This Saturday, Canadian state broadcaster CBC will air the documentary Cuban Hope Against Cancer, which highlights the island’s progress in developing lung cancer vaccines.
The film, which premiered on PBS in North America in April this year, focuses on the Cuban drugs CIMAVax and Vaxira and the collaboration between the Antilles and the United States.
Can a lung cancer vaccine give hope to patients around the world? Innovative therapies developed in Cuba are transforming some cancers, from life-threatening illnesses to chronic conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure, the CBC reports on its website.
Cuba’s Cancer Hope explores the story of how the island became a leader in biomedical research and tells the journey of two patients, one from the island and the other from the United States, who received vaccines. The network announced the screening of the documentary on September 19 at 22:00 local time in the capital.
“In both Cuba and the United States, lung cancer is a leading cause of death. But after decades of the United States trade embargo (blockade), Cuba was economically and politically isolated and lacked medical resources, ”the statement said.
Cuban scientists have been forced to get creative with their own immunotherapy drugs. Among them, he noted, there are lung cancer vaccines that can help trigger the body’s immune response to cancer.
The CBC added that these treatments are so promising that some American patients are even defying the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by Washington nearly 60 years ago “to travel to Cuba for treatment.”
The announcement also highlights that scientists from the Caribbean country are collaborating with the leading cancer research institute in the United States to develop an even more effective treatment that combines the best research and medical technologies from both countries.
Thus, he refers to the fact that in September 2018, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in New York and the Cuba Center for Molecular Immunology announced the creation of Innovative Immunotherapy Alliance SA, the first Cuban-American biotechnology company.
“The goal is to make medicines more affordable, but will the embargo get in the way?” Asked the CBC.
Twenty more Cubans joined the short history of Soberana 01, the country’s first candidate vaccine against COVID-19, on September 2, according to reports from Naturaleza Secreta.
Twenty more Cubans joined the short history of Soberana 01, the country’s first candidate vaccine against COVID-19, on September 2, according to reports from Naturaleza Secreta.
This group, composed of volunteers between 60 and 80 years of age, is the second to receive the first dose of the much awaited vaccine, that could make a significant contribution in the battle to contain the virus that is taking lives every day.
This step in the clinical trials took place after several other processes were completed, all carefully organized as part of the clinical trials that Cubans are following closely, hoping for the success that will allow for the entire population to be vaccinated against the new coronavirus.
Prior to the launching of the trials, in accordance with established protocols, all possible volunteers interested in participating where provided a full explanation of the process and signed an informed consent agreement.
A clinical trial is a study, an investigation conducted with volunteers, that on this occasion includes two phases. In the first, two groups were incorporated, one composed of volunteers between the ages of 19 and 59, and another including those aged 60 to 80. Each of these groups were randomly divided into three sub-groups given different doses of the vaccine under investigation or the vaccine VA-MENGOC-BC, as the control group, explained by Dr. Sonia Pérez Rodríguez.
She added that the candidate vaccine Soberana 01 is administered in two doses: the first on what is designated “day zero,” and a second dose 28 days later. The study ends 28 days after the administration of the second dose, thus giving the investigation a duration of 59 days.
The purpose of this phase is to determine if the vaccine is safe, to then be able to extend the study to a larger group of volunteers, and subsequently the population.
“It is a preventative vaccine, and this first phase has but one protocol, to allow us to evaluate the security of the product. This means that we record everything that occurs with the volunteers. If the vaccine is shown to be safe, we will continue the investigation. By evaluating two doses of the product, as the study advances, the most effective and safest dose will be identified, and that will be the one we use in subsequent stages of the clinical trials,” Dr. Pérez added.
Soberana 01 is the world’s 30th candidate vaccine against COVID-19, and the first in Latin America and the Caribbean to receive authorization for clinical trials. The first phase of the study began on August 24, when the proposed vaccine was administered to 20 volunteers between the ages of 19 and 59.
Finlay Institute informs PAHO/WHO of progress on Cuban candidate vaccine
A productive online exchange on progress being made in developing a Cuban vaccine against COVID-19 took place recently between lead researchers at the Finlay Institute, representatives from the Pan American and World Health Organizations (PAHO/WHO), and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI).
Carlos Fidel Martín Rodríguez, director of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment’s International Economic Organizations department, reported the discussion on his Twitter account.
