Dorner

Print PDF

CLICK HERE TO READ ENTIRE POST

COLLAPSE POST

On Correct Terminology

Print PDF

Sanyika Shakur, who was released from Pelican Bay SHU this August, wrote this essay to explain some of the specific spellings and terms used by members of the New Afrikan Independence Movement. It is a good contribution to developing mental and cultural resistance to patriarchal racist imperialist system. It is also posted on the Kersplebedeb website. More about, and by, Sanyika Shakur can be found at http://www.kersplebedeb.com/sanyikashakur.html.

On Correct Terminology and Spellings
En Route to Conscious Development and Socialist Revolution

There has been some dialogue generated recently that has come to focus on the way the New Afrikan Independence Movement (NAIM) uses certain spellings, particular words, phrases and slogans to distinguish, apply energy, weight and clarity to the ongoing and ever-increasing need for sharper, more critical, words of power to describe the socio-economic phenomena of national oppression.

What We’d like to do here is go through a few of these in use now which are generally accepted as a standard for cadres of NAIM, but may not be so obvious to others. And, too, the thing We’d like to do is open up a deeper line of dialogue, in this regard, in hopes of developing a unified field theory of comprehensive terminology to enhance the depth, breadth and momentum of revolutionary consciousness to the flow as We build for Peoples War (Vita Wa Watu [1]).

In our struggle to regain independence as a self-determining people, with dignity and pride, We overstand that We must have a national identity, a name. One that is neither given by our oppressors nor predicated on a racialist color. We must have a nationality, as a pre-requisite, if We are seriously forging the socio-economic constructs of a State in which to govern the nation(ality), i.e. the people/citizens. We necessarily begin at the beginning. We know We are descendants from peoples forcefully removed from the West Coast of the Afrikan continent. We know We haven’t fallen from the sky. We also have sure knowledge of the reasons We were brought here. But, Afrika is a continent of many people, and not a homogenous nation. It isn’t now, nor was it when the predators and destroyers came and probably hadn’t been since the early, early days of life.

On the continent there are nations and nationalities. There are various languages, cultures, politics, religions and customs. So, we know what when the predators and destroyers came they found many different people. We know they made deals with some to work in concert against others. It was a socio-economic arrangement -- a class alliance. Supply and demand. We often heard growing up, by amerikans, who wished to distance themselves from colonialism, that “your own people sold you into slavery.” Well, this is not altogether true, since essentially We’d never really all been one people -- certainly not by the time the predators came. And even among those of the same nation, there were class divisions and other contradictions. What We all were, however, was dark. Darker in complexion by far than the Europeans or the Arabs who came assailing Us. And thus it was this apparent “difference” that theyseized upon to make us “one people” -- black people first, then Afrikan, as a whole. Much like capitalism is now making all Spanish-speaking people into Latinos and/or Hispanics. Or how colonialism made into Indigenous people all “Indians”. But underneath this generalization were Nationalities and Nations. We knew this, certainly. For had you asked a captured woman who she was, say in 1580, she would not have said “I’m black”, nor would she have said “I’m Afrikan”. She’d have said “I am Akan” or “I am Fante”, or Hausa, Ibo, Fulani, Ewe, Yoruba, etc.

It was these various peoples, hailing from numerous nations and nationalities, that were brought together under colonialism and transported to the so-called “New World” to be utilized as a proletariat for the new European nations being built on stolen and occupied lands. By dint of brutal transport and collusion We were brought together under conditions less than human and barely tolerable. By our own internal dynamics and self-motion We essentially combined in these conditions to become a new people. No longer Ibo, Fulani, Ewe, Fante or Yoruba -- but Afrikan still. Our cultures weren’t so much destroyed as they were transformed. We survived and remade Ourselves on the residue of self-consciousness/self-motion. In a 100% hostile environment.

Of this We have sure knowledge. That from Los Angeles to New York and all areas in between, New Afrikans share the same culture Our ancestors forged in the cauldron of old colonialism. You know how the bourgeois media likes to parrot Boy Bush by saying “9-11 changed everything?” Well, in actuality, colonialism is really what changedeverything -- really. For just as We became a New Afrikan nation in North America, Indigenous nations were being decimated and a newEuropean nation-state called america was coming into existence.

This is how nations are really formed -- how nationalities come to be. They don’t mysteriously fall, ready-made, from the sky. It is human nature to bring into existence new unities (nations/nationalities) based on need or greed. So, while We may have come here as Fulani, Ewe, Ibo, etc., this is not who We are today. While simultaneously the Fulani, Ewe and Ibo people still exist in Afrika. The reality is, however,We can’t go back to the past. We’d be insincere running around Oakland or Brooklyn talking about “I’m Yoruba”, “I’m Hausa” -- cause We are not. Not anymore. We have Our own customs now. Our own culture, too. And even though We are saddled with the colonial language, We have Our own ways of using it to suit our needs. We now have Our own set of contradictions that are unique to Our particular social development here. And yet We are still Afrikan. Though We’ve come to overstand that being Afrikan wasn’t enough to describe Our particular experience and social development here. Nor was it sufficient to point Us in the direction of where We need to go -- that is, when and where We enter -- again -- onto the world stage of nations.

We keep emphasizing nationality and nation here because if you think about it -- meditate on it -- We can’t enter the world community of nations as “minorities”, as “blacks” or as “African Americans”. This would be absurd. Why, it’s akin to Us going out reppin’ amerika, the u.s. government, capitalism/imperialism and all that this entails. We’d be bourgeois amerikan nationalists. And don’t fool yourself, you’d stillbe a nationalist -- you’d just be a bourgeois nationalist. That is a representative of the new unity that amerika is under its ruling class. And, again, with all that this entails. So, We emphasize nationality and nation in order to bring the reality out that it is a choice one has on whether to side with the colonizer, or to struggle with the oppressed, which is essentially a struggle against oppression. Against u.s. capitalism/imperialism. Against being colonized and prevented from being yourself.

We have chosen New Afrikan as our Nationality because it adequately defines our experience. It brings the reality of Our transformation and new unity right down from and where it needs to be. It also affords Us an identity of our own, out and away from that given to us by our oppressors:

“‘New Afrikan’ reflects our identity as a nation and a people -- a nation and a people desiring self-determination. New Afrikans have been called ‘colored Americans’, ‘American Negroes’, ‘Black Americans’ and ‘Afro-Americans’.
“‘New Afrikan’ reflects our purpose as We desire freedom, self-determination and independence. By stating We are New Afrikans, We clarify We want to be independent from the amerikkkan empire. We want Land and National Liberation. We no longer want the ruling class of the amerikkkan empire to determine Our political, economic, socio-cultural affairs”.[2]

We also have the New Afrikan Declaration of Independence, the New Afrikan Creed and the Code of Umoja written and ratified in 1968, with a subsequent review completed by the People Center Council, on November 3, 2007. These lofty documents point to the reality of our national existence.

Comrad-Brotha Owusu Yaki Yakubu has pointed out on many occasions that: “The Nation exists both in potentiality and actuality - it’s just not free.” [3]

The reason We need to get past the usage of labels like “black” and “African American” is because they only serve to distort Our reality. These labels confuse and misdirect the colonialism of the u.s. into an “Everything’s better now” fog of narcolepsy. One way this is done is by calling our experience here, from 1619 to 1865, mere “slavery”. When, of course, it was much worse, more complex and binding that any slavery ever could be.

By saying our condition was mere “slavery” is an easy way out; it is to say “slavery was abolished in 1865 with the ratification of the 13th amendment”. Which then leads to the 14th amendment to make New Afrikans “citizens” -- thereby violating Our human right to self-determination, but also liquidating the reality of our nation by incorporating Us into the Empire as “minority citizens” -- as “Negroes”, “blacks”, “colored”, “African Americans”. As those who cannot govern themselves -- whose productive forces are harnessed by the empire for its own interests. What they never want Us to overstand is that We are a nation inside the belly of the beast.  No, this reality must always be distorted, disguised, laughed at, slapped away or crushed.

In a way, our finding and usage of the correct terminology to facilitate an overstanding of colonialism, comes as a means to combat the enemy’s mass distortions of our reality. Yes, this is true. You see, the conscious instinctively go East when the enemy insists the right way is West. We refuse to move along its path; We stop, stand Our ground and struggle against the stream because We know Our truths. Our interests stand in stark contrast to the enemy’s. So, We dig in search of the tools We’ll need to end its life. And isn’t that what it does in order to oppress Us? We’re in the same war -- We're just on different sides.

Just as We are not black, Negro, or African African, Our condition was not “slavery”. Which is not to say Our condition didn’t have the outward appearance of slavery. Nor are We trying to take anything away from the awful conditions which Our ancestors endured. We are saying that “slavery”, like those “minority” labels, is a distortion of facts and in order to fully apprehend the reality, We cannot use the deliberately faulty tools given Us by Our enemies. When using their analyses of Our condition We’ll get their results -- which favor their distortions and continuing oppression of Us as “minorities” or “disenfranchised second class citizens”. How can anyone be dis-enfranchised when they’ve never been en-franchised?! Oh, but We were en-franchised, as a colony - like, individuals can own a McDonald’s, but have to go to Ronald McDonald’s College in order to learn how to run the business in accordance with the overall standards of established order of the corporation. But the same food, same colors, same uniforms, same culture of the corporation permeates all. But now check this out, in real dis-enfranchisement wouldn’t that mean to leave the corporate orbit -- to get free of it? That’s what We should be struggling for: disenfranchisement, no? We’re looking for correct terminology. For ways out. We’re not struggling to be en-franchised. But We want true disfranchisement and not some fake, paperweight, Banff Funston, flag freedom.

We’ve been told that being born here makes us americans. We reject that foolishness. We are more apt to ride with the sobering words of Malcolm X: “Being born here doesn’t make you an american. Why, that’s like saying if a cat has kittens in the oven that makes them biscuits.” You might want to read that one again.

