Black Alliance for Peace Demands of Candidate and Elected Officials

Source: Black Agenda Report

October 22 2020

by Glen Ford

Black Alliance for Peace Demands of Candidate and Elected Officials

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has determined climate change and the interlocking issues of war, militarism, and the now-normalized and still illegal U.S. interventionism pose the greatest threats to humanity.

That is why we have launched a campaign demanding all 2020 candidates for local, state and federal offices in the United States take a position on U.S. interventionism (read our official statement ).

BAP’s campaign has been making the connection between U.S. foreign interventions and the domestic war on African people and other oppressed groups (see No Compromise, No Retreat: Defeat the War Against African/Black People in the U.S. and Abroad ).

DEMAND ALL 2020 CANDIDATES TAKE A STAND AGAINST WAR, MILITARISM AND REPRESSION

ALL CANDIDATES AND ELECTED OFFICIALS MUST:

• Oppose the militarization of U.S. police through the Department of Defense’s 1033 program
• Oppose Israeli training of U.S. police forces
• Call for and work for the closure of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)
• Advocate for the closure of 800+ U.S. foreign military bases
• Oppose Trump’s “Operation Relentless Pursuit”
• Commit to opposing all military, economic (including sanctions and blockades) and political interventions 
• Advocate for an end to U.S. participation in NATO
• Support efforts to cut the U.S. military budget by 50%
• Demand the U.S. Department of Justice document and investigate the use of lethal force by domestic police officers
• Commit to passing resolutions that commit the U.S. to uphold international law and the U.N. Charter
• Sponsor legislation and/or resolutions to support the U.N. resolution on the complete global abolition of nuclear weapons
• See our social media campaign @blackallianceforpeace  on Instagram.
• Please encourage organizations you work with to endorse the pledge at BlackAllianceforPeace.com/candidate . There, orgs and individuals can also download and distribute the candidate pledge.
• To help you mobilize any organizations you are involved with, find the campaign social media resources, an example email, and the candidate pledge attached below. Please share our 2020 Candidate Accountability Pledge with any aligned organizations or individuals to demand that our representatives oppose global militarism, imperialism and repression and tag us in any photos you share!

Black Is Back Coalition National Black Political Agenda for Self-determination

19 Points

1. Black Women. With this National Black Political Agenda for Self-determination, the entire black or African nation declares our commitment to facilitate the elevation of African women to full, equal partnership in our struggle to create a new world of freedom and socialist democracy for a united black community and a world shorn forever of bosses and workers and slaves and masters and where African women will share the power to guarantee that African women are adequately empowered as equal architects of our new world.
2. The Black Family. We demand an immediate halt to attacks on the Black family, a genocidal campaign rooted in the Atlantic Slave Trade and embedded in U.S. public and private policy. The United States has waged ceaseless war on the Black family: from the slaveholder that sold Africans as units of private property with no claims to family ties that he was bound to respect; to the denial of adult Black people the human right to protect our families. To the deliberate exclusion of heads of Black households from employment sufficient to provide for our families’ needs. To the systemic undermining of Black family structures through public “welfare” programs, such as the foster care system, in which Black children are disproportionately taken away from families and in which parental rights are being stripped from Black parents at an alarming rate. To the criminalization of all Black adults and children by the current mass Black incarceration regime. These intentionally-inflicted harms can only be repaired through the achievement of Black self-determination.
3. Black Community Control Of The Police. We demand the immediate withdrawal of all domestic military occupation forces from Black communities. This democratic demand assumes the ability of Black people to mobilize for our own security and to redefine the role of the police so that it no longer functions as an agency imposed on us from the outside.
4. Free All Political Prisoners. This includes “politicized” prisoners who may have originally been imprisoned for non-political reasons, but whose achieved political consciousness after imprisonment resulted in political acts or statements that were punished by specialized treatment and, sometimes, additional prison time. The definition of political prisoners is also extended to all those activists and militants who have been detained, or arrested during the most recent wave or resistance in places like Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore, Maryland; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We reject the authority of the U.S. State to imprison persons whose imprisonment is rooted in their defense of Black people’s democratic and self-determination rights. Black people ourselves have the right and responsibility to designate those individuals and categories of prisoners to be immediately released from U.S. confinement and control.
5. Roll Back and End Mass Black Incarceration. The U.S. mass Black incarceration regime is designed to contain, terrorize and criminalize an entire people, with the result that one out of eight prison inmates on the planet is a Black person in the U.S. As a minimal demand, every U.S. incarcerating authority must take immediate steps to roll back the national prison and jail population to 1972 levels, resulting in the release of four out of five current inmates in a process overseen by representatives of the imprisoned peoples’ communities––primarily people of color. As a maximum demand, all Africans must be immediately released from U.S. prisons and jails and our community given the democratic right to determine their fate.
6. Reparations. We demand reparations consistent with international norms regarding redress for crimes against humanity. This includes the enslavement, colonialism and apartheid from which we suffer up to today. The totality of the repair, according to international law, must include policies, programs and projects that cease ongoing racial crimes; offer restitution and return us to wholeness; provide compensation that allows for a quality standard of life as well as individual and collective wealth creation; ensure satisfaction that returns our dignity and achieves rehabilitation for the heart, mind, body and spirit injuries resulting from the centuries of trauma and abuse.
7. Self-defense. We declare our human right to armed self-defense from the violent attacks by white citizens and the assaults and murders by the domestic military occupation forces that include various police organizations. We fully recognize that in a struggle for self-determination any act of resistance by the oppressed is an act of self-defense.
8. Nationalize the Banks And End Forever The Rule Of Capital, which has been central to the enslavement, extermination, colonization and denial of self-determination to peoples, worldwide. The process must begin with creation of a National Development Bank as the primary engine of commerce and development, and a Black-directed public bank to finance developmental paths chosen by Black communities.
9. Full Employment and A National Minimum Income. We demand that the U.S. government ensure the provision of living wage jobs for all, and a guaranteed minimum income sufficient to support a life with dignity for every household and individual. This goal is immediately achievable and is intended not only to totally eliminate poverty––beginning with historically super-exploited and deprived communities––but to provide families and individuals with the resources and free time to fully contribute to our community’s social, cultural, economic and political development. This minimum demand for full employment and a national minimum income is not a concession to the existing system of capitalist economic domination, it is not an assumption of the permanence of the worker-boss relationship that helps to define capitalist exploitation. Our ultimate aim continues to be total black self-determination and socialist democracy that empowers the workers at the expense of the capitalist class.
10. Right to Housing that is safe, secure, habitable and affordable, with freedom from forced eviction and the process of red lining, traditionally used to deny housing to black people. In addition, we demand reparations for the loss of billions of dollars in Black wealth due to home foreclosures stemming from the U.S. government-supported subprime mortgage scam. Just as the financial institutions that perpetrated the scam were rescued through the massive infusion of federal dollars, so too must the victims of this crime be made whole through a reparations process overseen by representatives of the families and communities that were most grievously harmed.
11. Halt Gentrification through the empowerment, stabilization and restoration of traditional Black neighborhoods. Black people have the right to develop, plan and preserve our own communities. No project shall be considered “development” that does not serve the interests of the impacted population, nor should any people-displacing or otherwise disruptive project be allowed to proceed without the permission of that population. Peoples that have been displaced from our communities by public or private development schemes have the right to return to our communities, from New Orleans to Harlem.
12. Black Business Must Be Nurtured by public development banks and protected from strangulation by corporate chains and monopolies. Black community planning agencies must protect and give preferential access to local entrepreneurs and cooperatives willing to operate in harmony with the community’s developmental plans, with a special emphasis on agriculture. Accordingly, we demand immediate reparations for Black farmers and an end to the land theft and discriminatory laws and practices used against Black farmers in the U.S.
13. Right To Free Education Through Post-graduate Level. Public schools must meet the highest standards of excellence, under the supervision of educational boards directly elected by the communities they serve. We oppose both for-profit schooling and philosophies of teaching that put profit over human development, and we support democratic educational values and strategies that empower students and their communities to determine their own destinies. In the immediate term, Black people in the U.S. need education that facilitates our liberation from white supremacy and corporate hegemony.
14. Free, Universal, Quality Healthcare For All by a public system that serves the health needs of entire communities, as well as individuals. Given that group health outcomes are closely linked to group political and economic status, past and present, a universal healthcare policy must provide both equal care to all, regardless of social and financial circumstances, and restorative care to historically oppressed communities, which require political self-determination to achieve social and biological wellness.
15. Voting Rights. We believe the right to vote, to effectively express a preference for political candidates, parties or social policies, is an inalienable right, the deprival of which results in a kind of social death. In this sense, the vote belongs to communities and peoples, as much as to individuals. Therefore, in addition to an irrevocable right to vote, we demand the use of proportional representation voting systems that more effectively reflect Black people’s political aspirations and opinion. Winner-takes-all voting, as practiced in the U.S., is inherently undemocratic and incompatible with Black people’s right to self-determination.
16. U.S. Out of Africa, Asia And Latin America, where U.S. imperialism and support for European colonialism has caused tens of millions of deaths and vast social and physical destruction. In addition to U.S. military withdrawal to within its own currently-recognized borders, we demand an end to U.S. proxy wars, drone attacks and political subversion of governments and people’s movements around the globe. Given that the U.S. was the first nuclear power, is the only country to have used nuclear weapons, and has never renounced First Strike, we demand U.S. nuclear disarmament without preconditions––unilaterally, if necessary.
17. The West Must Pay Its Debt To Africa and Its Descendants Africa and the rest of the colonized world owes nothing to European and U.S. governments or financial institutions. Rather, reparations should be flowing in the other direction as payback for half a millennium of slavery, colonialism and imperialist underdevelopment. We reject the suggestion that debt “forgiveness” or “relief” should be considered as reparations. We demand the U.S. immediately drop all debt claims against the formerly-colonized regions of Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific, and begin negotiations for restitution to those countries.
18. Free Palestine, Down With Israeli Apartheid. We demand recognition of all rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to an independent, sovereign Palestinian State and the right to return for all Palestinian refugees. The U.S. must immediately end all monetary aid, trade relationships and military cooperation with the Apartheid Zionist State of Israel, until that uniquely barbaric affront to human civilization is dismantled and abolished.
19. Climate Change and Toxic Pollution Created By Capitalism Must End. We demand that the capitalist countries take responsibility for the destruction of the environment through policies based on the parasitic profit motive. We recognize that capitalist-induced climate change for our brothers and sisters on the continent of Africa is a matter of life and death due to the resulting drought, death, famine and starvation. We recognize that capitalist pollution and toxic waste dumps in Africa as well as in our communities throughout the U.S. endangers the health of African people everywhere. We recognize that the same system that built itself through colonial occupation, genocide and enslavement has no regard for the safety of the planet and the health of our communities.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .

