By MUMIA ABU-JAMAL

 

 

By MUMIA ABU-JAMAL

(Audio available here.)

Guess what? The world is on fire. I’m not referring to environmental degradation or global warming here. No, although, that too is true.

I refer to protests – not just all across the United States, but all around the world. Protests from London to Paris. From Berlin to Nairobi. From Toledo, Ohio to Tokyo, Japan.

Protests in solidarity with Black Lives Matter against police aggression and racism. Protests stemming from the cruel brutality that led to the slow-motion killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The solidarity from Sydney, Australia stems in part from long-standing discontent from the “dark” Aborigines, the indigenous communities of Australia and New South Wales, who, like Black folk in America, have suffered from generations of state repression.

For example, the recent killing of David Dungay, an Aborigine who, like his brothers and sisters in America, last words? “I can’t breathe,” as they choked him to death.

How have police responded to this challenge? By having temper tantrums, and by attacking protesters – men, women, and even a 75-year-old white man, who was pushed to the ground as they stepped over his fallen, bleeding body.

America is on fire. And the world has caught the blaze.

This commentary was originally published at PrisonRadio.org and recorded by Noelle Hanrahan.

Mumia: Everybody is Getting a Taste of Lockdown

The nation’s best known political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, says all of Pennsylania’s incarcerated population has been on 23 hour, 15 minute daily lockdown since the beginning of the health emergency. “That’s how it was on death row and solitary confinement – now it’s like that all around,” said Abu Jamal. In much of the country outside the prison walls, “People are getting a taste of what it’s like to be incarcerated.”

source: Mumia: Everybody is Getting a Taste of Lockdown

Mumia Abu-Jamal: ‘On Prison Guards’

This slightly edited commentary from April 24 by political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is available at prisonradio.org/media/audio/mumia.

By Mumia Abu-Jamal

I remember in [State Correctional Institute] Huntington and even in [SCI] Green. You know, when I was alone with a [guard] talking man-to-man, the guy said: “Listen, I’m a peon. You know, something happens here, man, they throw me to the dogs.” And I’m like, Damn! Did he just say that? Yeah!

These guys, they know that. But they’re forbidden from really saying that, other than when no one can hear. They believe in the propaganda because it’s profitable to do so. It’s in their economic benefit. Right? But, like a few days ago, I was listening in on C-SPAN. And a guy called and he was a retiree who worked for the Department of Corrections for 30 years. And so, you know, now he’s getting a retirement check. And he kept talking about “us.” You know: “us” correctional officers. “We” need. “We” fight so hard, blah, blah. And I was like, Dude! He was a Black guy; he was in his 60s. And he’s no longer part of them. But in his mind, he’s still a part of them.

So I’m saying that was the diabolical genius of [President] William Jefferson Clinton. When they gave billions of dollars to the states to build prisons, they created a class of people who benefited economically in ways they could not have done otherwise — any way in the world, as a rule. And so they’re invested —right? — in this system of repression. You’re a guy; you’re in your 50s or 60s, you’re thinking about bringing your son in, and then bringing your grandson in, and having your wife come in and work as a nurse or food service provider. Something like that. Or as a guard.

Like here in Schuylkill County, these are depressed areas of [Pennsylvania’s] economy. But if you can get a job gettin’ this kind of loot, you’re on top of the hill. You may not be that way in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. But if you think of these former mining communities like Green or this one, Schuylkill, you’re eating high on the hog. It feeds the system, this machine.

Because of economics and social movements now, you have more Black and Brown people involved in these repressive industries. But, you know, if you look at it like from space or from a high elevation, things are not getting better. They’re getting demonstrably worse.

Yes, that’s why I believe in movements because I’ve seen movements do things in society. And, you know, I always say movements transform consciousness, but they transform more than that. They transform history. And they transform our vision of the future.

I look at the world. And I have fears and hopes, quite frankly. Because this can go either way. It goes the way that people push. When people create movements, they create change. But if they sit back and wait for others to do something they know they should have done, you’re going the way of repression. It’s really that dialectical and that clear.

We get what you fight for. What you don’t fight for, you don’t get. It’s that real. So, I believe in movements. I believe in decarceration.

 

 

source:Mumia Abu-Jamal: ‘On Prison Guards’

Move Over Colin Kaepernick—This NFL Star Wears Che Guevara Cleats

by Humberto Fontova

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

Source: AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton

“This week, the Seahawks are proudly showing off their game shoes for the NFL’s annual Week 14 My Cause My Cleats initiative. Players across the league will be wearing special shoes customized to causes and charities of their choices during games,” The News Tribune reported. “(Defensive end) Quinton Jefferson’s have Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Che Guevara and other revolutionaries stenciled into the side of his—drawn by King County teenagers rehabilitating from incarceration.”

“It’s pretty cool that they were in touch with freedom fighters,” Jefferson said. “So it was pretty dope.”

(I’m guessing the term “dope!” has morphed from its traditional meaning. But the traditional meaning fits ideally here.)

It was off-field, during a press conference denouncing the jailing of blacks, that black activist-quarterback Colin Kaepernick wore his t-shirt honoring the jailer and torturer of the longest-suffering black political prisoners in the Western Hemisphere.

It will be on the field this Sunday that black activist-defensive-end Quinton Jefferson will honor Fidel Castro’s Stalinist sidekick who regarded blacks as “lazy, drunken and averse to baths.”

So it’s a toss-up, as to who wins this play-off.

In fact, Jefferson comes across as a decent family man with good intentions. He simply seems—like the kids and administrators in the “rehabilitation program”—a victim of modern public education/indoctrination.

“The negro is indolent and lazy, and spends his money on frivolities and drink.” This comes straight from Che Guevara’s diaries, better known subsequently as The Motorcycle Diaries. But for some reason Robert Redford saw fit to omit this charming observation from his charming movie on the young Ernesto Guevara.

In fact, many Cuban blacks suffered longer incarceration in Castro and Che’s dungeons and torture chambers than Nelson Mandela suffered in South Africa’s (relatively) comfortable prisons. In fact, these Cubans qualify as the longest-suffering political prisoners in modern history. Eusebio Penalver, Ignacio Cuesta Valle, Antonio Lopez Munoz, Ricardo Valdes Cancio, and many other Cuban blacks suffered almost 30 years in Castro’s prisons. These men (and many women too, by the way, black and white) suffered their tortures 90 miles from U.S. shores.