During the exchange, Vicente Vérez Bencomo, general director of the Finlay Institute, reported that trials of the candidate vaccine Soberana are revealing limited risks, raising few questions, and providing promising results in the pre-clinical phase currently underway, which began August 24 with administration of the vaccine to 20 persons between 19 and 59 years of age, and a week later, another 20 volunteers between the ages of 60 and 80.
All participants in the study, as a basic requirement, signed an informed consent agreement, and are in good health. Individuals with well-controlled chronic diseases were also included.
The second phase of the study is scheduled to begin October 30, with the incorporation of more volunteers to reach a total of 676 participants. Findings from the study are expected to be available in January of 2021, making certification of the Cuban candidate vaccine Soberana a process that will require several months.
The Balls in (Y)our Court:” Naomi Osaka and (Continued) Black Genocide
Osaka’s statement must be seen as part of a radical tradition too often redacted from sports history.
“Genocide creates the imperative for radical transformation, not social reform, and leaves people with no other choice but to dismantle the conditions that spawn it.”
It is easy to assume that sports activism is emerging from its nadir and undergoing a renaissance. From pro basketball to tennis, games and matches have been postponed. League and corporate-approved social justice slogans have taken the place of players’ surnames on game jerseys. Kneeling during the national anthem has become an acceptable nationalist posture. NASCAR has removed the confederate flag from its sanctioned events. And, the black power fist is easily and frequently spotted at many sporting events. It would seem that sports activism is emerging from a long yawn ready to do more than dribble, kick, hit, or swing, but also partake and give energy and significance to the protests for racial justice sweeping across the United States. One could conclude that the sports activists of today from the WNBA to the MLS are continuing the work of Paul Robeson, Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Muhammad Ali, Harry Edwards, and others by punctuating a need for change now. And yet, I beg to differ and not because most of what we are witnessing is performative or an example of “woke capitalism” where dissent is socially managed and commodified. Rather, because the sneaker scribbles, league approved social messages, and twitter rants often miss the conceptual analytical mark; that is, they simply reproduce and therefore fortify the common-sense liberal reproach for racial justice and racial equality. Put slightly differently, many of today’s athletes traffic in what the great Harry Edward’s calls “the race relations comfort zone.”
“They simply reproduce and therefore fortify the common-sense liberal reproach for racial justice and racial equality.”
However, all is not lost, for two-time tennis champion and former number one ranked tennis star, Naomi Osaka did something different. Following the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Oaska did what many athletes did and announced that she would forgo her Western & Southern semi-finals match and concede victory to her opponent (only to play and win a day later). But unlike her colleagues throughout the sporting world, Osaka did more than boycott and strike, rather she charged “genocide.” She declared that she was tired of “[w]atching the continued genocide of Black people at the hands of the police…” Osaka’s charge of genocide is historically and analytically significant.
First, to charge genocide is to recall when the great actor, activist, and athlete Paul Robeson along with William Patterson and other members of the Civil Rights Congress led a delegation to UN headquarters in New York on December 17, 1951 to deliver “We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petittion to the United Nations for Relief From a Crime of the United States Government Against the Negro People.” This petition, over 200-pages in length, documented the various forms of brutality, murder, and mayhem that Black people confronted in the first part of the 20th century in order to demonstrate that the government of the United States was in violation of the U.N. Genocide Convention. “We Charge Genocide” stated that “the oppressed Negro citizens of the United States, segregated, discriminated against, and long the target of violence, suffer from genocide as the result of the consistent, conscious, unified policies of every branch of government.” It charged that under Article II of the Convention, the United States failed to enforce its own Constitution and must be punished under international law for its genocidal acts against Black people.
“The petition documented the various forms of brutality, murder, and mayhem that Black people confronted in the first part of the 20th century.”
While nothing came of this petition from a juridical standpoint — seen as merely the work of black communist agitators — genocide as an analytical concept remained in critical circulation throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, Osaka’s statement must be seen as part of and as an extension of a radical tradition too often redacted from sports history, a writing of history too often enamored with integration and representation matters. But a tradition emergent from and constitutive of the Black Liberation Movement at large.
Second, and most importantly, Osaka’s charge of genocide has the potential to help people think beyond calls for equality, tolerance, and justice — dominant frames of the multiracial Left and the Black misleadership class. That is, genocide as a heuristic device affords us the analytical opportunity to think and act beyond what Tryon Woods has recently called in his seminal work Blackhood Against the Police Power the “justice contradiction.” Genocide is not conditional, but an ongoing process that is at once spectacular and unremarkable from a media standpoint. To charge genocide, is to understand the limitations in Milwaukee Bucks point guard George Hill exhausted refrain about being “tired of crooked a** cops.” For such a declaration presupposes that the police are typically good unless otherwise infected by the so-called disease of racism. Instead, genocide understands the spectacular violence of police shootings as a form of overdetermined regularity not unscrupulous illegality. To do anything less, dangerously distorts how we understand antiblackness in this world.