Having made the points We have We’ll move this along. Though not without a quote from Comrad-Brotha Owusu Yaki Yakubu:

“The ‘Native’, the ‘Negro’, the ‘colored’, the ‘black’ and the ‘African-American’, have no identity apart from that given them by the colonizer -- that is, not unless they RESIST colonialism, which entails: (1) their maintenance of an identity that is separate and distinct from that of the colonized and from that given them by the colonizer; (2) they begin to develop a NEW identity, through the process of “de-colonization” -- though having remained separate and distinct, colonized people aren’t who they were prior to colonization, and they can’t return to the past. Colonization has arrested their independent development, distorted who they are, and now they must become (a) NEW people during the process by which they regain their independence.” [4]

The NEW people need a new, more critical (and radical) set of words, of terminology, to bring the “arrested development” of our independence into sharper focus. A focus so clear as to give us the ability to read the earth signs and guideposts towards national independence and socialism. The struggle, lest We forget, is not justagainst capitalism/imperialism, but also for socialism. We are not trying to get a seat at the table, or an office in the Whitest House. That’s called reform. That’s called collusion, collaboration and neocolonialism. That’s not our bag. We suggest strongly that all New Afrikans seek to obtain, study and meditate on the following documents:

• the New Afrikan Declaration of Independence
• the New Afrikan Creed
• the Code of Umoja (Republic of New Afrika’s National Constitution)

These, of course, are the general laws, ethics and obligations of New Afrikan nationals. Individual collectives and orgs in the NAIM will necessarily have their own particular bylaws, codes of ethics and points of authority to frame their practice vis-à-vis the masses and other collectives orgs. Nonetheless, We all function under the general/objective laws established by the Provisional Government.

What tends to bother us is when comrades from other movements and nationalities, who’ve struggled with Us in various capabilities, do interviews or in their writings, refer to us as “African Americans” or “blacks”. And We’re not talking about the average comrades on the street who have no real clue about Our ideology -- No, We mean comrades who, in some instances, were captured with some of Our nationals. It’s not cool to do that. We feel that if you want to be “politically correct”, then side with the revolutionaries and not with the distortionists. We are New Afrikans. In 1968, over 500 New Afrikan nationalists signed the New Afrikan Declaration of Independence and named Our nation the Republic of New Afrika. We feel when Comrades do that they are going along with Our oppression. At least some form of it. They are conscious, they know better. And, too, we have to step up Our ideological struggle to deepen the correct usage of Our national identity. Even in low tides we must stand firm push forward.

Some Terms/Spellings

* We, as a rule, capitalize the “W” in we to emphasize the collective/mass importance of the people. We overstand that capitalism and the degenerate culture that inherently flows from it, incites, facilitates and rewards rank individualism. It fosters the “me, me, me”, “look out for number 1” and “I am more important than all of you” mentality.

In amerika, for example, one individual can own 10 (or 100) supermarkets and feel or have no obligation to feed one hungry person. In fact, owners have had poor people prosecuted to the full extent of bourgeois law, for taking food; or homeless people for panhandling on his/her premises. Individualism, gluttonous consumerism and naked greed are the inherent hallmarks of capitalism. We necessarily reflect this and thus capitalize Our W’s and simultaneously de-capitalize (cut the head off) the “I” , when it’s used in a “normative case singular of the first person pronoun” or as“the word used by a speaker or written in mentioning [herself]/himself.” [5] We feel that doing so not only keeps Us focused but is also instructive to our readers. Some Comrads have decapped their whole names to further illustrate their submergence in the people. [6]

* We spell Africa with a “K”, as opposed to a “C” because as Comrad-Brotha Sundiata pointed out:

 “… the New Afrikan Independent Movement spells Afrikan with a ‘K’ as an indicator of our cultural identification with the Afrikan continent and because Afrikan linguists originally used ‘K’ to indicate the ‘C’ sound in the English language.” [7]

We also use the “K” in our national identity to illustrate our break and necessary distinction with Our colonizers. The “K” represents resistance, rebellion and our need for critical distance from normative constraints of colonialism.

* We, by and large, de-cap the “A” in amerika for several reasons. Principal among these, however, is the fact that the colonial state is an illegal settler government/empire fastened, my dint of genocide and colonialism (colonial violence), onto the backs of indigenous nations/land and other internal colonies. We overstand the u.s. as a virtual -- nay, as an actual -- prisonhouse of nations which are culturally and economically held in check by a complicit garrison population of citizens who believe in amerikan exceptionalism, manifest destiny and the inherent inferiority of everyone but themselves. These amerikans are fortified ideological shocktroops holding the genocidal quilt of u.s. imperialism together with boundless acts of blind-ass patriotism and loyalty. We reject that and refuse to give this (or any) empire any acknowledgment as a place of peace, liberty and democracy. Amerika is not so much a place, deserving a capital letter at its helm, as it is an experience, like a wild and horrifying ride at an amusement park -- only this ride is more lethal, a thousand times more harmful and totally mind-warping. “The ride of a lifetime,” where whole nations are strapped in for the violent twists and turns of Empire. The more we try to get off, the faster it goes, the higher it climbs, the deeper it plunges -- Welcome to the Terror Dome!!! We are not in the habit of giving respect to those who don’t respect us. Decap the “A”.

* We use a “K” (or three “K”’s) in amerika -- as We do in the word “kountry” when referring to amerika and its capitalist allies -- to emphasize Our awareness that it is the prototype, the archetype, of the Ku Klux Klan. Its overall reactionary, racialist, and theological schematic is Klannish! And just because the state employs functionaries from its colonies means nothing. The ruling class is a seething cauldron of alabaster menace. Sitting, as it does, atop the planet, in a predator’s pose, ready to pounce on the next crime to make a profit; the pathological bourgeoisie is the brain trust of every two-bit supremacist on the planet. The Klan foremost among them. We think it was the Amazon Butch Lee who said “amerika is what nazi germany wanted to be.” We agree and would go on to add that the ruling class is who the Klan aspires to be like and keep in power. So, We necessarily associate the two in our writings because it keeps Us focused on the fundamental contradiction in Our way. Would you want to integrate into a Klan society?

* Some of us younger comrades will use a capital “O” on Our or “U” on Us when referring to New Afrikan people. This is but a particular style used by those of us in the trenches doing ideological combat on a daily basis. It is a good concept to promote the unitarian ideal, however, it often brutalizes the written text by detracting from the smooth flow of a sentence. Not to mention being a virtual nightmare for some of our comrades who help in transcribing our work. And, too, We’ll often use these caps this way to stand to the left of those who’ve come before Us. However, all ideas are not of equal value and any theory which cannot stand up to objective reality is dead. While We don’t think the concept dead, We do, however feel it’s not practical. For as long as we wrap up the “W” and cut the head off of that big-ass “I” We’ll be fine.

* As revolutionary nationalists We are, without question, anti-racists. We work diligently to exclude all language (and practice) that promotes or perpetuates the false social construct of “race”. We first of all get past this by overstanding who concocted this foolishness. Oh yeah … it was the same class of predators who constantly told us to go west -- “it’s the right way. The only way out.” No bet. Trust and believe when they say go west -- your surest path is in any otherdirection. Let’s check in with the wise counsel of Comrad-Brotha Owusu Yaki Yakubu:

“Racism is used to justify and facilitate the exploitation of peoples, and it’s based on the false belief that humanity is divided into a plurality of ‘races’ that stand in relation to each other as ‘inferiors’ or ‘superiors’ based on physical and/or cultural differences. There are no ‘races’ -- only people(s) and groups of people(s), united and distinguished by common history (social development), habits, interests, etc. -- sometimes We call all of this ‘nationality’ or ideology. To be ‘anti-racist’ is, first of all, not to hold the false belief in an alleged plurality of ‘races’, to be ‘against racism’ is to combat all beliefs and practices that facilitate the exploitation of peoples, particularly when such explication is supposed by the social construction of ‘race’.” [8]

What We do is stop calling ourselves “black”. This goes along with the false construct and perpetrates the erroneous belief. Not to mention the colonial relationship of oppressed and oppressor. Saying “black” is to promote the “plurality of race”; the “black race”, “white race”, etc. People have national identities. We are not racists, so why promote racist beliefs? Now, We are not naïve, either. We know that while the science behind the division of humanity into races is, without question, junk science and crackpot engineering, We also overstand the average folks ain’t got that memo. The masses of all colonies inside the beast still function under this guise. And so while Weoverstand it’s not real, people are still quite willing to kill and die for it. But We have to lead the way of “de-colonizing”, “dis-enfranchising” and de-programming them. So, “race” is both false and to an extent “real”.

Let’s go over to the dictionary and see what it says about the two words in question. We’re using a 2006, Webster’s Integrated Dictionary and Thesaurus:

Black: adj. of the darkest color, like coal or soot; having dark-colored skin and hair, especially Negro; without light; dirty; evil; wicked; sad, dismal; sullen...

We could go on with the description, but it only gets worse. Let’s flip over to the word “white” (same source) and see what We find:

White: adj. of the color of milk or pure salt; stainless; pure; bright; light-colored, as of caucasoid skin; color of anything white, innocent…

Well, We know these are wholly inadequate terms to use in referring to people, any people. And We overstand, too, that “black” was sort of necessary in the 1960s to distinguish the revolutionaries from the neo-colonialist Negroes. However, we now know that it was insufficient and should now be rested. Along with white. We are more concerned with one’s politics than We are with anyone’s complexion. We unite with those whose practice and sincerity bears them out to be worthy. We are birthed into this world with no control over Our complexions (pigmentation) -- Our nationality and Our politics, however, we can choose. That’s the basis of the get down. The content of character, practice and the company one keeps are always the surest indicators of who’s who.

In our writings, speaking and organizing We make that National distinction between Us and amerikans based not on “race” -- “black” or “white” -- as if We were all “Americans” with just different complexions, who suffer or prosper as a result of a few bad men/women in office. No, We clarify the reality based on oppressor and oppressed nations. On capitalism versus socialism. On national independence versus colonialism. As soon as We fall into the trap of “race”, we lose momentum -- We stop pushing Our line and start pushing the colonizers’ line. We heighten awareness by exposing the falsehoods. The contradictions are plentiful and there are no shortage of angles for us to attack. The fundamental contradiction is not “race”, but National oppression, with fat-ass u.s. imperialism sitting on Our back preventing Us from moving in our own national interests. The struggle is to destroy this overbearing bully, get free and in the process rebuild ourselves into productive people who are about world revolution and socialism.

* We are anti-patriarchal -- which entails us being against all forms of male supremacy and suppression of women. Women hold up half the sky -- and in most oppressed nations, it’s more like three quarters. This is especially true in New Afrika. We necessarily combat any and all forms of gender oppression; while we’d like to say this is a result of capitalist economics, that would unfortunately not be true. We believe and have sure knowledge that men turned women and children into the first oppressed populations on the planet, long before capitalism appeared on the scene. Patriarchy is a backwards, oppressive and exploitative form of social (and personal) relations that infects and warps the activity of otherwise progressive or potentially revolutionary women and young girls. So, what We do is be pro-actively corrective in not only Our practice, but also in Our writings and Our speeches.

