialism Africans
practiced communalism whereby land and resources were shared, therefore, they
do not need to adopt the ideas of Karl Marx but instead must return to the
source. Furthermore, according to
Negritude, all people of African descent, regardless of time and space, have a
spiritual/metaphysical connection which facilitates a shared cultural value system. Negritude is influenced by surrealism. Surrealism was an early twentieth century
artistic and political movement originating in France that was critical of
western rationality and instead emphasized the subconscious, imagination, and
emotion as a means to human emancipation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Ahmed Sekou Toure, was a
revolutionary leader of Guinea-Conakry who in 1958 rejected membership in the
French community and in 1961 expelled the Soviet ambassador. He was critical of the Negritude ideology promoted in 1966 at the
Festival of Negro Arts organized in Dakar. Toure claimed “the serious
mistake of the champions of Negritude is that they underestimate the very
determinant force of the environment and historical facts on man’s thought and
reflexes.” Toure argued Negritude built
upon a white definition of Blackness which stated Africans are irrational and
savage. Instead, history, not skin
color, should form the basis of the African personality. Therefore, in Toure’s
view, Negritude is an “imperialist ideology.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">As long as Black people
inside and outside the US have a common experience of global white supremacy
and international capitalism, then unity on Pan African lines will continue to
be a historical necessity. Because a similar experience of oppression does not
always produce a general agreement among a group, it is hoped that this article
will add some ideological clarity minus the traditional condescension and acrimony.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In the twenty first
century, old categories such as ‘cultural nationalists vs. revolutionary
nationalists’, ‘class vs. race’, and ‘culture vs. economics’ are increasingly
irrelevant, if they ever really were accurate.
Those who argue that culture and white supremacy are the primary factors
in the oppression of Black people are philosophical idealists. On the other hand, philosophical materialists
view culture and national identities as primarily determined by history and
social environment but, still yet, a cultural revolution is required in order
to ensure the long-term success of a liberation movement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Unfortunately, this
article cannot cover the totality of a century old debate that cuts across the
Black world but, as a wave of radical activism sweeps the globe, it is
imperative Africans in the millennial generation have a basic knowledge of the
history and scope of the two line struggle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">A Luta Continua! (The
struggle continues!)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Materialism<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“African Socialism<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1297688964798204285" name="_GoBack"></a> Revisited”
by Kwame Nkrumah<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nkrumah/1967/african-socialism-revisited.htm">http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nkrumah/1967/african-socialism-revisited.htm</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Conscienism</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
by Kwame Nkrumah<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Revolution,
Culture & Pan Africanism </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">by Ahmed Sekou Toure<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“A Dialectical Approach to Culture” by Ahmed Sekou
Toure<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">African
Socialism or Socialist </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Africa by Muhammad Babu<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Return
to the Source </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">by Amilcar Cabral<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Marxism
and African Liberation”<i> </i>by Walter
Rodney<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Tanzanian Ujamaa and Scientific Socialism” by
Walter Rodney<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/rodney-walter/works/ujamaaandscientificsocialism.htm">http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/rodney-walter/works/ujamaaandscientificsocialism.htm</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Walter
Rodney Speaks</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> by Walter Rodney<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"</span><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Why I Changed My
Ideology</span>': Black Nationalism and Socialist
Revolution," by Amiri Baraka Black World 24 (July 1975): 30-42<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Pan
Africanism or Communism </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">by George Padmore<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">“Materialist Philosophical
Inquiry and African American Studies” by Jonathan H. McClendon <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://sdonline.org/55/materialist-philosophical-inquiry-and-african-american-studies/">http://sdonline.org/55/materialist-philosophical-inquiry-and-african-american-studies/</a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“In Defense of </span></span><em><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Materialism</span></em><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">: A Critique of </span></span><em><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Afrocentric Ontology</span></em><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">,” by Christopher Williams Race & Class
47(1), 35-48.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="st"><b><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Idealism<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></span></div>
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<span class="st"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey </span></i></span><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">by Marcus Garvey<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="st"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Race
First</span></i></span><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> by Tony Martin<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="st"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On
African Socialism</span></i></span><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> by Leopold Senghor<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">"Ujamaa – The Basis of African Socialism" </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">by </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Julius Nyerere</span><br />
<a href="http://www.jpanafrican.com/edocs/e-DocUjamma3.5.pdf">http://www.jpanafrican.com/edocs/e-DocUjamma3.5.pdf</a></div>
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<span class="st"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Pan
Africanism in the Diaspora</span></i></span><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> by Ronald
Walters<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Marxist-Leninism and the Black
Revolution” by Ronald Walters <i>Black
Bulletin Books</i> Vol. 5, No. 3, Fall 1977<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Enemy from the White Left, White
Right, & In-Between” by Haki Madhubuti <i>Black
World</i> 23, 12, (October 74), 36-47.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<h1>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="st"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“US, Kawiada, and the Black Liberation Movement in the 1960s” by Malauna
Karenga in </span></span><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Engines
of the Black Power Movement: Essays on the Influence of Civil Rights Actions,
Arts, And Islam</span></i></span></span><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span class="st"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Black
Marxism</span></i></span><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> by Cedric Robinson<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="st"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Afrocentricity</span></i></span><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
by Molefi Asante<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="st"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yurugu</span></i></span><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
by Marimba Ani<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Notes</span></em><span class="st"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Toward Higher Ideals in Afrikan </span></i></span><em><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Intellectual</span></em><span class="st"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Liberation</span></i></span><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> by Mwalimu