See Full article here

Build a Garveyite Political Party in Jamaica. Start Now!

August 17 2020

By Al Gray

If Marcus Garvey’s spirit passed through Jamaica today, still with his inexhaustible energy, passion and vision for the unity of all Africans at home and abroad, and for the establishment of a United States of Africa, what would he be saying to us?

No one can be sure but here are my thoughts.  First, he would be asking those who have withdrawn from this national election process: where is your party? where is the party with the red, black and green flag, with the programme to teach (or hopefully continue teaching) the youth about their roots in the great civilizations of Africa like Songhai and Mali?  Where are our strong non-exploitative business and cultural links to organizations in Africa?  What about the Black Star Line?  True, I was sabotaged but the vision was correct.  What have you done to establish a Black Star Line 2?

What are you doing to stand up with the African brothers in the US who are being slaughtered like chickens and whose consciousness as a dignified race and people is now beginning to re-emerge?  We, Jamaicans, have always been at the forefront of African consciousness.  What specifically are we doing to continue this great legacy?  Are you in touch with the Black is Back Coalition in the USA?  Look beyond your borders to express and receive solidarity.

Related: 10 Quotes from Marcus Garvey

Why don’t we see vibrant UNIA organizations in all communities’ island-wide, linked through businesses, schools and cultural activities?

Why are our universities, the centres of education for those who are usually among the most progressive in our society, the youth, why are they so backward in this regard?  Why, since Michael Manley dared revive our slogan of self-reliance, despite the might of US imperialism, why have we seemingly reversed his slogan to “backward ever, forward never”?  What are you teaching our youth about the need to change this society to work in the interest of people of African descent?

Have the two traditional parties united or divided the people?  Have they contributed to the legacy of brutal warfare of brother African against brother African?  If so, what is on your agenda to wipe this remnant of mental slavery from the face of our country?

Related:  Ghana President Nana Akufo Addo Speech on 100 Anniversary of UNIA

Or, are we still a colony just dressed up differently with the new colonizers working behind the scenes – divide and rule?  Why are we still looking to the IMF, the World Bank, USAID, and the agencies that everyone knows operates as an instrument of the imperialists?

We need a new vibrant party, no matter how long it takes and no matter how many challenges internally and externally that are placed in the way.  There are enough people who are not involved in the present political parties, at home and abroad, who can be brought together under the umbrella of the red, black and green flag. The two-party system took many countries to so-called political independence, but life has shown us that they cannot go any further.  A different kind of party is needed for economic and cultural liberation. Parties that are linked across geographical borders.

Brothers and sisters, he might say, its time, in fact way past time, to look within your class, within your communities for leaders, those who will unite the hundreds of thousands who dominate the ranks of the poorer class.  It is time to look for those among yourselves who have the courage, and who cannot be swayed by money and other forms of bribery.  it can be done; it has been done.  Toussaint and the heroic Haitian people did it in 1804‼!.  Bolivar and the heroic Latin American people did it shortly after; Fidel, Che and the heroic Cubans did it.  It is time for Jamaicans to show that our greatness is not just in music and athleticism, we are the sons of Nanny, Tacky and Sam Sharpe.  Parliamentary “democracy’ is a scam, we all know that it has kept us in- dependence on the imperial powers.

Related:  Marcus Garvey’s Glowing Praise of Lenin

As we celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of the Negro People’s of the World, let us rekindle the spirit of Marcus Garvey and target having a vibrant UNIA branch in every community in Jamaica in the next decade, as we lay the foundation for a new Garveyite party or the strengthening of any that now exists.  Do not wait on anyone, start now and make this a lifelong task‼!

One aim, one love, one destiny

Al Gray is a retired Jamaican living in the USA. He can be reached at greyal2@yahoo.com

Defending our political prisoners – say their names while they are alive

Source:  Youtube.com

Say Political Prisoners’ Names While They Are Still Alive.  Glen Ford

Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) member, Black Is Back Coalition Steering Committee member and Black Agenda Report Executive Editor Glen Ford discussed during the Black Is Back Coalition national conference held August 15-16, 2020, why it is so important to defend our political prisoners. This talk comes amid the 41st Black August. Watch Day 1 of the conference: https://www.facebook.com/bibcoalition…

Watch Day 2 of the conference: https://www.facebook.com/bibcoalition…

Learn more about BAP: https://www.blackallianceforpeace.com

#NoCompromiseNoRetreat #BlackAugust

Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World

Source:  UNIA-aclgovernment.com

August 13, 2020

100^th Anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World

 

Preamble

Be It Resolved That the Negro people of the world, through their chosen representatives in convention assembled in Liberty Hall, in the City of New York and United States of America, from August 1 to August 31, in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty, protest against the wrongs and injustices they are suffering at the hands of their white brethren, and state what they deem their fair and just rights, as well as the treatment they propose to demand of all men in the future.

