Notes on African-American History Since 1900
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- The Present Global Economic Crisis and the Coming U.S. Recession
- Is the Republican Strategy a Racist Strategy
- We will win, because we are the majority of the people, and in the long run, the people will win! 1999
- Strategy and Tactics for the Reparations Movement
1997 The Million Man March inspired women to organize their own March. Initiated by two Philadelphia women, Phile Chionseu, a small business owner and Asia Coney, a public housing activist, on October 25, 1997. An estimated one million African-American women participated in the March to listen to speeches by congresswoman Maxine Waters, rapper, Sister Souljah and Sister Winnie Mandela from South Africa. The march addressed issues such as domestic violence, inadequate access to quality health care, education and the need for unity.905 1998 The Black Radical Congress was convened in Chicago. It was a coalition of African American progressive groups and individuals. Over 2,000 activists came together to discuss the rebuilding of the black liberation movement. The Present Global Economic Crisis and the Coming U.S. Recession The United States and Western Europe are employing fewer workers due to their use of non-productive labor (service) and the use of automation and cybernation in industries. But they are producing more and more commodities at a faster rate, which is causing a global glut of overproduction. Because of lower wages in a service economy, the consumer power in western capitalist societies cannot absorb the over-abundance of commodities. The countries of the Third World where these commodities are produced can’t absorb them either, because their workers are paid extremely low wages. What has resulted is stagnation and a global financial crisis. The full impact on the United States has been delayed, partly because the world’s capitalists pour their wealth into our country, which they see as the last safe haven of capitalism. In 1997, there was a record inflow of a trillion dollars. The fallout has only been delayed. The first cold winds of crisis are chilling American workers as the June unemployment rate edged up to 4.5% with the weakness led by the third straight decline in factory payrolls.906 While there is a financial crisis in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the latest, Brazil, the United States is still the main engine of the world (global) capitalist economy. Consumerism, the domestic (U.S.) demand for commodities has kept much of the rest of the world from falling into a global depression, with U.S. imports rising by $40 billion in 1998 to $817 billion in the first nine months of 1999, while the trade deficit climbed by $45 billion. Essentially, the capitalists worldwide are flooding their products on the U.S. market and Americans are spending, buying, spending and buying, (Commodity Cropping). But for how long? In terms of manufacturing, the United States is hard hit. So much that Congress and Clinton are forced to put higher tariffs on Japanese imported steel. The manufacturing sector, about one sixth of the economy, is clearly in recession. Factory output has dropped in three of the last six months. Manufacturing employment bucked the overall trend of lengthening payrolls and has fallen by 100,000. The trading sector, mostly manufacturing, is likely to stay depressed for most of 1999 as international markets remain weak.907 In the domestic consumption of commodities, much of the consumption is due to the expansion of credit to consumers by credit unions, including the purchase of houses. Domestic demand grew by almost 6% in the first nine months of 1998. This was an increase, up from below 4% in 1997. This consumer spending is due for an abrupt slowdown, because many Americans are spending a greater portion of their earnings. In the first nine months of 1998, consumer spending grew by 5.7% compared with a year earlier. Nonresidential fixed investment rose by 13%.... Consumers increased their spending in the last year, largely by drawing down on savings. Americans saved 2.1% of their incomes in 1997 and by October 1998, which had fallen to -.2%908 The booming stock market and talk of a balanced budget, which is actually in a deficit of $44 billion because the government borrowed money from Social Security to balance the budget, is creating a false sense of security for many Americans. Even with the expanded consumerism, more and more Americans cannot afford to buy, buy, buy, particularly at the rate capitalists, with the assistance of technology, can produce. Therefore, as goods remain in the stock and immoveable, the capitalists feel a “falling rate of profit”. They are forced to sell their goods at a lesser price. Look at all the sales! The capitalists will still make a profit, but less than was speculated. When speculation on profits decrease, investors invest less money, and the stock market becomes sluggish. With a threatening, sluggish stock market on verge of collapse, spending will have to slow down. With eight hundred million people unemployed worldwide, it seems as if, in 1999 and 2000, the American economy is approaching a severe and prolonged recession. Is the Republican Strategy a Racist Strategy? There is a political realignment in American politics. The Republican Party has now become a party solidly controlled by conservatives (those who would prefer things the way they were in the racist good ‘ole days), the reactionary fascist from the moral minority to the Nazi militias. These forces tend to isolate moderate Republicans who are still committed to the Republican Party strategy. What is the Republican Party strategy about? It is about maintaining a dictatorship of white skin privilege of white males over the majority of Americans in the 21st century. This is why the Republican Party has targeted 26 states to eliminate Affirmative Action. They have been successful in two states, California and Washington. The majority of white Americans need to see the majority of Republicans for what they are: “coded” racists. African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans and progressive white Americans need to form a broad coalition to stop and reverse the motion of the racist-conservative Republican Party and the ultra-right. How serious is the political motion to the right in America? The motion to eliminate Affirmative Action, which is being led by uncle tom Ward Connelly, is just the beginning of what the racists have in mind. The racist plan is that their children will be privileged to have the skills in the 21st century to maintain a dictatorship of white minority control over a Third World majority in the United States (Technological apartheid). The battle for America is on. The counter-revolution temporarily has the upper hand. While there is talk about how the Democrats won some elections, which slowed the Republican offensive, on the state level Republicans suffered only one loss in governorships. The Republican Party retained control of 31 states. Republicans wrested governorships from Democrats in four races, and returned incumbents in 15 others. The victory of Taft (Republican) for governor in Ohio will probably mean that the Republican state senator, Michael Wise, from Chagrin Falls, and an enemy of the people, will try again to initiate the process to eliminate