Baruti</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-15411122776623387392013-01-07T11:05:00.002-05:002013-01-07T11:05:30.064-05:00A Few Thoughts on Django Unchained
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Django Unchained</i> is
one of the most talked about films among Africans in the US.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any <st1:place w:st="on">Hollywood</st1:place>
film in which an enslaved African kills Europeans on screen is bound to
generate a favorable response in the Black community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, Africans have developed an
independent tradition of revolutionary art that stretches back to the
antebellum period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, the
similarities among Black art over time are not the product of a metaphysical or
unconscious influence but instead primarily represent similar responses to the
same social environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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In fact, two antebellum novels share a similar plot with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Django</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In 1852, Frederick Douglass published <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Heroic Slave.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A novel
about an enslaved African who attempts to rescue his wife from enslavement then
leads a successful revolt on a slave ship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Although Douglass is often likened to a nineteenth century non-violent
MLK, in fact, he advocated armed rebellion in his speeches, this novel, and
flirted with emigration to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Haiti</st1:place></st1:country-region>
in 1860.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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A few years later, in 1861, Martin Delany published the
novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blake or the Huts of America</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blake</i>
is about an enslaved African who, after his wife is sold into enslavement in
the <st1:place w:st="on">Caribbean</st1:place>, organizes an armed Black
revolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the course of his travels,
he organizes freedom fighters in the US South, Western Africa, and the <st1:place w:st="on">Caribbean</st1:place>. Remember both of these novels were written
when slavery was the law of the land. What enterprising young Black filmmaker
will make a movie based on these novels written by two of our greatest
abolitionists?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only time will tell…..<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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If enslavement could not stop the production of
revolutionary Black art neither could legal American apartheid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1899, Pan Africanist author Sutton Griggs
wrote the militant novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Imperium in
Imperio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imperium</i> is about a secret
underground Black organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
novel climaxes when the organization decides to takeover the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> navy and liberate <st1:state w:st="on">Louisiana</st1:state>
and <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Texas</st1:place></st1:state> to
form an independent Black state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To a
large extent, Griggs and his work have been forgotten but his attempt to create
a national Black literature lives on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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The Black Power movement produced a cultural renaissance in creative
expression that is still revered but has some overlooked aspects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Lost Man (1969), Uptight (1969), The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973), <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The River Niger (1976</i>) are all feature
length films which include Black radical organizations engaged in armed
shootouts with the police.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example,
the entire film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Final Comedown (1972)</i>
starring Billie Dee Williams, is an armed shootout with the pigs wherein the
main character has flashbacks to show how society pushed him to become a
revolutionary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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The so called ‘blaxploitation’ period produced several films
that could be considered revolutionary or reactionary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boss
Nigger</i>, written and produced by a Black man, features a formerly enslaved Black
Bounty hunter who arbitrarily makes himself sheriff of an all white town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tagline of the film is “White Man’s Town,
Black Man’s Law.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hmmm, a Black bounty
hunter who kills white people on screen…sounds eerily familiar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The enthusiastic response that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Django</i> has provoked from Africans demonstrates the desire for art
that inspires a culture of resistance. Simultaneously, it is imperative that
young African intellectuals and organizers familiarize themselves with Black
art that has explicitly political objectives and emphasizes collective
liberation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are the vanguard of,
not only the political, but the cultural revolution, as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-22710064062622082162012-11-14T22:13:00.000-05:002012-11-14T22:13:10.489-05:00Human Rights, Neo-liberalism, and Mass Incarceration
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After billions of dollars in campaign donations
and thousands of negative ads, the 2012 elections left the legislative and
executive branch virtually unchanged. The Obama campaign energized a coalition
of Blacks, unions, white women, and Latino’s. As a matter of fact, the day
after the election, several Latino groups stated explicitly that Obama owes his
second term to them and should pass comprehensive immigration reform. Unlike in
2008, Black people should not be pacified with the symbolism of a Black
president but must develop a set of tactics, strategies, and objectives to
improve their deteriorating condition, particularly in the arena of mass
incarceration. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In 1948, the US became a signature to the United
Nations Declarations of Human Rights. Similar to previous generations, this
document can be used to demonstrate the gross human rights violations against
US Blacks. For instance, the 13<sup>th</sup> amendment to the US constitution
states “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except for crime whereof the
party has been duly convicted shall exist within the United States.” In short,
enslavement did not legally end in the US but was only regulated by the
government. Mass incarceration is <i>slavery</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This runs counter to article 4 of the UN
Declaration which states “</span><span style="color: #300906; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">No
one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be
prohibited in all their forms.” This means that not only is the United States
Constitution in direct contradiction to the very notions of equality and
freedom it claims to represent but international law as well. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Due to neoliberal economic policies over the
past thirty years, prisons and other areas of social life have become
increasingly privatized. For example, in 2010 two private management prison
companies had a combined revenue of almost $3 billion. We should demand the
immediate transfer of private prisons into public hands. In addition, a ‘New’
New Deal, that includes a guaranteed job for ALL including the formerly incarcerated.
Specifically, we demand re-entry programs that provide a job and housing upon
release from prison. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">An organization that should be studied to
achieve these objectives is the National Negro Congress. NNC was a united front
composed of fraternal and religious groups, civil rights, unions, etc. under
the leadership of the Black Left. In fact, the President and Executive
Secretary were Communists. The primary tactics used were mass demonstrations
and direct action. Their successes include the establishment of a civilian
review board for District police, dealing a death blow to debt peonage, and no
police murders of Blacks in DC during their high point of organizing against
police brutality in 1938-39. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The inherent limitations of this strategy are obvious:
ending neoliberalism does not end white supremacy or the economic system that
created it and the UN is to a large extent controlled by major Western powers.