Male-centered language runs rampant through most cultures as does practice. Have you ever stopped to ponder any of the words we think are “normal”

Words like:

manpower
man-hours
manhole
mankind etc. etc.

And these are but a couple of the more flagrant ones. But think about organized religion too. What effect does it have on women and young girls, on boys and men for that matter, who feel an inherent sense of entitlement, due to its unflinching patriarchy? For in every one of the major religions God supposedly only picked men (in one his son) to be prophets or saviors. The last person god spoke with or communicated to, or called upon to lead, was a man. One major religion takes the mother totally out of the equation making for only the father, the son and the “holy spirit”. Some others offer “virgins” as rewards for martyrdom -- owned and possessed even in paradise. The major organized religions are in fact good ol’ boys networks that relegate women and children to near chattel status as submissives and victims of men. It is as if in order to get into “heaven”, “paradise” or whatever land of pleasure and ease one believes in, women and children must have been good submissives and supporters, mere bit-players, to their husbands, brothers and fathers. Or loyal to their priest, imam or rabbi. Well, We reject that. We refuse to see women as inferiors, or objects and needing and having to have the guards, protection or sympathy of men in order to “get along” -- or to some far-off paradise. Fuck that!

We believe and have sure knowledge that women possess the very same potential, like any man, to change the world. Perhaps even more so. We know women can (and have) govern, guide, lead, fight, struggle, conspire, shoot, theorize and everything else any man can do. And yet women have been so oppressed by men that they are very distrustful and suspicious and We say rightfully so. But We overstand that unity of purpose, of need and necessity grows out of steadfast practice and righteousness. Simultaneously We overstand that women and children need and must have a military strategy of their own. Must always stand ready. We recognize this. Revolutions, too, can and have turned into good ol’ boy networks. To be cautious is to be aware of all this. Be mindful of social relations that do harm to the unintended, to those We must unite with; to those who are the most oppressed. It is about being accountable and responsible.That’s revolutionary!

What We do is change words like “mankind”, to humankind. “History” to social development, or Ourstory. Or to emphasize that it is a lie told by our colonizers, We’ll spell it as His-story (as in male-centered and just “his” version).

Women in the collectives, orgs and movement will use Her-story. Which is perfectly natural, really, given how much of the social development of women -- especially Amazons -- has beenmanhandled, buried, distorted or lied about. We encourage women to do the damn thing! Right on! When We write We need to be mindful that the Nation ain’t “he”, or “him”. Not made up of just males. Use the slash mark to always include both genders. And these are but the rudiments of this -- mere seeds beneath the snow. We’ll necessarily build on these as we grow and develop -- and as women/Amazons push out front and exert themselves so their own reality is widely representative of the whole. Learn how they wish to be related to by them.

* We are against homophobia. But deeper still, we are about combating heterosexism. See, homophobia -- the irrational fear of someone because of their sexual orientation -- is but one side of the equation. One can be “in fear” and use this to run away, or avoid the natural in order to make themselves feel better, but this will only give rise to homophobia’s evil twin -- heterosexism. Which is not just fear of, but oppression and exploitation of someone based on their sexual orientation. It points to a degenerative set of politics. See, it always comes back to Our politics. Our politics are revolutionary, naturally against oppression and yet here We are oppressing someone based on their natural self. If We kept our politics in command We’d know better. We’d do better.

We need to be clear and focused here cause people will try to get by on this and if We are going to be the message We bring We have to stand firm on Our politics. People, collectives and orgs will profess that they are not homophobic -- have no fear of gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transgendered people -- and yet go right on to practice staunch  heterosexism by having not one post in their orgs held by gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transgender people. All those in position of any power are so-called “straight” people. To Us, any org claiming to be revolutionary or representative of the people, that doesn’t actively recruit, promote and cultivate gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people/cadres, is not really pushing a revolutionary line for change and freedom -- let alone socialism. They are perpetuating the backwardness of the bourgeoisie -- hell, We can hardly say thatanymore since even reactionaries have repealed their heterosexist policies.

We are concerned about a person’s character, politics, practice and the company they keep. Not of their complexion, gender or sexual orientation. The question is -- and should always be -- are they down for revolution? Are they with Us or against Us? Do they overstand that We are about armed struggle? We are not those to sit-in, love-in, cry-in or hold hands and sing “We shall overcome”. That’s not Us. We are about armed struggle.

So, in our writings We don’t just condemn homophobia -- We also shine the light on heterosexism. On so-called “straight” domination of things as if being hetero is any indication of being always right or somehow real. Give Us a break! What’s going to guide Us is revolutionary consciousness, informed by our political line. And the fact of the matter is if you’re not ready to let consciousness guide you -- truly, you’re not ready for revolution. Complete change.

* We recognize koncentration kamps (“prisons”) in the u.s. as tools of colonial violence used to further arrest the development of national independence. Koncentration kamps, like the kourts, the bourgeois law and the political police are all tied into the matrix of imperialism. For settlers these places are prisons. For colonial subjects, citizens of the internal nations, these are koncentration kamps -- intentional, political, containing and genocidal. In a monopoly capitalist society with a deeply entrenched ruling class, such as exists here in amerika, no facet of its system is beyond the pale of economic pressure and control. That is, all parts, importantly related to the whole for oppression are subject to the scrutiny of the ruling class. In other words, they serve the needs of the beast. Profit and disposal. Everything worthwhile is tied, in some way, to the profit motive/margin of monopoly capitalism. Koncentration kamps in this regard are major holdings for the bourgeoisie because they serve two purposes: they pen up potential “social dynamite” -- or those most likely to resist and rebel and revolt. And then they also exploit this same legion as industrial laborers in the kamps. But deeper still, this system also gives jobs to settlers who work in those kamps as guards, managers, nurses, doctors, counselors, etc. We spell koncentration kamps with a “K” for the same reasons We use the K’s in amerika, kourt andkountry. It’s all Klannish.

And so it is that We’ve come to the end of these notes. We hope to have brought some light and reason to some of the things We are about, that We struggle around and that We tend to bring to completion. We are under no illusions -- have no thoughts of anything being easy or quick. We are committed for the duration, come what may. We shall enter with Our heads up, backs straight, focused and conscious. We urge you to join the revolution and get down for the freedom you so richly deserve. We have nothing to lose but our chains

Re-build!

Notes

[1] Notes - Vita Wa Watu: Swahili meaning People's war. [return to text]

[2] From the New Afrikan Peoples Organization’s  newspaper By Any Means Necessary. [return to text]

[3] Meditation On Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, Owusu Yaki Yakubu (Kersplebedeb, 2010). [return to text]

[4] Meditations… Owusu Yaki Yakubu. [return to text]

[5] Webster's Integrated Dictionary and Thesaurus. [return to text]

[6] asha bandele, of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, dream hampton and the late General geronimo ji jaga. [return to text]

[7] Updated History of the New Afrikan Prison Struggle - Sundiata Acoli, BLA-POW. [return to text]

[8] Meditations… Owusu Yaki Yakubu. [return to text]

CLICK HERE TO READ ENTIRE POST

COLLAPSE POST

Get Up for the Down Stroke: Sanyika Shakur Responds to Black Liberation in the 21st Century: A Revolutionary Reassessment of Black Nationalism

Print PDF

In Sankyika Shakur's own words, "i was born Nov 13, 1963. Raised in South Central Los Angeles, by a phenomenal single, working-class, mother. Cut my teeth in the hostile gang culture in South Central from the mid-70's til the late 80's. Was introduced to the New Afrikan Independence Movement, by way of the Spear & Shield Collective, in 1986, while in the SHU at San Quentin. It was also in 1986 that i became a Shakur. I am a founding cadre of the August Third Collective and a combatant in the New Afrikan Peoples Liberation Army. I have had an indeterminate SHU term since 1989, for being a threat to the safety and security of the institution - presumably CDCR, though i suspect it's the institution of capitalism. I am an author that has produced pieces for various movement publications over the years as well as a couple of books. Currently working with Kersplebedeb Publishing & Distribution to publish a collection of writings done here in Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit. i am scheduled for release in Black August 2012."


Various writings by Sanyika are posted to the Kersplebedeb website here.

The following is a response that Sanyika wrote to the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter's "Black Liberation in the 21st Century: A Revolutionary Reassessment of Black Nationalism," by Kevin "Rashid" Johnson. Rashid is the author of Defying the Tomb, published by Kersplebedeb in 2010.

********************

Get Up For The Down Stroke

A response to: Black Liberation in the 21st Century: A Revolutionary Reassessment of Black Nationalism [1]

Sanyika Shakur
4-17-48 adm

Part One

“There’s never been a ‘question’ for us, only a task, a goal: the struggle to REGAIN our independence as a separate people with interests which oppose those of the empire. A goal for us, is a ‘question’ for those outside the nation who have a different nationality, and/or for those inside the nation who have a different ideology, e.g., the phrase ‘national question’ was coined by people trying to determine what position they would take regarding the struggle of colonized peoples – there was never a ‘national question’ for the colonized themselves.” [2]

Sometimes in the course of struggle, whether around theory, philosophy, ideology or tactics, We get tangled, as it were, in ideas so contradictory and muddled that We hardly have the ability to overstand how We reached that point, let alone how to extricate ourselves from it. We’ll often allow such confusion to actually become us, or so We think, and then any critique of the confusion is seen as a personal critique of ourselves rather than an honest and revolutionary attempt to disentangle oneself from ideo-theoretical muck and mire. This is one of the things We’re confronted by in the New Afrikan Black Panther Party–Prison Chapter’s (NABPP) position on the so-called “national question”.

What a mind-blowing tangle of ideo-theoretical mumbo-jumbo this piece/position is. There appears to have been some effort put forth early on to position themselves on an objective plane, for what it’s worth, but that evaporated immediately as the tools they were using to excavate the “facts” faltered and, eventually altogether broke apart in the process of their reasoning. The results were a pathetic attempt at continuing on in spite of having not a fact to stand on.