Affirmative Action in 1999 and 2000 in Ohio. We call on our allies, the 175,000 trade unionists in Cuyahoga County, the Labor Party and others to prepare to smash this anti-Affirmative Action motion when the right raises it. We also ask progressive whites to vote representatives such as Michael Wise and Co. out of office. Across the country, Democrats control 21 state legislatures, to the Republicans’ 16; but the Republicans still maintain dominance in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Reagan appointees, needless to say, dominate the judicial system. The political battle for the fate of America is taking place. Your destiny, and the destiny of your children, is at stake. If the oppressed, downtrodden, left or shut out unite, we can vote these racists out of office. But we must become politically sophisticated; know our true friends and enemies know our weaknesses and strengths, as well as the strength of our representatives and ourselves. If we do this, we will be prepared to wage and win a thousand battles in the 21st century. Calling on the multi-racial, multinational, ethnic, diverse majority to rise up to overthrow (vote out of office), the racist dictatorship of the racist, fascist minority. We will win, because we are the majority of the people, and in the long run, the people will win! 1999 The Million Youth March was convened in New York under the adult leadership of Khalid Muhammad who had developed the New Black Panther Party. Causes of the Million Man March, and Where We Go From Here First I want to give a descriptive analysis of what stage of development we are in that brought forth the Million Man March. Then I want to talk about a two-pronged flexible strategy for dealing with the situation. Manning Marable states that capitalism as an economic system is based on unequal exchange between the owners of capital and those who work for a wage. Capitalism as a system fosters class stratification, extreme concentration of wealth and poverty, and promotes racial hatred as a means to divide workers. This statement can sum up the condition that we find ourselves in today. I’ll try to illustrate in a simple way what this means for African American people. The capitalists try to get maximum profit by any means necessary. So when we study the capitalists system – each day, each second, the capitalist system or the capitalist class is trying to obtain more and more profit. Capitalism does not just try to get profit, it tries to get maximum profit from everyone. One way capitalism does this is to maintain a “reserve army of the unemployed” – as a pressure to keep wages down (if you don’t) like the low wages I’m paying, says the employer, the owner of capital, there are other people waiting for your job.) A great many of the unemployed are African Americans. This is the result of deliberate racist policies by the capitalist employers, the ruling class. The Present Period and Social Context Revolutionary strategy requires that a correct estimate by made of the historical period and the social context of the struggle, both nationally and worldwide. On October 16, 1995, close to 2.1 million African American men demonstrated, responding to Minster Louis Farrakhan’s call for a day of atonement and a day of absence. Why did they atone? Many people feel that a day of atonement is placing the blame on the victim rather than the perpetrator. But even the victim must realize that he or she has some responsibility in his or her oppression. The day of atonement was for African American men who had fallen victim to the lack of employment and the illegal economy that the crack cocaine for the most part had become criminalized. This is why the day of atonement was called – for those of us who had fallen victim to this planned genocide, to atone, or to try to rectify our behavior our part in the situation. There has been a mass criminalization of African American males in the last ten years – with 500,000 African American males presently incarcerated in prisons. Some 300,000 more are caught up in the legal system. One in every seven African American males is entangled in the prison system in one way or another. One in four African American males age 24 or younger is entangled in the legal system. So with this situation, no matter what else African American men may have felt they felt the need to unite and to make a statement. Whether or not that statement has been followed up on, I’ll leave to your judgment and we can enter into a discussion about that. Three Tendencies in the African American Community Miss Ella Baker, a key activist in the 1960s, says that there are three major political tendencies in the African American community. (1) Those who want to be included in the system as it is. Many have defined that as “integration” – having some political empowerment within the existing political system. (2) Those who are discouraged with the system as it is and who want to separate and form their own nation or go back to Africa or whatever (3) Those who want to change the system. Manning Marable calls those in the third group transformationists. Those who want to make a fundamental change of the economic and political system. I’ll come back to these three tendencies, but the crisis that the African American community faces great that possibly we will be able to get over the contradictions between these three tendencies. These three major tendencies have kept African Americans from uniting – and they go back to pre-Civil War Colored Peoples’ Conventions, where they argued over what direction or what path African Americans should take. Technological Apartheid Essentially, African Americans are facing a new situation in less than ten years we may be faced with technological apartheid, an institutionalized overt and covert form of genocide. It all depends on how you want to describe it. This is something new. African Americans have faced apartheid before, but not in the form of a technological apartheid. Now what do I mean by technological apartheid? I’m going to try to explain in the simplest way that I can what has taken place. There are certain sociological changes that have taken place in America that are not being talked about – technological changes. Industry did not just relocated to suburbia for no reason. So we need to analyze this. There’s a structural crisis in the system. Things are getting worse. Each generation has less of a chance of achieving what the generation previously has achieved, even though the new generation usually has more education. There’s a structural crisis in capitalism with the development of automation and cybernation and robotics. Robots are replacing much unskilled labor. Automation is at the level where the capitalists can produce more with less people. So this affects those people who are on the bottom rung. Essentially, this structural crisis eliminates the need for excess manual or mechanical labor. African Americans in the Work Force Twelve million African Americans presently are in the labor force 3.3 million of them are trade unionists. Most of those trade unionists came into the labor movement from the 1930s to the 1970s and joined unions and became some of the most militant of the trade union organizers and fought for better wages for labor. Of those 3.5 million many are 50 or older. Now with unskilled labor leaving what is called the inner city. The quality