But a critique of neoliberalism does provide space for a more thorough critique
of capitalism and a human rights paradigm gives US Blacks a common framework
and possibility for alliances with other oppressed people. In addition, this
strategy allows us to publicize our case at the international level. The time
of symbolism has ended and movement building has begun. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-25132743752568348102012-10-19T08:59:00.002-04:002012-10-19T08:59:20.340-04:00Black Internationalism and Mass Incarceration<div class="yiv2086478046MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_489" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_488" style="font-family: Calibri;">The 2008 financial collapse that began in the United States spread almost instantly to rest of the globe.<span> </span>Since the financial collapse, the resistance to the imposition of austerity measures has spread as well.<span> </span>For example, the Arab spring inspired the Indignado movement in Spain which motivated the white Left in the US to form the Occupy movement. <span> </span>Black people in the US must build upon their own history of internationalism in order to abolish the prison industrial complex.<span> </span></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="yiv2086478046MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_400" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_399" style="font-family: Calibri;">For instance, internationalism was a regular feature of the<span class="yshortcuts cs4-visible" id="lw_1350651149_1">abolitionist movement</span>.<span> </span>After leaving Fredrick Douglas publication, the <i>North Star</i>, Black abolitionist Martin Delany held several conventions in the 1850s to decide a location for Black people to emigrate from the US.<span> </span>Also, he spoke to the Aleke or so called chief to set up trade between US Blacks and people in contemporary Nigeria.<span id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_516"> </span>Finally, he traveled to Britain to build international support among abolitionists in Europe.<span> </span></span></div>
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<div class="yiv2086478046MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_495" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_494" style="font-family: Calibri;">Almost a century later, Howard alumnus and professor, Alphaeus Hunton helped to lead the Civil Rights Congress.<span> </span>The CRC was a Black radical organization that protected the democratic and human rights of US Blacks. In 1951 they published and delivered to the United Nations “We Charge Genocide” a detailed portrait of the gross human rights violations against US Blacks. </span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div class="yiv2086478046MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_513" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_512" style="font-family: Calibri;">Arguably, Black internationalism is one of the greatest threats to the US Empire.<span> </span>For example, during the anti communist Red scare several Black radicals were blacklisted, called in front of senatorial hearings and questioned about their political affiliations and, like Alphaeus Hunton, imprisoned.<span> </span>Great Black organizations such as the CRC, National Negro Congress, Southern Negro Youth Congress, and Council on African Affairs were destroyed and, worse yet, forgotten. </span></div>
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<div class="yiv2086478046MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_511" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_510" style="font-family: Calibri;">Perhaps most unfortunately, Black liberal organizations such as NAACP that adopted Black internationalism abandoned it once it was marked subversive by the US government.<span> </span>The NAACP adopted much of the Cold War rhetoric as well.<span> </span>This included condemning uncompromising former allies like Alphaeus Hunton who were prosecuted for their political beliefs</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_509" style="font-family: Calibri;">It is time to resurrect the spirit of Black internationalism! Several leaders in Latin America such as Guatemala and Costa Rica have expressed thier support for ending the war on drugs through decriminalization.<span> </span>This region is even more important because of the Left ward shift of its governments and the literally hundreds of millions of the Black people living in Central, South America, and Caribbean. <span> </span></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_505" style="font-family: Calibri;">Due to the numerous embassies in Washington DC, Black students in the area are uniquely situated to build relationships with progressive governments.<span> </span>In addition, Black students in the NY area have access to the United Nations headquarters.<span> </span>Black internationalism will allow us to publicize the condition of Black people across the globe and bring the US on charges of human rights violations and Genocide. Only a few organizations have kept the flame of Black internationalism alive but now we must bring it back to the mainstream of Black political life. </span></div>
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Benjamin Woods is a student organizer and PhD candidate in Political Science at Howard University. His blog is <a href="http://free-the-land.blogspot.com/" id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_401" target="_blank"><span id="lw_1350651149_2">free-the-land.blogspot.com</span></a>. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com" id="yui_3_7_2_7_1350650657097_402" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" ymailto="mailto:benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com"><span id="lw_1350651149_3">benjaminwoods1@yahoo.com</span></a><var id="yiv2086478046yui-ie-cursor"></var></div>
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FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-91453166175720780052012-09-28T16:31:00.000-04:002012-10-01T07:43:22.256-04:00The End of Political Theatre<br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">"There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I
can do or say." -W..E.B. Dubois (1956)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Places everyone, Places” we are entering the final
act of political theatre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Presidential debates indicate the eminent conclusion of the 2012 Presidential
elections.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This election season has been
equally entertaining as any Broadway show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whether it’s the pep rally/Sunday revival that is the nominating
conventions or tragic-comedy of Mitt Romney’s comment regarding the “47%.” But
ultimately what makes this election theatre is the fact that the political and
economic system of this society has been structured to restrict the acceptable
terms of debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How did this happen?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">For all those who remember the 2000 elections, in
Florida, a controversy developed concerning which votes would be counted in one
of the closest presidential elections in US history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After the case was sent to the Supreme Court,
the justices in Gore v Bush decided “<span style="color: black;">The individual
citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the
President of the United States</span>”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This judicial decision reminds US citizens that in this Republic, not
democracy, the Electoral College determines the winner of the election. In
short, voting is a privilege, not a right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">At the founding of the US, when this drama was
written, only property owning white males could vote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Originally the US senate was decided by the
state legislatures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, in
agreement with several framers of the US Constitution, James Madison in in Federalist
Papers No. 10 explicitly states the he believes the masses should not enter
politics because they would want to redistribute wealth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t until Blacks, Women and other
disenfranchised people engaged in dynamic social movements that they gained the