We find it a bit odd, or perhaps not so at all, that in the NABPP’s piece to supposedly refute, or ideologically combat, the New Afrikan Independence Movement’s (NAIM) position on land – specifically our National Territory – that they’d not use one actual quote of a New Afrikan revolutionary nationalist. And while at the outset they mention the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (PG-RNA), the New Afrikan People’s Organization (NAPO), the New Afrikan Maoist Party (NAMP) and the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), they fail to post their positions. What the NABPP does is use everyone except those whose position they are refuting to bolster their position. And throughout their position piece they do what exactly? They attempt to prove that New Afrikans are:

• A people without a need for a National Territory.
• A nation within a nation but requiring no self-determination.
• A nation which, when it exerts its need for land of its own, is somehow separatist and by implication “racist”.
• A people who, in order to get free, must wait on and then unite with the citizens of the oppressor nation.
• And finally, that We are sadly misled by our strategies, which according to the NABPP, no longer have any basis for existence.

Of course, in a magnificent feat of ideological gymnastics they switch at one point and say that amerikans are so thoroughly anti-New-Afrikan (citing the response to the Katrina disaster/strategy of depopulation) that our strategy should be to unite with them to keep things from “almost certainly degenerating into an imperialist-sponsored race war.” So in this baffling projection those We must unite with to get free are simultaneously those who will “almost certainly” annihilate us in “an imperialist sponsored race war.”

We are not amused in the least by the hodgepodge of ideological-theoretical claptrap in question. Nor are We altogether surprised. After all, this is a group called the New Afrikan Black Panther Party–Prison Chapter. We have always been struck by this, since it is such a redundancy, such an obvious rip-off and regrafting of ... Well, We’ll save all that for another time. Let’s go on and get into the quicksand mess of this position and work our way thru in hopes of this being a teachable moment. And while We’d like to think that this would help dis-entangle the NABPP from its muddle, We seriously doubt that will be the case, since it never really seemed to want to struggle with the NAIM on this point. Only against us.

As We carry on, We too will use quotes, passages and points of authority to frame certain things or to flesh out positions – though We will use those best qualified to inform the arguments We use. We won’t go get Chairman Mao to instruct us on New Afrikan social development. While We do in fact revere Chairman Mao and have always studied the works of the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Revolution, We feel it best to use our own ideologues to make our own points. And We most certainly will not be using anything from old imperialist Stalin. He may be looked upon as a “comrade” by the NABPP, but not by us.

We opened this response with a quote by Comrad-Brother Owusu Yaki Yakubu, an erstwhile member of the Coordinating Committee of the Black Liberation Army, New Afrikan Prisoners Organization, Provisional Government and the Spear and Shield Collective. Comrad-Brother Yaki is perhaps one of our keenest ideologues and theoreticians and will be quoted at length here, for it was some of his contributions, along with other Comrads in the PG-RNA and NAPO, that were largely responsible for kickstarting the resurgence of the NAIM today. Their words and ideas are as worthy as Chairman Mao is to us.

We had taken for granted that the NABPP-PC was an organization in the NAIM because it uses in its name our national identity.

We overstand and do, to a great extent, anticipate that our national identity – New Afrikan – will take root and evolve into the dominant name used by our people. We feel this because it is a correct idea that projects our aspirations. And, with the mass usage of this will eventually, inevitably, come various class divisions and aspirations. It’s much like when, in the early and mid-1960’s, the young Black Liberation Movement (BLM), as led by Malcolm X and the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), began to use “Black” in place of “Negro” to symbolize and embody not only an objective change in external projection, but also a subjective change of internal dynamics. Which is to say, the BLM was decidedly nationalist and about self-determination. While it saw the civil rights movement as integrationist (bourgeois nationalist) and neocolonial.

Though Malcolm would always make the distinction between a “Black” person and a “Negro”, he’d also let the people know that they shouldn’t be fooled by the term Negro and that it was, in fact, a colonialist-manufactured tool. Thus, he’d always say, “the so-called Negro”. That is, so-called by the oppressor and then used by the unknowing (colonial subjects) and/or, by the aware (collaborators) to realize their class interests. Eventually the term “Negro” got phased out as the “Black” masses exerted themselves and demanded to be dealt with on terms of their own deciding. Of course, it goes without saying, that while it was, at that time in our social development, necessary to distinguish “Black” (nationalist) from “Negro” (integrationist) – as a sense of coming into our own, it wasn’t sufficient. It wasn’t a politically or ideologically sound platform to stand on or from which to launch and sustain National Liberation Revolution.

The first people using the radical term “Black” were, by and large, about essentially the same thing: a sense of self, separate of and determined by our own internal dynamics and informed by objective reality in a dialectical materialist way. National liberation struggles were raging all across the planet. So, as things were perceived at that particular time and in that space, “Black” was an idea whose time had come.

We are approaching that time now in our consciousness. The masses – of all the internal and external colonies – are beginning to stir. Settlers and citizens of the oppressor nations, those in the metropole, are beginning to stir as well. Prisoners across the empire are in the early stages of unity and rebellion (again) as focus is trained on ways to get free, and this is but the beginning. Thus, when We saw this organization, the NABPP-PC, come onto the scene and read bits and pieces of its work here and there, We instinctively mistook their usage of “New Afrikan” to mean they were a Revolutionary Nationalist group aligned with the constellation of organizations within the NAIM. Because, you see, to call oneself New Afrikan, at this early stage, is to be, by and large, about what We in the NAIM are about: Land, Independence and Socialism. What We find, however, with the publishing of its position on the so-called “National Question”, is that it’s really about a “multi-ethnic, multiracial socialist amerika”, i.e., radical integration.

In other words, it does not see the Provisional Government (People’s Center Council, People’s Revolutionary Leadership Council, New Afrikan Security Forces, etc.) as the State in exile of the Republic of New Afrika. It is not sworn to the Code of Umoja (the New Afrikan National Constitution); has no pledge to the New Afrikan Creed, nor does it recognize the New Afrikan Declaration of Independence. And We know this because these are the official documents/instruments that We in the NAIM stand on and utilize to realize our national independence struggle for self-determination and liberation of our National Territory in the Kush (New Afrika).

“For us,” as Comrad-Brother Yaki so eloquently said, “there was never a national question.” That, he said, was “for those inside the nation who have a different ideology.” [3] – (our emphasis).

We thought that by the NABPP-PC calling itself “New Afrikan” that it was in compliance with Article I, Section 7, of the Code of Umoja which states:

• All citizens of the Republic of New Afrika who are aware of their citizenship are conscious New Afrikan citizens.

Though, to be fair, Section 7, in Article l, is preceded by: Section l:

• Each Afrikan person born in America is a citizen of the Republic of New Afrika.

Section ll:

• Any child born to a citizen of the Republic of Afrika is a citizen of the Republic of New Afrika.

Those aware, We call “conscious citizens.” Those not knowing are referred to as “unconscious citizens.” The unconscious citizens never use “New Afrikan” because they are, as of yet, unaware of it. So, this is how We got confused by the NABPP-PC.
Section lll, Article l says:

• Any person not otherwise a citizen of the Republic of New Afrika may become a citizen of the Republic of New Afrika by completing the procedures for naturalization as provided by the People’s Center Council.

We’ll come back to Article l, Section lll, of the Code of Umoja, as We go on to combat the NABPP’s distortion of the NAIM as “black separatists”. Though as anyone can see, by the first line of Section lll, this can’t be the case. But let’s move on. Dig this:

“Who are We, those of us who built a national ‘black’ prisoners organization? There is much evidence to show that as each day passes, more and more ‘black’ prisoners identify themselves as New Afrikans and work on behalf of the New Afrikan Independence Movement. Despite the questions many of us may raise concerning them, two of the things which define our movement and guide it, are the New Afrikan Declaration of Independence and the New Afrikan Creed. Our Declaration of Independence states, in part, that We, ‘in consequence of our inextinguishable determination to go a different way, to build a new and better world, do hereby declare ourselves free and independent of the jurisdiction of the united states of amerika and the obligations which that country’s unilateral decision to make our ancestors and ourselves paper citizens placed on us.”
“When We pledge ourselves to the New Afrikan Creed, We do so with the belief that “the fundamental reason our oppression continues is that We, as a people, lack the power to control our lives,” and that the fundamental way to gain that power and end oppression, is to build a sovereign black nation.
“We are guided by the strategic objective of winning sovereignty for our nation, to build a new, socialist society, and to ‘support’ and wage the world revolution until all people everywhere are so free” (New Afrikan Declaration of Independence). If an organization is to be built by those who identify themselves as New Afrikans, whether a national (‘black’) prisoners organization, or a national and/or local (‘black’) students, or tenants organization, it must rest on a foundation of the New Afrikan Declaration of Independence and the New Afrikan Creed. These are integral parts of our ideo-framework, and it’s upon this foundation that all else rests – unity included.” [4]

The National “Question”

Let’s fall into the NABPP’s position on the so-called “national question”. Which is really not what the piece is actually about because the national question was primarily about, as originally debated, whether New Afrikans actually comprised a nation within a nation here. The NABPP conceded that We do, in fact, comprise a nation within the political borders of the empire. That’s not their beef. Their beef boils down to whether We actually are sound in our struggle for land in the National Territory. Our efforts to Free The Land are critiqued, while in the same breath the NABPP-PC advocates the taking of all the land in the empire for a “multi-ethnic, multiracial socialist amerika”. Essentially, a new and improved (reformed) amerika.

This so-called “Reassessment of Black Nationalism” (to use their subtitle) is nothing more than their propagation of radical integration in drag as a “deepened” analysis of Huey P. Newton’s (on intercommunalism). The facts of this will easily bear out as We go forward. Pay close attention. Their position paper on the so-called “national question” could have very well have been titled “The Nation that Needs No Land”, or “Soon Whitey Comes To Help.” At times it’s actually that pitiful in its shameless hat-in-hand plea for oppressor-nation citizens to “save the day.” In one astounding admission of blind hope and child-like idealism, they say that uniting with settler radicals is a step towards uniting all of humanity and “the whole world becoming one people.” But let us not get ahead of ourselves here. We must proceed with caution because this can really raise consciousness.