jobs or the unionized jobs in many inner cities will be gone in another generation. These are presently 7 million African American in unorganized labor, many in the service industry. There are approximately 2 million unemployed African American workers since 1944 when the mechanical cotton picker was introduced on farms and plantations in the South, which permanently displaced many African American workers, African Americans had to search for ways to be reincorporated into the productive labor force. From 1944 to 1964 American business and industry was experiencing a boom, which was able to incorporate many of these displaced African American workers. The United States was economically the number one country in the world. Changes in Industry Affect African American Workers Now what we want to look at is why did industry moved overseas and why did it move to the suburbs? You have three major revolutions occurring in the world at the same time. One is the revolution in nature – the unusual increase in rainstorms, hailstorms, blizzards, and so on signals a revolution in nature. Two, you have revolutions in society, which happen seldom, but sometimes they do happen. Three, you have a scientific and technological revolution. And that’s the revolution in science. Like we have lights now. Two centuries ago, your forefather George Washington, not my forefather, but your forefather, studied under candlelight. Now you have steam ships and maps. But your discoverer, Christopher Columbus, not my discoverer, had to learn how to sail, right? Nobody wants to talk about the Moorish navigation school he went to. So these are the myths that we deal with. But what I’m trying to get at is that things take place, often major things, but we get hardly any idea of when they take place or how they take place or how they are affecting us. Some major changes have come and mainly through the space program – technological innovations resulting from the space program. People say, “The man on the moon, what does that have to do with anything?” One, you have new clothing, now made of new synthetic materials. You have new alloys and other such things. One invention that we came through testing in the space program is hard plastic. Could anybody tell me something that you may use on a daily basis that’s made out of hard plastic? Your automobile, what was once made of steel is now made of hard plastic. Now, what took place was a major innovation or revolution in transportation. You now have large tractor-trailers that can move products where rail lines don’t go. To make a long story short, the introduction of plastics and other light alloys in the automobile industry made the inner city almost obsolete. Before, steel and other heavy alloys had to be transported by railroad lines – this is why you had industry develop in the inner cities in the first place. Many African American communities and other working class communities grew up right near those railroad lines. It became cheaper from 1970 to 1980 for the capitalists to transport these alloys by interstate highway and to relocate factories at interstate highway intersections. What this did was allow for the growth of suburban villages for people who could afford to move out of the city. It also helped with the de-politicization of the working class. Which simply meant or means that African American workers were raising hell in the work place in the 1960s and unions were demanding higher wages and benefits, and the capitalists were in a constant war with the working class, so they relocated and went through a complete restructuring. Now, this restructuring affected us, because where we could take a bus or a trolley to get to work, we couldn’t get to work anymore. That same factory had moved out. Look where Ford is located now. So this created a crisis for African American males in particular. African Americans are becoming lumpenized – in the Black Panther movement in the 60s we called it lumpenization – permanently unemployed African American youth becoming criminalized. And this is because legal employment is not physically available for most African American youth. But illegal employment is easily within their physical means. So they are engaged in the illegal economy, and that’s why those 500,000 are in prison close to 500,000 felons. And by the way, this will effect the voting power of the African American community. We’re not going to see this immediately, but we will in the next few years. In most states if you are a convicted felon, you cannot vote. And this is going to affect the voting power of African American males. Program Needed So we need a program to advance the motion of the Million Man March and we need a prescriptive program to deal with technological apartheid. African Americans must now fight to remain a viable part of the working class and develop a long range flexible strategy to be a social and economic force in the 21st century. So that means that while we enter into coalitions and others, African Americans must have a particular strategy to survive a systematic genocide, an institutional genocide where the system has restructured itself where viable jobs will not be in the immediate future for African Americans. We have to develop a crash program for young people. We have to develop a program for saving those who are in crisis now, or are at risk, and develop a strategy for those who are secure to lay a safety net for the future. We Need Adequate Information Where do we go from here? One of the first things we have to do is to have sessions where we talk to one another. We have to begin to pass on information to one another. I think our main weakness is the lack of adequate information. I have a few articles here. This is an article by a sister named Barbara Ramsey. It’s called “The U.S: The African American Poor and the Politics of Expendability” It’s published in a journal called Race and Class. But to whom does that journal go? Unless you know about publications like this or unless you search them out, they are not going to get to the brothers and sisters in the African American community. But it’s one of the best analyses there is. I mean she breaks it down to the contemporary situations. She’s saying that as far as national growth the largest industries that are being built in the United States are prison-related. There’s another article here by William I. Robinson, a brother in Tennessee, on globalization talking about essentially that the capitalist system has more expendable, unskilled labor than it can absorb. It can’t even absorb white unskilled labor at this point. There’s an international glut on the market now. There’s overproduction and under-consumption. Here’s another article. This was in Black Scholar magazine a few years ago, and the author predicted what is now taking place. It’s called: “The Social Implications on the New Black Underclass” – by Troy Duster. Here’s another, given to me by a white professor. This was published in 1986, it’s called “How Business is Reshaping America.” These are things that the average person doesn’t see. This is what’s affecting us. We need to know what’s affecting us. Here’s another one from a magazine called Dollars and Sense, “The Racial Divide Widens Why African American Workers Have Lost Ground” All right? So I’m not making this up folks. Recognizing the Crisis We’re in a crisis and that’s one of