“Genocide understands the spectacular violence of police shootings as a form of overdetermined regularity not unscrupulous illegality.”
Osaka stated that before she is an athlete, she is first and foremost “a black woman.” This declaration would be surprising to the champions of identity politics, especially given that Osaka has affirmed in the recent past that she is both “Asian and black.” But Osaka’s black affirmation is about politics, not cultural identity. That is, to be black, as Harry Edwards has stated, is to adopt a political stance and outlook, to manifest a disposition to act and think in a particular way where freedom and liberation is the goal. To charge genocide is to think and act black without apprehension. Genocide creates the imperative for radical transformation, not social reform, and leaves people with no other choice but to dismantle the conditions that spawn it. Such is the imperative of freedom.
In the end, as Joy James avers, “the charge of genocide is a touchstone for allegiance or rebellion” and Naomi Osaka’s conceptual analysis, albeit brief and unfortunately lost in the morass of racial liberalism, reminds that it’s time to make a decision and do something beyond the dubious rallying cries of the liberal left. Intentional or not, Osaka’s charge is a sine qua non of correct political intervention.We charge genocide!
P. Khalil Saucier, is Director and Professor of Africana Studies, Bucknell University, pks008@bucknell.edu
When Great Britain’s leaders convened in court to end the slave “trade” in 1807, they began a journey toward the 1833 abolition, (leaving Africans tied to a 4 year unpaid internship and a long way from civil rights). Many a white abolitionist or philosopher made profound statements about the “rights of man” that were heralded as the “moral capital” of the British. Backs were patted that had never felt the weight of a whip.
This capital would later be leveraged to encourage Portugal, Spain, and France to follow suit, and end their own Transatlantic slave trade. The story of African emancipation hardly involves Africans at all. History books bloated with the importance of white men still leave many black people wincing. But what had changed for these white men? Why did centuries of slavery suddenly go out of fashion followed by little improvement to the rights of African people?
Well, most of the story is missing. Haiti had just been born in a ball of fire and blood. When the dust settled, the rewards of slavery were scarred by resistance and indisputable black strength. The British were not proactive, but reactive.
Saint-Domingue (Haiti) was the jewel of the French crown, the heartland of colonial sugar production. To run this operation Africans were imported in their millions. Over ¼ of the transatlantic slave trade was destined for the Caribbean Islands. Many of the people enslaved during this period were captured as adults so their culture, experience and the spirit of freedom travelled with them.
French rule in Saint-Domingue was therefore despicable. Any small resistance was punished with enough brutality to inspire bone shuddering terror. Long, slow, public executions were carried out often.
Africans would find relief by sneaking out into the forests at night to hold ritual gatherings. Around the circle stood diverse people from different regions, cultures and languages, all united. There, the people who had been the most deeply oppressed found a source of inner strength.
On one August night in 1791 the sugar fields were torched, mansions were stormed upon and 14 long years of slave led resistance began.
The French sent their armies and they were defeated. Hopeful to expand their territories the Spanish and British sent their armies too. They were all defeated repetitively. The new emperor Napoleon then devised a false partnership to deceive the rebels and captured their most honourable leader, Touissant L’ouverture. The revolution continued without him.
Then, in 1801, Napoleon Bonaparte set his sights on two conquests: Saint-Dominique and Spanish controlled Louisiana. Napoleon sent 50,000 troops to the Caribbean island and planned to send a smaller army of 20,000 to Louisiana (which was more than the entire American army at that time).
With Touissant L’ouverture locked away in France, Napoleon was convinced he would win, boldly stating “No more gilded Africans,” “enslave them all”. In two years the gilded Africans had won and (near to bankruptcy), Napoleon begrudgingly diverted the further 20,000 troops to Saint-Domingue where the slave rebellion defeated him yet again.
The Louisiana deal, a proud moment in Jefferson’s formation of the United States (and the claim to ¼ of modern USA) would not have happened if it weren’t for the African slave armies of Saint-Domingue stopping Napoleon’s attack. The US owes its own liberation to enslaved Africans. If only that gratitude could have been felt, American history might look very different.
