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Title: Authoritarian Leftists: Kill the Cop in Your Head
Author: Greg Jackson
Date: 1996
Language: en
Topics: authority, Marxism, race, vanguard
Source: Retrieved on 15 November 2011 from http://www.iww.org/en/history/library/Ervin/copinyourhead
Notes: Pamphlet produced by the staff of Black Autonomy, A Newspaper of Anarchism and Black Revolution. First printing, April 1996. Feel free to copy and distribute; just give us our props.

Greg Jackson

Authoritarian Leftists: Kill the Cop in Your Head

It’s difficult to know where to begin with this open letter to the

various European-american leftist (Marxist-Leninist and

Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, in particular) groups within the United States.

I have many issues with many groups; some general, some very specific.

The way in which this is presented may seem scattered at first, but I

encourage all of you to read and consider carefully what I have written

in its entirety before you pass any judgments.

It was V.I. Lenin who said, “take from each national culture only its

democratic and socialist elements; we take them only and absolutely in

opposition to the bourgeois culture and bourgeois nationalism of each

nation”. It could be argued that Lenin’s statement in the current

Amerikkkan context is in fact a racialist position; who is he (or the

Bolsheviks themselves) to “take” anyone or pass judgment on anyone;

particularly since the privileges of having white skin are a predominant

factor within the context of amerikkkan-style oppression. This limited

privilege in capitalist society is a prime factor in the creation and

maintenance of bourgeois ideology in the minds of many whites of various

classes in the US and elsewhere on the globe.

When have legitimate struggles or movements for national and class

liberation had to “ask permission” from some eurocentric intellectual

“authority” who may have seen starvation and brutality, but has never

experienced it himself? Where there is repression, there is

resistance... period. Self-defense is a basic human right that we as

Black people have exercised time and time again, both violent and

non-violent; a dialectical and historical reality that has kept many of

us alive up to this point.

Assuming that this was not Lenin’s intent, and assuming that you all

truly uphold worldwide socialism/communism, then the question must be

asked: Why is it that each and every white dominated/white-led

“vanguard” in the United States has in fact done the exact opposite of

what Lenin Proclaims/recommends when it comes to interacting with blacks

and other people of color?

Have any of you actually sat down and seriously thought about why there

are so few of us in your organizations; and at the same time why

non-white socialist/communist formations, particularly in the Black

community, are so small and isolated? I have a few ideas...

I. A fundamentally incorrect analysis of the role of the white left

in the last thirty years of civil rights to Black liberation struggle...

By most accounts, groups such as the Black Panther Party, the Student

Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the League of Revolutionary Black

Workers, American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican Independence

Movement “set the standard” for not only communities of color but also

for revolutionary elements in the white community.

All of the above groups were ruthlessly crushed; their members

imprisoned or killed. Very few white left groups at the time fought back

against the onslaught of COINTELPRO by supporting these groups, with the

exception of the smaller, armed underground cells. In fact, many groups

such as the Progressive Labor Party and the Revolutionary Union (now

known as the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA) saw the repression of

groups they admired, and at the same time despised, as an opportunity to

assert their own version of “vanguard leadership” on our population.

What they failed to recognize (and what many of you generally still fail

to recognize) is that “vanguard leadership” is developed, it doesn’t

just “magically” happen through preachy, dogmatic assertions, nor does

it fall from the sky. Instead of working with the smaller autonomous

formations, to help facilitate the growth of Black (and white)

self-organization (the “vanguard” leadership of the Black masses

themselves and all others, nurtured through grassroots social/political

alliances rooted in principle), they instead sought to either take them

over or divide their memberships against each other until the group or

groups were liquidated. These parasitic and paternalistic practices

continue to this day.

The only reason any kind of principled unity existed prior to

large-scale repression is because Black-led formations had no illusions

about white radicals or their politics; and had no problems with kicking

the living shit out of them if they started acting stupid. Notice also

that the majority of white radicals who were down with real struggle and

real organizations, and were actually trusted and respected by our

people, are either still active... or still in prison!

II. The white left’s concept of “the vanguard party”...

Such arrogance on the part of the white left is part and parcel to your

vanguardist ideas and practice. Rather than seeking principled

partnerships with non-white persons and groups, you instead seek

converts to your party’s particular brand of rigid political theology

under the guise of “unity”. It makes sense that most of you speak of

“Black/white unity” and “sharp struggle against racism” in such vague

terms, and with such uncertainty in your voices; or with an

overexaggerated forcefulness that seems contrived.

Another argument against vanguardist tendencies in individuals or

amongst groups is the creation of sectarianism and organizational

cultism between groups and within groups. Karl Marx himself fought

tirelessly against sectarianism within the working class movement of

19^(th) century Europe. He was also a staunch fighter against those who

attempted to push his persona to an almost god-like status, declaring

once in frustration “I assure you, sir, I am no Marxist”. It could be

argued from this viewpoint that the “vanguardist” white left in the US

today is generally ,by a definition rooted in the day to day practice of

Marx himself, anti-Marx; and by proxy, anti-revolutionary.