the first things that has to be stated. We need to know that we’re in a crisis. If you don’t know you’re in a crisis, then you can’t respond. So that’s the first thing. We have to develop a consensus that we’re in a crisis. If you don’t realize you’re in a crisis, you can’t do what you did before you entered that crisis. The cultural traits that have been transmitted inter-generationally since slavery in the African American community are inadequate for empowerment in the 21st century. Our habits, our way of life, our way of socializing that we are used to is not going to prepare us to survive in the 21st century. We are going to have to develop something new. African American life style must become a scientific, holistic, spiritual, materialistic one. When I talk about spiritual, I’m not talking about where or not you believe in God. I’m talking about having human values and maintaining accountability to those human values, and aspects of a dialectical and historical materialism – understanding the capitalist system. Synchronized with the latest in capitalist technology. I have a friend in another city, an organizer who works with young people. We were talking about computers and he said, “That’s somethin’ for the white boy.” No, that’s something that we have to prepare our young people to master. End Substance Abuse This new culture must fuse a new people, a new generation free of all forms of substance abuse. All forms. We cannot afford it. We’re not going to be around. We can engage in it if we want, you can play if you want. The system is changing over. The more weaknesses you have, the less chance you have of being around. We must reach our young people on this. We have the tendency to support our enemies and isolate our friends. It’s done out of ignorance, but we need to go through whole political reeducation process. And that’s what a movement does and that’s what we’re talking about – creating a movement, a regenerating movement. Transformational Program Needed We need to form a transitional, transformational program. We need to look at what that transformational program will be about. We need to be about self-organization. This is what I’m saying about self-organization. If you have to depend on me to tell you what to do, what happens if I’m not here? So you have to be about developing yourselves through struggles and organizing yourselves in developing a collective leadership.; so that all of you can get up here and advance the struggle, a mass struggle. So that’s what we’re talking about the self-organization of our people to develop a collective leadership based around issues that demand a fundamental change of this society. We have to develop a mass accountability system. I have to be accountable to you, you have to be accountable to me, we have to be accountable to ourselves. And our leaders who step forward, who we elect have to be accountable to us. If we don’t hold them accountable when they go astray, when they betray us, the movement will be derailed and set back. So we must have a mass accountability process. We must begin to build economic and social institutions that will carry us forward through the period of deluge that we re going through. We must work up a scientific developmental plan for raising the next generation concentrating on from birth to age 15. We need massive “rights to passage” programs, “mentoring” programs concentrating on reading, writing, math, language, science, African American history and labor history. We have to educate the oppressed to constantly demand their rights, promote massive electoral participation and maintain pressure on the elected to carry out progressive programs. We need to have a division of labor. We need to have roles for everyone in the community. Everyone can be useful. We have to have a combination of young, middle-aged – what I call young elders – and mature elders. Each has a role. For African American children from birth to 15 we need to set up liberation schools and rights of passage programs to develop scientific and technological skills for the 21st century. We don’t need to teach Ebonics; we need to teach standard English in the home. That’s the responsibility of parents. Now there are libraries all over. Cleveland/Philadelphia has a good library system. So there really isn’t any excuse for a parent to say they cannot get the information because it is there. We need to teach our children to read. My mother used to sit up reading to me before I could walk. I didn’t know this. She told me this years’ later. I always a wondered why I liked to read. She would read me to sleep. She said she hoped that by osmosis some of it would rub off. Teach your children to read, learn standard English. If you can, get them used to computers. Begin at an early age. Also, begin to learn languages. We need to learn languages. As a community, one language we need to learn is Spanish. There are or will be in 3 or more years, 30 million Spanish speaking people in the U.S. They have many cultural experiences similar to ours, and we need to enter into progressive coalitions with them to maximize the political power of our community with theirs. And I would say, learn Chinese. Malcolm X said to learn Chinese. Because China will be a force in the 21st century, and the Asian American community will be much larger than it is now. Then there are ages 15 to 25. Those of us who are older, those of us who are trade unionists, those of us who have skills need to establish apprenticeship programs with those who are between the ages of 15 and 25 who are not college bound. Not everybody is going to to go college. There are skills – car mechanics, electricians’ work – many skills that need to be passed on and we need to develop this kind of apprenticeship. Those aged 25 to 46 should be the most politically active engaging in mass civil obedience along with the 15 to 25 year olds. We need to develop a safety net. We need to engage in mass civil disobedience for the implementation of a transitional program that calls for a third Reconstruction of American society. As I end, I will talk about 13 points, very simple points and I think that these points will relate to most Americans. Fundamentally you’re talking about a Reconstruction of American society as it is today. We need to “start by forming” or creating African American workers’ congresses or a grass roots congress from which we can network. We have people from many different religions, many different directions, and many different organizations. When I talk about workers I’m talking about most of us. I don’t think there are too many African American multi-millionaires. There are some millionaires, but in our community most of us work for a living, or would like to work for a living. Just like to work for a living. We need to have African American workers or grass roots congresses, whatever they will be called. From age 45 to 80, in that group , there are many who are still in our community who have no way to relay their skills to another generation. This is why we have to set up networks so that skills can be passed on. These can also be the teachers for our liberation schools. African American Congress Needed One of the objectives that Minister Farrakhan laid out at the Million Man March was to join an organization or work with a coalition of organization or if you don’t like the existing organizations, form