But you’ve never heard of them, right? And yet from CNN to NBC, from Reuters to the AP, from ABC to NPR, Castro’s Stalinist-Apartheid fiefdom hosts an abundance of U.S. and international press bureaus and crawls with their intrepid “investigative reporters.”

On the other hand, you can’t swing a dead cat in the media without hitting the name Nelson Mandela. Interesting how that works.

“Reporters in Havana are either insensitive to the pain of the opposition or in clear complicity with the government.” (Black Cuban torture-victim Jorge Antunez in the Miami Herald.)

During a press conference shortly upon Castro and Che’s entry into Havana in 1959 Luis Pons, a prominent black Cuban businessman asked Che Guevara what his revolution planned on doing to help blacks. Che answered: “We’re going to do for blacks exactly what blacks did for our revolution. By which I mean: nothing!”

Che was much too modest. “Nothing” is not exactly accurate for the Castro regime’s treatment of Cuba’s blacks. In fact, these lily-white icons (Che and Fidel) of American black “leaders” and celebrities forcibly overthrew a Cuban government where blacks served as President of the Senate, Minister of Agriculture, Chief of Army, and Head of State (Fulgencio Batista), a grandson of slaves who was born in a palm-roofed shack. Not that you’d guess any of this from the liberals’ exclusive educational source on pre-Castro Cuba: Godfather II.

“The Cuban government tries to fool the world with siren songs depicting racial equality in our country,” explains Cuban black dissident Bertha Antunez. “But it is all a farce, as I and my family can attest, having suffered from the systematic racism directed at us by Castro’s regime. Cuban blacks suffer the scourge of racial hatred every day. The beatings by the police are always accompanied by racial epithets. They set dogs on us. The only thing we have to thank the Cuban revolution for, is for restoring the yoke of slavery that our ancestors lived under.”

In fact, most of the dissidents against the Castro regime (co-founded by the racist/Stalinist honored on Quinton Jefferson’s shoes) are black and have named their group after Rosa Parks (also honored on Quinton Jefferson’s shoes.)  If only SNL were still funny they could have a ball with skits on such thundering ironies.   

“It is simply a sociological fact,” casually remarked an official of the Castro regime (whose co-founder is honored on Quinton Jefferson’s cleats) to a visiting American scholar a few years ago, “that blacks are more violent and criminal than whites. They also do not work as hard and cannot be trusted.”

 “N**ger!” taunted my jailers between tortures,” recalled the world’s longest suffering black political prisoner* to this writer. “’We pulled you down from the trees and cut off your tail!’ laughed my Castroite torturers. For months I was naked in a 6 x 4 foot cell. That’s four feet high, so you couldn’t stand. But I felt a great freedom inside myself. I refused to commit spiritual suicide.”

(*Eusebio Peñalver, a black Cuban jailed and tortured by the Castro regime longer –and freedomracmuch more horribly–than Mandela was by South Africa’s–yet utterly unknown to Americans thanks to the U.S. media/Castroite collusion.) 

source: Move Over Colin Kaepernick—This NFL Star Wears Che Guevara Cleats

 

The Legality of White Racism and The Illusion of Black Progress

By Bashir Muhammad Akinyele

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over a white – except by taqwa (piety) and good action.” – Prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdullah (may Allah’s peace and blessings Be Upon him).

(This excerpt is from the last sermon Prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdullah, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, delivered on the Ninth Day of Dhul-Hijjah 10 A.H. in the ‘Uranah valley of Mount Arafat’ in Makkah, Saudi Arabia).

THERE IS NO JUSTICE IN AMERICA. BLACK FACES IN HIGH PLACES DOES NOT MEAN BLACK POWER

Right now the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, is traveling overseas with his national laboring staff, which includes his national Imam, Sultan Rahman Muhammad. Their first stops are Medina and Makkah, Saudi Arabia, performing Umrah during the month Holy month of Ramadhan in 2019. (The Umrah is sometimes known as the lesser pilgrimage or the minor pilgrimage, in comparison to the annual Hajj pilgrimage of Al-Islam). On social media, folks are reminiscing and reanalyzing the time a former world leader offered a billion dollars to help the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and oppressed Black people in America.

I hope this commentary inspires you all to read this old New York Times article titled- Officials To Block Qaddafi Gift to Farrakhan. The article was published on August 28, 1996. It discusses the US government blocking the former Libyan President Col Muammar el-Qaddafi from giving the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, and the Nation of Islam, one billion dollars to help liberate oppressed Black people in America. When Col. Qaddafi was alive, he committed the wealth of Libya to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s during his World Friendship Tour in 1996. (Col Muammar Gaddafi, the deposed leader of Libya, was captured and killed on October 20th, 2011).

Some political and historical analysis must be studied to really understand the warped reasoning behind the United States oppressing Black people.

Here is how we break down racism in America.

Unfortunately, America is still in denial about any culpability in Black oppression. America’s brand of racism exonerates itself from being racist. America does not want to appear to the world that she is still keeping Black people from being truly equal. America does not want people to understand the system of racism prevents money and resources into the Black community. This is why racism in America could not let Col Qaddafi give billions to Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and Black people.

When you read this commentary, you will understand why racism had to be legally protected by the system, why there is an illusion of Black progress in America, and why the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan is constantly being portrayed as a teacher of hate.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s World Friendship Tour stopped in Libya while on his way to visiting many of other countries on the continent of Africa. After the success of the Million March in 1995, when over 2 million Black men showed up to recommit themselves to Black women, Black youth, the Black family, to stopping senseless community violence amongst Black people, empowering the Black community, and continuing the struggle against White supremacy and racism; the whole world took notice of the power and respected leadership of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. The world became interested in the struggles of Black people in America all over again.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan filled their curiosity by giving world leaders an analysis on the oppression of Black people, American White racism, and the illusion of Black Progress in America.

Inspired by the international lessons of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad (the co-founder of the Nation of Islam), the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan learned that Black people are all over the world. He said that his teacher, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, taught him that 196, 940, 000 square miles of the planet earth belongs to the original Blackman and Black women. Believing in the wisdom of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan reminded the world that America’s White prosperity came as a direct result of the enslavement, oppression, and the exploitation of Africa, and Black people in America.