Like your average small business, the various self-proclaimed

“vanguards” compete against each other as well against the people

themselves (both white and non-white); accusing each other of

provacteurism, opportunism, and/or possessing “the incorrect line” when

in fact most (if not all) are provacateurs, opportunists, and

fundamentally incorrect.

The nature of capitalist competition demands that such methods and

tactics be utilized to the fullest in order to “win” in the business

world; the white left has in fact adapted these methods and tactics to

their own brand of organizing, actively re-inventing and re-enforcing

the very social, political, and economic relations you claim to be

against; succeeding in undermining the very basic foundations of your

overall theory and all variants of that theory.

Or is this phenomenon part and parcel to your theory? In volume four of

the collected works of V.I. Lenin, Lenin himself states up front that

“socialism is state-capitalism”. Are you all just blindly following a a

dated, foreign “blueprint” that is vastly out of context to begin with;

with no real understanding of its workings?

At the same time, it could be observed that you folks are merely

products of your environment; reflective of the alienated and hostile

communities and families from which many of you emerge. American society

has taught you the tenets of “survival of the fittest” and “rugged

individualism”, and you swallowed those doctrines like your mother’s

milk.

Because the white left refuses to combat and reject reactionary

tendencies in their (your) own heads and amongst themselves

(yourselves), and because they (you) refuse to see how white culture is

rooted firmly in capitalism and imperialism; refusing to reject it

beyond superficial culture appropriations (i.e.-Native american “dream

catchers” hanging from the rear-view mirrors of your vehicles, wearing

Adidas or Nikes with fat laces and over-sized Levis jeans or Dickies

slacks worn “LA sag” style, crude attempts to “fit-in” by exaggerated,

insulting over-use of the latest slang term(s) from “da hood”, etc), you

in fact re-invent racist and authoritarian social relations as the final

product of your so-called “revolutionary theory”; what I call Left-wing

white supremacy.

This tragic dilemma is compounded by, and finds some of its initial

roots in, your generally ahistorical and wishful “analysis” of

Black/white relations in the US; and rigid, dogmatic definitions of

“scientific socialism” or “revolutionary communism”, based in a

eurocentric context. Thus, we are expected to embrace these “socialist”

values of the settler/conqueror culture, rather than the “traditional

amerikkkan values” of your reactionary opponents; as if we do not

possess our own “socialist” values, rooted in our own daily and cultural

realities! Wasn’t the Black Panther Party “socialist”? What about the

Underground Railroad; our ancestors (and yes, even some of yours) were

practicing “mutual aid” back when most European revolutionary theorists

were still talking about it like it was a lofty, far away ideal!

One extreme example of this previously mentioned wishful thinking in

place of a true analysis on the historical and current political

dynamics particular to this country is an article by Joseph Green

entitled “Anarchism and the Market Place, which appeared in the

newsletter “Communist Voice” (Vol #1, Issue #4, September 15, 1995).

In it he asserts that anarchism is nothing more than small-scale

operations run by individuals that will inevitably lead to the

re-introduction of economic exploitation. He also claims that “it fails

because its failure to understand the relation of freedom to mass

activity mirrors the capitalist ideology of each person for their self.”

He then offers up a vague “plan of action”; that the workers must rely

on “class organization and all-round mass struggle”. In addition, he

argues for the centralization of all means of production.

Clearly, Green’s political ideology is in fact a theology. First,

anarchism was practiced in mass scale most recently in Spain from

1936–39. By most accounts (including Marxist-Leninist), the Spanish

working class organizations such as the CNT (National Confederation of

Labor) and the FAI (Federation of Anarchists of Iberia) seized true

direct workers power and in fact kept people alive during a massive

civil war.

Their main failure was on a military, and partially on an ideological

level: (1.) They didn’t carry out a protracted fight against the fascist

Falange with the attitude of driving them off the face of the planet.

(2.) They underestimated the treachery of their Marxist-Leninist

“allies” (and even some of their anarchist “allies”), who later sided

with the liberal government to destroy the anarchist collectives. Some

CNT members even joined the government in the name of a “united front

against fascism”. And (3.), they hadn’t spent enough time really

developing their networks outside the country in the event they needed

weapons, supplies, or a place to seek refuge quickly.

Besides leaving out those important facts, Green also omits that today

the majority of prisoner support groups in the US are anarchist run or

influenced. He also leaves out that anarchists are generally the most

supportive and involved in grassroots issues such as homelessness,

police brutality, Klan/Nazi activity, Native sovereignty issues,

[physical] defense of womens health clinics, sexual assault prevention,

animal rights, environmentalism, and free speech issues.