an organization. We need a forum and this what we had hoped for that the Million Man March could have been that forum. Be we need to a forum, a grass roots of African American workers congress, a united front from which we can deal with this crisis. Also, we need to form African American economic funds within collectives. We don’t have to wait for a national economic fund to be created, but we need to get out of the concept of everything for me, or a get-rich-quick scheme. We need to begin to have ventures in partnerships or work with collectives of folks; and there may be people who may not like this, this may not sound worthwhile to many people, but it takes millions of dollars to make a movement for social change. This is what Dr. King understood and what we didn’t understand until it was too late. Dr. King was generating the money with which to mobilize. In American society – which is a very bourgeois society, not a backward or rural society – it’s going to take millions to bring forth any kind of major resolution of our situation. We need to pledge ourselves to continue this protracted struggle from cradle to grave and never forget where we come from. Voting Power We have voting power, although it’s going to deplete. But we have to set up a safety network. If we establish a safety network properly, we can pressure the politicians. There are politicians who are calling for a reinstatement of voting rights after one has completed their legal time as a felon. This should be one of our demands. We should evaluate political candidates from a standpoint of community self-interest and develop a powerful political force that would evaluate them. We would evaluate al political forces and invite all political forces to come in front of us to be evaluated. We should know what left, right, and center mean. Know what it means politically and know what it means to you. So that when you have a Reagan or a Bush or whoever, you know what they represent. Labor Problems We need to develop a worker-student alliance where students work in the community, so that students in college can develop a relationship with youth in the community. Sometimes there are artificial barriers. When I was a counselor, a student got a “D” and wanted an “F” because he felt that having a “D” made him white, and having an “F” made him Black. This is a negative kind of thinking. So many in the community don’t view youth who are in college as progressive or as doing something for the community. They consider it going white. We need to reverse this. We need a two-pronged strategy, which would link those in the communities with workers in unions and on the job. We need to develop and help lead unions wherever we can and support unions. Don’t let the establishment newspapers turn you against unions. You buy that paper, but that’s not your paper, folks, so we need to read between the lines. And support those who are in unions. We need to build African American labor caucuses wherever possible and develop consumer cooperatives. The CIA Crack Cocaine Scandal Above all we should be diligent. In fact, we should be enraged. Representative Maxine Walters has revealed that the CIA had been instrumental in initiating and flooding the Los Angeles African American community (and whatever other African American communities we don’t know about) with crack cocaine. I don’t know why we’re not down in Washington, D. C. now raising hell and demanding that the CIA and the FBI have to go. Thus shows you how asleep we are. I hear my colleagues talk about me giving my ear to conspiracy theories, but when you have a revelation that a government agency has flooded crack cocaine into the African American community, you’re not dealing with a “conspiracy theory” That conspiracy is a reality! You’re dealing with institutional racism, on the one hand and there’s technological apartheid going on, plus you’re dealing with a conspiracy of racists who have political power. So we should be outraged. We should be outraged not only at the Oliver North and the Ronald Reagans and George Bushes but at the Uncle Clarence Thomases. We should be outraged. And if we were outraged enough, then we would understand that that brother or sister that you pass everyday, and they say, “You straight?” – they are the CIA’s secret weapon right inside the African American community. We should be outraged. Drug pushers have to be reeducated, if possible, or neutralized, isolated or destroyed, whatever it takes, but we should be outraged, and teach our children to be outraged. We have to have a flexible, holistic strategy. We have to use an inside-outside approach instead of pitting people against one another. This crisis is so great that it doesn’t matter that organization you are in, what political philosophy. If we are doing something progressive, then I’m with you. We have to get out of that “either or” kind of thing. We have to have a flexible, holistic strategy, something that’s inclusive. This program suggests rebuilding the African American liberation movement on a new basis, a strategy that combines current struggles, reform struggles, electoral struggles. Some people say they are so revolutionary that they won’t vote. Well, the rest of the people are voting. So if you’re so revolutionary, who are you going to revolutionize but you and a few people like you? So we have to get out of that super-revolutionary ego thing. We need to combine these struggles with a broader, long-term revolutionary strategy. Please don’t get upset when I use the word revolution. I’m saying that we’re in a crisis. Now, we’re going to evolve to a further crisis so we’re going to have to make an abrupt change in order to come out of this crisis. So that’s what I’m talking about in terms of revolution combining a movement for reforms with the perspective of long-term revolutionary change. That is one of the central concepts of the theory of social transformation. So what would a transitional program look like? Even if I knew what a transitional program would look like, I would not present the entire transitional program, because we have to come up with the entire transitional program together. I have just put forward some ideas. But we have to create that process by coming together and raising demand to deal with the issues that are affecting us in our community. Right to a Decent Job The demand may include something as fundamental as free health care for all Americans. Or free education, up to and including graduate levels, for all Americans. With adequate, decent, and affordable low-income housing for all Americans. And this is key; a guaranteed human right to a decent job at a livable wage, and free job training or retraining if unemployed. I’m in favor of a non-racist, universalistic education, based on an all-people’s perspective. I mean, I may be Afro-centric because I’m an African American, but I’m not centric at all. Because if you have Chinese in poor hosing and Indians, if I’m just Afro-centric, that would really be leaving out part of the world. So when we talk about a universalistic perspective that means we need to know about Asian and European history, too. As well as real European history, such as the workers who tried to take France and how Napoleon stabbed them in the back. We don’t get real European history, or real American history. We need a non-racist, universal education for all children. Not