privilege to vote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a capitalist
society, the poor are denied a voice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">More recently, the Supreme Court facilitated the
corporate sponsorship of this theatrical production per the Citizens United
case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This far sighted judicial decision
allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts in election campaigns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although in 2008 Obama received a record
amount of small donations, he received many large donations that helped him
reach the record setting $745 million.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In a report titled “America for Sale” Sen. Bernie Sanders (D) states the
Koch Brothers alone plan to give $400 million.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">To a large extent, in 1972, following the Gary
Convention, the Black movement began to shift its primary focus from militant
grassroots organizing to electoral politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This strategy has been a major error.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Black Movements primary focus should return to tactics such as the
general strike, non-violent civil disobedience, and independent Black-led
political organizations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, we can
end the political theatre and get on the real show called: Liberation!</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-10618965297552070212012-08-23T15:22:00.000-04:002012-08-23T15:30:52.749-04:00Black Secular Thought and Action<i>Goodbye, </i><br />
<i>Christ Jesus Lord God Jehovah, </i><br />
<i>Beat it on away from here now.</i><br />
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-Langston Hughes “Goodbye Christ”<br />
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Every year, the Pew Research Center publishes a survey which consistently demonstrates that Black people are the most religious group in the United States. This is not surprising considering that the Black Liberation Movement has been influenced by spirituality particularly Christianity. The historical and contemporary religiosity of Blacks leads many to incorrectly assume spiritually/religion has been at the center of the Black Movement. History tells a different story. <br />
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In every stage of the Black movement you can find atheists, agnostics, skeptics or people better known as freethinkers. For example, while a Southern missionary in the 1830s, AME minister, Daniel Payne stated enslaved Africans “scoff at religion itself…Yes, I have known them to even question [God’s] existence.”<br />
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Today, young Black people question a God who would allow the persistent violence in their communities or huge disparities in wealth between poor Black and affluent white communities. Therefore, contrary to popular opinion, atheism is not a Eurocentric or “white thing” but is an indigenous intellectual development that organically emerges out of the Black experience. Lastly, this challenges the common held assumption that faith in God was necessary to survive the horrors of slavery, sharecropping, and segregation.<br />
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Several Black political leaders and intellectuals have been critical of the Black church, some have completely rejected faith. An example is Black atheist WEB Dubois. Dubois is known as the first African to attain a PhD from Harvard and arguably the most revered Black intellectual of the 20th century. He boldly asserted “I do not believe in the existence and rulership of the one God of the Jews” and “Death is the end of Life.” <br />
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Dubois praised the Soviet Union for removing religion from public education. In his eyes the Black church defended the oppression and exploitation of Blacks and a lack of free thinking. Although Dubois is one of the most read Black thinkers in history, his atheist views have been overlooked. Other Black leaders who were also freethinkers include A. Philip Randolph, Langston Hughes, and Howard University’s own Zora Neale Hurston to name a few. <br />
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To an extent, the Black church has had better propagandists than Black freethinkers. Most know of the contributions of the church to the Civil Rights Movement but what about the obstacles it has posed? For instance, at the 1961 National Baptist Convention, the largest Black religious group in the US, progressive ministers such as M.L.K. attempted to have the organization support civil rights. The idea of supporting Black human rights was so controversial, that a physical fight ensued and one minister was killed at the convention! Lord have Mercy, chile! <br />
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In conclusion, although everyone is entitled to their own personal belief or lack thereof, the Black movement should be secular. Whether it is the independence movements in Africa such as FRELIMO (Mozambique), MPLA (Angola), or the Black Panther Party in the US, spirituality was, at best, a secondary factor. As a Black skeptic examining this information, I ask ‘Do we need spirituality or religion in order to build and sustain a mass movement?’ I doubt it. <iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QpPbs8hI-FY" width="420"></iframe>FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-7653859187480744692012-04-05T10:07:00.003-04:002012-04-05T10:11:35.767-04:00Stand Whose Ground?This article originally appeared in the Howard University newspaper, <a href="http://www.thehilltoponline.com/opinions/free-em-all-1.2725230">The Hilltop</a>. <br /><br /><em>“Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,<br /> Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!”</em><br /><br /> “If We Must Die” -Claude Mckay<br /><br /><br /> <br />The Southern Poverty Law Center released its Spring 2012 Intelligence Report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism,” which described the dramatic increase in the number of radical right- wing organizations.<br /> <br />A few of the groups are described as neo-nazis, neo-confederates, white nationalists, and racist skinheads. According to the report, the number of militia and patriot groups jumped from 158 in 2001 to 1274 in 2011. A similar rise of right-wing groups has occurred in Europe as well.<br /> <br />The publication provides three reasons for the rise of so-called ‘hate groups’: the first Black President, a growing non-white population, and, I think most importantly, the so-called Great Recession.<br /> <br />For obvious reasons, Black people should be especially alarmed by the rise of the radical right. We are subjected to a distinct type of oppression in America. Historically, Black people are defined by America as the opposite of all that is moral, just, beautiful, industrious and divine.<br /> <br />In short, we are the most likely scapegoats in periods of instability, like, I don’t know-- an economic recession. Of course, other groups such as Jews, Arabs, women, homosexuals, etc. are targets as well, but Blacks are the eternal “other.”<br /> <br />The murder of Trayvon Martin should be placed in this context.<br /> <br />However, I don’t think these incidences of white radicalism should be viewed as strictly the province of the so-called lower classes. A large part of this potential raging fire is being fanned by right-wing elites such as the Koch brothers.<br /> <br />The Koch brothers fund politicians like Newt Gingrich who stated, “I will tell black people to demand paychecks instead of food stamps,” and Rick Santorum who enlightened us with “I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money.”<br /> <br />The Koch brothers, are also behind the voter ID legislation and owners of Georgia-Pacific--you know, all those new paper towel and soap dispensers in bathrooms across the university campus.<br /> <br />White radicalism could not be so widespread and protracted without white elite complicity. In 1919, after the Washington Post ran a story stating a white woman had been raped by a Black man, whites engaged in a rampage through The District for multiple days, murdering Black people throughout the city.<br /> <br />Once it became obvious that the government was not going to intervene, Black folk began to form self-defense units against white neighborhood watchmen, I mean--vigilantes. They even placed snipers on the roof of Howard Theater to defend themselves.