Green later attacks “supporters of capitalist realism on one hand and

anarchist dreamers on the other”. What he fails to understand is that

the movement will be influenced mostly by those who do practical work

around day to day struggles, not by those who spout empty rhetoric with

no basis in reality because they themselves (like Green) are

fundamentally incapable of practicing what they preach. Any theory which

cannot, at the very least, be demonstrated in miniature scale (with the

current reality of the economically, socially, and militarily imposed

limitations of capitalist/white supremacist society taken in to

consideration) in daily life is not even worth serious discussion

because it is rigid dogma of the worst kind.

Even if he could “show and prove”, his proposed system is doomed to

repeat the cannibalistic practices of Josef Stalin or Pol Pot. While

state planning can accelerate economic growth no one from Lenin, to Mao,

to Green himself has truly dealt with the power relationship between the

working class and the middle-class “revolutionaries” who seize state

power “on the behalf” of the latter. How can one use the organizing

methods of the European bourgeoisie, “[hierarchal] party building” and

“seizing state power” and not expect this method of organizing people to

not take on the reactionary characteristics of what it supposedly seeks

to eliminate? Then there’s the question of asserting ones authoritarian

will upon others (the usual recruitment tactics of the white left

attempting to attract Black members).

At one point in the article Green claims that anarchistic social

relations take on the oppressive characteristics of the capitalist

ideology their rooted in. Really? What about the capitalist

characteristics of know-it-all ahistorical white “radicals” who can just

as effectively assert capitalistic, oppressive social relations when

utilizing a top-down party structure (especially when it’s utilized

against minority populations)? What about the re-assertion of patriarchy

(or actual physical and mental abuse) in interpersonal relationships;

especially when an organizational structure allows for, and in fact

rewards, oppressive social relationships?

What is the qualitative difference between a party bureaucrat who uses

his position to steal from the people (in addition to living a

neo-bourgeois lifestyle; privilege derived from one’s official position

and justified by other party members who do the same. And, potentially,

derived from the color of his skin in the amerikkkan context) and a

collective member who steals from the local community? One major

difference is that the bureaucrat can only be removed by the party, the

people (once again) have no real voice in the matter (unless the people

themselves take up arms and dislodge the bureaucrat and his party); the

collective member can recieve a swift punishment rooted in the true

working class traditions, culture, and values of the working class

themselves, rather than that which is interpreted for them by so- called

“professional revolutionaries” with no real ties to that particular

community. This is a very important, yet very basic, concept for the

white left to consider when working with non- white workers (who, by the

way, are the true “vanguard” in the US; Black workers in particular.

Check the your history, especially the last thirty years of it.); i.e.-

direct community control.

This demand has become more central over the last thirty years as we

have seen the creation of a Black elite of liberal and conservative

(negrosie) puppets for the white power structure to speak through to the

people, the few who were allowed to succeed because they took up the

ideology of the oppressor. But, they too have become increasingly

powerless as the shift to the right in the various branches of the state

and federal government has quickly, and easily, “checked” what little

political power they had. Also, we do not have direct control over

neighborhood institutions as capitalists, let alone as workers; at least

white workers have a means of production they could potentially seize.

Small “mom and pop” restaurants and stores or federally funded health

clinics and social services in the ‘hood hardly count as “Black

capitalist” enterprises, nor are any of these things particularly

“liberating” in and of themselves.

But white radicals, the white left of the US in particular, have a hard

time dealing with the reality that Black people have always managed to

survive, despite the worst or best intentions of the majority

population. We will continue to survive without you and can make our

revolution without you (or against you) if necessary; don’t tell us

about “protracted struggle”, the daily lives of non-white workers are

testimony to the true meaning of protracted struggle, both in the US and

globally. Your inability or unwillingness to accept the fact that our

struggle is parallel to yours, but at the same time very specific, and

will be finished successfully when we as a people, as working-class

Blacks on the North American continent, decide that we have achieved

full freedom (as defined by our history, our culture, our needs, our

desires, our personal experiences, and our political idea(s)) is by far

the primary reason why the white left is so weak in this country.

In addition, this sinking garbage scow of american leftism is dragging

other liberating political vessels down with it, particularly the

smaller, anti-authoritarian factions within the white settler nation

itself and the few [non-dogmatic and non- ritualistic] individuals

within todays Marxist-Leninist parties who sincerely wish to get away

from the old, tired historical revisionism of their particular

“revolutionary” party.

This seemingly “fixed position”, along with many other fixed positions

in their “thought”, help to reveal the white left’s profound isolation

and alienation from the Black community as a whole and its activists.

Yet, many of them would continue to wholeheartedly, and retardedly,

assert that they’re part of the community simply because they live in a

Black neighborhood or their party headquarters is located there.