We complain:

1. That nowhere in the world, with few exceptions, are Black men accorded equal treatment with white men, although in the same situation and circumstances, but, on the contrary, are discriminated against and denied the common rights due to human beings for no other reason than their race and color. We are not willingly accepted as guests in the public hotels and inns of the world for no other reason than our race and color.
2. In certain parts of the United States of America our race is denied the right of public trial accorded to other races when accused of crime, but are lynched and burned by mobs, and such brutal and inhuman treatment is even practiced upon our women.
3. That European nations have parceled out among them and taken possession of nearly all of the continent of Africa, and the natives are compelled to surrender their lands to aliens and are treated in most instances like slaves.
4. In the southern portion of the United States of America, although citizens under the Federal Constitution, and in some States almost equal to the whites in population and are qualified land owners and taxpayers, we are, nevertheless, denied all voice in the making and administration of the laws and are taxed without representation by the State governments, and at the same time compelled to do military service in defense of the country.
5. On the public conveyances and common carriers in the southern portion of the United States we are Jim-crowed and compelled to accept separate and inferior accommodations and made to pay the same fare charged for first-class accommodations, and our families are often humiliated and insulted by drunken white men who habitually pass through the Jim-crow cars going to the smoking car.
6. The physicians of our race are denied the right to attend their patients while in the public hospitals of the cities and States where they reside in certain parts of the United States. Our children are forced to attend inferior separate schools for shorter terms than white children and the public school funds are unequally divided between the white and colored schools.
7. We are discriminated against and denied an equal chance to earn wages for the support of our families, and in many instances are refused admission into labor unions and nearly everywhere are paid smaller wages than white men.
8. In the Civil Service and departmental offices we are everywhere discriminated against and made to feel that to be a black man in Europe, America and the West Indies is equivalent to being an outcast and a leper among the races of men, no matter what the character attainments of the black men may be.
9. In the British and other West Indian islands and colonies Negroes are secretly and cunningly discriminated against and denied those fuller rights of government to which white citizens are appointed, nominated and elected.
10. That our people in those parts are forced to work for lower wages than the average standard of white men and are kept in conditions repugnant to good civilized tastes and customs.
11. That the many acts of injustices against members of our race before the courts of law in the respective islands and colonies are of such nature as to create disgust and disrespect for the white man’s sense of justice.
12. Against all such inhuman, unchristian and uncivilized treatment we here and now emphatically protest, and invoke the condemnation of all mankind. In order to encourage our race all over the world and to stimulate it to overcome the handicaps and difficulties surrounding it, and to push forward to a higher and grander destiny, we demand and insist on the following Declaration of Rights:  Be it known to all men that whereas all men are created equal and entitled to the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and because of this we, the duly elected representatives of the Negro peoples of the world, invoking the aid of the just and Almighty God, do declare all men, women and children of our blood throughout the world free denizens, and do claim them as free citizens of Africa, the Motherland of all Negroes  2. That we believe in the supreme authority of our race in all things racial; that all things are created and given to man as a common possession; that there should be an equitable distribution and apportionment of all such things, and in consideration of the fact that as a race we are now deprived of those things that are morally and legally ours, we believed it right that all such things should be acquired and held by whatsoever means possible.  3. That we believe the Negro, like any other race, should be governed by the ethics of civilization, and therefore should not be deprived of any of those rights or privileges common to other human beings.  4. We declare that Negroes, wheresoever they form a community among themselves should be given the right to elect their own representatives to represent them in Legislatures, courts of law, or such institutions as may exercise control over that particular community.  5. We assert that the Negro is entitled to even-handed justice before all courts of law and equity in whatever country he may be found, and when this is denied him on account of his race or color such denial is an insult to the race as a whole and should be resented by the entire body of Negroes.
13. We declare it unfair and prejudicial to the rights of Negroes in communities where they exist in considerable numbers to be tried by a judge and jury composed entirely of an alien race, but in all such cases members of our race are entitled to representation on the jury.
14. We believe that any law or practice that tends to deprive any African of his land or the privileges of free citizenship within his country is unjust and immoral, and no native should respect any such law or practice.
15. We declare taxation without representation unjust and tyrannous, and there should be no obligation on the part of the Negro to obey the levy of a tax by any law-making body from which he is excluded and denied representation on account of his race and color.
16. We believe that any law especially directed against the Negro to his detriment and singling him out because of his race or color is unfair and immoral, and should not be respected.
17. We believe all men entitled to common human respect and that our race should in no way tolerate any insults that may be interpreted to mean disrespect to our race or color.
18. We deprecate the use of the term “nigger” as applied to Negroes, and demand that the word “Negro” be written with a capital “N.”
19. We believe that the Negro should adopt every means to protect himself against barbarous practices inflicted upon him because of color.
20. We believe in the freedom of Africa for the Negro people of the world, and by the principle of Europe for the Europeans and Asia for the Asiatics, we also demand Africa for the Africans at home and abroad.
21. We believe in the inherent right of the Negro to possess himself of Africa and that his possession of same shall not be regarded as an infringement of any claim or purchase made by any race or nation.
22. We strongly condemn the cupidity of those nations of the world who, by open aggression or secret schemes, have seized the territories and inexhaustible natural wealth of Africa, and we place on record our most solemn determination to reclaim the treasures and possession of the vast continent of our forefathers.
23. We believe all men should live in peace one with the other, but when races and nations provoke the ire of other races and nations by attempting to infringe upon their rights[,] war becomes inevitable, and the attempt in any way to free one’s self or protect one’s rights or heritage becomes justifiable.
24. Whereas the lynching, by burning, hanging or any other means, of human beings is a barbarous practice and a shame and disgrace to civilization, we therefore declare any country guilty of such atrocities outside the pale of civilization.
25. We protest against the atrocious crime of whipping, flogging and overworking of the native tribes of Africa and Negroes everywhere. These are methods that should be abolished and all means should be taken to prevent a continuance of such brutal practices.
26. We protest against the atrocious practice of shaving the heads of Africans, especially of African women or individuals of Negro blood, when placed in prison as a punishment for crime by an alien race.
27. We protest against segregated districts, separate public conveyances, industrial discrimination, lynchings and limitations of political privileges of any Negro citizen in any part of the world on account of race, color or creed, and will exert our full influence and power against all such.
28. We protest against any punishment inflicted upon a Negro with severity, as against lighter punishment inflicted upon another of an alien race for like offense, as an act of prejudice and injustice, and should be resented by the entire race.
29. We protest against the system of education in any country where Negroes are denied the same privileges and advantages as other races.
30. We declare it inhuman and unfair to boycott Negroes from industries and labor in any part of the world.
31. We believe in the doctrine of the freedom of the press, and we therefore emphatically protest against the suppression of Negro newspapers and periodicals in various parts of the world, and call upon Negroes everywhere to employ all available means to prevent such suppression.
32. We further demand free speech universally for all men.
33. We hereby protest against the publication of scandalous and inflammatory articles by an alien press tending to create racial strife and the exhibition of picture films showing the Negro as a cannibal.
34. We believe in the self-determination of all peoples.
35. We declare for the freedom of religious worship.
36. With the help of Almighty God we declare ourselves the sworn protectors of the honor and virtue of our women and children, and pledge our lives for their protection and defense everywhere and under all circumstances from wrongs and outrages.
37. We demand the right of an unlimited and unprejudiced education for ourselves and our posterity forever.
38. We declare that the teaching in any school by alien teachers to our boys and girls, that the alien race is superior to the Negro race, is an insult to the Negro people of the world.
39. Where Negroes form a part of the citizenry of any country, and pass the civil service examination of such country, we declare them entitled to the same consideration as other citizens as to appointments in such civil service.
40. We vigorously protest against the increasingly unfair and unjust treatment accorded Negro travelers on land and sea by the agents and employee of railroad and steamship companies, and insist that for equal fare we receive equal privileges with travelers of other races.
41. We declare it unjust for any country, state or nation to enact laws tending to hinder and obstruct the free immigration of Negroes on account of their race and color.
42. That the right of the Negro to travel unmolested throughout the world be not abridged by any person or persons, and all Negroes are called upon to give aid to a fellow Negro when thus molested.
43. We declare that all Negroes are entitled to the same right to travel over the world as other men.
44. We hereby demand that the governments of the world recognize our leader and his representatives chosen by the race to look after the welfare of our people under such governments.
45. We demand complete control of our social institutions without interference by any alien race or races.
46. That the colors, Red, Black and Green, be the colors of the Negro race.
47. Resolved That the anthem “Ethiopia, Thou Land of Our Fathers etc.,” shall be the anthem of the Negro race. . . .
48. We believe that any limited liberty which deprives one of the complete rights and prerogatives of full citizenship is but a modified form of slavery.
49. We declare it an injustice to our people and a serious Impediment to the health of the race to deny to competent licensed Negro physicians the right to practice in the public hospitals of the communities in which they reside, for no other reason than their race and color.
50. We call upon the various government[s] of the world to accept and acknowledge Negro representatives who shall be sent to the said governments to represent the general welfare of the Negro peoples of the world.
51. We deplore and protest against the practice of confining juvenile prisoners in prisons with adults, and we recommend that such youthful prisoners be taught gainful trades under humane supervision.
52. Be it further resolved, That we as a race of people declare the League of Nations null and void as far as the Negro is concerned, in that it seeks to deprive Negroes of their liberty.
53. We demand of all men to do unto us as we would do unto them, in the name of justice; and we cheerfully accord to all men all the rights we claim herein for ourselves.
54. We declare that no Negro shall engage himself in battle for an alien race without first obtaining the consent of the leader of the Negro people of the world, except in a matter of national self-defense.
55. We protest against the practice of drafting Negroes and sending them to war with alien forces without proper training, and demand in all cases that Negro soldiers be given the same training as the aliens.
56. We demand that instructions given Negro children in schools include the subject of “Negro History,” to their benefit.
57. We demand a free and unfettered commercial intercourse with all the Negro people of the world.
58. We declare for the absolute freedom of the seas for all peoples.
59. We demand that our duly accredited representatives be given proper recognition in all leagues, conferences, conventions or courts of international arbitration wherever human rights are discussed.
60. We proclaim the 31st day of August of each year to be an international holiday to be observed by all Negroes.
61. We want all men to know that we shall maintain and contend for the freedom and equality of every man, woman and child of our race, with our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. These rights we believe to be justly ours and proper for the protection of the Negro race at large, and because of this belief we, on behalf of the four hundred million Negroes of the world, do pledge herein the sacred blood of the race in defense, and we hereby subscribe our names as a guarantee of the truthfulness and faithfulness hereof, in the presence of Almighty God, on this 13th day of August, in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty.