<br /> <br />In the 1950s, Robert Williams, head of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP started a gun club to protect civil rights workers. Self-defense was a necessity for survival in Black communities, not a “get-out-of-jail-free,” or rather, a “never-be-arrested-for-murder” card.<br /> <br />Although, for the most part, their methods have changed, this rise in right-wing radical groups reminds us that there was a time when a certain group of people, many of whom now criticize our hoodies once wore different hoods of their own.<br /> <br />In many ways, the self defense aspect of Stand Your Ground law is not foreign to the history of Black people. The answer to our question of what else can we do outside of marches, rallies, and petitions, is there, only if, we listen to the ancestors…..FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-65315551143474697082012-02-20T20:08:00.001-05:002012-02-20T20:10:58.755-05:00Racial Inequality in the United StatesThis article originally appeared in the Howard University Newspaper, <a href="http://www.thehilltoponline.com/opinions/free-em-all-1.2703280">The Hilltop</a>.<br /><br /><em>The bees work.<br /><br /> Their work is taken from them.<br /><br /> We are like bees-<br /><br /> But it won't last<br /><br /> Forever.</em><br /><br /> -Langston Hughes, "Black Worker"<br /> <br />The United for a Fair Economy's annual State of the Dream report demonstrates the deep and enduring racial inequalities in the United States and the need for a revitalized Black Movement.<br /> <br />Of late, the Occupy Movement, a de facto white Left movement, has put a spotlight on class inequality in the U.S. The other positive side of #occupy is its challenge to electoral politics as the primary mode of political expression. Although #occupy issues overlap with Black issues, as of yet, racial inequality has not become a central feature in the Occupy Movement.<br /> <br />Racial inequality is a direct of result of an ongoing Whites only affirmative action program. In 1862, the Homestead Act transferred the title of government land almost exclusively to whites. Almost one hundred years later in the wake of World War II, due to white supremacist practices, a large number of Black veterans were unable to take advantage of educational opportunities, home loans, and job training skills offered by the G.I. Bill. And, more recently, mortgage companies targeted Blacks and Latinos for adjustable rate mortgages that precipitated the economic crash of 2008.<br /> <br />These and numerous other policies have had detrimental life consequences for Africans in America. Last year the Pew Research Center released a study showing the median net worth of white households compared to Black households had risen from 12 times more in 1984 to 19 times more in 2009. At the same time, Blacks receive 61 cents for every dollar a white person earns.<br /> <br />Not surprisingly, for over forty years Blacks have experienced triple the poverty rate of whites. This is just a sample. In most areas, including education, housing, employment, and of course, mass incarceration, Blacks have more of the bad things and less of the good things.<br /><br /> What is more, these are not just words or statistics on a page or screen, these numbers represent the real life chances for human beings.<br /> <br />The historic and continuing racial oppression of Black people in the U.S. has helped to produce a common experience and history. In effect, it has molded them into a nation. What is necessary then to resolve the national oppression of Blacks in the U.S. is a Black Nationalist movement that has a critique of capitalism.<br /> <br />The oppression of Blacks is fundamentally rooted in economics but, due to the history of this country there is a unique type of anti-black racism in the U.S., and even the world. Furthermore, the movement should reject narrow nationalism and instead be open to coalitions with other oppressed nationalities and class conscious white workers.<br /> <br />The primary challenge is a generation of Black people who have been inundated with post-racial propaganda from the right wing that states that race is virtually irrelevant and white Left opportunism that asserts race should be completely subservient to class.<br /> <br />Therefore, a mass based political education is necessary to assist the millennial generation in attaining the understanding that their oppression is at the foundations of the current world system and a Black Nationalist movement isn't a preference, but a historical necessity.FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-45113281022120709522012-02-02T08:43:00.001-05:002012-02-02T08:45:57.537-05:00Black Student AbolitionismThis article originally appeared in the Howard newspaper, <a href="http://www.thehilltoponline.com/opinions/free-em-all-1.2693647">The Hilltop</a>.<br /><br />"I'd open every cell in Attica—send 'em to Africa."<br /><br />-Nas "If I Ruled the World"<br /> <br />Last week Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, spoke at Rankin Chapel about the need for Black students to reject American consumerism and sacrifice for a cause greater than them. Alexander, following in the tradition of Angela Davis, has identified the elimination of mass incarceration as a noble cause.<br /> <br />Davis' scholarship and activism shows how prisons are a multi-billion dollar industry primarily because, according to the 13th amendment, enslavement is legal in the U.S. in the form of prisons. Therefore, Davis identifies as a prison abolitionist and traces her political lineage to the abolitionist movement in antebellum U.S. Unfortunately, most Black students are totally unaware of their own abolitionist tradition.<br /> <br />Several notable Black abolitionists such as Henry Highland Garnet began political organizing at the African Free School in the 1830s. While a student, Garnet caused uproar in the community when he helped to found an anti-slavery organization named after one of the most militant abolitionists of the time, William Lloyd Garrison. After graduation, he was an uncompromising advocate for armed struggle to end enslavement and emigration to Africa.<br /> <br />Another standout Black student abolitionist, John A. Copeland, while a student at Oberlin College helped to liberate a Black man in Ohio who was captured after escaping from enslavement. He eventually dropped out of Oberlin to join John Brown in his violent attempt to overthrow the slave system. Copeland gave the ultimate sacrifice, his life.<br /> <br />Howard University is no stranger to Black student abolitionism. In the 1930s, Howard students joined the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC). (The first Snick!) SNYC was founded by two Black communists. Although its membership included non-communists, its communist members envisioned and struggled to create a classless-stateless society without prisons.<br /> <br />If the current generation is to pick up the torch of abolitionism similar to Garnet, Copeland, and SNYC members, they must reject American individualism, consumerism, and celebrity culture. In a society that states our human worth is determined by material possessions and the amount of goods you consume, the notion of fighting to abolish all prisons is perceived to be futile and utopian, but the tide may just be turning.<br /> <br />All over the world, from Arab countries to the Africa to Latin America, as Martin Luther King stated "the cry is we want to be free." The abolition of all prisons can only come as a result of a complete transformation of the economic system.