The white left’s isolation and alienation was revealed even more

profoundly in the criticisms of the Million Man March on Washington. In

the end, the majority of the white leftist critics wound up tailing the

most backward elements of the Republican Party; some going as far as to

echo the very same words of Senate majority leader Bob Dole, who

commented on the day after the march that “ You can’t separate the

message from the messenger.” Others parroted the words of House majority

leader Newt Gingrich, who had the nerve to ask “where did our leadership

go wrong?”

Since when were we expected to follow the “leadership” of white

amerikkka; the right, left, or center without some type of brutal

coercion? Where is the advantage for us in “following” any of them

anywhere? What have any of them done for us lately? Where is the

“better” leadership example of any of the hierarchical political

tendencies (of any class or ideology) in the US and who do they benefit

exclusively and explicitly? None of you were particularly interested in

us before we rebelled violently in 1992, why the sudden interest? What

do you want from us this time?

Few, if any, of the major pro-revolution left-wing newspapers in the US

gave an accurate account of the march. Many of them claimed that only

the Black petit-bourgeoisie were in attendance. All of them claimed that

women were “forbidden” to be there, despite the widely reported fact

that our sisters were there in large numbers.

“MIM Notes” (and the Maoist Internationalist Movement itself) to their

credit recognize that white workers are NOT the “vanguard” class: yet

because they themselves are so profoundly alienated from the Black

community on this side of the prison walls they had to rely on

information from mainstream press accounts courtesy of the Washington

Post. And rightfully alienated they are; who in their right mind

actually believes that a small, “secret” cult of white campus radicals

can (or should) “lead” the masses of non-white people to their/our

freedom? Whatever those people are smoking, I don’t want any! I do have

to say, however, that MIM is indeed the least dogma addicted of the

entire white left milieu that I’ve encountered; but dogma addicted

nonetheless.

I helped organize in the Seattle area for the Million Man March. The

strong, Black women I met had every intention of going. None of the men

even considered stopping them, let alone suggesting that they not go.

Sure, the NOI passed on Minister Farrakhan’s message that it was a “men

only” march, but it was barely discussed and generally ignored.

The Million Man March local organizing committees (l.o.c.’s) gave the

various Black left factions a forum to present ideas and concepts to

entire sections of our population who were not familiar with “Marxism”,

“anarchism”, “Kwame Nkrumah”, “George Jackson”, “The Ten-Point Program”,

“class struggle”, etc.

It also afforded us the opportunity to begin engaging the some of the

members of the local NOI chapter in class-based ideological struggle

along with participating community people. Of course, it was impossible

for the white left to know any of this; more proof of their profound

isolation and alienation. At the time, despite our own minor ideological

differences, we agreed on one point: it was none of your business or the

business of the rest of the white population. When we organize amongst

our own, we consider it a “family matter”. When we have conflicts, that

is also a “family matter”. Again, it is none of your business unless we

tell you differently. How would you like it if we butted in on a heated

family argument you were having with a loved one and started telling you

what to think and what to do?

This brings me to two issues that have bothered me since January, 1996.

Both comments were made to me by a member of Radical Women at the

International Socialist Organization’s conference at the University of

Washington. The first statement was: “I don’t recognize Black people as

a ‘nation’ like I do Native people.”

My first thought was “who the fuck are you to pass judgment upon a

general self-definition that is rooted in our collective suffering

throughout the history of this country?”

She might as well join up with the right-wing Holocaust revisionists;

for this is precisely what she is practicing, the denial of the Black

holocaust from 1555 to the present (along a parallel denial, by proxy,

of the genocide against other non- white nations within the US). Our

nationalism emerged as a defense against [your] white racism. The

difference between revolutionary Black nationalists (like Huey P. Newton

and the Black Panther Party) and cultural nationalists (like Farrakhan

and the Nation of Islam) is that we see our nationalism as a specific

tool to defend ourselves from groups and individuals like this ignorant

person, not as an exclusive or single means for liberation.

We recognize that we will have to attack bourgeois elements amongst our

people just as vigorously as we fight against white supremacists

(“left”, “center”, or “right”). The difference is that our bourgeoisie

(what I refer to as the “negrosie”) is only powerful within the

community; they have no power against the white power structure without

us, nor do they have power generally without the blessing of the white

power structure itself. Our task, then, is to unite them with us against

a common enemy while at the same time explicitly undermining (and

eventually eliminating) their inherently reactionary influence.

The second stupidity to pass her lips concerned our support of

Black-owned businesses. I pointed out to her that if she had in fact

studied her Marxism-Leninism, she would see that their existence goes

hand-in-glove with Marx’s theory that revolution could only ensue once

capitalism was fully developed. She came back with the criticism, “Well,

you’ll be waiting a long time for that to happen”.

Once again, had she actually studied Marxism-Leninism she would know

that Lenin and the Bolsheviks also had to deal with this same question.

Russia’s economy was predominantly agricultural, and its bourgeois class

was small. They decided to go with the mood and sentiments of the

peasantry and industrial workers at that particular moment in

history;..seize the means of production and distribution anyway!