Marcus Garvey, James D. Brooks, James W. H. Eason, Henrietta Vinton Davis, Lionel Winston Greenidge, Adrion Fitzroy Johnson, Rudolph Ethelbert Brissaac Smith, Charles Augustus Petioni, Thomas H. N. Simon, Richard Hilton Tobitt, George Alexander NcGuire, Peter Edward Baston, Reynold R. Felix, Harry Walters Kirby, Sarah Branch, Marie Barrier Houston, George L. O’Brien, F.O. Ogilvie, Arden A. Bryan, Benjamin Dyett, Marie Duchaterlier, John Phillip Hodge, Theophilus H. Saunders, Wilford H. Smith, Gabriel E. Stewart, Arnold Josiah Ford, Lee Crawford, William McCartney, Adina Clem. James, William Musgrave La Motte, John Sydney de Bourg, Arnold S. Cunning, Vernal J. Williams, Frances Wilcome Ellegor, J. Frederick Selkridge, Innis Abel Horsford, Cyril A. Crichlow, Samuel McIntyre, John Thomas Wilkins, Mary Thurston, John G. Befue, William Ware, J. A. Lewis, O. C. Thurston, Venture R. Hamilton, R.H. Hodge, Edward Alfred Taylor, Ellen Wilson, G.W. Wilson, Richard Edward Riley, Nellie Grant Whiting, G. W. Washington, Maldena Miller, Gertrude Davis, James D. Williams, Emily Christmas Kinch, D. D. Lewis, Nettie Clayton, Partheria Hills, Janie Jenkins, John C. Simons, Alphonso A. Jones, Allen Hobbs, Reynold Fitzgerald Austin, James Benjamin Yearwood, Frank O. Raines, Shedrick Williams, John Edward Ivey, Frederick August Toote, Philip Hemmings, F. F. Smith, E. J. Jones, Joseph Josiah Cranston, Frederick Samuel Ricketts, Dugald Augustus Wade, E. E Nelom, Florida Jenkins, Napoleon J. Francis, Joseph D Gibson, J. P. Jasper, J. W. Montgomery, David Benjamin, J. Gordon, Harry E. Ford, Carrie M. Ashford, Andrew N. Willis, Lucy Sands, Louise Woodson, George D. Creese, W. A. Wallace, Thomas E. Bagley, James Young, Prince Alfred McConney, John E. Hudson, William Ines, Harry R. Watkins, C.L. Halton, J. T. Bailey, Ira Joseph Touissant Wright, T. H. Golden, Abraham Benjamin Thomas, Richard C. Noble, Walter Green, C. S. Bourne, G. F. Bennett, B. D. Levy, Mary E. Johnson, Lionel Antonio Francis, Carl Roper, E. R. Donawa, Philip Van Putten, I. Brathwaite, Jesse W. Luck, Oliver kaye, J. W. Hudspeth, C. B. Lovell, William C. Matthews, A. Williams, Ratford E. M. Jack, H. Vinton Plummer, Randolph Phillips, A. I. Bailey, duly elected representatives of the Negro people of the world.

Reneging on George Floyd Promises: The Minneapolis Police Name-Change Con

August 13 2020
Source:  Black Agenda Report

Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor

 

Reneging on George Floyd Promises: The Minneapolis Police Name-Change Con

When Black Lives Matter chapters demand “abolition” and “defunding” of the police, rather than community control of the cops, they play into the hands of charlatans and misleaders on city councils and in the halls of Congress.

“The proposed charter amendment was at best a symbolic gesture and at worst lessened police accountability for past and future crimes.”

At the height of the Minneapolis rebellion a majority of the city council announced they would move towards “disbanding” their police force, in response to Black Lives Matter “abolition” demands. It turned out that what the councilpersons were actually proposing was a name change, retaining a force of armed cops in a new “Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention” with a “holistic, public health-oriented” mission. But even this palliative was too much for the Minneapolis Charter Commission, which voted to delay  putting the police reorganization question on the November ballot, effectively killing the measure. The city is currently required to maintain a set ratio in the number of cops per resident.

The Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar  (TCC4J), which was formed in the wake of the police killing of Jamar Clark in 2015, never bought into the city council’s name-change game. “The proposed charter amendment was at best a symbolic gesture and at worst lessened police accountability for past and future crimes,” the TCC4J’s Jae Yates told a press conference . “In opposition to the charter amendment, TCC4J instead demands community control of police [CPAC], which will meaningfully curtail the as of yet unchecked power of the MPD to terrorize Black, brown and low income communities. The CPAC legislation puts all oversight of police misconduct back into the hands of the communities that are being policed and provides continuous engagement for community members to address grievances. CPAC consists of a directly-elected all-civilian council, and has final authority over discipline, up to and including subpoena power and the convening of grand juries. In short, the CPAC legislation has all of the details that the city council’s proposal lacked.”

“Community control of police will meaningfully curtail the as of yet unchecked power of the MPD.”

The Minneapolis coalition was among the 800 activists that gathered in Chicago last year to organize a nationwide campaign for community control of the police, under the umbrella of a relaunched National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression . Nineteen of Chicago’s 50-member board of aldermen have endorsed legislation to create a Civilian Police Accountability Commission (CPAC). “Nothing short of CPAC is what we need and demand,” said Minneapolis organizer Daphne Brown at last week’s press conference.  “We don’t want no Community Safety and Violence Prevention Department! Council members, mayor and government in city hall, we don’t want that piece of shit y’all trying to give us. We do not want it. We want what we demand, which is CPAC. That’s the only thing that’s gonna give us the power back to protect our community, protect our families and protect ourselves.”

Brown has been organizing against killer cops since 2013. She doesn’t hesitate to name the Black misleaders that are in on the con. “To the council members that came up with this, you went behind our backs! Andrea Jenkins, Jeremiah Ellison, y’all know that’s not gonna help us.” Brown continued, “We still got killer cops out here y’all. How can we accept anything from these people, knowing we still got killer cops on our streets?

Jamal Clark’s sister, Danielle Burns, sees through the “good Council-bad Commission” con game that’s being played to keep the blue army of occupation on the streets of Minneapolis. “it’s these same folks putting forward a fake fix with their city charter amendment. Changing the police department’s name, that’s not justice,” she said.

“We don’t want no Community Safety and Violence Prevention Department!”

The same hustle-and-jive plays out across the nation, as mainly Democratic city officials attempt to reconcile protesters’ demands with their obligations to the Lords of Capital, the architects of the US police state. When Black Lives Matter chapters demand “abolition” and “defunding” of the police, rather than community control of the cops, they play into the hands of the charlatans and misleaders on city councils and in the halls of Congress, for the simple reason that no legislative body will totally abolish local armed security forces. Nor would Black communities support measures that would remove the cops without replacing them with some other security force. Since “abolition” of the police is not immediately possible, elected officials are free to “interpret” the intent of protesters’ demands. The result will always be “that piece of shit y’all trying to give us as,” as Daphne Brown put it.

The Minneapolis Charter Commission is taking it upon itself to fill in the blanks that were left by the city council, and before that by protesters’ simple demands for “abolition” and “defunding” of the cops. As the Washington Post reported  on August 5:

“The council says, ‘Trust us. We’ll figure it out after this is approved. Trust us,’ ‘ Barry Clegg, a Minneapolis attorney who chairs the commission, said ahead of Wednesday’s vote. ‘Well, I don’t. … We need more time to fill in these blanks so voters can make a decision based on an actual specific plan and not the promise of one.’”

Unless Black community activists spell out precisely how security for communities will be maintained, and to whom those forces will be accountable, the demand to “defund” the police — like “abolition” — is an invitation for officials to engage in word games, obfuscation and lies. As we wrote in the July 1 issue of BAR:

“Cuts in police budgets may rightly count as victories for the protesters that demanded cuts (or, it may actually be the result of across-the-board cutbacks due to collapse of tax revenues in the Great Depression Two). But diminished budgets do not make the police accountable to the people or allow the people to reinvent policing (or whatever folks choose to call the mechanisms of their security). Transfer of duties previously (mis)handled by cops to more competent agencies is a good thing, but will not result in People’s Power unless those agencies are brought under community control, along with the police.”

Thus, not only must we demand community control of the police, but also community control of those social service agencies that purport to serve the community, and to whom police funds would supposedly be transferred under a “defund the police” policy.

As Frederik Douglass famously said: “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” Power will also use every opportunity to reshape people’s “demands” that are vague or open-ended – such as “abolition” and “defunding” of the police. Angela Davis, the prison and police abolition scholar most often cited by Black Lives Matter activists, was on hand for the relaunching of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression last year in Chicago, and is 100 percent behind its community control of police campaign.

“Angela Davis is 100 percent behind its community control of police campaign.”

Although some of the 14 Black Lives Matter chapters  in the U.S. have refused to endorse community control, the Chicago chapter  is active in the campaign for CPAC and the Los Angeles Black Lives Matter chapter  favors community control of social services, land and all other community resources, including the police.

The same democratic and self-determinationist imperatives that require black community control of police are applicable to a broad range of other services and resources – most especially schools. Community control is not a reformist demand, because it calls for real transfers of power from the oligarchs and their politicians, to the people. General demands for “abolition” and “defunding,” however, invite a reformist and trickster response from Power – as we see unfolding in Minneapolis.

As we wrote on July 1:

“’Reforms’ that leave power in the hands of the oppressor and his flunkies succeed mainly in making the enemy look good. It buys the oppressor more time to harm the people – which is what the Democrats were seeking when they adopted the vocabulary of protest and embraced ‘reforms’ they had previously rejected in the face of a Black-led popular insurgency. Movement organizers must avoid providing opportunities for scoundrels, sell-out artists and Democratic Party operatives to pose as friends of ‘the community.’

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .

BLACK PRINCE FOR GEORGE FLOYD

NANCY MOREJÓN / BLACK PRINCE FOR GEORGE FLOYD

 

Though he really wanted to hurl you into the Mississippi,

that cannibal in deceptive uniform

quietly burnt his knee

on your inert throat.

The smoke rising from your flesh climbs to the tearful sky.

Skipping between the flowers, the air you exhale

pursues the cannibal’s ghost until it bites

his bloody fang.

And, indomitable, you give hope, on the wet asphalt,

under the quiet shade of an apple tree

in Minneapolis,

where we will place, for you,

this diamond, this clean

black prince of ours,

in your memory.

 

Cerro, Havana, June 4, 2020

Translated by . Keith Ellis

 

PRÍNCIPE NEGRO PARA GEORGE FLOYD

Aunque su sueño era lanzarte al Mississippi,

aquel caníbal de uniforme opaco

ha quemado en silencio su rodilla

sobre tu cuello inerte.

El humo de tu carne va subiendo hasta el cielo mojado.

Saltando entre las flores, el aire de tus bronquios

persigue su fantasma hasta morder

el colmillo sangriento del caníbal.

Y tú alientas, indómito, sobre el asfalto húmedo,

bajo la sombra quieta de un manzano

en Minneapolis,

donde colocaremos, para ti,

este brillante, este limpio

príncipe negro nuestro,

a tu memoria.

 

Cerro, 4 de junio, 2020

Community Control of the Police – and a Whole Lot More

Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor

18 Jun 2020

Community Control of the Police – and a Whole Lot More

Abolition of the police begins with community control, in which community representatives not only hire, fire and oversee the cops, but decide the nature of the policing that is necessary and acceptable.