<br /> <br />It appears that we are entering the beginning stages of such a movement. Here is our chance. Now is the time for us to reclaim the Black student abolitionist tradition.FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-66608056318350648562012-01-19T08:35:00.002-05:002012-01-19T08:38:27.254-05:00We Are NOT Our Own Worst Enemy“<em>And I don't give a f#@k what Bill Cosby said<br />'cause the problem gon' exist when Bill Cosby's dead<br />And I don't think the revelation from the supreme beings<br />residing or hiding out in Bill Cosby's head</em>”<br />-Jay Electronica “Renaissance Man”<br /><br />A few days after Christmas, the blogosphere and social media sites were abuzz with images and news articles of working class Black people buying and even fighting over newly released Air Jordan sneakers. Predictably this news story led many to fall back on the dominant narrative that irresponsible purchases are the cause of Black people’s problems. Never mind the fact that wages have stagnated for the past forty years and most people have had to go in debt to keep this consumer based economy going. Why? Because, according to some, “We are our own worst enemy.” Unfortunately, most of us don’t view the problem as ‘the system’ because we have accepted the dominant narrative of Black pathology. <br /><br />In large part, the blaming-the-victim ideology that has become so pervasive has its roots in White Nationalist archetypes of Africans in America. The lazy, shiftless, socially and financially irresponsible negro narrative came to full maturity during the Reconstruction period, following the US civil War. Similar to other periods when Whites socio-economic position feels threatened, they are manipulated into blaming scapegoats for their problems. Once Reconstruction ended, this narrative was employed to justify legal segregation, economic exploitation, and lynchings of Black people. More recently in the 1980s, right wing neo-conservatives manipulated working class whites and, I argue, middle class Blacks to blaming their tenuous position on poor and working class Black people (welfare queens, the inner city drug dealer etc.).<br /><br />The causes and solutions to the economic crisis show the hypocrisy of the lazy negro narrative. For example, Black people are told one of their problems is they do not correctly save and invest their income. On the other hand, financial institutions and banks that partook in risky financial instruments received over $7.7 TRILLION (yes with a T) in bailouts from the Federal Reserve. How much economic development would half that amount have done for the Black community? <br /><br />Or, a case in point, we are told our poverty primarily results from that fact that we are not financially literate. In fact, researcher Dedrick Muhammand has demonstrated that Wells Fargo and other banks conducted ‘wealth building seminars’ in Black churches then targeted Black people for subprime mortgage loans. Lastly (and my personal favorite), somehow our problems are attributed to young Black men wearing their pants below their waist i.e. sagging. (sigh) The bankers wear business suits and they’re the main culprits behind ‘The Great Recession.’ Any questions?<br /><br />One way to challenge the dominant narrative is to not view events and people as isolated phenomena but instead attempt to find the connections between what appears to be unrelated events. Our problems are not disconnected from other issues like American consumerism. Also, instead of a focus on personal responsibility, let’s look at Ujima or collective work and responsibility. In other words how do Black people as a group resolve our problems? After making these adjustments we can construct a narrative that correctly identifies the problem: imperialism and capitalism.FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-78060936850090923832011-11-11T16:03:00.003-05:002011-11-12T11:51:33.179-05:00Black Mis-leadership & Racist Drug LawsThis article originally appeared in the Howard University newspaper, <a href="http://www.thehilltoponline.com/opinions/free-em-all-1.2668340">The Hilltop</a>.<br /><br /><br />Many of us have come to the conclusion that the criminal justice system does not operate in the best interest of Black people, but fewer people realize the role that Black leadership has played in the perpetuation of the injustice.<br /><br />For example, in the 1980s the Republican and Democratic Parties were in a race to prove how "tough on crime" they could be. Under the leadership of Tip O'Neal, the Democrats helped to push the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 that established a 100:1 ratio for sentences related to crack cocaine as opposed to those related to powder cocaine.<br /><br />Never mind the fact that there is virtually no chemical difference between powder and crack cocaine, this law meant that people caught in possession of crack cocaine served much harsher mandatory minimum sentences than those found with the powder version. This anti-Black, uh, I mean, anti-crime hysteria reached such a fever pitch that Mickey Leland, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Harlem congressman Charles Rangel co-sponsored the legislation.<br /><br />Oh it doesn't end there. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 extended a person's sentence even after release from prison by eliminating student loans for anyone with a drug conviction. So, not only were Blacks more likely to be arrested, they were also less likely to be granted an opportunity to attempt to improve the quality of their lives afterwards.<br /><br />According to legal scholar Michelle Alexander, only six CBC members voted against it. A few years later in 1994, Kweisi Mfume, chair of the CBC, voted for legislation that codified the "three strikes" laws--which disproportionately affects Blacks convicted of non-violent crimes--at the federal level. Confused?<br /><br />It's simple: Many of our Black elected officials actually contributed to the modern day re-enslavement of our people in the prison system.<br /> <br />I went to the CBC weekend one time. That's it. Once was enough. After looking at a proud display that showed their sponsors included the largest transnational corporations in the US, I decided I'd never come back.<br /><br />It's time for a new Black leadership that is independent, visionary, and militant to step forward from this generation, one that doesn't simply maintain the status quo, and one that is not afraid to openly advocate for the interests of their people without regard for political judgment or consequences. The white left has the occupy movement. Where is our movement?<br /><br />The new Black leadership should organize for 1) an equal 1:1 sentencing ratio for crack and powder cocaine offenses and an end to "three strikes" laws at the federal and state level, 2) the decriminalization of marijuana and consequently an end to stop-and-frisk policies that target Blacks, 3) reparations for newly released people for time spent in prison because of harsh racist drug laws and 4) the Black community and world to question the very existence of prisons in human society.<br /><br /> <br />Next generation to the front of the line!FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-35676916589640859902011-10-27T16:35:00.003-04:002011-10-31T17:54:22.215-04:00Free Marshall "Eddie' ConwayThis article originally appeared in Howard University Student paper, <a href="http://www.thehilltoponline.com/opinions/free-em-all-1.2660386">The Hilltop</a>.<br /><br /><br />The case of Marshall "Eddie" Conway is one of the longest-running political prisoner cases in the United States of America and on Nov. 1, Mr. Conway is set for a parole board hearing.<br /> <br />Conway and his supporters have consistently asserted that he has been imprisoned since 1970 because he was an effective organizer in the Baltimore Black Panther Party. He, along with two other suspects, Jack Johnson and Jack Powell, were convicted of the murder of a white police officer and of the attempted murder of another officer, after the officers responded to a domestic violence call.<br /> <br />Although there is a signed confession, a jailhouse informant, and police identification, there is no physical evidence that connects Conway to the murder. (Sound familiar?) Although Jack Johnson confessed to the crime before the trial began, he stated that he was tortured and forced to sign the confession.<br /> <br />So, contrary to the mainstream media's attention and coverage of the issue, forced confessions did not start with Amanda Knox. In the same way, torture of Black Panthers is not without precedent. (For more on this, check out the "Legacy of Torture" documentary.)<br /> <br />A jailhouse informant, who Conway protested having to be placed in a cell with, claims that Conway confessed to him that he committed the murder. After looking at two decks of pictures, in which Conway's picture was conveniently the only one to appear in both decks, another officer identified Conway as the killer. Surprise, surprise.<br /> <br />With all of this circumstantial evidence, how could Conway have been kept in prison for almost 41 years? It's simple. He was a victim of the FBI's Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO).<br /> <br />One of the stated goals of COINTELPRO was to "disrupt, discredit, and otherwise neutralize Black Nationalist hate-type organizations." Neutralization meant illegal surveillance, infiltration, imprisonment, forced exile, and even assassinations.