Years of organizing and speaking to clergyman, activists, and leaders around the nation, and around the world, cemented his legitimate passport onto the international world stage. He was received by Presidents, governments, dignitaries, clergyman, and leaders in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Arab world, and the Muslim world. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan did this to connect and commit the world to help liberate oppressed Black people in America. After suffering from hundreds of years of legal White supremacy, legal racism, legal enslavement, legal racial discrimination, legal racial terror, legal police violence, and legal racial subjugation without any reparations to rectify Black people’s hurt for our past injustices received by racist White people and the America racist system; the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan told the world that this is why Black people continue to be oppressed and second class citizens.

What people, and some of us Black folks, do not understand, or want to understand, is how the legality of racism in America created Black oppression in America to this very day. No other group, only with the exception of Native Americans, experienced an attempt by White racism to totally make Black people a permanent underclass. Black people were, and, are, purposely forced to be at the bottom of American society. To keep Black people racially subjugated, and second class citizens, racist white people created an American legal system that establishes laws to protect the racial mistreatment of Black people. As a consequence of an American racist legal system, Black people experienced hundreds of years of legal slavery, the legal outlawing of Black marriages, legal outlawing of Black people speaking, reading, and writing in our own African and Arabic languages, legal outlawing of Black womanhood, the legal outlawing of Black manhood, the legal outlawing of Black youth-hood, the legal outlawing of possessing African and Islamic names, the legal outlawing of reading the Bible, the legal outlawing of African cultural traditions, the legal outlawing of Black people practicing African religions, the legal outlawing of the practice of Al-Islam, the legal creation of Black codes, nearly one hundred years of legal segregation, the legal separation of the Black family, the legal outlawing of the Black family, the legal outlawing of Black parenthood, the legal criminalization of Black leaders, legal criminalization of Black youth, the legal denial of an public and private school education, legally denying Black people’s right to own property, legally denying Black people business loans, legally denying Black people justice in the courts, legally supporting White racial violence towards Black people, the legal justification for police brutality, and legally justifying the annihilation of Black towns and cities in America by racist whites.

In the 1950s, Black people got tired of the racial subjugation and daily racial discrimination by racist White people in the Twentieth Century. In mass demonstrations, Black people fearlessly began to fight back against racism and White supremacy in America. As a result of mass rallies by Black people, and the unfortunate murder of Black Freedom and revolutionary activists; we won our right to Civil Rights. We also develop some Black pride while holding racism and White supremacy accountable to social justice. By the way, we had to redevelop and reconstruct Black cultural pride in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s because White racism deliberately created Black self-hatred in Black people for hundreds of years in America.

While Black people struggled for civil rights, Black people forced all kinds of coalitions and alliances with progressive Whites and other non-Black cultures (i.e. Latinos, Native Americans, Jews, etc) to change racist laws that subjugated Black people down to the lowest realms of America society. Black people put the Black agenda on the hearts and minds and lips of all people in America. As a result of Black people successfully organizing massive protests locally and nationally for civil rights, the racism system had to make concessions to Black oppression for a minute. The system of racism allowed some Black faces in high places. When this happened, many people in America, including many Black people, believed Black freedom was achieved. By the 1970s, we had more Black Mayors, Black Councilpersons, Black judges, Black Congressman, Black Businesses, Black educational opportunities, Black TV shows, Black entertainers, Black athletes, and Black Freedom that we ever experienced before in America. But at the end of the day, racism controls Black faces in high places always in America. Black faces in high places get its marching orders from America’s racist power structure. This is why since the 1970s, policies, and laws were not put in place give Black people justice.

Just like in today’s contemporary Black America, Black faces in high places are still controlled by the racist power structure. Policies and laws have not been passed to give Black people justice. For example, we had eight years of Barack Obama as President, he sat in the chair of the most powerful position in the world, but did nothing to support reparations.

But before Black leaders, Black organizations, and Black movements can organize the Black masses past White racism and Black apologists for the racist power structure in America to seize real Black power to achieve justice in America, the system works to wipe out Black leadership. This is what happened to Black leaders, Black organizations, Black movements, and Black people in America.

The racist power structure reorganized itself to again force Black people down to the bottom of society. The racist power structure bounced back by unleashing clandestine attacks against Black leaders, Black organizations, and Black movements in America. Black leaders and organizations and Black movements, such as Dr. Martin Luther, Jr, Malcolm X, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Dr. Maluana Karenga, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), H. Rap Brown (Imam Jamil Al-Amin), Huey P. Newton, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Imari Obedele, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Nation of Islam, the US organization, the Original Black Panther Party, the Republic of New Afrika, and many more Black movements in the Black community.

Although Black people made tremendous gains during the 1950s, 60s, and the early 70s, due to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in America; unfortunately, Black people did not achieve true equality with White people in America.

Unfortunately, Black leaders, Black organizations, and Black movements for Civil Rights and Black Power were obliterated by the US government. Racist former F.B.I director J Edgar Hoover created a secret racist counterintelligence program called COINTELPRO to destroy and discredit Black leaders, Black organizations, and Black movements. And Cointelpro did just that to the Black liberation movements in America.

When this happened, the interests of Black people subsided. Black people and our Black agenda were pushed aside for other non-Black oppressed agendas. The coalitions that Black people created with other non-Black oppressed cultures (i.e Latinos, Jews, Asians, Mexicans, women, Gays, and lesbians, etc) to help empower Black people, and at the same time, fight for the liberation of all oppressed people, broke apart. Now, other non-BLack oppressed cultures began to leave Black people and the Black agenda for their own agendas (i.e. Latino rights, Gay rights, women’s right, etc). Non-Black oppressed cultures left Black people, and our Black agenda, alone.

By the late 1970s, Black progress was stopped. Black leaders and Black organizations were not around anymore to give push back to racism and White supremacy to make room for Black progress in this country.

By the 1980s, and in the 1990s, the ashes of the Civil rights and the Black Power Movement left many masses of Black people in the dust. The Black incarceration rates soured in Black America. Disproportionate numbers of Black people began to be locked up in the penal system compared to whites. Police violence increased. Good paying livable wage jobs dried up in and around the Black community. Poverty and joblessness increased dramatically. Black people began to live under depression levels of poverty. Black wealth never became equal to white wealth. Black drug addiction increase in America. Senseless violence in the Black community increased. Black people became the majority of Black homicide victims in America. Racism drained the Black community of money, jobs, and resources. Eventually, these poor conditions created a Black ghetto. Black people and the Black community became self-destructive.

Black people’s achievement began to lag further and further behind Whites and other non-Black cultures in America.

It is In this context, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan rebuilt the Nation of Islam to continue the fight for Black liberation. He believed that Al- Islam, as interpreted by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, was, and, is, absolutely needed to give some push back to America’s racist system to organize Black people for Black power.