“Movements are about amassing power to the people, not collecting promises from corporate flunkies.”

The wave of people’s protests across the nation, backed by solidarity actions in cities around the world, has caused the corporate oligarchy and its servants to make promises they can’t keep and give lip service to programs they have always resisted. The Congressional Black Caucus, the vast bulk of whose members backed militarization of local police and elevation of cops to the status of “protected” class, now claims to favor limits on police arsenals, less legal immunities for cops and a grab-bag of other reforms they previously dismissed out of hand. Mayors that know damn well they will have to cut spending across the board due to catastrophic loss of tax revenues during the current, Covid-induced Great Depression, now profess that they plan to withhold funds from cops in deference to the “defund the police” movement. They’re a bunch of Kente-clothed liars, of course, but movements are about amassing power to the people, not collecting promises from corporate flunkies. That means demanding community control of the police, and of those funds that local governments are supposedly diverting from the police to social programs.

If anything has been learned from the past half century of Black reliance on Democratic Party politicians, it is that no lasting victories can be achieved without the transfer of control of public resources directly to the people. That was the meaning of “All Power to the People” when the phrase was coined, and must remain the goal of the movement, today.

“No lasting victories can be achieved without the transfer of control of public resources directly to the people.”

Although there is no intrinsic contradiction between the three most-voiced demands of the current movement — community control of police, defunding the police, and abolition of policing as we know it – only proposals for community control of the police directly confront the issue of power in the here and now, and also address demands for direct democracy and Black self-determination. Community control of the police was essential to the formation of the Black Panther Party, and has been an active demand of Chicago organizers since 2012.  Support for a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) has grown from only one of the 50-member city council (board of aldermen) to 19 co-sponsors  of the enabling legislation. Last fall, more than a thousand activists from across the country met in Chicago to endorse the concept of community control of police, and pledged to fight for its enactment in 22 cities – a list that has grown with the wave of George Floyd protests.

Although community control of the police is within reach of becoming law in Chicago, a majority Black and brown city with the second largest concentration of Blacks in the nation, the demand has gotten less traction in nationwide demonstrations than the call for defunding the cops, or eventual abolition. That’s undoubtedly because Black Lives Matter demands have been pervasive in the current demonstrations, and BLM supports defunding of police. However, Black Lives Matter is more a quilt than a monolith, and many Black Lives Matter chapters and individuals also support community control of the police, while CPAC activists also back defunding and abolition of the cops as a logical outcome of community control. The elements of Black Lives Matter that are resistant to community control of police are those under the influence of hashtag founder Alicia Garza, who is now a Democratic Party political player and go-to person for corporate philanthropy.

“Black Lives Matter is more a quilt than a monolith.”

A serious, methodical program of defunding the police requires a community control approach. Ninety percent of actual police duties do not involve making felony arrests, and there is a consensus that cops should not deal with domestic disputes, mentally disturbed people, or a host of social contradictions – and maybe not even traffic control, which long ago devolved into pretexts for criminal charges. Therefore, defunding of police leads directly to the funding of specific public services, some of them currently badly performed by cops and all of which should be overseen by the publics most directly affected. Absent community control, defunding of police will only result in a shrinkage of the domestic army of occupation, not a change in the lethally oppressive relationship, and any social services that receive new funding will be answerable only to the legislators that had previously starved the community of services.

Abolition of the police begins with community control, in which community representatives not only hire, fire and oversee the cops, but decide the nature of the policing that is necessary and acceptable. Community control is a prerequisite to communities policing themselves to the greatest degree possible.

Indeed, communities should control, not just the police, but much of the rest of their neighborhoods’ vital services and resources. The right to self-determination is not confined to the criminal justice system. Therefore, community control of police advocates would be in principled agreement with the Los Angeles Movement 4 Black Lives position : “The most impacted in our communities need to control the laws, institutions, and policies that are meant to serve us – from our schools to our local budgets, economies, and police department.”

“Abolition of the police begins with community control.”

Community control is how we build socialism within the framework of people’s right to self-determination – the principles by which, along with solidarity, we de-colonize and dis-imperialize our world. ”Power to the People” means disempowering the capitalist and white supremacist. Everything else is a diversion, conjured up by the Kente cloth-soiling Black Misleadership Class in service to their bosses, the oligarchs. They have betrayed us repeatedly and laughed at our willingness to trust them yet again. In George Floyd’s name, let this be the end of it.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .

The End of Sanders, and Maybe the Beginning of a Mass Independent Left

Source:  Black Agenda Report

April 19 2020

by Glen Ford

As BAR has maintained for the last two presidential seasons, the best outcome of the primaries would be a mass exit from the Democratic Party, the fraudulent left section of the oligarch-ruled duopoly

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Sander’s early Return of the Prodigal Son to the bosom of the Party allows him to escape the deep critique of capitalist medicine and political-economy that would be required of a “leftish” presidential candidate as this never-in-our-lifetimes crisis unfolds.

“A core of Sanders supporters will experience a eureka moment and exit the Democrats, in body and mind.”

The COVID-19 epidemic has exposed the privatized US healthcare structure’s woeful incapacity to cope with a general health emergency, as well as the failings of Europe’s austerity-shrunken public health care systems. Although Donald Trump’s actions, inactions and idiotic blatherings have added immeasurably to the death toll, a major medical and economic catastrophe was inevitable once the virus was loosed on a defenseless U.S. public. Trump didn’t create the conditions that made the United States so vulnerable to a killer virus. That’s one of the many crimes of capitalism, which at its late stage is methodically starving what’s left of the public sphere and privatizing every conceivable human enterprise for the ultimate benefit of the Lords of Capital – the ruling oligarchy.

Bernie Sanders claimed to be running against the oligarchy in his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, but meekly surrendered to Joe Biden, the personification of the glad-handing corporate shill and champion of the status quo, once the momentum of the primaries had turned. Sanders said he would resume his duties as a full-time senator doing “the work that needs to be done to protect people in this most desperate hour.”

“A major medical and economic catastrophe was inevitable once the virus was loosed on a defenseless U.S. public.”

But the raw truth is, Sanders surrendered unconditionally to a Democratic Party that is, in the Age of Trump, the electoral representative of the bulk of a fractured U.S. ruling class – the oligarchy. Without warning, Sanders demobilized his legions, even while claiming to continue to lead “a grass-roots, multiracial, multigenerational movement which has always believed that real change never comes from the top on down, but always from the bottom on up.” Sanders thanked  his generous followers, nearly two million of whom donated at least $167 million  to his campaign. Unknown millions remain unspent, and much more could be raised from even a greatly diminished cohort of Sanders true-believers if the self-described socialist was sincere about leading a well-funded “movement” outside the corporate duopoly. But Sanders is going out as a fraud who will refuse to turn over either unspent campaign monies or precious voter lists to his “grassroots” supporters or anybody outside the Democratic Party.

It is widely believed in Sanders’ circles that his greatest fear is to become like Ralph Nader, the former Green Party presidential candidate who is still vilified for supposedly throwing the 2000 election to George Bush. But Nader was the least of Democrat Al Gore’s problems and has nothing to be ashamed of. From publication of his corporate-pummeling 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed : The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, and the phenomenal growth of Nader-inspired Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGS) two decades later, Nader has been a potent critic of oligarchy who, at 86, still rages at the machine from the outside. But Sanders, who has always caucused with Democrats, cannot imagine life outside the corporate duopoly. Despite his austerity-busting agenda, Sanders remains an “inside man” – in the same sense as criminals of that description. This month he ended the charade and was welcomed back into the “family” – one of the two parties the Lords of Capital can rightly call “our thing” (la cosa nostra).