<br /> <br />For example, on Dec. 4, 1969, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were murdered in a hail of bullets by the Chicago Police Department. William O'Neal, Hampton's bodyguard and government infiltrator, supplied the CPD with a layout of the victims' apartments and drugged Hampton to ensure that he wouldn't fight back.<br /> <br />Another victim of COINTELPRO, the late Geronimo ji-Jaga Pratt, spent 27 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was convicted of the murder of a white tennis instructor in Los Angeles, and the key witness was an FBI informant.<br /> <br />Eventually, Pratt was able get a hold of the memos showing that the key witness lied about his relationship with the FBI, but only after Pratt was falsely imprisoned almost three decades.<br /> <br />While the United States supposedly champions the right to political freedom for others abroad, Conway and dozens of other political prisoners are still incarcerated at home for their political beliefs and/or actions.<br /> <br />Conway's supporters are asking everyone to call and write letters to the Maryland Parole Commission to demand his freedom. This is the chance for those of us on Howard's campus to support a man who struggled for us long before we were even born and to pay him back for over 41 years of hard work in the Black Liberation Movement.<br /><br /><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JEt4_P7FxMU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-37996555058517016442011-10-12T23:22:00.003-04:002011-10-12T23:48:23.258-04:00Support the Pelican Bay Prisoners’ Hunger StrikeThis article originally appeared in the Howard University Newspaper, the <a href="http://www.thehilltoponline.com/opinions/free-em-all-1.2651607">Hilltop</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />On Sept. 26, prisoners in California reinitiated a hunger strike to protest their inhumane conditions at Pelican Bay State Prison. The prisoners are located in isolation, or, the technical term, Segregated Housing Units (SHU) or Administrative Segregation. SHU is confinement to a cell approximately 10 feet by 6 feet with no windows, little to no human contact for 23 hours a day. But get this; some of them have been in SHU for five, 10, and 20 plus years! They have five core demands:<br /> <br /> <br /> <br />1. Eliminate group punishments.<br /> <br />2. Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria.<br /> <br />3. Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons (2006) regarding an end to long term solitary confinement.<br /> <br />4. Provide adequate food.<br /> <br />5. Expand and provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br />In other words, they are asking the California Department of Corrections to observe their basic human rights. (I mean "provide adequate food," really?)The last strike, in July of this year, lasted a little of more than three weeks after California officials stated they would comply with the demands. But, according to Mutope Duguma (James Crawford) who issued the call, little has been done to follow through on the prisoners' concerns.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Amnesty International has repeatedly called the treatment of prisoners in the US torture. That isn't surprising. Remember those photos from Abu Ghraib? Well, several of the troops who conducted the torture techniques there were correctional officers in US prisons. In short, they'd been practicing on black folk in prison for years. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />In 1971, the prisoners who took part in the uprising at Attica in New York were reacting to the racist mistreatment by guards, overcrowding, and lack of adequate medical care. In response to the uprising, Governor Rockefeller ordered state troopers to retake the prison, leaving ten hostages and twenty-nine inmates dead. By portraying the multiracial uprising as, in the words of Richard Nixon, "basically a Black thing", the State was able to justify the massacre. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Just last year, Police Commander Jon Burge was convicted of lying about torturing over one hundred Black men in Chicago jails. Some of his victims spent years in prison for confessing to a crime they didn't commit. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />The resistance to these conditions is growing. Over $12,000 prisoners throughout California, and in parts of Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Arizona, have [been] at some point rejected food in support of the strike. Last year, in Georgia, prisoners in six prisons went on strike to receive compensation for jailhouse labor.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br />So whether it's strikers in Pelican Bay or prisoners at Red Onion in Virginia stating their fingers are being broken arbitrarily by correctional officers (no that's not a misprint, Google it), we must support them with statements from our organizations. We must tell the governor to concede to their demands. We must provide monetary support for the prisoners' organizational efforts. At the end of the day, in disproportionate numbers, these are OUR people. Let us never forget our own that are trapped in the belly of the beast.<br /> <br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ifepv8s3nRE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /> FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-32876643398133861322011-10-04T16:44:00.001-04:002011-10-04T16:46:43.400-04:00SAMI Statement in support of Pelican Bay Strike & Occupy Wall StreetStudents Against Mass Incarceration<br /> (SAMI-Howard University<br /><br />Police State in Action from New York to California<br /><br />NYPD, CDCR, Use Strong-Arm Tactics against Peoples Movement<br /><br />The NYPD showed its true colors on October 1st as they faced off with protestors on the Brooklyn Bridge. The demonstration of five-thousand originated from lower Manhattan at the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) encampment, as protestors marched across the bridge to Brooklyn the police trapped, or “kettled,” the march and carried out a mass arrest of over seven-hundred. This followed a week of harassment of the OWS encampment and actions by police. As OWS has drawn from increasingly wider layers of disaffected and exploited people, its clear that NYPD tactics are aimed at stifling the movement. <br /><br />On Thursday September 29th California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation threatened harsh reprisals against hunger-striking prisoners. At least six thousand California inmates are refusing meals in eight prisons across the state. Inmates are striking for the second time this year over inhumane living conditions, including some inmates being held for decades in windowless cells. The response of the prison authorities has been to threaten to throw more inmates into these dungeon-like isolation cells.<br /><br />The rich and powerful have been waging a fierce struggle against the working class and oppressed communities from which they wring their massive profits. Now, at the seat of American economic power, and in its deepest, darkest dungeons the people are starting to fight back. At their essence these two struggles are about power. Whether the powers of war, racism, and profiteering will control the streets and operate a brutal far-flung complex of repressive institutions. Or whether they will be forced to yield to the power of the popular masses. <br /><br />The occupation movement continues to grow, and the will of the striking prisoners remains strong. Now is the time to take action, to stimulate and swell the ranks of the struggle against the profit-over-everything, racist, sexist, brutal, and obsolete capitalist system.<br /><br />Students Against Mass Incarceration remains committed to the struggle against the repressive apparatus that seeks to keep order in the face of class exploitation and racial oppression. We extend our solidarity to those in the streets and in the prisons who continue to fight against austerity and the oppressive police state. <br /><br />###<br />About SAMI<br />SAMI was founded in February 2011 at Howard University. The mission of the organization is to raise awareness about the prison industrial complex, political prisoners, and recidivism. We feel the aforementioned are the fundamental issues of our generation and can only be addressed through radical and militant Black activism linked to previous social movements but revised for a 21st century context.