In 1804 Saint-Domingue declared itself a sovereign state and the revolution ended. The ‘slave rebellion’ named itself Haiti. This was a word used to honour the native people. Oral histories suggested that this is what the Taino people had named the land before the Spanish arrived and slaughtered them.
So with a new name honouring a time before conquest and a noble constitution, Haiti broke the paradigm of African subordination. “There cannot exist slaves on this territory, servitude is therein forever abolished. All men are born, live and die free.”
Slave owners around the world were struck by fear for their lives. Refugees from the many years of fighting had dispersed around the Americas and took their stories with them. New slave insurrections started with increased ferocity and 3 years later Britain stopped the imports of slaves but not the practice of slavery. Perhaps this was in the hope that stories of revolution wouldn’t travel too.
In conclusion, it’s clear; people who shape history are not the ones who sit and pontificate in prestigious rooms. People shape history by turning their face toward the impossible when they decide that what’s possible is no longer good enough. We can all do this, every single day, and we must do it in our own lives, for our own world.
Whatever racial heritage we have, we must honour Haiti for redefining what’s possible and demonstrating the ferocious power of self-liberation. French troops kissed the soil of their revolutionary homeland goodbye just to arrive in a place where black people were singing the same songs of freedom. The many hypocrisies of Europeans sat with those poor individuals as they slowly succumbed to malaria.
What do you stand for? What will you stand up for? And how can you channel great courage in the name of freedom to improve your life? The deception runs deep but your power runs deeper.
Judge (L to R) Milton Ávila, Javier de la Cadena y José Leyera on Monday after resuming the appeals hearing for the Bribery 2012-2016 case in Quito, Ecuador. September 7, 2020. | Photo: EFE/Corte Nacional Justicia
The Ecuadorian National Court of Justice ratified in record time the sentence against former president Rafael Correa in an appeals court on Quito Monday afternoon.
Denouncing the bribery case as a setup, Correa, in an interview with Radio Majestad, said the judicial process was marred with several inconsistencies and irregularities, resulting in eight years in prison for aggravated bribery.
More importantly, the court officially annulled Correa’s vice-presidential candidacy on the Andres Arauz ticket, preventing the economist and former head of state from seeking elected political office for the same amount of time.
The verdict against Correa and his other 15 co-defendants, who requested the appeal, means that the Citizen Revolution and Union for Hope Coalition must decide on a substitute to occupy the vice-presidential candidacy.
With two judges in favor of the charges and one voting against them, the court broke record time in addressing the decision’s appeal, usually taking more than three months for a process of this magnitude.
While many constitutional scholars debate the possibility of Correa being barred from Ecuadorian public office for life due to this conviction, with a legal basis in the 2018 constitutional reforms, what is clear is the politicized and fraudulent nature of the ongoing judicial attack against Correa and his political movement.
Insisting there is no concrete evidence against him, Correa assured that he does not expect anything from the Ecuadorian justice system these days, adding “there may be honest judges, but in Ecuador’s current circumstances, heroic judges are needed.”
Over the next week, the convicted co-defendants will be able to request clarification about the sentence, which will then be carried out and remitted to the National Electoral Council (CNE), which then shall prohibit all, including Correa, from registering their candidacy for public office.
Thus far this year, 205 social leaders have been killed in this Latin American country.
Indigenous organizations Saturday denounced the murder of Juan Pablo Prado, a social leader who was killed in the Municipality of Tumaco, Nariño Department.
According to Colombia’s Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), the social leader was killed near the school where he worked on September 6 by unidentified men who shot him at least three times.
Francisco Cortez Guanga, governor of the Piguambí Palangana council said Prado had previously received death threats, and that he had been persecuted.
“He was killed near the school, in the place where he arrived to park his car. He received death threats before, and in recent days he was a victim of persecution,” Piguambi Palangana Council’s governor Francisco Cortez
“He supported the indigenous guard, he also supported various scenarios within the indigenous reservation. He was attentive to the mobilizations, he was a man who was fully involved in the dreams of the education of the AWA people and their reservation,” Cortez added.
Juan Pablo was originally from the Kokonuco Cauca community but arrived in the Awa Indigenous community various years ago to become a teacher. He first started out as a guide and a counselor for kids in the region.
So far this year, 14 members of this Indigenous Community have been murdered and 205 social leaders have been killed in Colombia.