just for African American children, for all children. Proportional Representation for all Americans Now do you want to talk about a political revolution in American society? Today we have 8,000 African American elected officials and 400 African American mayors. But being 12 percent of the population, we should have 55,000 elected officials in America today out of 500,000 at least $55,00. So – in case you thought things were done with – we still have a long way to go. Reparations for Slavery I don’t understand why people don’t understand that African Americans deserve reparations. If you study world history you will see that African Americans have been through more trauma than most people in the world. And that’s part of our problem. We’re still in shock. So reparations for African Americans, administered by African Americans is an important demand. Also Reparations for Native Americans Nobody talks about reparations for the Native Americans. These people have been almost completely wiped out. Preferential Promotional Job Training on Jobs for African Americans Restitution, which means repayment, for all African American soldiers who were forced to fight in U. S. imperialist, racist wars, and for their families. Restitution provided for all victims and families of victims of the Cointelpro (“counterintelligence program”). You want to see a revolution? You can’t even count the number of people who have fallen victim of the counterintelligence program alone, let alone other programs. You talk about conspiracy theory. What they did to Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the Black Panther Party. How far do we have to go before we become enraged? Immediate Release of All Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War There are at least 100 brothers and sisters who have been in prison since the 1960s. An end to the covert economic, political military and chemical war certain agencies of the U. S. government have conducted against the African American community. These are just some ideas of the general direction that we should be thinking in order to develop a transitional program for African American liberation in this period of time. Strategy and Tactics for the Reparations Movement Should African Americans demand reparations from the Republican Party as well? Since 1968 with the election of Richard Milhous Nixon, either prospective Republican presidential candidates, Republican Presidents, associates or Republican Party members have violated the U.S. Constitution and have instituted procedures that have amounted to genocide against African Americans. The infamous Watergate conspiracy, which amounted to a war against the Black Panther Party, of the Black Liberation Movement and anti-war resisters, was a campaign to incarcerate, assassinate, exile or defame members of civil rights organizations targeted by the Nixon administration. When Nixon assigned the counter-intelligence program of the FBI to J. Edgar Hoover, which he sanctioned under his administration; he effectively eliminated or retarded the development of progressive African American leadership. This was followed up by the Reagan administration in the Iran-Contra scandal, the effects which have yet to be fully disclosed. Under the Iran-Contra plot the U.S. (CIA) agencies were used to sell crack cocaine in the African American communities to finance Nicaraguan Contras (counter-revolutionaries), which Congress had voted not to support. The impact of the Iran-Contra plot of which George Bush senior, and Vice President in the Reagan administration; led to the criminalization of a generation. It also has led to the disintegration of the African American community or genocide. The net result has been the incarceration of 1 ½ to 2 million predominantly African American males. From 1980 to 1993, the female prison population increased 313%. The male prison population increased 182%. To make matters worse, the conspiracy has continued with George W. and Jeb Bush’s involvement, harshly violating the voting rights of African Americans in the 2000 presidential election; where African Americans were intimidated and harassed by state officials, including local and state police using barricades to keep them from voting. Trickery, forgery and the use of the legal system were implemented to stop the counting of votes. In essence, this was the illegal use of the legal system to violate the constitutional rights of African Americans. By not counting every vote, and by using intimidation and outright fraud, the Bushes should be indicted for violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. African Americans should hold all of the stated Republican administrations and the Republican Party itself accountable for its illegal war against the African American community. The demand for reparations must become more political and African Americans should hold all public officeholders responsible for the decisions and policies they institute. A constitutional recall of all political criminals who violate the constitutional rights of African Americans, and the American people in general, should be held. What are Reparations? Reparations are a non-compromising, unconditional democratic demand by the African American people in the struggle, to extend democracy to all in the United States and throughout the world. Reparations means repayments for crimes committed against a people by a government or a society. The United States government has been guilty of committing genocide, the systematic destruction of the African American people over a two hundred-plus year period. Reparations is a process of repairing, healing and restoring a people, injured by governments or corporations, because of their group identity and in violation of their fundamental human rights. Those groups so injured have the right to obtain from the government or corporation responsible for the injuries that which they need to repair and heal themselves. In addition to being a demand for justice, it is a principle of human rights law. As a remedy, it is similar to the remedy for damages in national law that holds a person responsible for injuries suffered by another when the infliction of the injury violates domestic law. From the N’COBRA (National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations In America) Is an apology necessary? A necessary requirement of all forms of reparations is an acknowledgement by the government or corporation that it committed acts that violated the human rights of those making the claim for reparations. Some groups may want an explicit apology; however, neither the acknowledgement nor apology is sufficient. There must be a material form of reparations that accompany the acknowledgment or apology. What forms should reparations take? Reparations can be in as many forms as necessary to equitably (fairly) address the many forms of injury sustained from chattel slavery, and its continuing vestiges. The material forms of reparations include cash payments, land, and economic development and repatriation resources, particularly those who are descendants of enslaved Africans. Other forms of reparations for black people of African descent include funds for scholarships and community development; creation of multimedia depictions of the history of black people of African descent, and textbooks for educational institutions that tell the story