In 1978, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan made the decision to leave the Muslims under the leadership of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed to rebuild the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam.

(Imam Warith Deen was once named Wallace Muhammad. In 1975, after the Honorable Elijah Muhammad departed from the Nation of Islam, the Muhammad family elected Imam Warith Deen Mohammed as the next leader of the Nation of Islam. In three years, Imam Mohammed directed the Nation of Islam into Sunni Al-Islam. His leadership led to one of the main foundations for Al-Islam in America).

Unfortunately, racism does not let up. It continues to use the law, cultural interests, cultural divisions, White supremacy, and all resources to racially subjugate Black people.

But equally importantly, the system of racism in America learned from the Black liberation struggles of the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s; how to continue to discretely use cointelpro tactics in the modern era to portray and label any Black opposition to racism as hate teachers, as unAmericans, as anti-Semites, as homophobic, and as extremists. This is what racism does to Black leaders in America, especially to leaders like the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. Despite all the good work he has done for Black people in America, racism must protect itself at all costs by castigating the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan as an unIslamic anti-Semitic homophobic Black racist. Racism knows full well that the Honorable Minister Farrakhan is not a racist. He is not anti-Semite. He is not homophobic. He has no political or economic power to keep an entire culture of people at the bottom of society. The Honorable Minister Farrakhan has not encouraged his followers to violently attack Whites, Jews, or Gay people. However, to the racist system America, he is the last known Black world leader still pointing out the contradictions of racism in the United States. This is why the racist power structure works to try to silence his voice in America and in the Muslim Ummah (an Arabic word for community), but especially amongst oppressed Black people. Racism does not want the Honorable Louis Farrakhan’s voice to inspire masses of Black people to rise up against racial injustice in America.

Therefore, as we continue to argue and debate issues (i.e. what Black Mayor is going to control city hall, what Black Councilperson is going to control such and such ward in a city, Is Rev Al Sharpton a real leader of Black people, who is going to control the board of education in the Black community, who is going to control the police department in the Black community, was the Black Lives Matter Movement sold out, are charter schools the best place to educate Black children, are public schools the best place to educate Black children, Is home instruction the best place to educate Black children, are Afrocentric schools the best place to educate Black children, are Islamic schools the best place to educate Black children, Is Cardi B the realist female rapper on the planet, are City Girls a real Hip Hop group, Is Hip Hop good for Black people, Is rap Music whack, Is Rap music really Hip Hop, Is Love and Hip Hop really reality TV, Is someone ghost writing for Drake, Is Hennessy the real drink for Black people, Is Afrocentricity the true pathway for liberating Black people, Are African religions the best spiritual path of Black people, Is Al-Islam the best spiritual path for Black people, are the Crips the real perpetrators of violence in the Black community, are the Bloods the real perpetrators of violence in the Black community, are the Vice Lords the perpetrators of violence in the Black community, are the Gangster Disciples the real perpetrators of violence in the Black community, Is the Honorable Minister Farrakhan a real Muslim, Is the Golden State Warriors the greatest NBA team of all time) we believe are important to us Black folks, and we should argue these things, but at the end of the day, we are all being misled under an illusion of Black progress and Black Freedom in America

We are not free!!! And we have not achieved Black power to force America’s racist power structure to address a Black agenda, nor reparations, to create real equality for Black people in America.

At the end of the day, racism is still subjugating Black people in America down to the lowest realms of society. Black progress is stagnant. We are still unequal to whites, and now, unfortunately, to other cultures in America

This is why at one time in the 1990s the former Libyan President Col Qaddafi saw the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan as the best chance to help oppressed Black people. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan was, and, is, the last man left standing for Black liberation. As the onslaught by America’s brand of racism continues to devour Black lives in America, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam are still fighting for Black liberation. Insha’Allah ta’alaa (an Arabic phrase that means Allah will, he is most exalted) inspire a new generation Black people to continue the fight for justice in America.

Jazak Allahu khair
(An Arabic phrase that means may Allah reward you with goodness)!!!

As Salaamu Alaykum wa Rahmantuallahi wa Barakaatahu!!!

-Bashir Muhammad Akinyele
-Muslim
-Muslim Activist
-Community Activist
-Educator
-Co-Founder of the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition (NAVC)
-Co-Host and Co-Producer of the All Politics Are Local radio show-the Number #1 Political Hip Hop Radio Show in America

 

source:  http://yourblackworld.net/2019/06/06/the-legality-of-white-racism-and-the-illusion-of-black-progress/

The “Great Contradiction” of US Incarceration

Donte Mitchell, a longtime prisoner of the State of New York, finds essential truths in the poem, “The Great Contradiction,” as it applies to the two million prisoners in US. “We want them to be a part of our community, so we isolate them from our community; we want them to have self-worth, so we destroy their self-worth….”

source The “Great Contradiction” of US Incarceration

Women of the Revolution: MOVE

 

This column by political prisoner and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal was written on June 14.

Several days ago, after discussion with sister Suzanne, I began thinking about a piece on the women of MOVE. This seemed especially timely after the recent release of several MOVE sisters: Debbie, Janet and Janine Africa.

These women spent over 40 years in Pennsylvania’s prisons, some spent in the notorious Holes, for protest against what they called unjust treatment.

These women weren’t strangers to me, for I interviewed some of them in the ‘70s, when they lived in the “old” MOVE House on Powelton Avenue, not far from Drexel University. Some of them I interviewed when they were held in the old House of Corrections in the Northeast.

Forty-plus years had passed — and behold! — these were the same women. Older? Yes, but not by much.

But I’m wrong. An honest look reveals they are more committed, morededicated than the young women who entered these cells over 40 years ago! And, seeing pictures of them, I’m forced to make another observation: They are more beautiful than they were 40 years ago.

This may seem hard to believe, but see for yourself; it is what it is.

And speaking of MOVE women, I don’t think it’s widely known, the simple but telling fact that the administrators of MOVE are women. They, essentially, lead the Organization.

We don’t see this example in the broader movement, unless it’s a women’s organization.

For discipline, commitment, steadfastness — and will — the women of the MOVE Organization have set a high bar, for they are women of John Africa’sRevolution!

(WW photo: Joe Piette)

The Legality of White Racism and The Illusion of Black Progress

By Bashir Muhammad Akinyele

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over a white – except by taqwa (piety) and good action.” – Prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdullah (may Allah’s peace and blessings Be Upon him).