“Sanders cannot imagine life outside the corporate duopoly.

Sanders punked out early this time around, with language as contradictory and dishonest on-its-face as Trump-speak. “I will stay on the ballot in all remaining states and continue to gather delegates,” said Sanders in his surrender statement . “While Vice President Biden will be the nominee, we must continue working to assemble as many delegates as possible at the Democratic convention.” But of course, you cannot keep piling up significant votes and delegates while simultaneously conceding victory to a corporate flunky – thus making Sanders’s “suspended” campaign unfit for even “protest” votes.

For the second time in two presidential cycles, Sanders has lived up to Bruce Dixon’s depiction of him as a “sheepdog” for the Democrats. “Sheepdogs are herders,” wrote Dixon, the BAR co-founder who died last June, “and the sheepdog candidate is charged with herding activists and voters back into the Democratic fold who might otherwise drift leftward and outside of the Democratic Party, either staying home or trying to build something outside the two party box.” That’s Sanders to a T.

Sanders bowed out of the race the minute his momentum stalled, at the very same time that the greatest combined health and economic calamity in U.S. history was gripping the nation by the throat – a teaching moment if one ever existed, if health care and economic inequality were really Sanders’ top priority. He did acknowledge the ballooning crisis: “In terms of health care, this current, horrific crisis that we are now in has exposed for all to see how absurd our current employer-based health insurance system is. The current economic downturn we are experiencing has not only led to a massive loss of jobs but has also resulted in millions of Americans losing their health insurance.”

“For the second time in two presidential cycles, Sanders has lived up to Bruce Dixon’s depiction of him as a “sheepdog” for the Democrats.”

And then he quit the race, relinquishing the presidential primary bully-pulpit in favor of senatorial duties that could easily have been accomplished as a candidate, given that in-person campaign rallies and such aren’t allowed during the emergency. Bernie’s early Return of the Prodigal Son to the bosom of the Party allows him to escape the deep critique of capitalist medicine and political-economy that would be required of a “leftish” presidential candidate as this never-in-our-lifetimes crisis unfolds. In the presence of catastrophe, the logic of Sanders’ own rhetoric would have forced him to go beyond the limits of capitalist discourse – the only language Democrats allow – both in his analysis and campaign planks. Sanders chose to cut the process short, while he could still go home to the Party.

The bulk of older Democrats will wallow in the oblivion of Democratic Party politics, pretending that Trump brought on the crisis, and is indeed responsible for all the ills of capitalism, even though the Democratic National Committee insisted on sending the party faithful into primary voting spots  that were infested with viral death . Older Blacks will betray their own leftish world views – as they do every primary election — and stick with Biden as the only candidate that can beat Trump, although it was Sanders who actually fit that description. But crises do alter and crystalize people’s worldviews. A core of Sanders supporters, numbering possibly several millions, plus many others that did not consider themselves radicals until they saw how “the system” left them naked to COVID-19 and the accompanying economic immiseration, will experience a eureka moment and exit the Democrats, in body and mind. The only question is: will there be alternative, independent political vehicles for their anger and energies that are equipped to handle an influx not seen since the Sixties?

As BAR has maintained for the last two presidential seasons, the best outcome of the primaries would be a mass exit from the Democratic Party, the fraudulent left section of the oligarch-ruled duopoly. (The vast bulk of Republicans have chosen the right home for their racist ilk: The White Man’s Party.) Younger Blacks have not abandoned the historical Black consensus on social justice and peace, and some took part in renewed stirrings of “movement” politics during the “Black Lives Matter” struggles. They will have a lot to think about in the enforced relative isolation of CoronaTime – and may become the 21st century’s Black Left Generation.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com

Marcus Smiles: 126 in the African diaspora granted Ghanaian citizenship

 

In 1920, the late Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. presented his famous “Back to Africa” program in New York City. The program encouraged the black community living abroad as slaves to return to their homelands in Africa.

It was part of a social movement dubbed the “Universal Negro Improvement Association” (UNIA), which was founded by Garvey in his native Jamaica in 1914. Through this movement, the celebrated Jamaican political leader intensified black enslavement and racial discrimination sentiments.

Upon his immigration to the United States in 1917, Garvey embarked on a mission to spread his “Back to Africa” mantra, despite frequent backlash from the black middle and professional classes.

“I have no desire to take all black people back to Africa; there are blacks who are no good here and will likewise be no good there,” Marcus Garvey told his critics.

But in a very short time, the UNIA attracted a lot of followers throughout Africa, Caribbean, Britain and South America, who empathized with the strong sentiments of black enslavement.

Source:  Marcus Garvey Presents His “Back to Africa” Program in New York

In 1947, a Ghanaian student who had studied ten years in the United States, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah returned to Ghana on the invitation of Joseph B. Danquah, his former schoolmaster. Nkrumah would later become Prime Minister. In his fight for the complete independence for the Gold Coast later to be known as Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah acknowledged his political indebtedness to the political teachings of Marcus Garvey.

On September 7, 1957, Ghana became a free self-governing nation, the first member of the British Commonwealth of Nations to become self-governing. Ghana would later develop a Black Star Line patterned after the maritime dreams of Marcus Garvey. My point here is that the African Independence Explosion, which started with the independence of Ghana, was symbolically and figuratively bringing the hopes of Marcus Garvey alive.

Source:  The Impact of Marcus Garvey, John Henrik Clarke

As long as you are a black man, you are an African – Peter Tosh

Barack Obama and the Ruling Class Target the Black Vote to Smother Sanders

Source:  Black Agenda Report

November 28 2019

Barack Obama and the Ruling Class Target the Black Vote to Smother Sanders

Obama’s principle task is to ensure sure that Black Americans do not vote in the direction of single-payer healthcare and housing for all.

“The ruling class needs Obama as an adviser and bully of the Black vote.”

Not a month after condemning “call out culture,” Barack Obama was once again the prized speaker at an event held by Democratic Party “mega donors”  (Wall Street) in Atlanta, Georgia. Seated next to Obama protégé Stacy Abrams, Obama warned Democratic Party candidates of going too far left in their policy proposals. “The average American doesn’t think we have to tear down the system,” Obama said , adding, “They just don’t want to see crazy stuff. They want to see things a little more fair, they want to see things a little more just. And how we approach that I think will be important.”

Related article: Obama approves airstrikes against Libya

Obama’s remarks are just the most recent demonstration of his role as a weapon of counterinsurgency warfare employed by the ruling class to dampen the expectations of workers and oppressed people. His two-term presidency particularly targeted the Black polity. Black America has historically been the most progressive constituency in the United States on the issues of war and economic justice. The ruling class has not forgotten that Black rebellion pressured the formal end of chattel slavery in the American mainland or that Black rebellion overthrew slavery on the island nation of Haiti. Even in the so-called post-slavery period, Black rebellions such as those witnessed in cities across America in the 1960s signaled to the U.S. ruling class that something had to be done to protect the Empire from the transformative aspirations of Black America.

“Obama is a a weapon of counterinsurgency warfare employed to dampen the expectations of workers and oppressed people.”