The opening shots are fired at the Black Belt Thesis (BBT) as developed by Harry Haywood, who was first a member of the African Blood Brotherhood (one of many points the NABPP fails to mention in this piece – this is called deception by omission), and then of the settler Communist Party-USA. In fact, the whole African Blood Brotherhood (ABB) was incorporated into the CP-USA, which effectively liquidated the first actual New Afrikan Communist Organization:

“It was founded in 1919 at the same time as the first Vietnamese communist study groups and the Chinese Communist Party. Yet some forty years later, in a new generation of struggle, New Afrikans once again faced the necessity of building a communist center from ground zero.” [5]

Why, in fact, was this, that in the 1960’s, “New Afrikans had to start building a communist center from ground zero”? Because our first communist organization found it expedient to unite in the same organization (and under its leadership), with settlers who did not share our national interests – no matter what they said to the contrary. Harry Haywood’s so-called “Black Belt Thesis” was doomed from the outset and here’s why:

“We can say that, whether knowingly or not, the CPUSA served the interests of U.S. imperialism by: 1) leading the oppressed away from armed struggle, away from joining the world revolution. 2) Convincing people that national liberation and communism were opposed to each other. 3) Using Third World ‘communists’ to disunite the oppressed nations, while also placing the activities of the oppressed under constant monitoring and meddling of euro-amerikans. ‘Left’ settlerism worked as a counter-revolutionary police for the empire. And their most loyal Third World ‘communists’ become ‘unconscious traitors’ to their own people.” [6] (our emphasis)

The term “Black Belt” entered the national lexicon, however, and came to denote the actual contiguous string of New Afrikan dominated counties – fifty in all – that stretched from the Louisiana Delta to the Atlantic Ocean. But Harry Haywood’s BBT played but a small, nominal, part in our later designation, in 1968, of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina as the New Afrikan National Territory. We didn’t need no BBT to inform us where our nationals were. Where We labored, fought, died and buried our ancestors. We knew where “down home” was.

“[The NABPP] fails to mention the small fact that the reason the 1960s revolutionary struggle produced nationalism and separatism is because the masses of oppressed in the struggle themselves demanded it. And wouldn’t have it any other way. It wasn’t because Harry Haywood’s writing was reprinted in 1979 or because someone got an idea about Black ideological nationalism. Saying that is complete b.s., only oppressor thinking. It was all those in struggle themselves who demanded political separation – who forced white civil rights workers out of the movement, who started all-New Afrikan initiatives, projects and organizations. This surge was particularly sharp because of the years of bitter experience, which led to activists becoming tired of euro-settler leftists and liberals intervening in their relationships, manipulating them, lying to them, attempting to stay their rulers with honeyed words and money. Talk about neo-colonialism, there it was.” [7]

But again, We contend that the NABPP’s attack on this position is but a smokescreen masking their true intent. We notice the ideological deficiencies bleeding thru almost immediately as the NABPP can’t seem to decide whether We, as a people, are New Afrikans or “blacks”. It slips easily back and forth in a dizzying array of ideo-theoretical schizophrenia as it attempts to discredit the land requirement/objective of the NAIM, with old tenets which actually have nothing to do with us. We think the NABPP is studying other material and heaping it’s analysis of that work onto us.

Had the NABPP been studying the body of work produced by cadres of the NAIM they’d have known early on that our struggle for national liberation (Land, Independence and Socialism) has nothing to do with any Black Belt Thesis, Harry Haywood or the CPUSA/Comintern. We don’t import ideas. And while the NABPP calls its position paper “Black Liberation in the 21st Century: A Revolutionary Reassessment of Black Nationalism,” We in the NAIM “reassessed” so-called “Black Nationalism” in the 20th century. The exhaustion of so-called “Black” Nationalism was done with the collapse of the Black Liberation Movement (BLM) and reassessed, in a scientific manner, as the New Afrikan Independence Movement. We are not “Black” Nationalists. We are not about “Black” Liberation. We are Revolutionary New Afrikan Nationalists and We are about New Afrikan Independence (Land and Socialism). Had the NABPP been studying our material they’d have easily known this. We don’t base our struggle on the false social construction of “race” or color. We are anti-racists. At one point in this so-called “revolutionary reassessment” the NABPP calls the NAIM the “Black Movement”. A deliberate distortion of our struggle. We resent this. We are the ones who led the ideological struggle for the usage of New Afrikan as our national identity (nationality) over “black” as a racial identity.

In fact, check out the wise words of Comrad-Brother Yaki:

“The de-construction of ‘race’ as a concept and the struggle against racism on the political front starts by understanding ‘politics’ as everything related to our lives, and not just those things related to the electoral arena. More precisely, We can define politics as a concentrated expression of economics, concerned with the acquisition, retention and use of State power, which is used to realize revolutionary interests of society. Politically, the de-construction of ‘race’ attacks the cause, and seeks to prevent the use of ‘race’ to disguise it.” [8]

The NAIM is not about “Black” Nationalism as the NABPP mistakenly postulates. And, it is precisely because We are not about “Black” Nationalism, or an ambiguously defined “Liberation,” that for us there is no “national question.” Nor is there one pertaining to our requirement for land. We are a nation, nations require land to administer the needs of its nationals. It’s not a complicated thing, really.

National Reality

We call into question the material (“tools”) the NABPP is using to make its “Revolutionary Reassessment” since it appears to us that they are hardly talking about New Afrikans. For instance, they refer to colonized New Afrikans as a “rural peasantry.” This is a term used by Russian and Chinese comrades when describing their nationals – in their assessment of their people. Another ill-fitting graft is tied onto New Afrikan social development in order to disguise the obvious weak points and glaring errors in perception. There was no feudalism here. The NABPP says the…

“… Black population within the U.S. is no longer a rural peasantry. It is overwhelmingly a proletarian nation (wage slaves) dispersed across the U.S. and concentrated in and around urban centers in predominantly Black or multi-ethnic oppressed communities.” [9]

Aside from the ideological muddle of terms like “black” and “multi-ethnic” (as if this were Yugoslavia – or worse, one “United States” with just a few “multi-ethnics” inside) the NABPP totally misses the boat on the fact that colonized Afrikans, who evolved into New Afrikans here, were stolen to be used as a permanent proletariat. The New Afrikan nation was born as a working-class nation of permanent proletarians. The fact that We weren’t paid does not preclude the fact that We were workers. What do they think so-called “slavery” (colonialism) entails if not work?

“Afrikans were the landless, propertyless, permanent workers of the u.s. empire. They were not just slaves – the Afrikan nation as a whole served as a proletariat for the euro-amerikan oppressor nation. The Afrikan colony supported on its shoulders the building of euro-amerikan society more ‘prosperous,’ more ‘egalitarian’ and yes, more ‘democratic’ than any in semi-feudal Old Europe … amerika imported a proletariat from Afrika, a proletariat permanently chained in an internal colony, laboring for the benefit of all settlers. Afrikan workers might be individually owned, like tools and draft animals, by some settlers and not others, but in their colonial subjugation they were as a whole owned by the entire euro-amerikan nation.” [10]

The NABPP says We were “dispersed” across the u.s. and it is in fact this “dispersal” out of the National Territory that they go on to use as their basis for our requirement of land being “outmoded.” That the so-called “Black Belt Thesis” (which We don’t use) is no longer relevant because We no longer make up the majority in the National Territory. What a shallow analysis. Yeah, this is really a deepened analysis here, huh? There are more Irish people in the u.s. than there are in Ireland – does this mean they have no claim to, or need for, a national territory? And what of the Kanaka Maoli, the indigenous of Hawaii, who’ve been drastically decimated by settlerism to the point where they are but a fraction of their former selves? What of the Basque?

Our migration out of the National Territory and into amerika was akin to any other oppressed people who, having their own territory mangled and ravished by encroaching capitalism, went in search of sustenance – work to feed, clothe and house themselves. To feel safe and stable – to survive in the tradewinds of a hostile imperialism. We came up outta the National Territory as refugees. Much like Mexicanos and other destitute peoples from Central and South Amerika, who’ve been NAFTA’d into mass migrations for survival. Our nationals, too, sent remittances “back home” to family members still in the Kush. We still listened to Down Home Blues, or Southern Gospel, had fish fry’s and did what We do while in amerika. And our parents would send us home for the summer to be with “Big Momma,” “Nana,” “Aunt Lilly” and our Cousins, who’d never left the National Territory. Our nationals who left (to go up North, back East and out West):

“They were REFUGEES, those who ‘migrated’ from the National Territory during the WWI and WWII years. Our elders were REFUGEES during the years of the ‘Black Codes’ when they fled the National Territory. The cities of amerika were full of New Afrikan refugees who entered them during the 30’s, 40’s, escaping the Klan and the southern prison. One step ahead of the hounds, a few minutes ahead of the lynch mob is how many New Afrikans came North. Refugees from the National Territory.” [11]

The NABPP claims to have “deepened” the analysis put forward by Huey P. Newton of the “original” Black Panther Party. They also claim to have reached this “deepened” state by employing the philosophical tools of dialectical materialism. Hmmm ... Surprisingly, We too have used these same philosophical tools to reach our conclusions on the land issue. Which can easily stand up in objective reality, i.e., the criterion of truth. However, before addressing that, We’d like to clear up another one of those deceptions by omission that consistently pepper this so-called “Reassessment of Black Nationalism.”

Contrary to what the NABPP says about Huey P. Newton being of the original Black Panther Party, the fact of the matter is Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the third organization calling itself the Black Panther Party. The first usage of the panther as a symbol for a political party was done by the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, formed by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the National Territory (Alabama) - “It was a New Afrikan electoral alternative to the regular Democratic Party doing voter registration gun in hand and running for county offices.” [12]

The second organization to use the panther was the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) which began to, “Use the black panther symbol and start Black Panther Parties in the northern New Afrikan ghettoes. Local BPP offices were set up in New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco and other cities.” [13]
The BPP that Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale would found would actually be the third organization calling itself the Black Panther Party and would, in fact, have to distinguish itself by putting “For Self-Defense” on its name. And while there were great differences between these organizations, the point is that the original BPP was founded in Lowdnes County, Alabama. Now, while the NABPP claims to have “deepened” the analysis put forward by Huey P. Newton, there certainly appears to be no such deepening of any such analysis in this position paper. If anything, it’s a distortion of Huey P. Newton’s analysis and a grafting on of non-applicable realities that point more to confusion than to any real breakthrough or “deepened” analysis. Seriously, is it deeper that We are a “nation within a nation”? Or is it deeper that they are referring to empire-builder Stalin as “comrade”? Is it deeper that New Afrikans are referred to as a “rural peasantry”? Or is it deeper that “Black” Nationalism is no longer applicable? Is it deeper that euro-amerikans are said to be the key to the “liberation of humanity and the whole world becoming one people”? Wake us up when it really gets deep will you?