(This excerpt is from the last sermon Prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdullah, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, delivered on the Ninth Day of Dhul-Hijjah 10 A.H. in the ‘Uranah valley of Mount Arafat’ in Makkah, Saudi Arabia).

THERE IS NO JUSTICE IN AMERICA. BLACK FACES IN HIGH PLACES DOES NOT MEAN BLACK POWER

Right now the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, is traveling overseas with his national laboring staff, which includes his national Imam, Sultan Rahman Muhammad. Their first stops are Medina and Makkah, Saudi Arabia, performing Umrah during the month Holy month of Ramadhan in 2019. (The Umrah is sometimes known as the lesser pilgrimage or the minor pilgrimage, in comparison to the annual Hajj pilgrimage of Al-Islam). On social media, folks are reminiscing and reanalyzing the time a former world leader offered a billion dollars to help the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and oppressed Black people in America.

I hope this commentary inspires you all to read this old New York Times article titled- Officials To Block Qaddafi Gift to Farrakhan. The article was published on August 28, 1996. It discusses the US government blocking the former Libyan President Col Muammar el-Qaddafi from giving the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, and the Nation of Islam, one billion dollars to help liberate oppressed Black people in America. When Col. Qaddafi was alive, he committed the wealth of Libya to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s during his World Friendship Tour in 1996. (Col Muammar Gaddafi, the deposed leader of Libya, was captured and killed on October 20th, 2011).

Some political and historical analysis must be studied to really understand the warped reasoning behind the United States oppressing Black people.

Here is how we break down racism in America.

Unfortunately, America is still in denial about any culpability in Black oppression. America’s brand of racism exonerates itself from being racist. America does not want to appear to the world that she is still keeping Black people from being truly equal. America does not want people to understand the system of racism prevents money and resources into the Black community. This is why racism in America could not let Col Qaddafi give billions to Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and Black people.

When you read this commentary, you will understand why racism had to be legally protected by the system, why there is an illusion of Black progress in America, and why the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan is constantly being portrayed as a teacher of hate.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s World Friendship Tour stopped in Libya while on his way to visiting many of other countries on the continent of Africa. After the success of the Million March in 1995, when over 2 million Black men showed up to recommit themselves to Black women, Black youth, the Black family, to stopping senseless community violence amongst Black people, empowering the Black community, and continuing the struggle against White supremacy and racism; the whole world took notice of the power and respected leadership of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. The world became interested in the struggles of Black people in America all over again.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan filled their curiosity by giving world leaders an analysis on the oppression of Black people, American White racism, and the illusion of Black Progress in America.

Inspired by the international lessons of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad (the co-founder of the Nation of Islam), the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan learned that Black people are all over the world. He said that his teacher, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, taught him that 196, 940, 000 square miles of the planet earth belongs to the original Blackman and Black women. Believing in the wisdom of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan reminded the world that America’s White prosperity came as a direct result of the enslavement, oppression, and the exploitation of Africa, and Black people in America.

Years of organizing and speaking to clergyman, activists, and leaders around the nation, and around the world, cemented his legitimate passport onto the international world stage. He was received by Presidents, governments, dignitaries, clergyman, and leaders in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Arab world, and the Muslim world. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan did this to connect and commit the world to help liberate oppressed Black people in America. After suffering from hundreds of years of legal White supremacy, legal racism, legal enslavement, legal racial discrimination, legal racial terror, legal police violence, and legal racial subjugation without any reparations to rectify Black people’s hurt for our past injustices received by racist White people and the America racist system; the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan told the world that this is why Black people continue to be oppressed and second class citizens.

What people, and some of us Black folks, do not understand, or want to understand, is how the legality of racism in America created Black oppression in America to this very day. No other group, only with the exception of Native Americans, experienced an attempt by White racism to totally make Black people a permanent underclass. Black people were, and, are, purposely forced to be at the bottom of American society. To keep Black people racially subjugated, and second class citizens, racist white people created an American legal system that establishes laws to protect the racial mistreatment of Black people. As a consequence of an American racist legal system, Black people experienced hundreds of years of legal slavery, the legal outlawing of Black marriages, legal outlawing of Black people speaking, reading, and writing in our own African and Arabic languages, legal outlawing of Black womanhood, the legal outlawing of Black manhood, the legal outlawing of Black youth-hood, the legal outlawing of possessing African and Islamic names, the legal outlawing of reading the Bible, the legal outlawing of African cultural traditions, the legal outlawing of Black people practicing African religions, the legal outlawing of the practice of Al-Islam, the legal creation of Black codes, nearly one hundred years of legal segregation, the legal separation of the Black family, the legal outlawing of the Black family, the legal outlawing of Black parenthood, the legal criminalization of Black leaders, legal criminalization of Black youth, the legal denial of an public and private school education, legally denying Black people’s right to own property, legally denying Black people business loans, legally denying Black people justice in the courts, legally supporting White racial violence towards Black people, the legal justification for police brutality, and legally justifying the annihilation of Black towns and cities in America by racist whites.

In the 1950s, Black people got tired of the racial subjugation and daily racial discrimination by racist White people in the Twentieth Century. In mass demonstrations, Black people fearlessly began to fight back against racism and White supremacy in America. As a result of mass rallies by Black people, and the unfortunate murder of Black Freedom and revolutionary activists; we won our right to Civil Rights. We also develop some Black pride while holding racism and White supremacy accountable to social justice. By the way, we had to redevelop and reconstruct Black cultural pride in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s because White racism deliberately created Black self-hatred in Black people for hundreds of years in America.

While Black people struggled for civil rights, Black people forced all kinds of coalitions and alliances with progressive Whites and other non-Black cultures (i.e. Latinos, Native Americans, Jews, etc) to change racist laws that subjugated Black people down to the lowest realms of America society. Black people put the Black agenda on the hearts and minds and lips of all people in America. As a result of Black people successfully organizing massive protests locally and nationally for civil rights, the racism system had to make concessions to Black oppression for a minute. The system of racism allowed some Black faces in high places. When this happened, many people in America, including many Black people, believed Black freedom was achieved. By the 1970s, we had more Black Mayors, Black Councilpersons, Black judges, Black Congressman, Black Businesses, Black educational opportunities, Black TV shows, Black entertainers, Black athletes, and Black Freedom that we ever experienced before in America. But at the end of the day, racism controls Black faces in high places always in America. Black faces in high places get its marching orders from America’s racist power structure. This is why since the 1970s, policies, and laws were not put in place give Black people justice.