<br /><br />Contact: 607-339-8188 or stdntsagainstmassincarceration@gmail.com<br />FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-17578382204607893372011-09-29T16:16:00.004-04:002011-09-30T11:03:34.522-04:00The Racial Roots of Campus PolicingThe article originally appeared in the Howard University student newspaper the <a href="http://www.thehilltoponline.com/opinions/free-em-all-1.2641214">Hilltop</a><br /><br />"Overseer, Overseer, Overseer, Overseer<br />Officer, Officer, Officer, Officer!<br />Yeah, officer from overseer<br />You need a little clarity?<br />Check the similarity!"<br /><br />-KRS One, "Sound of Da Police" <br /><br />On Sept. 16, the Students Against Mass Incarceration (SAMI) held a rally at the flagpole on The Yard in support of <br /><br />Troy Davis, inviting community members and the media to protest the injustice of the impending execution. Not only was the media barred from campus, but HUPD stated that because the protest was not authorized by the university, the rally could not take place.<br /><br />When the point was raised that fraternal organizations did not need authorization to do stepping routines on the yard, SAMI was told "that's a tradition." Well, in the militant tradition of Howard student takeovers in 1925, 1968, and 1989 SAMI preceded with the rally, consequences be damned.<br /><br />Why did the campus police attempt to stop the rally? In an article entitled "The Modern Campus Police" John Sloan shows that contemporary campus police are a response to the student rebellions in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Think about it, Black students all over the country were taking over administration buildings and the anti-war movement was in full swing.<br /><br />Since campus security could not put down these rebellions, the National Guard often had to be called in. At places like Jackson State, South Carolina State, and Kent State some students were even killed in campus rebellions. Therefore, the campus police did their historical and assigned role: putting down any and all potential radical student activity.<br /><br />Thus, the campus police and the American police force appear to have similar origins and purposes, maintaining "order" and squashing any potential acts of rebellion. Several scholars and commentators have traced the origin of American policing to the slave patrols in the American south. Slave patrols were composed primarily of lower class whites who put down insurrections of enslaved Africans and caught those who attempted to escape enslavement.<br /><br />Armed with this information, no Black person should be shocked by the over-policing in our communities or by that campus police officer who flies on his Segway to the scene of a student protest, but is mysteriously missing when you need an escort.<br /><br />The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense stated that the role of the police in Black communities is similar to that of an occupying army. The primary purpose of police is to protect property: Howard University, its image, reputation (oh yeah, and you, the student [intellectual property],too). Whether on campus or in the community, understanding that the purpose of the police is primarily one of social control can only serve to enlighten and enhance our inevitable interactions with them as Black youth.<br /><br />This does not mean that individual Black policeman are our inherent enemies, but the police are an institution. Although individual Black policeman are our potential working class allies, unfortunately, that is not usually the case at Howard, or in the world.<br /><br />As students, acknowledging and challenging the racial roots and consequences of policing—in all its forms--is an important step towards stopping the trend of criminal injustice in our communities.<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rIll4l2wdmg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mHgLaVlBteM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-79965921499788415222011-09-16T16:23:00.001-04:002011-09-16T16:28:17.826-04:00We are Troy Davis<br /><br /><br />On September 21, 2011, an innocent man could die. That is the execution date that the state of Georgia has set for Troy Anthony Davis. In 1989, Davis was convicted of murdering a white police officer named Mark Allen MacPhail. An off-duty cop, MacPhail was working as a security guard outside of a Burger King, when he was shot multiple times.<br /> <br />Nine people originally stated that they witnessed Davis shoot Macphail but, today, seven witnesses have recanted their testimony. Several now assert they were coerced by local law enforcement. One witness who worked at the Burger King states he cannot read, but was forced to sign a written confession. In addition, there is not one shred of physical evidence--such as a gun--which connects Davis to the crime.<br /> <br />His case has gained international support and calls for clemency from such well-known figures as former United States President Jimmy Carter, anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Georgia Congressman John Lewis, and many more. This is Troy Davis' fourth execution date. Each time the international outcry has been so great that the state of Georgia has issued a stay of execution. This time, however, the Supreme Court has refused to hear his case.<br /> <br />The racist nature of the criminal justice system is hardly a revelation to most black people in America. While Nelson Mandela is now arguably the most celebrated ex-political prisoner in the world, the late Black Panther Party member Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt never experienced such reputation reversal, after spending twenty-seven years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Better yet, maybe someone should ask Sean Bell's young New York widow and fatherless daughters what justice means to them. There are so many examples of the horrors black people have experienced at the hands of the criminal justice system that criminal injustice has become the norm. How many of us, brothers especially, were raised to anticipate and handle interactions with law enforcement? Despite our best efforts, some of us still failed during those encounters. Even more of us know someone who did. Troy Davis was one of those people, and because of it, his life has been hanging in the balance for the last two decades.<br /> <br />As Howard students, it is up to us to stop settling for the status quo. We cannot simply be those parents who raise our children to anticipate injustice. Instead, it is time for us to be the young adults who challenge it.<br /> <br />An International Day of Action has been called for this Friday September 16. Mr. Davis has been saved several times before, and it is up to us to do it again. For our parents and grandparents, for Sean and Geronimo, for every brother and sister we know who has ever been a victim of criminal injustice, for ourselves, and most importantly for our brother, we must stand again and again and say, "We are Troy Davis."<br /><br /><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9WZUhITejfI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1297688964798204285.post-44849020491265691842011-09-12T22:26:00.001-04:002011-09-12T22:28:30.852-04:00Students Against Mass Incarceration<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase='http://download.adobe.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0' width='210' height='105' name="54660" id="54660"><param name="movie" value="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtalkradio.com%2Fyour-world-news%2F2011%2F09%2F12%2Fstudents-fighting-to-end-mass-incarceration%2Fplaylist.xml&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&corner=rounded&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashplayercallback.aspx" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="menu" value="false" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf" flashvars="file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtalkradio.com%2Fyour-world-news%2F2011%2F09%2F12%2Fstudents-fighting-to-end-mass-incarceration%2fplaylist.xml&autostart=false&shuffle=false&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx&width=210&height=105&volume=80&corner=rounded" width="210" height="105" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" quality="high" wmode="transparent" menu="false" name="54660" id="54660" allowScriptAccess="always"></embed></object><div style="font-size: 10px;text-align: center; width:220px;"> Listen to <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com">internet radio</a> with <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/your-world-news">Your World News</a> on Blog Talk Radio</div>FreetheLandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16872624821612523013noreply@blogger.com0