Who says we wouldn’t do the same? The participants of the LA rebellion

(and others), despite their lack of training in “radical ‘left-wing’

political theory” (besides being predominantly Black, Latino, or poor

white trash in Amerikkka), got it half right; they seized the means of

distribution, distributed the products of their [collective] labor, and

then burned the facilities to the ground. Yes, there were many problems

with the events of 1992, but they did show our potential for future

progress.

Black autonomists ultimately reject vanguardism because as the white

left [as well as elements of the Black revolutionary movement] has

demonstrated, it erodes and eventually destroys the fragile ties that

hold together the necessary principled partnerships between groups and

individuals that are needed to accomplish the numerous tasks associated

with fighting back successfully and building a strong, diverse, and

viable revolutionary movement.

The majority of the white left is largely disliked, disrespected, and

not trusted by our people because they fail miserably on this point. How

can you claim to be a “socialist” when you are in fact anti-social? How

do you all distinguish yourselves from the majority of your people in

concrete, practical, and principled terms?

III. Zero (0) support of non-white left factions by the white left.

I’ve always found this particularly disturbing; you all want our help,

but do not want to help us. You want to march shoulder to shoulder with

us against the government and its supporters, but do not want us to have

a solid political or material foundation of our own to not only win the

fight against the white supremacist state but to also re-build our

communities on our own behalf in our own likeness(es).

Let white Marxists provide unconditional (no strings attached) material

support for non-white factions whose ideology runs parallel to theirs,

and let white anarchist factions provide unconditional (again, no

strings attached) material support for factions in communities of color

who have parallel ideologies and goals. Obviously, the one “string” that

can never be avoided is that of harsh economic reality; if you don’t

have the funds, you can’t do it. That’s fair and logical, but if you’re

paying these exorbitant amounts for projects and events that amount to

little more than ideological masturbation and organizational cultism

while we do practical work out of pocket or on a tiny budget amongst our

own, it seems to me that a healthy dose of criticism/self-criticism and

reassessment of priorities is in order on the part of you “professional

revolutionaries” of the white left.

If the white left “vanguards” are unwilling to materially support

practical work by non-white revolutionary factions, then you have no

business showing your faces in our neighborhoods. If you “marxist

missionaries” insist on coming into our neighborhoods preaching the

“gospel” of Marx, Lenin, Mao, etc, the least you could do is “pay” us

for our trouble. You certainly haven’t offered us much else that’s

useful.

To their credit, the white anarchists and anti-authoritarian leftists

have been generally supportive of the Black struggle by comparison;

Black Autonomy and related projects in particular. Matter of fact, back

in October of 1994 in an act of mutual aid and solidarity the

Philadelphia branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) printed

the very first issue of Black Autonomy (1,000 copies) for free. One of

their members actually got a little upset when I asked how much we owed

them for the print job. In return (and in line with our class

interests), we allied ourselves with the Philly branch and others in a

struggle within the IWW against the more conservative “armchair

revolutionary/historical society” elements within its national

administrative body.

Former political prisoner, SNCC member, Black Panther, and Black

autonomist (anarchist) Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin credits the hard work of

anarchist groups in Europe and non-vanguardist Marxist and anarchist

factions in the US for assisting him in a successful campaign for early

release from prison after 13 years of incarceration.

In no way do we expect you or anyone else to bankroll us; what I am

offering is one suggestion to those of you who sincerely want to help;

and a challenge to those who in fact seek to “play god” with our lives

while spouting empty, meaningless rhetoric about “freedom”, “justice”,

“class struggle”, and “solidarity”. To those people I ask: Do you have

ideas, or do ideas have you? Actually, a better question might be: do

you think at all?

IV. Bourgeois pseudo-analysis of race and class.

It only makes sense that the white left’s analysis of race and class in

amerikkka would be so erroneous when you’re so quick to jump up and pass

judgment on everyone else about this or that, but deathly afraid of real

self-criticism at the individual or collective level; opting instead to

use tool(s) of self- criticism as a means to reaffirm old, tired ideas

that were barely thought out to begin with or by dodging real

self-criticism altogether by dogmatically accusing your critics of “red-

baiting”. Clearly, it is you who “red-bait” yourselves; as the old

saying goes, “Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones!”

Action talks, bullshit walks!

Some of the more backward sections of the white left still push that old

tired line “gay, straight, Black, white, same struggle-same fight!”

Nothing can be further from the truth. Sure, we are all faced with the

same “main enemy”: the racist, authoritarian state and its supporters;

but unlike white males (straight or gay) and with some minor parallels

to the experiences of white women, our oppression begins at birth. This

is a commonality that we share with Native people, Hispanics, Pacific

Islanders, and Asians.