Just like in today’s contemporary Black America, Black faces in high places are still controlled by the racist power structure. Policies and laws have not been passed to give Black people justice. For example, we had eight years of Barack Obama as President, he sat in the chair of the most powerful position in the world, but did nothing to support reparations.

But before Black leaders, Black organizations, and Black movements can organize the Black masses past White racism and Black apologists for the racist power structure in America to seize real Black power to achieve justice in America, the system works to wipe out Black leadership. This is what happened to Black leaders, Black organizations, Black movements, and Black people in America.

The racist power structure reorganized itself to again force Black people down to the bottom of society. The racist power structure bounced back by unleashing clandestine attacks against Black leaders, Black organizations, and Black movements in America. Black leaders and organizations and Black movements, such as Dr. Martin Luther, Jr, Malcolm X, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Dr. Maluana Karenga, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), H. Rap Brown (Imam Jamil Al-Amin), Huey P. Newton, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Imari Obedele, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Nation of Islam, the US organization, the Original Black Panther Party, the Republic of New Afrika, and many more Black movements in the Black community.

Although Black people made tremendous gains during the 1950s, 60s, and the early 70s, due to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in America; unfortunately, Black people did not achieve true equality with White people in America.

Unfortunately, Black leaders, Black organizations, and Black movements for Civil Rights and Black Power were obliterated by the US government. Racist former F.B.I director J Edgar Hoover created a secret racist counterintelligence program called COINTELPRO to destroy and discredit Black leaders, Black organizations, and Black movements. And Cointelpro did just that to the Black liberation movements in America.

When this happened, the interests of Black people subsided. Black people and our Black agenda were pushed aside for other non-Black oppressed agendas. The coalitions that Black people created with other non-Black oppressed cultures (i.e Latinos, Jews, Asians, Mexicans, women, Gays, and lesbians, etc) to help empower Black people, and at the same time, fight for the liberation of all oppressed people, broke apart. Now, other non-BLack oppressed cultures began to leave Black people and the Black agenda for their own agendas (i.e. Latino rights, Gay rights, women’s right, etc). Non-Black oppressed cultures left Black people, and our Black agenda, alone.

By the late 1970s, Black progress was stopped. Black leaders and Black organizations were not around anymore to give push back to racism and White supremacy to make room for Black progress in this country.

By the 1980s, and in the 1990s, the ashes of the Civil rights and the Black Power Movement left many masses of Black people in the dust. The Black incarceration rates soured in Black America. Disproportionate numbers of Black people began to be locked up in the penal system compared to whites. Police violence increased. Good paying livable wage jobs dried up in and around the Black community. Poverty and joblessness increased dramatically. Black people began to live under depression levels of poverty. Black wealth never became equal to white wealth. Black drug addiction increase in America. Senseless violence in the Black community increased. Black people became the majority of Black homicide victims in America. Racism drained the Black community of money, jobs, and resources. Eventually, these poor conditions created a Black ghetto. Black people and the Black community became self-destructive.

Black people’s achievement began to lag further and further behind Whites and other non-Black cultures in America.

It is In this context, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan rebuilt the Nation of Islam to continue the fight for Black liberation. He believed that Al- Islam, as interpreted by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, was, and, is, absolutely needed to give some push back to America’s racist system to organize Black people for Black power.

In 1978, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan made the decision to leave the Muslims under the leadership of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed to rebuild the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam.

(Imam Warith Deen was once named Wallace Muhammad. In 1975, after the Honorable Elijah Muhammad departed from the Nation of Islam, the Muhammad family elected Imam Warith Deen Mohammed as the next leader of the Nation of Islam. In three years, Imam Mohammed directed the Nation of Islam into Sunni Al-Islam. His leadership led to one of the main foundations for Al-Islam in America).

Unfortunately, racism does not let up. It continues to use the law, cultural interests, cultural divisions, White supremacy, and all resources to racially subjugate Black people.

But equally importantly, the system of racism in America learned from the Black liberation struggles of the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s; how to continue to discretely use cointelpro tactics in the modern era to portray and label any Black opposition to racism as hate teachers, as unAmericans, as anti-Semites, as homophobic, and as extremists. This is what racism does to Black leaders in America, especially to leaders like the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. Despite all the good work he has done for Black people in America, racism must protect itself at all costs by castigating the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan as an unIslamic anti-Semitic homophobic Black racist. Racism knows full well that the Honorable Minister Farrakhan is not a racist. He is not anti-Semite. He is not homophobic. He has no political or economic power to keep an entire culture of people at the bottom of society. The Honorable Minister Farrakhan has not encouraged his followers to violently attack Whites, Jews, or Gay people. However, to the racist system America, he is the last known Black world leader still pointing out the contradictions of racism in the United States. This is why the racist power structure works to try to silence his voice in America and in the Muslim Ummah (an Arabic word for community), but especially amongst oppressed Black people. Racism does not want the Honorable Louis Farrakhan’s voice to inspire masses of Black people to rise up against racial injustice in America.

Therefore, as we continue to argue and debate issues (i.e. what Black Mayor is going to control city hall, what Black Councilperson is going to control such and such ward in a city, Is Rev Al Sharpton a real leader of Black people, who is going to control the board of education in the Black community, who is going to control the police department in the Black community, was the Black Lives Matter Movement sold out, are charter schools the best place to educate Black children, are public schools the best place to educate Black children, Is home instruction the best place to educate Black children, are Afrocentric schools the best place to educate Black children, are Islamic schools the best place to educate Black children, Is Cardi B the realist female rapper on the planet, are City Girls a real Hip Hop group, Is Hip Hop good for Black people, Is rap Music whack, Is Rap music really Hip Hop, Is Love and Hip Hop really reality TV, Is someone ghost writing for Drake, Is Hennessy the real drink for Black people, Is Afrocentricity the true pathway for liberating Black people, Are African religions the best spiritual path of Black people, Is Al-Islam the best spiritual path for Black people, are the Crips the real perpetrators of violence in the Black community, are the Bloods the real perpetrators of violence in the Black community, are the Vice Lords the perpetrators of violence in the Black community, are the Gangster Disciples the real perpetrators of violence in the Black community, Is the Honorable Minister Farrakhan a real Muslim, Is the Golden State Warriors the greatest NBA team of all time) we believe are important to us Black folks, and we should argue these things, but at the end of the day, we are all being misled under an illusion of Black progress and Black Freedom in America

We are not free!!! And we have not achieved Black power to force America’s racist power structure to address a Black agenda, nor reparations, to create real equality for Black people in America.