The Black liberation movement that emerged from the Black rebellions in American cities inspired a ruling class project to craft a misleadership class  which could properly manage the affairs of neoliberal capital. This project was part of a broader two-pronged assault on the world socialist revolution. Black freedom struggles were deemed cells of a communist conspiracy or outright domestic terrorism. Revolutionary movements were violently undermined by the intelligence and military state from Oakland to Vietnam, Detroit to the Soviet Union. Neoliberalism sprouted from the war on socialism and national liberation to eviscerate the last vestiges of social solidarity in the United States. Wholesale economic deprivation provided fertile ground for Black political leaders, fully backed by the Democratic Party, to act as willing accomplices in the immiseration of the toiling masses in the Black community.

Barack Obama is the highest expression of the ongoing counterinsurgency war on the Black left. By targeting the very diverse , and significantly Black , Sanders base, Obama is striking two targets at once. Medicare for All and similar universal policies are “crazy” only to rich white Americans and their Black collaborators. Obama believes in a different kind of universalism, otherwise known as American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism assumes that the poor, especially the Black poor, only want their lives improved “a little” because there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the American system of racism and capitalism.

“Black freedom struggles were deemed cells of a communist conspiracy or outright domestic terrorism.”

Related article:  Obama Endorses Hillary Clinton as His Successor

Obama’s remarks are a warning to Black American voters who may be contemplating whether Bernie Sanders is in fact the most electable candidate in the 2020 Democratic Party. Black voter conservatism was massively intensified during the Obama period and gave credence to a decades long trend of Black Americans voting for any Democrat seen as capable of defeating the White Man’s Republican Party. Polls still show that Joe Biden’s relationship to Obama gives him an overwhelming edge with Black voters  over Sanders and the rest of the field. Obama’s condemnation of Sanders and so-called left Twitter feeds certainly sends a false message that Black Americans should be satisfied with business as usual. However, Obama inspires little confidence that such an approach will lead to the nomination of a corporate friendly candidate capable of defeating Donald Trump.

The truth is that the ruling class needs Obama as an adviser and bully of the Black vote because the rest of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party is mired in a crisis of legitimacy. Many Democratic Party voters now want social democracy and Bernie Sanders’ economic agenda most resembles the class struggle orientation of Black America. Black Americans have always been overrepresented in domestic movements for socialism. Two of the most popular leaders in the Black struggle, Malcolm X  and Martin Luther King Jr ., both advocated for a socialistic economic transformation of U.S. society by the end of their lives. After eight years of rightwing political retrenchment under Obama, the ruling elite understands perfectly well that its political system has lost the legitimacy it once enjoyed with workers in the United States, especially Black workers.

“Obama sends a false message that Black Americans should be satisfied with business as usual.”

That’s because Obama’s two-term presidency absolutely worsened the forty-year long assault on the conditions of the working class. Black wealth suffered the most from Obama’s bank bailouts , which rewarded the very criminal enterprises responsible for the economic crisis. For decades, Wall Street devalued Black property and then sold what Wells Fargo financiers called “ghetto loans” to “mud people.”  Obama not only let the racist bankers walk free, but he also implemented new and more innovative forms of austerity. His administration enforced trillions in deficit reductions and went so far as to place Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block in the name of bipartisanship.

A new study shows that the number of poor people in America has drastically increased when inflation is accurately factored into poverty measures . The study found that inflation is .44 percentage points higher for the bottom 20 percent of income earners than for the top 20 percent of earners. In 2018 alone, 3.2 million more people would be considered impoverished in the United States. The report calls this phenomenon “inequality inflation.” A great number of workers in the U.S. do not qualify for state and federal programs and thus pay a far higher cost of living within a capitalist economy that caters to the consumption patterns of richer Americans.  Furthermore, poverty would be three times higher  than the official measure if the median debt in the U.S., which outpaces the median income in the U.S. by over $10,000, was also factored into the statistical analysis.

“Obama not only let the racist bankers walk free, but he also implemented new and more innovative forms of austerity.”

Obama’s tenure in the White House only exacerbated the great race to the bottom that the U.S. ruling class is smothering Sanders to protect. This explains why Black Americans in cities like Milwaukee  decided to stay home rather than vote for arch-neoliberal Hillary Clinton in 2016. The situation has not improved in the 2020 election. Expert education privatizer and loyal servant of big pharma Cory Booker remains at the bottom of every major primary poll published to date. Mass Black incarceration advocate Kamala Harris has fallen so far from contention that even corporate outlets such as Politico  have described her campaign as being in a state of meltdown.

Neither Booker nor Harris has been able to apply Obama-mania toward their own presidential success. The waning electability of the Black misleadership class in the presidential circus has forced the ruling class to call on Obama to smother the social democratic aspirations of Sanders supporters. Obama’s principle task is to ensure sure that Black Americans do not vote in the direction of single-payer healthcare and housing for all. Of course, Obama is not alone in his crusade to smother Bernie Sanders by way of the Black vote. The “Stop Sanders” movement  is stuffed to the brim with the same big, nasty tent of militarists, Wall Street donors, and corporate media outlets responsible for Clinton’s losing bid in 2016.

“Neither Booker nor Harris has been able to apply Obama-mania toward their own presidential success.”

Former military intelligence operative and mayor of South Bend, Indiana Pete Buttigieg has emerged from this tent to become one of the most favored candidates among rich Democratic Party donors. However, Buttigieg is unpopular among Black Americans, especially among Black South Bend residents who have been direct casualties of his support for racist policing  and gentrification . “Mayor Pete” recently released the Douglass Plan for Black America to assuage the concerns of Black voters in the critical state of South Carolina. The Buttigieg campaign was obviously lacking confidence in mustering genuine Black support for the plan and felt compelled to make up such support out of whole cloth. According to Ryan Grim of The Intercept , Buttigieg’s campaign flaunted the support of three prominent Black representatives in South Carolina: Columbia City Councilwoman Tameika Devine, state representative Ivory Thigpen, and chair of the state’s Black Caucus, Johnnie Cordero. None of them had endorsed Buttigieg or the plan, and it is unclear whether the rest of the 400 supporters (half of whom were white) listed on the plan had merely failed to “opt out” of their support as directed in a campaign email.

What is clear from the Buttigieg’s Douglass Plan blunder is that the ruling class has every reason to be nervous over how Black America will choose to behave in the Democratic primary. Deval Patrick’s late entrance into the race hasn’t offered any comfort, either. Patrick is a talentless corporate hack with extensive experience in stealing the wealth of working class people, especially Black people, during his time in prominent positions  at Texaco, Bain Capital, and Ameriquest Mortgages. Ameriquest Mortgages was the largest retailer of subprime mortgages in the U.S. before it was sold to Citigroup in 2007.  This career blemish alone has rendered Patrick’s campaign dead upon arrival.

“The ruling class has every reason to be nervous over how Black America will choose to behave in the Democratic primary.”

Obama, Buttigieg, and Patrick’s recent blunders reflect the crisis of legitimacy currently plaguing the U.S. political apparatus. A large section of the Democratic Party’s base is hungry for social democratic reform while a large section of the world’s population is hungry to free itself from the grip of U.S. imperialism. U.S. imperialism backed a coup in Bolivia, for example, to eradicate a direct threat to its rule abroad. Bernie Sanders and his millions of working class supporters currently represent the gravest threat to the domestic tranquility of the rule of the rich. The ruling class understands that leadership from the Black left is vital to the success of any movement for social transformation in the United States and is once again placing its hope in Barack Obama to save the American Empire’s political apparatus from itself.

Danny Haiphong is an activist and journalist in the New York City area. He and Roberto Sirvent are co-authors of the book entitled American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News–From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror (Skyhorse Publishing). He can be reached at wakeupriseup1990@gmail.com, on Twitter @spiritofho, and on Youtube at The Left Lens with Danny Haiphong.

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