As we grow up, we go from being “cute” in the eyes of the larger

society, to being considered “dangerous” by the time we’re teenagers. As

this point is driven home to us day in and day out in various social

settings and circumstances some of us decide, in frustration to give the

white folks what they want to believe; we become predatory. This dynamic

is played out in ghettos, barrios, chinatowns, and reservations across

the country. Even those of us who choose not to engage in criminal

activity, or aren’t forced into it, have to live under this stigma. In

addition, we as individuals are still viewed as “objects” and our

community as a “monolith”.

We then enter the work force...that is, if there are any jobs available.

It is there that we learn that our people and other non-whites are “last

hired, first fired”, that our white co-workers are generally afraid of

us or view as “competition”, and that management is watching us even

more closely than other workers, while at the same time fueling petty

squabbles and competition between us and other non-white workers. Those

of us who are fortunate enough to land a union job soon find out that

the unions are soft on racism in the workplace. This only makes sense as

we learn later on that unions in the US are running dogs of capitalism

and apologists for management, despite their “militant” rhetoric.

Most unionized workers are white, reflective of the majority of

unionized labor in the US; who constitute a mere 13% of the total labor

force. This is why it is silly for the white left to prattle on and on

about the labor “movement” and about how so many of our people are

joining unions. That’s no consolation to us when Black unemployment

hovers at 35% nationally; many of those brothers and sisters living in

places were “permanent unemployment” is the rule rather than the

exception, and many more who find work at non-union “dead end” service

industry jobs. One out of three of our people is caught up somewhere

within the US criminal “justice” system: in jail, in prison, on parole,

on work-release, awaiting trial, etc as a direct result.

In addition, many white workers are supportive of racist Republican

politicians, such as presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, who promises

to protect their jobs at the expense of non-white workers and

immigrants. What is the white left or the union movement doing about all

of that?

It shouldn’t be surprising that the white left still preaches a largely

economist viewpoint when it comes to workers generally, and workers of

color in particular. This view is further evidence of not only your own

deviation from Marx, but also from Lenin, by your own varied (yet

similar) definitions.

Lenin recognized why the majority of Russian revolutionaries of his time

put forward an economist position: “In Russia,...the yoke of autocracy

appears at first glance to obliterate all distinction between the Social

Democrats organization and workers’ association, since all workers

associations and all study circles are prohibited; and since the

principle manifestation and weapon of the workers’ economic struggle,

the strike, is regarded as a criminal (and sometimes even as a

political) offense.”

In this country, the distinction between the trade unions and

revolutionary organizations is abundantly clear (even if some groups

like the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) still fail to make the

distinction themselves) and the primary contradiction within the working

class is that of racial stratification as a class weapon of the

bourgeoisie and capitalists against the working class as a whole.

Yet, the white Left (along with the rest of the white working class)

fails to see its collaborationist role in this process. And this goes

right back to what I said earlier in this writing about the need for a

serious historical and cultural critique amongst all white people (and

not just the settler nation’s left-wing factions) that goes beyond

superficial culture appropriations or lofty, dogmatic proclamations of

how committed you and your party is to “racial equality”. To even

consider oneself “white” or to call oneself “white” is an argument FOR

race and class oppression; look at the history of the US and see who

first erected these terms “white” and “Black”, and why they were created

in the first place.

I remember last summer, around the fourth of July, I had a member of the

local SWP try to tell me that the American War of Independence was

“progressive”. Progressive for whom? Tell us the truth, who were the

primary beneficiaries of the American Revolution? You know the answer,

we all do; only a total, unrepentant reactionary would lie to the

people, especially on this point.

Howard Zinn, in his work “A People’s History of the United States”,

points out how early 20^(th) century historian Charles Beard found that

of the fifty-five men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to draw up

the US Constitution “a majority of them were lawyers by profession, that

most were men of wealth, in land, in slaves, manufacturing, or shipping;

that half of them had money loaned out at interest, and that forty of

the fifty- five held government bonds, according to records of the [US]

Treasury Department. Thus, Beard found that most of the makers of the

Constitution had some direct economic interest in establishing a strong

federal government: the manufacturers needed protective tariffs; the

moneylenders wanted to stop the use of paper money to pay off debts; the

land speculators wanted protection as they invaded Indian lands;

slave-owners needed federal security against slave revolts and runaways;

bondholders wanted a government able to raise money by nationwide

taxation, to pay off those bonds.

Four groups, Beard noted, were not represented in the Constitutional

Convention: slaves, indentured servants, women, men without property.

And so the Constitution did not reflect the interests of those groups.”

(Zinn, pg.90)

Come to terms with your white skin privilege (and the ideology and

attitude(s) this privilege breeds) and then figure out how to combat

that dynamic as part of your fight against the state and its supporters.