An initial bold militant action fromElite sports personalities
This past week there was an extraordinary demonstration of bold militant action from professional athletes to speak out against police terror against the African masses. The National Basketball Association (NBA) called off its playoff games. Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Football League (NFL), Major League Soccer (MLS), individual tennis players, and even the National Hockey League (NHL) called off games, matches, and practices. As Sekou Ture told us years ago, these things happened because the athletes, being nothing more than conduits of the desires of the masses of people, felt compelled to act because the masses of people are acting. In other words, its pretty safe to say that if there were no mass demonstrations against police terror, the actions from the major sports leagues would never have happened.
And, those mass protests themselves always start out with a strong and uncompromising militancy. That spirit was felt at the 57 year commemoration of the original March on Washington held on August 28, 2020, just like it was felt at the first march in 1963. Despite the spreading of false narratives to define these protests as exercises in “rioting and looting,” by the capitalist system’s propaganda mechanisms, millions of people are apparently willing to openly support these protests. This is good because it proves that most people are refusing to accept the backward analysis that murdering protesters to protect property is OK, while damaging property to protest murder is an unforgivable act.
Carefully hidden moves taken whenever there is mass resistance to oppression
Still, there is a very insidious, almost invisible to the naked untrained eye, process taking place that always takes place whenever there is mass resistance to oppression. In the 1963 March on Washington, the spirit was one not very different than the spirit being articulated today. Two hundred and fifty thousand people descended upon D.C. in August 1963. Up until the Million Man March in 1995, that 1963 event was the largest ever held on the Washington D.C. Mall. People sold their belongings in 63 to get to that march. The reason they did this was because they had an uncompromising desire to see freedom resonate everywhere that we as human beings take breath. And, the original make up of the march was designed to ensure that mass militancy had voice. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had a very militant speech planned that contained clear references to the class question of “the haves and have nots” being the primary contradiction in perpetuating white supremacist policies and actions in this country. For any public speech, especially by an African organization, to express an open challenge to capitalism in 1963, during the height of the cold war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, was unthinkable. Yet, SNCC was prepared, as they always were, to step into that historic role. Writer James Baldwin was to be touted as one of the main speakers. And, calls from all over the country were being made louder and louder for the march to focus on challenging wealth disparities and a plan for the disruption of systemic white supremacy. This was in 1963. And, the question many will be asking is “if we were talking about the exact same things 60 years ago, why are we still talking about those same things today?”
A fundamentally sound response to that question can be found in looking at the role of the African bourgeoisie/petite-bourgeoisie. By Bourgeoisie we mean those class elements within the African community who serve as either the spokespersons for the capitalist ruling classes (bourgeoisie) and/or the classes of African people who serve as capitalist’s middle level managers (petite-bourgeoisie). These elements of African people benefit from aligning themselves politically with the capitalist system, but this system of class struggle is extremely complex. Its actually quite common for many of these bourgeoisie spokespersons, for example, to speak regularly about African upliftment, even to have programs allegedly committed to achieving this objective, while in actuality, their primary focus is on integrating as many of us into the system as possible. What doing this accomplishes is to preserve the sanctity and security of capitalism by eliminating militant action that would potentially threaten the ability of the capitalist system to continue to function unabated.
Weakening the resistance through the house slaves
For the 1963 March on Washington what happened is the Kennedy Administration, being the liberal voice for that branch of the capitalist bourgeoisie class, became increasingly concerned about the moderate elements of the march planning process losing control of the message. As a result, the administration scheduled a series of meetings with the national Black bourgeoisie civil rights leadership to “order” them to get the march under control. By national Black bourgeoisie leadership we mean Roy Wilkins, the then Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Whitney Young, the National Director of the National Urban League. (NUL). Although each organization, particularly the NAACP, have reputations for the local chapters being often much more militant than the national leadership, in the case of Wilkins and Young, neither ever saw a statement for African self-determination that they liked unless it was endorsed by the capitalist class leadership.
So Young and Wilkins led the charge, at the orders of their puppet masters, to strive towards influencing Dr. Martin Luther King and others to submit to changes in the march format designed to soften the message. By others, we mean primarily the so-called “big six” i.e. the leaders of the major civil rights movements of that time. Those six were Young (NUL), Wilkins (NAACP) King (Southern Christian Leadership Conference – SCLC), John Lewis (SNCC), A. Philip Randolph (several organizations over the years), and James Farmer (Congress of Racial Equality – CORE).