The NABPP is attempting to view New Afrikan social development through the socio-political lens of 1930s China. Or 1940s Russia. Instead of critically applying the tools of dialectical materialism to reach the truth, as it is, they are blowing dialectical materialist smoke, while lazily placing over the top of New Afrika, vis-a-vis the u.s. empire, a Chinese or Russian political lens. What’s being touted as a philosophical conclusion, reached through the application of dialectical materialism, is actually a slow-witted political graft. We know this because not one thing in this whole piece is new or the result of any “deepened” analysis. The NABPP says that our struggle for the National Territory is hopelessly wrong, or as they put it:

“... outmoded ideas and formulations that no longer fit the current situation.”

When did a National Territory, the landbase of a nation(ality), become “outmoded”? They say this, then go right along to say, it’s necessary to lead a “multi-ethnic, multiracial” struggle for a “socialist amerika” – where, on the moon? No ... on this land – a National Territory, dig?

Watch your step, please, the inconsistencies and contradictions are all over the place. There is some “idealism” going on here, but it’s wholly manufactured and promoted by the NABPP.

The NABPP, when compiling this position paper, would have fared much better We think in reaching this so-called “deepened” analysis, had they studied our (New Afrikans’) social development as documented by cadres of the New Afrikan Independence Movement. We have a vast body of ideo-theoretical work. We are reminded here of a masterstroke of constructive criticism delivered to the reactionary African Peoples Socialist Party (APSP), on practically the same points We now find the NABPP postulating, by Comrad Brother Chokwe Lumumba, Chairman of the New Afrikan Peoples Organization. [14] Truly a teachable/learning moment. We feel the NABPP would do well to check the actual foundations upon which the NAIM stands before venturing to critique us based on what’s “believed” to be our position from the 1930s.

National Liberation or Radical Integration

The whole title of the NABPP’s position paper is a false flag distortion of what’s actually on the table here. Well, either that or the NABPP is simply dull.

“Black Liberation in the 21st Century: A Revolutionary Reassessment of Black Nationalism” – that’s the whole title. Pretty lofty, huh? The thing is, though, the NABPP uses the word “BLACK”, perhaps over 22 times in describing New Afrikans – who they claim to recognize as a nation – so, this would mean.... that it’s a “Black Nation”? So, in their “revolutionary reassessment” of “Black Nationalism” they can’t seem to extricate themselves or “deepen” their “analysis” enough to stop using the socially constructed binary terms of “race”? Watch your step, please. See, this is what We mean about a false flag, a distortion. It’s not now nor has it really ever been about “a revolutionary reassessment of Black Nationalism.” No, this is about radical integration. Which, of course, is not new and is certainly not the result of a “deepened” analysis. Let us share something that We laid out in 1988:

“In terms of re-orientation, the movement must adjust to objective reality and establish new principles (or to reinforce old ones). For instance, We ain’t calling ourselves a ‘civil rights movement’ or an ambiguously defined ‘Black Power’ or ‘Black Liberation’ movement. We ain’t adopting lines from the CPUSA and saying We gonna form United Fronts Against Fascism, which the BPP did under the leadership of Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. Nor are We adopting lines from the Trots and saying We gonna establish a ‘black dictatorship’ in amerika. The line for this stage says We’re waging a New Afrikan National Liberation Revolution, i.e. it’s a struggle for national independence and socialism.” [15]

The NAPP is posturing as if it is somehow involved in some great new debate about the insufficiency of “Black” Nationalism as a strategy for freedom. It further propagates this erroneous subtitle of a “revolutionary reassessment” as if it has somehow made a “miraculous breakthrough” – a great leap forward – in some “deepened analysis” about why our position on the National Territory is “outmoded.” Why, in fact, We need no Land, even though We are a nation. You wanna know, really, how new this is? This is what pig President Thomas Jefferson said, as offered by Professor Peter S. Onuf:

“He did know, with as much certainty as his own experience and observation could authorize that [New Afrikan] slaves constituted a distinct nation. The crimes against slaves therefore had to be understood first in National terms. ‘Virginia slaves,’ said Jefferson, ‘were a people without a country, a captive nation.’” [16]

Not only had We become a “distinct nation”, but We had human rights, as well. And, with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in 1865, We’d been given land under Field Order No. 15. But this was too much like right, so aside from New Afrika being granted its freedom with the 13th Amendment, the imperialists doubled back on us and made the unilateral (single, without our consent) decision to make us “paper citizens,” that is, on paper only – with the 14th Amendment. This Amendment reversed Field Order No.15 which gave us land for our free nation and with it they said essentially, “Now, you don’t need any separate land for yourselves – you’re citizens: all this land is yours!”

And this is what the NABPP is saying as well. While it claims to recognize that New Afrikans are a “distinct nation,” it advocates that We forego any struggle for our own land, for self-determination, in a Socialist Republic of New Afrika, unite with the settler citizens (like the liquidated  African Blood Brotherhood) and struggle in a “multiethnic, multiracial” way for a “socialist amerika”. Radical integration, We repeat, is not new.

Aside from the erroneous points made by the NABPP about our struggle for land being based on the Black Belt Thesis of Harry Haywood, We have to say that We stand firm, instead, on the Precepts of the New Afrikan Creed, Number 7, which says:

“I believe in the Malcolm X Doctrine: that We must organize upon this land, and hold a plebiscite, to tell the world by vote that We are free and the land independent, and that, after the vote, We must stand ready to defend ourselves establishing the Nation beyond contradiction.” (Changes approved May 5, 1991 – People’s Center Council).

There’s nothing in our documents about any BBT, or Harry Haywood. Here’s the thing, amerika is a prisonhouse of nations. And no matter how much distortion is applied to this reality, it ain’t going away. This is an empire. It is as much an empire as Stalin’s USSR was. Whole nations are submerged under the grand illusion of a “United States,” just as it was under the grand illusion of a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. People We never knew existed were under there – denied their national independence. Subjugated, colonized and politically distorted. And here We find in this piece the NABPP saying:

“National ‘Liberation’ has therefore proved empty of substance to oppressed Third World peoples, absent the defeat of imperialism, just as it would in a struggle for New Afrikan national ‘liberation’ in the Southern U.S. territory absent the defeat of imperialism. Moreover, any such struggle would almost certainly degenerate into an imperialist-sponsored race war, similar to what went down in the Kosovo conflict.”

We’re not altogether sure why they chose to put ‘liberation’ in single quotations, since the word alone only means freedom and carries no political connotations, but that’s pretty indicative of this whole so-called “reassessment” position. The lack of consciousness is evident here where they begin by saying “National Liberation has therefore proved empty…” Now, forgive us if We seem a little slow here on the uptake, but what – We wonder – would be the result of “… leading the whole working class,” as the NABPP says in another part of this piece, “and the broad masses in pulling down the capitalist-imperialist system and achieving social justice for all,” if, not NATIONAL LIBERATION?? It would be National Liberation of/for a “multiethnic, multi-racial socialist amerika.” And that, dear reader is the rub –  radical integration. Pay lip service to New Afrikans being a nation, but actively block our struggle for self-determination, while promoting a “multiethnic, multi-racial socialist amerika.” Stalin, whom the NABPP refers to as “Comrade J.V. Stalin,” would be proud. Hey, and if the submerged nations begin to struggle you all can simply exile us some place, right?

Since when has fighting for National Liberation become “empty” to Third World people? Did the ETA get that memo? We in the New Afrikan Peoples Liberation Army sure as hell didn’t. We don’t think the EZLN or Macheteros got that one either. Here’s the thing, there are two types of nationalism: revolutionary nationalism and bourgeois nationalism. Check out what Huey Newton himself had to say:

“There are two kinds of nationalism: revolutionary nationalism, and reactionary nationalism. Revolutionary nationalism is dependent upon a people’s revolution with the end result being the people in power. Therefore, to be a revolutionary nationalist you would by necessity have to be a socialist. If you are a reactionary nationalist, you are not a socialist, and your goal is the oppression of the people.”

The NAIM is a revolutionary nationalist movement. Our nationality is New Afrikan. Our nation is called the Republic of New Afrika. Our National Territory lies in the southeast quadrant of North Amerika. Ours is a war of national liberation. That’s our get down. Land, Independence and Socialism.

So, in spite of the NABPP posturing against our revolutionary nationalism, they are nationalists themselves. They just want a “Socialist Amerika” – still a nation – of a “multi-ethnic, multi-racial” character. That’s called radical integration. Let’s be clear. For the whole Third World the NABPP has reached the conclusion that “National Liberation is empty of substance absent the defeat of imperialism…” We better hurry and get this memo out to all the Third World national liberation struggles: NO USE IN TRYING, IT’S NOT GOING TO WORK! GO HOME, YOU HAVEN’T A CHANCE IN HELL!” See how crazy that sounds? We can’t make this stuff up, folks.

The Oppressor Nation

As We said before, the u.s. is an empire, under which is submerged many nations. Both internally and externally the u.s. casts its pale over the lives of millions in a neo-colonial relationship so refined and perfected that the masses themselves easily campaign for and work in support of their own oppression. All to the squealing delight of the bourgeoisie. And the settler citizens of the empire, who have always been loyal to their ruling class against all forms of struggles which genuinely push for real revolutionary change, are right there with them reaping the benefits of empire.

The settlers don’t mark their wealth by the accumulation of ideas – that’s fool’s gold to them. They got their freedom, or so they think (which is arguable), they ain’t going to unite with a movement that puts their “things” in jeopardy. The NABPP can run from suburb to suburb trying to organize some “multiethnic, multi-racial” mass and they’ll be debating with IRA accounts, 401ks, car notes and retirement plans. What better lives could the settlers hope for? Their bread is buttered on the side that holds loyalty to the empire.
This has proven true even of the settlers calling themselves “communists.” The CPUSA has a sickening history of collaboration with empire against oppressed nations. False nationalism and false internationalism are not new phenomena. And, We’d like to say We are not against alliances with genuine revolutionaries. We are internationalists, however We are realistic as well. The 26th of July Movement had to liberate Cuba before Cuba could become the internationalist contributor it is today. We know that the greatest contribution to internationalism (world revolution) is the primary struggle of self-determination. Of national liberation.