Your continued backwardness is a sad commentary when we uncover

historical evidence which shows that even before the turn of the century

some of your own ancestors within the white working class were beginning

to take the first small steps towards a greater understanding of their

social role as the white servants of capital. A white shoemaker in 1848

wrote:

“...we are nothing but a standing army that keeps three million of our

brethren in bondage... Living under the shade of Bunker Hill monument,

demanding in the name of humanity, our right, and withholding those

rights from others because their skin is black! Is it any wonder that

God in his righteous anger has punished us by forcing us to drink the

bitter cup of degradation.” (Zinn, pg.222)

We can even look to the historical evidence of Lenin’s time. Prior to

the publishing of Lenin’s “On Imperialism”, W.E.B. DuBois wrote an

article for the May, 1915 edition of the Atlantic Monthly titled “The

African Roots of War” in which he vividly describes how both rich and

poor whites benefit from the super- exploitation of non-white people:

“Yes, the average citizen of England, France, Germany, the United

States, had a higher standard of living than before. But: ‘Whence comes

this new wealth?’...It comes primarily from the darker nations of the

world-Asia and Africa, South and Central America, the West Indies, and

the islands of the South Seas. It is no longer simply the merchant

prince, or the aristocratic monopoly, or even the employing class that

is exploiting the world: it is the nation, a new democratic nation

composed of united capital and labor.” (Zinn)

Yet, the self-titled “anti-racists” of the left continue on with their

infantile fixation on the Klan, Nazis, and right-wing militias. Groups

that they say they are against, but in fact demonstrate a tolerance for

in practice. Standing around chanting empty slogans in front of a line

of police separating demonstrators from the nazis in a “peaceful

demonstration” is contradiction in its purest form; both the police and

the fascists must be mercilessly destroyed! As the Spanish anarchist

Buenaventura Durruti proclaimed back in 1936 “Fascism is not to be

debated, it is to be smashed!” There is no room for compromise or

dialogue, except for asking them for a last meal request and choice of

execution method before we pass sentence; and even that is arbitrary!

True, tactical considerations must be examined, but if we can’t get at

them then and there, there is no “rule” that says we can’t follow them

and hit them when they least expect it; except for the “rule” of the

wanna-be rulers of the Marxist-Leninist white left “vanguard(s)” who

only see the fascists as competition in their struggle to see which set

of “empire builders” will lord over us; the “good” whites who regulate

us to the amerikkkan left plantation of “the glorious workers state”, or

the “bad” whites who work us as slaves until half-dead and then laugh as

our worn out carcasses are thrown into ovens, cut up for “scientific

purposes”, or hung from lamp posts and trees. You people have yet to

show me the qualitative difference(s) between a Klan/Nazi- style white

supremacist dictatorship and your concept of a “dictatorship of the

proletariat” in the context of this particular country and its notorious

history. So far, all I have seen from you all is arrogance in

coalitions, petty games of political one-upmanship, and

ideological/tactical rigidity.

Let’s pretend for a minute that one of the various wanna-be vanguards

actually seizes political power. In everyone of your programs, from the

program of the RCP, USA to even smaller, lesser known groups there is

usually a line somewhere in there about your particular party holding

the key levers of state power within a “dictatorship of the

proletariat”. Have any of you actually considered what that sounds like

to a community without real power? Does this mean that we as Black

people are going to have fight and die a second time under your

dictatorship in order to have equal access to employment, housing,

schools, colleges, public office, party status, our own personal lives

generally?

Look at our history; over one hundred years after the Emancipation

Proclamation (the 1960’s) we were still dying for the right to vote, for

the right to protest peacefully, for the right to live in peace and

prosperity within the context of white domination and capitalism. Today,

after all of that, it is clear that the masses of our people are still

largely powerless; we stayed powerless even as public schools were being

desegregated and more of our elites were being elected to Congress and

other positions. The same racist, authoritarian state that stripped us

of our humanity was now asserting itself as our first line of defense of

those hard-won concessions in the form of federal troops and FBI

“observers” (who watched as we were beaten, raped, and/or killed) sent

to enforce The Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of

1965.

As we have seen since that time, what the white power structure grants,

it can (and will) take away; we can point to recent US Supreme Court

decisions around voter redistricting as one part of our evidence. We can

also look to the problem of mail and publication censorship in the US

prison system (state and federal) that has come back to haunt us since

the landmark 1960’s first amendment legal challenge to the state of New

York that was won by political prisoner and Black/Puerto Rican anarchist

Martin Sostre. And then there’s the attacks on a prisoners’ right to sue

a prison official, employee, or institution being made by the House and

Senate. Give us one good reason to believe that you people will be any

different than these previous and current “benevolent” leaders and

political institutions if by some fluke or miracle you folks stumble

into state power?