A number of meetings were held, some of which reportedly had participation from members of Kennedy’s administration. And, ultimately, the six leaders came to a point where several compromises were made. I say compromise because what we know is there was resistance offered against smashing the militancy of the people made by Lewis of SNCC and even King, but eventually, as the threat of sponsors pulling out and losing the support of the Kennedy administration, these reductions were accepted. As a result, those 250,000 never heard the militant message of challenging and potentially dismantling the capitalist system. Instead, they heard a vastly censored speech by Lewis that, despite the deep cuts to the spirit of his speech, ended up being by far the most militant statement of the day. James Baldwin, a person of integrity who would never accept censorship of what he wanted and needed to say, was removed from the program at the direct request of the Kennedy administration. He was replaced by the moderate put you to the sleep speech given by actor Burt Lancaster. And, today, what is most remembered about a day originally designed to showcase the determination of a quarter of a million people to express the demand from the masses for a complete overhaul of this backward system, is a tame speech by Dr. King i.e. “I have a Dream!” For anyone who actually studies Dr. King, and by study I mean reading his books and studying his work in the SCLC, you know that speech was easily one of his lightest.
Yet today in 2020 and beyond, that speech King delivered has been paraded in front of us for the last almost 60 years as the groundbreaking statement of the civil rights movement. Countless multi-national corporations will include portions of that speech in their advertisements. And, today, people who 100% opposed everything King stood for during and after his lifetime, readily mischaracterize his words and actions to serve their anti-people agendas. And, central to their ability to accomplish this is us understanding the role these Black bourgeoisie like Young and Wilkins played then, and continue to play today, in selling out the militant and justified aspirations of the people.
The prince of Black bourgeoisie politics – Barack Obama
And, those NBA players, who came very close to voting to cancel the entire rest of their season, something that would have been an overwhelmingly powerful act, instead will presumably resume playing this weekend or soon. And apparently it was that prince of Black bourgeoisie politics – Barack Obama – who helped convince these NBA players such as LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, etc., to return to the court. So, thanks to Obama’s influence, instead of a militant direct action, what we are left with is NBA arenas being set up as voting centers. Centers that give us the option of choosing an ignorant fascist or a neo-liberal. Centers that ask us to accept that a former prosecutor, who has played a hand in incarcerating countless numbers of African and other poor people, is now going to do something to bring us closure to police terrorism against us. Maybe those people believe locking us up is progress beyond just killing us on the street?
The original comment in this piece about the Black bourgeoisie is that their primary loyalty is, and will always be, to the capitalist system. Their job is to continue to convince us that the only problem we have is that we just have not worked hard enough, or even received enough support and incentives, to properly integrate ourselves into the capitalist system. As a result, the Black bourgeoisie preside over programs and actions designed to further facilitate us putting into place mechanisms to supposedly quicken our capacity to just buy that piece of capitalism that has eluded us for 500+ years. From Young and Wilkins to Obama, the snake oil being sold to us is that our acceptance and ability to function effectively in capitalism is just around the corner. That same corner we have been turning for centuries. They are the rabbit in front of the dog racers. And, they will never entertain the reality that all the wealth here exists on stolen land with stolen resources, meaning even the few of us who will advance on personal levels through this system still do so while stepping on the necks of African people in other parts of the world. This Black bourgeoisie is trained well enough by this system to understand that in squashing our militant spirit, they will effectively wipe out our continued political maturation, thus eliminating any chances of us stumbling towards the type of international analysis of imperialism just mentioned.
Watered-down resistance
After months of militant protests, what we are primarily left with today is reliance on the bourgeoisie neo-liberal Democratic Party of mass incarcerators and international terrorists. And, this is supposed to be the platform that will bring us forward progress? And, for the most part, the only rationale being offered for why we should support this sham is to prevent a fascist from remaining in office. From a dialectical analysis, it can easily be argued that we would not have this level of political unsettledness if the current fascist was not where he is. People would not be seeing these contradictions at all if smooth Obama was still there, despite the fact police weren’t murdering any less of us during the Obama years. Kwame Ture’s statement that true liberation only happens through “the power of the organized masses” is ill refutable. We have to get people to see that freedom is not like Uber Eats. It cannot be delivered to you. To achieve it, you have to be engaged in that process. It won’t happen until you happen. Until we can get people to recognize that reality, the Black Bourgeoisie, including the next generation of them after Obama, will continue to derail us with their empty promises of inclusion, all while they make sure to play their house slave role in ensuring that the rebellious slaves remained contained on the plantation.
JSC: Jamaicans in Solidarity with Cuba 