At the end of the day, racism is still subjugating Black people in America down to the lowest realms of society. Black progress is stagnant. We are still unequal to whites, and now, unfortunately, to other cultures in America

This is why at one time in the 1990s the former Libyan President Col Qaddafi saw the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan as the best chance to help oppressed Black people. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan was, and, is, the last man left standing for Black liberation. As the onslaught by America’s brand of racism continues to devour Black lives in America, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam are still fighting for Black liberation. Insha’Allah ta’alaa (an Arabic phrase that means Allah will, he is most exalted) inspire a new generation Black people to continue the fight for justice in America.

Jazak Allahu khair
(An Arabic phrase that means may Allah reward you with goodness)!!!

As Salaamu Alaykum wa Rahmantuallahi wa Barakaatahu!!!

-Bashir Muhammad Akinyele
-Muslim
-Muslim Activist
-Community Activist
-Educator
-Co-Founder of the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition (NAVC)
-Co-Host and Co-Producer of the All Politics Are Local radio show-the Number #1 Political Hip Hop Radio Show in America.

source: http://yourblackworld.net/2019/06/06/the-legality-of-white-racism-and-the-illusion-of-black-progress/?

Between Developing and Defending the Cuban Revolution

 

by Joshua Lew McDermott 

Recently, I picked up Leon Trotsky’s forgotten classic “Their Morals and Ours: Marxist vs. Liberal Views on Morality.” The pamphlet offers a scathing critique of what today is known as the “horseshoe theory,” wherein the far left and far right are considered morally identical from the standpoint of liberalism, because both employ radical (and sometimes) violent tactics. This viewpoint will be familiar to anyone who has watched the corporate media decry anti-fascist activists as indecipherable from the neo-Nazis they combat.

The crux of Trotsky’s argument, which is astoundingly relevant today, is not only that liberals are embarrassingly inconsistent and hypocritical when it comes to passing moral judgments (the lack of outrage from moral crusaders on Yemen’s genocide, Hillary Clinton’s destruction of Libya, and many other instances of imperial aggression has long been deafening), but the fact that liberals derive their morality from an ahistorical universalist ideal means that liberal morality inherently serves the rich and powerful. Adherence to abstract and eternal moral laws such as “thou shalt not steal” or “always obey the laws of the land” leads to a remarkably reactionary system of ethics. For example, is it immoral for a starving man to steal a loaf of a bread from a bakery owned by a wealthy business owner? In liberal societies, in which property is the ultimate sacred cow and morality is not contingent upon material/historical context, the answer is “yes.” Never mind the relevant economic and legal structures which enabled the business owner to become wealthy and led the other man to starvation.

What’s more, Trotsky also grapples with the notion of “the ends justify the means” morality, a sentiment which was doubtlessly tested by Communist regimes throughout the 20^th century, sometimes to indefensible ends. Yet, the cynical exploitation of sincere revolutionary upheavals by authoritarian figures does mean that there is a divine law which proves that means can never be justified by ends, as pragmatist John Dewey pointed out in his relatively agreeable response to Trotsky’s piece. Again, the true determent of morality for any activist who sincerely cares for other humans being must be based upon a sober calculation of real-world facts and contexts and driven by a sincere desire to create a fair world for all people. As Che Guevara famously said, “At the risk of sounding ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.”

I do not bring up this moral debate to comment on morality as such or to arbitrate in the often absurd, abstract, and counterproductive clashes within the leftist social media sphere between what’s become known as “tankies” and “ultraleftists,” but because I found the deficiencies of liberal moral outrage especially cogent and consequential while on a recent educational trip to Havana in July 2018 which I took with a small organization known as La Luchita (run by a lovely and well-meaning husband and wife couple) tailored towards building networks between grassroots American and Cuban organizers and activists.

In an interesting dynamic, the American group, of which there was maybe fifteen of us, largely consisted of vaguely progressive activists, mostly in their late-twenties, who were nonetheless highly critical, or even outright dismissive, of Cuba’s socialist project. For one week, we met with a cross-section of Cuban activists, from civil-society activists to students to university professors, all with legitimate critiques and praises of the Cuban revolutionary experiment. As one would expect, almost none of our hosts viewed “the Revolution” (as it is referred to on the island) in simple black-and-white terms, though some were more apologetic than others. The same cannot be said for many of the Americans, who were quick to confirm any anti-revolution bias by latching onto any critiques offered by the Cubans, but slow to acknowledge any triumphs of the revolution. The Americans were, as far as I could tell, not conscious that their knee-jerk responses to the most laudable aspects of the revolution (when finding out that wealthy persons were forced to give up any extra homes they owned in order to provide housing to the poor, some of the Americans audibly gawked) were highly reactionary, a condition indicative of so many American progressives. This blindness is symptomatic of gaining a “progressive” education sans any sort of class-analysis, a condition which defines so many well-meaning activists here. This is a symptom of hailing from an imperial heartland wherein questions of class are largely considered irrelevant, where billionaires such as Elon Musk and Oprah Winfrey are even considered radical by some. This selective blindness is the result of not of an absence of ideology, but the product of living deep beneath an invisible ideological shroud: for my colleagues, it seemed, anything good in Cuba was the result of some nebulous category vaguely defined as “Cuban culture” and anything bad in Cuba was due to socialism. For example, on nights out socializing in the city, the beauty of the fact that people from all professions (one night we went out to a jazz club with a group of Cubans comprised of a dentist, a professor, students, a cigar-factory worker, and a janitor) and races intermingled to an extent unimaginable in the U.S. seemed largely to be lost on my American counterparts. “That’s just how Cuba is,” I imagine they assumed, not realizing the huge strides made for the poor and Afro-Cubans since the fall of the Batista regime.

As a Chinese colleague of mine who travels to Cuba regularly once pointed out to me, Cuban society does not rest on a cult of personality, as in China, nor is it defined by social engineering and violent state control: police presence was almost non-existent within the city. At risk of romanticizing a country with many serious problems, I felt a deep authenticity and cohesiveness in Cuban society I have not experienced in any other country. The difference between Havana or Mexico City or Freetown, Sierra Leone, or any major American city could not have been starker.