“We all know that the ‘United States’ is an oppressor nation; that is, a nation that oppresses other nations. This is a characteristic that the U.S. shares with other imperialist powers. What is specific, in particular about the U.S. oppressor nation is that it is an illegitimate nation.
“What pretends to be one continental nation stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific is really a euro-amerikan settler empire, built on colonially oppressed nations and peoples whose very existence has been forcibly submerged. But the colonial crime, the criminals, the victims and the stolen lands and labor still exist. The many Indian nations, the New Afrikan nation in the South, Puerto Rico, the Northern half of Mexico, Asian Hawaii – all are now considered the lands of the euro-amerikan settlers. The true citizens of this u.s. empire are the European invaders and their descendants. So that the ‘United States’ is in reality not one, but many nations (oppressor and oppressed). We see the recognition of amerika as a ‘prisonhouse of nations’ as the beginning – no more no less – of the differences between revisionist and communist politics here. We hold that once this outward shell of integration into a single, white dominated ‘USA’ is cracked open – to reveal the colonial oppression and anti-colonial struggle within – then the correct path to a communist understanding of the u.s. empire is begun”. [17]

From Self-Doubt to Denial

The colonial mentality is insidious insofar as it blinds its victims with a dual sense of self-inadequacy. On the one hand, making the target people feel and believe that they in fact have no means by which to stand up, shake off and destroy the malady of apprehension and, on the other, that only the colonizing culture, its people included, have the answers, ability and means to solve any and all problems.

The colonial mentality is the 2.0 version of what We used to call the “slave mentality.” It’s a new and improved means of control, distraction and self-destruction. Wilson Goode, mayor of Philly, who greenlighted the bombing of the MOVE home, on May 13, 1985 – 2.0 version. Clarence Thomas, one of the u.s. conservative supremes – 2.0. Rock Bottom, presidential front man for the u.s. ruling class – 2.0. But these are the obvious ones, too easy to point out and light up. What of those who are so thoroughly imbued by a sense of self-inadequacy that they’d campaign for us to integrate our struggle – the only thing that We have maintained control over – into the so-called “workers movement” because, they say this “... is a step towards the total liberation of humanity and the whole world becoming one people”? Can’t you just hear Louis Armstrong coonin’ with that toothy grin, “What a Wonderful World”?

“Moreover”, says the NABPP, “any such struggle [for National Territory] would almost certainly degenerate into an imperialist-sponsored race war, similar to what went down in Kosovo.” (Cut the Louis Armstrong and queue the DMX – “Who We Be”)

This is where basic logic, let alone political (revolutionary) consciousness, begins to fly completely apart from its center. What the NABPP is miserably failing to realize is that colonialism is an “imperialist-sponsored race war”!  NOW. It was one when the euros invaded Afrika, South Amerika, Asia and North Amerika. You think not? Ask the remnants of genocided peoples.

We use the words nation and nationalities to differentiate peoples and cultures, because We know that there really is no “plurality of races” on the planet. However, this usage of words doesn’t necessarily alter – in fact, cannot alter – the  fact that 13% of this planet are people of European descent and the other 87% are peoples from Afrika, South Amerika, North Amerika and Asia – or those considered of “color”. Yet, the minority – who just “happens to be” from Europe – control the globe to their benefit and our demise.

Oh, there’s a “race war” going on alright, but the colonial mentality has blinded you behind a curtain of semantics which prevent the obvious conclusions. Either that or.... well, here’s the thing: it has been us, the oppressed, who have prevented our total annihilation by waging national liberation struggles to repel pig aggression. The “imperialist-sponsored race war” of colonialism (and neo-colonialism) has the NABPP so dazed and confused that they cannot recognize it for what it is. So, they project it instead into the future, as if it will “almost certainly” happen IF We struggle for National Liberation. That’s a manifestation, a symptom, of the colonial mentality. “Ooh, Momma, there go that man again!”

We found it curious that they’d project the “almost” certain “imperialist-sponsored race war” into the future, when Christopher Columbus, sponsored by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain (certainly imperialists), landed in the Caribbean in 1492. Cortes, de Gama, Pizzaro, Magellan, Custer, Pershing, Westmoreland, Schwarzkopf, etc. – imperialists have always sponsored colonialist exploits. Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Devin Brown, Lovell Mixion, MLK, and countless other murders of our nationals can easily attest to the state of our existence, NOW. And We have social development, not to mention gaping holes in our cultures, to prove the past.

What We do know is that all this will continue if We do nothing. Or if We stand around nicely waiting for the very people, the 13%, who benefit from our oppression to unite with us in order or to get free! We question with all seriousness the logic in this. We trust We are not alone.

Now, the same forces the NABPP attempts to threaten us with – those who the imperialists will “sponsor” – the NABPP says We should unite with because they “....are committed to supporting Black (sic) Liberation because it serves the cause of liberating all of humanity from imperialism and exploitation…” (queue the Benny Hill theme song). Where is self-determination in all of this? New Afrika is a working-class nation – with nothing to lose. Why not go deeper into our own nation for “support” in “liberating all of humanity”? When did the settlers get so “committed to supporting Black Liberation”?

The greatest “support” the settlers who are “committed” can offer the New Afrikan Independence Movement is to organize their nationals and start taking the fight to their bourgeoisie. That’s their responsibility. Not uniting with us, or any other National Liberation struggle. They have to build their own and handle their business. We’ll run alliances when necessary, but their obligation is to not be “Good Americans,” like the Germans were “Good Germans” during the Nazi era - they just went right along with their government’s genocidal programs because they were beneficial to them. So, that’s really the situation.

While We appreciate Revolutionary Solidarity, We first of all question any people as to what they are doing to tear down their ruling class and its machine? That’s the criterion for solidarity. And why is that, you ask? Because:

“In a settler empire, one that is both a ‘prisonhouse’ of Third World nations and peoples as well as the No. 1 imperialist power, for young revolutionaries to be uncertain about proletarian internationalism inescapably means being in practice uncertain about parasitism, uncertain about solidarity, and so on.” [18] (our emphasis)

And being “uncertain” means being dead or captured. Radical integration and a blind, god-like allegiance to “super white folks” who are the only ones capable of helping us get free - if they don’t,  as the NABPP threatens, kill us all, in a “race war” - while literally having no faith in ourselves is, again, a symptom of colonial war mental disorder (colonial mentality). The only substantial treatment and cure for this is a deeper submersion of oneself into revolutionary consciousness through class suicide and struggle. Anything short of this will only perpetuate the malady.

“Some people talk about a ‘nation’ but don’t really wanna be one (independent), as evidenced by their efforts to crawl back on the plantation. How can We tell? You can identify those trying to crawl onto the plantation by the way they identify themselves, i.e., ‘blacks’, ‘Afro-Amerikans’, ‘Afrikan-Amerikans’, ‘ethnic group’, ‘minority nationality’, ‘national minority’, ‘underclass’ – anything and everything except New Afrikans, an oppressed nation. Amerikkka is the plantation, and continuing to identify yourself within the amerikkkan context is evidence of the colonial (‘slave’) mentality. Ain’t no two ways about it.” [19]

The NABPP says:

“That We New Afrikans are now a predominantly proletarian nation and one without a National Territory – is an advantage to the cause”....

Wrong again. New Afrikans have always been a proletarian nation. So much so in fact, that from 1619 to at least 1865, there was no unemployment in New Afrika – no woman, child nor man was exempt. (Imagine that). It was called “slavery”. And while the NABPP says We are “without a National Territory,” the NAIM designated Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina as the National Territory as early as 1968.

“On March 28, 1971, 150 New Afrikans held a ‘Nation Time’ ceremony, consecrating 20 acres of newly-purchased land just west of Jackson, Mississippi. The land was designated as the future capital of the nation, named El Malik after Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik Shabazz). Fifteen new citizens took the ‘Nation Oath.’ President Imari Obadele officiated at a New Afrikan wedding ceremony. Uniformed men and women of the Black Legion, the regular military of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, patrolled the perimeter with rifles. Educational workshops, a meeting of the PG-RNA’s People’s Center Council, and other ceremonies filled the day.” [20]

So, again, as Yaki pointed out, for us there’s never been a “question” – “only a task, a goal.” The NABPP says that in 1978 our struggle for land was “revived” by the production of Harry Haywood’s BBT. And yet in Black August of 1977, the New Afrikan Prisoners Organization wrote:

“This piece was purposely concentrated on defining the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments as instruments of national oppression because We believe that this is not only the most correct conception; but also because We believe this will contribute to raising the level of national consciousness among New Afrikan people and consequently to successful revolutionary nationalist war – a war for the independence of New Afrikan people, A WAR TO REGAIN The NATIONAL TERRITORY; a war which will lead to the establishment of sovereignty for New Afrika and its socialist development.” [21] (our emphasis)

We repeat, this is from 1977. Our eyes have never left the prize. So, We have a National Territory, it’s just in the radical integrationist politics of the NABPP to first disagree that this is so, then attempt to distort this reality and, failing that, to use deception through omission. Why, you may ask, would they do that? Well, according to them by us being

“… without a National Territory is an advantage to the cause of building a multi-ethnic, multi-racial socialist amerika.” (our emphasis)

And there it is – radical (reformist) integration. It is in their interests to disagree, distort and omit the facts in this regard. Which is why We believe that this piece on the so-called “national question”, while titled “Black Liberation in the 21st Century,” actually did little, if anything, towards “A Revolutionary Reassessment of Black Nationalism.” It wasn’t meant to do any such thing. It was designed to propagate radical (reformist) integration. We in the NAIM were simply a handy target.

If radical integration is their thing – well, that’s their thing. They could very well have put forth their line without dragging us into it. If that’s your bag, push it. We’ll push ours. Ultimately, the masses will decide which line best suits their aspirations. But the NABPP has to come out with an attack on our line in their headlong rush in search of some imaginary “multi-ethnic, multi-racial” mass to lead. But wait, hmmm ... where have We heard this before (digging in the crates) oh yeah, here it is:

“When the U.S. empire vamped on the BPP and they were, despite their intentions, unable to defend themselves, the Party strategy had failed. A new strategy was adopted. The Oakland BPP leadership turned to their natural ally, the euro-amerikan petty-bourgeoisie. The Party leadership didn’t turn to the New Afrikan proletariat because they neither knew how to organize the Nation nor did they really trust their own people. Their neo-colonial class unity with the white petty-bourgeoisie came to the front in the crisis. This was justified as some kind of internationalism, of supposedly winning needed ‘allies’ to the liberation movement”. [22]

But wait, there’s more:

“The Oakland leadership became committed to uniting with the settler petty-bourgeoisie, if necessary (and it was) against their own national movement and against their former comrades.” [23]

The NABPP does another sleight of hand deception by omission when it speaks about Chairman Fred Hampton, of the Chicago chapter of the BPP, attempting to pass off his Rainbow Coalition as a paradigm for radical integration because there was an alliance with Mexicanos, Puerto Ricans, amerikans and New Afrikans. Here’s what the NABPP conveniently failed to mention: the Brown Berets were a Chicano Nationalist Organization struggling to free their nation of Aztlan (Northern Mexico: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Nevada); the Young Lords Organization were Puerto Rican Independistas struggling for the independence of their homeland. The New Afrikans in the Party at that time were still functioning under the Party’s first line of New Afrikan nationalism. The settlers were struggling for a socialist amerika. So, it was an alliance of forces struggling for the national liberation of their respective productive forces – not to get together and sing Kumbaya. In the 70’s things broke down, but when Chairman Fred was still alive, and in 1968, 69, this was the deal.