from the African descendants’ perspective; development of historical monuments and museums; the return of artifacts and art to appropriate people or institutions; exoneration of political prisoners; and the elimination of laws and practices that maintain dual systems in the major areas of life, including the punishment, health, education and the financial/economic systems. The forms of reparations received should improve the lives of African descendants in the United States for future generations to come; foster complete economic, social and political parity; and allow for full rights of self-determination. N’COBRA seeks reparations at this time from two groups: government and corporations. There are individuals, families, and religious institutions that directly benefited from slavery in the United States, and who, if acting in good faith would contribute to reparation funds for use in assisting in the reparation process. However, we choose to focus on government and corporations because of their particular role in the horrific tragedies of chattel slavery and the continuing vestiges of slavery that we live with today. In addition, we recognize that all white people have, to some extent, benefited from slavery and the underlying lie of white supremacy that allow it to exist for 2 ½ centuries in the United States. This lie has led to what is commonly called “white-skin privilege” and results in unspoken benefits to white people. The process of reparations would include ways to change the culture or “white-skin privilege” that was created to sustain chattel slavery and its continuing vestiges.909 Class Action Suits against Corporations (Businesses) That Invested in Slavery By suing businesses and corporations who invested in slavery, the cadre shows the masses of the working class, particularly African Americans, how the capitalist ruling class obtained its initial wealth from the profit reaped from the free labor of African Americans. In this sense, it is the foundation of educators showing the working class the true inter-workings of the capitalist system; one that is based on perpetual profit coming from race, class and gender oppression. What seems to be the Dialectical Process of Advancing towards Reparations and Democracy in the U.S.? From the perspective in Ohio, it is essential that Reparations Coalitions and Friends of AA’s demanding reparations, draft petition-drives in their communities asking their Congressional Representatives and Senators to support H.R. 40, the “John Conyers Bill”. Along with this petition drive should be conferences in each community to discuss what a “Peoples Transitional Program” should be, on the local, state and national levels. This way the people (the masses) become involved in an evolving agenda. The transitional program would change as the situation changes. At the same time that the local transitional agenda is presented (different in each locale), asking for all city councils to go on record supporting reparations, a drive across the state should unfold to ask the state representatives and state senators to raise the questions of reparations in the state assembly, so there would be a statewide agenda eventually unfolding. The reparations movement should be part of the Anti-Racist, Anti-Imperialist, Anti-Sexist, and Pro-Environment Movements. People are the makers of history, and as servants we should say no to war for oil, and yes to reparations. Central to the development of the Reparations Movement is a cognitive change in the consciousness of African Americans who must be given the basic historical political information necessary to transform their individual politics based on personal experience; to an understanding of their human and constitutional rights and the strategic politics of the movement. Therefore, the primary task of the Reparations Movement is to provide cadre with the information necessary to help them advance the movement. A key aspect of a successful cadre is his/her ability to connect the politics of the Reparations Movement to the needs and issues of the people on the local level. The Need for a Dialectical Approach to Developing a Transitional Program for African American Reparations A revolutionary movement among African Americans for reparations and self-determination, which has the long-range goals of uniting with and advancing the movement towards socialism in America must have a revolutionary transitional program (programs that demand the mass inclusion of African Americans in a democratic process in all facets of the society), that is not a set of dogmas, but rather acts as a guide to action. As the U.S. becomes the high tech service sector, economy for the entire reorganized international division of labor, unskilled, or semi-skilled work (which is becoming more and more automated by the day) will become a thing of the past.910 This is rapidly being replaced with computer technology, usually data processing. This process is displacing African American men with African American women, who are more underpaid, while the system extracts greater surplus value for less wages as it continues along its (U.S. Imperialism) descending line of development. Therefore, a transitional program must address arresting the sociological development towards the mass criminalization of African American men who won’t have any alternative but to participate in the drug trade if not radicalized to carry forth a transitional program for a second reconstruction or social revolution of American society. In other words, there is the economic trend afoot that will lead to political fascism for African Americans starting with eventually legal reversals of democratic rights, along with stepped-up right-wing (KKK) racist attacks (terrorism). Revolutionary Strategy Requires that a Correct Estimate be made of the Historical Period and Social Context of the Struggle, both Nationally and Worldwide This thesis concludes that there is no revolutionary crisis, either nationally or internationally, that U.S. imperialism cannot bounce back from. Some may occur, but they have not appeared as yet. Instead of a continuous cyclical crisis, U.S. capitalism/imperialism has reached a stage of maturity through the innovations of the scientific-technological revolution. It has prolonged its crisis when it out-spent the Soviet experiment (70 years) and now has Russia/Eastern Europe/China as a potential market. The other aspect, which prolongs its crisis, but also speeds its social deterioration, is Narco-Imperialism. Narco Imperialism (the international drug trade, which launders hundreds of billions of dollars yearly, world-wide) further consolidates the most reactionary sectors of the society at the same time.911 The impetus of world permanent socialist revolution resides for a large part on the internal contradictions within the U.S. At this point, it looks like there will be a gradual and continuous deterioration in the living standards for the working class, and rapid movement towards fascism to further suppress the African American community; to further divide and terrorize the working class. What is the Combined Character of the African American Liberation Struggle? The African American liberation struggle in the United States has a two-sided character; duality as the drive of an oppressed racial nationality whose overall organizational thrust is human dignity (human