I experienced the absolute strangeness of walking across a major city at 1am while seeing children and families enjoying the public parks free from fear, of knowing that every person I saw had full access to one of the world’s best healthcare systems and the right to basic human necessities such as housing and employment, still makes my head spin. Where was the oppressive state presence I had heard so much about? The crime-filled streets? I felt I had caught just a small glimpse, for the first time in my life, of the potential harmony that we, as human beings, could achieve in society. What stood out to me most, perhaps, was the prevalence of dignity. Yes, Cuba has tremendous poverty. But the poverty is different than that in the U.S., where social isolation and a lack of access to even the most basic goods abounds despite our unfathomable wealth.

When I raised these insights with my fellow American travelers, the response was not surprising, nor altogether wrong: “you can’t tell someone else to be grateful for what they have if you have more than them,” one American told me when I expressed concern that the thawing of Cuban-American relations would hasten the-already-quickening erosion of Cuban social welfare. Many of the Cubans we met were under the impression that this would mean more, not less, prosperity for all islanders: to build upon Steinbeck’s famous “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” sentiment: it seemed that many of even the poorest pro-American Cubans assumed (in large part due to American cultural influence that the government has long tried to keep out of Cuba) that they themselves would be the casino and resort owners once capitalism comes back to the island (this was often spoken of as an inevitably). Imagine the surprise of some of my Cuban friends, then, when I told them of growing up in America without health insurance, of experiencing homelessness and abject poverty. As any international traveler can attest, American cultural products, such as Hollywood films, have been remarkably successful at one thing: convincing many of the world’s poor that poverty does not exist in the U.S.

Regardless, my American traveling companion was right: as an American who benefits greatly from being a citizen of the world’s imperial center (take for example, the ease with which I can attain a visa for travel) with just a few relatives from Cuba and little experience on the island myself, I am in no position to tell Cubans they ought to be grateful for living under a government which has, undoubtedly, at times weaponized the threat of imperialism to silence legitimate dissent. Like many other members of my generation and as a young adult recovering from a childhood in Mormonism, there is little I dislike more than living subject to a governance structure which cannot allow for deviation. But, context and material facts do matter if we, as socialists and activists wanting to change the world, are to give any sort of fair appraisal of the Cuban Revolution. The liberal, postmodern project which reduces all legitimate political activism to thoughts and actions based solely upon one’s own life experiences and identity categories is antithetical to social solidarity and all forms of class-politics and anti-imperialism. Case-in-point: after informing another American colleague that I was, in fact, a communist, she replied: “I believe subscribing to any sort of label or ideology destroys the political imagination.” I don’t doubt her sincerity, but neither do I doubt that her aversion to an actively radical ideology was inherently ideological. It is precisely this sort of nebulous belief in the moral superiority of the (nonexistent) apolitical which explains why so many well-meaning liberals can call a revolution which eliminated illiteracy and homelessness in a generation “monstrous,” just because some wealthy people lost their second homes.

Regardless, it’s important that all freedom-loving people acknowledge the right of Cubans to self-determination, whatever that means for Cubans. Yet, it’s also important that anyone who puts stock on truth and morality acknowledges the great successes the revolution has entailed for inhabitants not only of the island, but for the poor all throughout the world, including especially Africa, where Cuban soldiers helped fend off apartheid and Cuban doctors continue to save countless lives. Socialists, in particular, have a political and moral obligation to denounce the U.S. embargo and calls for regime change.

As for appraising what the revolution can teach non-Cuban socialists about how to fight for a better world going forward, the crux of the matter was illustrated for me in a debate over a single word. One of the Cuban activists, an anarchist, asked me: should Cubans be “defending” or “developing” the Cuban Revolution? To defend the Revolution, he told me, assumes that the revolution was a specific historic event that occurred in 1959 and is now complete. According to him, this imagining of the Revolution entails stagnation, nostalgia, authoritarianism. Instead, he argued, Cubans must develop the revolution; this means emphasizing the need for evolution, growth, self-reflection. For him, an end to Cuba’s socialist economy (in its present form) would be a step in the right direction as it would mean an easing of state control and an allowance for the sort of dissent necessary for evolution.

For a communist activist I met, however, if one is not defending the revolution, one is working with the project of American imperialism to defeat it. “The revolution has this much room to maneuver,” he told me, squinting through an imperceptible slit between his thumb and index finger. This does not mean that this individual was uncritical of the Communist Party; on the contrary, he offered some of the most insightful critiques of the Cuban system. Nor does this mean that the anarchist comrade was not aware of the threat of U.S. economic imperialism. But to act like it will be good for Cuba to simply throw open its borders and government to unchecked American influence, as many American liberals attest, is not only naive but ideological par-excellence: an end of the Cuban socialist project will no doubt mean suffering for the average Cuban.

In other words, the Cuban revolution is not black-or-white. The Cuban government has long been stuck between a rock and hard place. We have an intellectual and moral responsibility to note that if the Cuban socialist government does, in fact, fall, it is more than likely that the millions of Cubans that the revolution lifted out of poverty, taught to read, offered education and healthcare, will face dire consequences in that brave new world of authoritarian neoliberalism that has always defined counterrevolutionary regimes in Latin America, from Pinochet to the newly elected president of Brazil.

Socialists in the 21^st century have an obligation to acknowledge the successes of the revolution and to reject the off-hand moral denunciation that liberals are so quick to heap upon any political organization which dares to buck the conventions of the capitalist ruling system. Is Cuban Socialism perfect? No. No system made by humans will ever be and workers should always be free to critique and develop existing socialist projects. But resistance to capitalist exploitation, to poverty, to imperialism, cannot exist if we hold ourselves to an absurd, abstract, and inconsistent moral standard designed to protect the status quo. Revolution is not easy nor morally straightforward. But Cuba has lifted millions from abject poverty and offered its people and people throughout the world dignity and true sovereignty. For this, it deserves our praise, solidarity, and defense, as do all Cuban people, whether they believe in developing or defending revolution. Ultimately, what the Cubans decide to do about their revolution is up to them, but all socialists have an obligation to defend the island and its revolutionary government from outside aggression.

source: Between Developing and Defending the Cuban Revolution

Countering the FBI’s “Black Identity Extremist” Offensive – Part Two

The recently formed Black Identity Extremist Abolition Collective held a public meeting at the People’s Forum, in New York City, to counter the newest iteration of the FBI’s infamous Cointelpro strategy to neutralize and destroy Black and radical activists. In Part Two:
King Downing, National Conference of Black Lawyers
Johanna Fernandez, Campaign to Bring Mumia Home
Mumia Abu Jamal, Political Prisoner