No “guarantees” against counter-revolution or revisionism within your

“revolutionary” party/government you say? There are two: the guns,

ammunition, organization, solidarity, political consciousness, and

continuous vigilance of the masses of non- white people and the truly

sympathetic, conscious anti-authoritarian few amongst your population;

or a successful grassroots- based revolution that is rooted in

anti-authoritarian political ideas that are culturally relevant to each

ethnicity of the poor and working class population in the US. Judging by

the general attitudes and theories expressed by your members and

leadership, we can be rest assured that it is virtually guaranteed that

the spirit of ‘Jim Crow’ can and will flourish within a white-led

Marxist-Leninist “proletarian dictatorship” in the US. It’s clear to me

why you all ramble on and on about the revolutions of China, Russia,

Vietnam, Cuba, etc; they provide convenient cover for you all (read:

escapism) to avoid a serious examination of the faults in your current

analysis as well as in the historical analysis of the last thirty years

of struggle in the US.

These are the only conclusions that can be drawn when you all are so

obviously hostile to the idea of doing the hard work of confronting your

own individual racist and reactionary tendencies. When your own fellow

white activists attempted to put together an “Anti-Racism Workshop” for

members of the Seattle Mumia Defense Committee, many of you pledged your

support (in the form of the usual dogmatic, vague, and arguably baseless

rhetorical proclamations of “solidarity” and “commitment to racial

equality”) and then proceeded to not show up. Only the two initial

organizers within the SMDC and two coalition members (neither affiliated

with any political party) were there. Make no mistake, I have no

illusions about white people confronting their own racism; but I do

support their honest attempts at doing so. Here we have a situation in

which an ideological leap amongst the white left in Seattle may have

been initiated; yet, the all- knowing, all-seeing “revolutionary

vanguard(s)” of the white left were too busy spending that particular

weekend picking the lent out of their belly buttons. Are we saving our

belly-button lent for the potential shortages of food that occur during

and shortly after the revolution [is corrupted by the mis-leadership of

your particular rigid, dogmatic, authoritarian party]?

V. The bottom line is this: Self-determination!

For most white leftists, this means that we as Black people are

demanding our own separate nation-state. Some of our revolutionary

factions do advocate such a position. Black Autonomists, however, reject

nation-statism [For more on that, refer to page 15 of any copy of Black

Autonomy newspaper].

Regardless of whether or not the Black masses opt for a separate

homeland on this continent or in Africa, we will be respected as

subjects of history and not as objects that the state, its supporters,

or the white left decides what to do with.

The answer to “the Black question” is simple: It is not a question; we

are people, you will deal with us as such or we will fight you and the

rest of the white settler nation...by any and all means necessary! We

will not be cowed or dominated by anyone ever again!

Too many times in the course of American (and world) history have our

people fought and died for the dream of true freedom, only to have it

turn into the nightmare of continued oppression. If the end result of a

working-class revolution in the United States is the continued

domination of non-white people by white “revolutionary leaders” and a

Left-wing [white supremacist] government, then we will make another

revolution until any and all perpetrators and supporters of that type of

social-political relationship are defeated or dead! Any and all means

are completely justifiable in order to prevent the defeat of our

revolution and the re-introduction of white supremacy. We will not put

up with another 400+ years of oppression; and I’m sure our Native and

Hispanic brothers and sisters won’t tolerate another 500+ years of the

same ol’ shit.

Ultimately, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”; that’s

the main reason I decided to publish this, as yet another humble

contribution to the self-education of our people. The second reason is

to, hopefully, inspire the white left to re-examine your current

practices and beliefs as part of your process of self-education;

assuming that you all in fact practice self-education.

Reject the traditions of your ancestors and learn from their mistakes;

or reject your potential allies in communities of color. The choice is

yours...

“It is a commentary on the fundamentally racist nature of this society

that the concept of group strength for black people must be articulated,

not to mention defended. No other group would submit to being led by

others. Italians do not run the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

Irish do not chair Christopher Columbus Societies. Yet when black people

call for black-run and all-black organizations, they are immediately

classed in a category with the Ku Klux Klan.”

-Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael), Black Power; Vintage Press, 1965.

For Further Reading

“Black Autonomy, A Newspaper of Anarchism and Black Revolution” Vol. #1,

issues #1-#5; Vol. #2, issues #1-#3. 1994–1996.

Bookchin, Murray “Post-Scarcity Anarchism” Ramparts Press, 1971.

Ervin, Lorenzo Kom’boa “Anarchism and the Black Revolution and Other

Essays” Monkeywrench Press, 1994

Jackson, Greg “Mythology of A White-Led ‘Vanguard’: A Critical Look at

the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA” Black Autonomy staff, 1996.

Mohammed, Kimathi “Organization and Spontaneity: The Theory of the

Vanguard Party and its Application to the Black Movement in the US

Today” Marcus Garvey Institute, 1974.

Sakai, J. “Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat”

Zhenhua, Zhai “Red Flower of China” Soho Press, 1992.

Zinn, Howard “A People’s History of the United States” Harper-

Perrenial, Revised 1995.