rights), political empowerment and the right to reparations as its first objective. The African American Liberation Movement is both a national democratic revolution seeking reparations and self-determination, looking to secure democratic rights and to achieve political and economic empowerment for African Americans. It is in this sense that the African American Liberation Movement advances the parameters of democracy for all Americans, but in order to achieve its proletarian class demand for reparations and the right to reparations, the African American Liberation Movement comes into direct conflict with the interests of the capitalist government. The African American Liberation Movement, constituting the most historically significant, combative and advanced section of the anti-capitalist forces within the center (heartland) of world imperialism, is the vanguard of a revolution-seeking socialism in the United States. Because the U.S. plays a central role as the center of capitalist reaction, regression of the socialist world revolutionary forces, makes the revolutionary sector of African Americans in the U.S. are the central leading sector at this point of development within the world socialist revolution. This constitutes the dual character of the African American liberation struggle for reparations and self-determination.912 Why is the African American Struggle for Reparations so Central to the Struggle for Socialism in America? V. I. Lenin said, “The national question must be clearly considered and solved by all class conscious workers.” Often it is the struggle for emancipation of the oppressed nationalities that thrust forth a revolutionary momentum or spark within the whole struggle for socialism in a state, and often wins international support for its just cause, thus mobilizing sectors of the world proletariat. This has happened in Russia (pre-1917) and also in other places in Europe, Africa, Asia and the U.S. (African Americans in the 1960s). The recent conscious display of internationalism for the liberation of South Africa shows the importance of the national question to the international proletariat. Trotsky in 1940 correctly forecasted that African Americans are the most dynamic segment of the working class (in the U.S.), the most capable of revolutionary courage and sacrifice and are destined to become its vanguard.913 In the 1940s, C.L.R. James added to this thesis, saying that African Americans had the right to have their independent revolutionary cadre organizations which would carry out this process.914 James Boggs extended the paradigm further, saying that African American workers were constantly being thrown out of the labor process because of automation and cybernation, becoming an underclass, but not yet a de-classed lumpened element. He felt young African American workers would be forced to demand fundamental change, or engage in insurrectionary upsurge against the system and could be guided to revolutionary action.915 The politics of departure: Building a resistance movement in the African American community against racism and fascism. In order to build a resistance movement against racism, a political awareness (based on revolutionary political education) must first be built. This is because the political consciousness of the African American community has been retarded or arrested due to the COINTELPRO campaign that is operative in a subtler (covert) manner than before. As a result, the brothers and sisters who comprehend the words fascism, right-wing, reactionary, conservative, and genocide are, for the most part, young elders, and have retreated back into the African American Christian church. While sectors of the church can be incorporated into the African American anti-fascist front, there are sectors that have become more reactionary and identify its interest with that of the religious right (cover for political fascism) campaign of conservatism (code for fascism). In the descending line of development of capitalism, the battle for democracy leads directly towards a struggle for socialism. Many of the movement’s previous allies, such as in the 60s, will become subtle (covert) enemies because of their often hidden opportunism and gross individualism. They see accommodating to the system as the answer. The youth, on the other hand, are politically underdeveloped, and have to be educated from scratch.916 The political maturation of the masses of African American people will become politically educated through class struggle, the struggle for empowerment in the electoral arena, community and at the point of production. Much of this political maturation will develop around the struggle to advance reforms in the political system. While this may be the case, the political radicalization of the majority of 6.6 million African Americans who are registered Democrats, will develop from political ruptures or polarization over issues and principles that affect the historical relationship of African Americans to the capitalist system. All African American revolutionary collectives should unite in N’COBRA through a democratic process that works out a dialectical strategy and tactics of achieving reparations for African Americans. It is proposed that all such forces unite to put as much pressure on Congress and also the rest of the Congressional Black Caucus to support H.R. 40, the “John Conyers Bill.” They should study reparations for African Americans and raise the political re-educational level of the African American community by having “literacy campaigns” that teach the Black ABCs. Through the process of self-education of the Africans and African Americans, the historical basis for reparations and our right to self-determination will be understood. “A second-class citizen is a 21st century slave.” Black political power must fight to open up the political process and equitably distribute public and private sector resources. This will help people to see the real politics of capitalism, beyond its racist form. It will also help people to see the need for organizing and changing the political system in ways that unite and empower African Americans and poor people to directly contribute to the shaping and making of the political decisions that directly affect their lives. Campaigns to elect African American officials must therefore be based on a clear program, which is democratically developed by the people themselves. The candidates must come out of the mass struggles, which they pledge to continue, and are held accountable to, once in office. This accountability is an important aspect of the struggle for self-determination. Political accountability of elected and appointed officials must therefore take an organized and mass democratic form.917 Directory: Documents -> Finder -> Black%20Liberation%20Disk -> Black%20Power! Documents -> The great global switch-off Documents -> Nonprofit grant application Documents -> The Truth about the Rwandan Genocide Documents -> Annual InStructional unit plan Documents -> Chaos equipment included Black%20Power! -> The Need (Importance) for Student Activism in the 21st Century Black%20Power! -> When and how I wrote toward black liberation part I and malcolm X and the black liberation movement Black%20Power! -> Notes on African-American History Since 1900 Download 3 Mb. Share with your friends:
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