No Need for a Nation State?

In a disturbingly blind-eyed distraction, the NABPP says:

“… Without need of pursuing a struggle to achieve a New Afrikan Nation State, We have achieved the historical results of bourgeois democracy at least as far as transforming ourselves from a peasant to a predominately proletarian national grouping through the ‘Great Migration’.”

What? Again, We can’t make this stuff up folks. We’ve always felt a need to pursue a New Afrikan Nation State. The struggle, on our side of the line, has always been about Freedom (Land), Independence (self-determination) and Socialism. In the New Afrikan Creed We find the following:

3. I believe in the community as more important than the individual.
4. I believe in constant struggle for freedom, to end oppression and build a better world. I believe in collective struggle, in fashioning victory in concert with my brothers and sisters.
5. I believe that the fundamental reason our oppression continues is that We as a people, lack the power to control our lives.
6. I believe that the fundamental way to gain that power, and end oppression, is to build a sovereign Black nation.

We have continuously pursued the need for a Nation State. The fact that We erected a Provisional Government, in 1968, should be testament enough. The fact of the matter is, there has always been, as in all things, a two line struggle in our nation. There has been a struggle to get out, free and independent of the empire, and another to get in to reform and wield the power of empire. That now We’re faced with radical integrationism, in drag as some crackpot theory called “intercommunalism,” doesn’t change the twin essence of the two line struggle. This is nothing new.

The NABPP goes on to say:

“… We have achieved the historical results of bourgeois democracy.”

We have? Now, wait, is it bourgeois democracy or neocolonialism? See, here’s the very real difference in ideology. It is, as the Comrad Yaki would say, “the contradiction surfacing and sharpening.” If We are a part of a “multi-ethnic, multi-racial” “national grouping” (as the NABPP says) then yes, “We have achieved bourgeois democracy.” That is, after all, what “multi-ethnics” get – you know, like the settler-garrison/citizens-of-empire, who came from Europe? Or, perhaps Oprah, Jordan, Rock Bottom and Wilson Goode. They get and can enjoy “bourgeois democracy” – that’s the velvet glove. The masses of the oppressed nations, the internal colonies (New Afrika, Puerto Rico, Aztlan, and Indigenous), well, We get the ol’ iron fist of neo-colonialism, casino-freedom, common-wealth hegemony, Barrio blues and ghetto prisons. But, of course, since We’ve had such success in “transforming ourselves from a peasant to a predominantly proletarian national grouping …” it’s what? Better now? – No, it’s “an advantage to the cause of building a multi-ethnic multi-racial socialist amerika.” What a wonderful thing, huh? Hey, here’s a novel idea, why not all the internal colonies struggle to free the(ir) land and We break the empire apart like what happened with the USSR-empire? Too complicated, huh? “Comrade” Stalin wouldn’t approve?

Internationalism, Real or False?

In a stunning turn in their already wildly contradictory and inconsistent phraseology, the NABPP says:

“There are many white comrades (communists, socialists, anarchists and progressives) who are committed to supporting Black Liberation because it serves the cause of liberating all of humanity from imperialism and because it strengthens the workers’ movement.”

If these comrades are communists, socialists, anarchists or progressives (whatever that is?) why would the NABPP feel a need to tell us their complexion? What would their so-called “color” have to do with anything if they were comrades? See how subtle that is – it’s like a magic spell – “white comrades”. That’s that colonial mentality bleeding thru – that which has the NABPP hypnotized is what they attempt to hypnotize others with. It’s a subtle whimper that squeaks: “We can make it now, the dominant culture – mighty whitey – is with us.” And the Comrades in the NABPP may not even be altogether aware of this, but it is what it is. If there are communists, socialists, anarchists and progressives – (what the hell is that?) who are amerikans, Canadians or French, English, Irish or German who are “committed to supporting “Black Liberation,” then the best way to do that is to organize your people and attack your ruling class. If you got any extra weapons, slide them our way, please.

But having to explain that these comrades are “white” says more about the NABPP than it does about those who want to help. Another thing, isn’t it strange how this so-called position on the national question is called “A Revolutionary Reassessment of Black Nationalism” but the NABPP is the main one clinging to terms which reinforce the false construct of “race” – like “white” and “black”? And, what about the fact that when it’s National Liberation it’s unbelieving scare quotes on Liberation – but when it’s about “white comrades who are committed to supporting Black Liberation” the unbelieving scare quotes miraculously vanish? All of a sudden Black Liberation is something to “support”?

What’s also puzzling – and We’d hate to come off as knit-picking, but the NABPP says the “white comrades” are committed to supporting “Black Liberation because it serves the cause of liberating all of humanity from imperialism and because it strengthens the workers’ movement.”


What workers’ movement? Does anyone else smell that?

Check this out:

“… There are many individual euro-amerikan workers but they do not make up a genuine proletariat. That is, settler workers are a non-exploited labor aristocracy, with a privileged lifestyle far, far above the levels of the world proletariat. They might be called a pseudo-proletariat, in that individual settlers do work in factories and mines, but as a group they do not perform the role of a proletariat. Settler workers neither support their society by their labor, nor is their exploitation the source of the surplus value (or profit) that sustains the u.s. bourgeoisie. The life-giving role of the proletariat in the u.s. empire is relegated to the proletarians of the oppressed nations, which is why ‘nations become almost as classes’ under imperialism. The shrinking number of settler workers actually live as part of the lower petty-bourgeoisie and have no separate political existence. Classes in the u.s. empire themselves reflect the primary contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations.” [24]

No wonder the NABPP says the settlers will support us – “it strengthens the workers’ movement,” and furthermore, “The cause of uniting the Black liberation struggle with the proletarian class struggle is a step towards the total liberation of humanity and the whole world becoming one people.”

Now it’s the “Black Liberation struggle”? What would that struggle be for? Pursuing a Nation State maybe? Land? So, We are to forego our struggle for Land, Independence and Socialism, to unite with who? “The proletarian class” – We are the proletarians!! And how ‘bout that “liberation of humanity and the whole world becoming one people”? White folks sure are powerfully magic, ain’t they, sah? Yes, sah, mighty powerful! (hat in hand, staring off into the distance, mouth agape like an idiot).

This is radical – and at times comical – integration – it’s more of what We’ve always had. Nothing new here. No groundbreaking great leap forward. We’ll close out with a quote by a Comrad in hopes of some receptive ear feeling the vibrations of revolutionary nationalism. Dig this:

“The key to the destruction of the empire lies stirring within it. Not outside. The head and heart, brain and nerves – all vital organs essential to the perpetuation of life – are all inside, not outside.
“What will be critical, what is fundamental and essential for the initiation of a socialist world, is the eventual liberation of New Afrika, and other oppressed nations inside the belly of the amerikkan empire.
“Not 1917 or 1978 Russia. Not 1949 or 1978 China. Not Cuba, Vietnam, Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe or Azania; not Brazil, Chile – neither of these nor any other place outside the belly of the empire will alone or together truly free the world from the grips and threats of amerikkkan capitalism, imperialism, colonialism or neo-colonialism.
“They may help. They will cause change of conditions and create a climate offering greater potential, higher probabilities and increased chances of success… but not until the head and heart, brain and nerves – until the vital organs are destroyed, the empire will simply re-adjust. Re-form. Make new alliances. It will change form, but it will live – so long as New Afrika is subjugated. So long as Puerto Rico is a colony or neo-colony. So long as Native nations don’t have sovereignty over their lands and lives.” [25]

The struggle is for Land, Independence and Socialism. We’ll see you in the whirlwind!

Free The Land!
Sanyika Shakur
August Third Collective
New Afrikan People’s Liberation Army

Approved for publication and distributed by the NAPLA-General Command

4-17-48 adm (12)


Footnotes
[1] California Prison Focus, Number 38, Spring 2012, www.prisons.org
[2] Vita Wa Watu: A New Afrikan Theoretical Journal, Book #12, Spear and Shield Publications, 1988. Owusu Yaki Yakubu.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Notes From A New Afrikan P.O.W. Journal, Book #3, Mbili Shanna, Spear and Shield Publications.
[5] False Nationalism, False Internationalism: Contradictions in the Armed Struggle, E. Tani and Kae Sera  (Seeds Beneath The Snow, 1985).
[6] Ibid.
[7] Internal communication with an elder Comrade.
[8] Meditations on Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth: New Afrikan Revolutionary Writings, Owusu Yaki Yakubu, (Kersplebedeb, 2010).
[9] “Black Liberation in the 21st Century,” NABPP.
[10] Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat, J. Sakai, (Morning Star Press, 1989).
[11] Meditations on Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth: New Afrikan Revolutionary Writings.
[12] False Nationalism, False Internationalism: Contradictions in the Armed Struggle.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Roots of the New Afrikan Independence Movement, Chokwe Lumumba.
[15] Vita Wa Watu: New Afrikan Theoretical Journal, Book #12.
[16] Re-thinking New Orleans, Butch Lee, J. Sakai, (Kersplebedeb).
[17] Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat.
[18] False Nationalism, False Internationalism: Contradictions in the Armed Struggle.
[19] Vita Wa Watu: A New Afrikan Theoretical Journal, Book #12, O.Yaki Yakubu.
[20] False Nationalism, False Internationalism: Contradictions in the Armed Struggle.
[21] Notes from a New Afrikan P.O.W. Journal, Book Two, Spear and Shield Pub, 8-31-77.
[22] False Nationalism, False Internationalism: Contradictions in the Armed Struggle.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat.
[25] False Nationalism, False Internationalism: Contradictions in the Armed Struggle.

CLICK HERE TO READ ENTIRE POST

COLLAPSE POST