The New Southern Strategy – The Politics of Self-Determination in the South – a discrete public journal – Entry 1

Many people I know expressed surprise at me moving to Jackson Ms., being from Brooklyn (back when it was the BK- but that is another story). The surprise is even more startling for Jackson folks under 30 who with amazement in their eyes ask WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE NEW YORK? Part of the answer is that I have committed myself to the fulfillment of certain ideas. So my career is the politics of black self-determination. It does not pay well by any means; you can’t always get the most qualified people to fulfill certain positions and the hours suck; but over 20 years ago I was bitten by the bug of revolutionary black politics. Those politics have cost me financially and sanity wise, but at the same time they have led me on a life mission, some great comrades and the love of my life. So on balance I still feel as if I am coming out ahead, however back to Jackson, Ms.

I would like to believe that as a committed organizer that the work I do has a larger purpose. That it is coordinated in such a way to gain results that are tangible and that build towards greater community control of the social, economic and political institutions over them. I came to Jackson, Ms with such ideas in mind. The thinking is that the city of Jackson due to its size, demographic makeup and history could be a great place to re-test ideas both historic and current in the struggle for black self-determination.

It is way too early to suggest success; however my first twelve weeks in Jackson is a good guide to early satisfaction with the actual move. I have done more multilayered organizing here than I have in the last 5 years in either New York or Atlanta. I have met and worked with various groups and individuals from people in community civic leagues, church groups, home associations, electoral candidates, cops, preachers, politicians, farmer groups, civil rights workers, and international allies, but relatively few of the pro-black militants or overt left radicals that I have worked with most of my organizing life. Obviously most of these folks don’t necessarily share the full range of my politics but we have enough in common to work on various initiatives which can lead to progressive/radical changes in Jackson. My debates have been substantive and have led to action as opposed to conversations that only ignite plans without success because of follow thru abilities, desire, finances, scale, or scope. I have worked on achieving economic development, international solidarity, electoral strategies, and food justice issues.

More specifically we have already established the largest community garden/farm in Jackson (over 5 acres). A campaign for policy changes on healthy food is in the works. We have supported the successful election of the first Black Sheriff in Hinds County Mississippi (Hinds was incorporated in 1820) which encompasses Jackson and is over 70% black. This is a victory coming on the heels of electing Chokwe Lumumba (an MXGM founder) to the city council two years ago. We are now beginning work on a second city-council race and looking into buying property as a center and we have purchased our fist property for economic development purposes.

The overt work of struggling for self-determination in the south predates me by a few hundred years; however 40 years ago the groundwork was laid for a modern struggle that recognized the south as a battleground in an ideological and at times physical battle for self determination. In 1968 the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) was formed and later in the 1980s the New Afrikan Peoples Organization (NAPO) provided a revolutionary nationalist position for organizing in the South where the majority of black people still live today. People have changed their lives, uprooted their families and died for attempting to convince black people that the south could be more than just a place of oppression but it could also be a place of rejuvenation and control.

Two years ago a new phase of this struggle began. Momentum has been built over that time when we got directly involved in the previously mentioned electoral candidacy of Chokwe Lumumba for City Council. We made several other attempts in nearby cities to do similar work but the time seemed overtly right this time when several months prior the US electorate, partly due to an economic meltdown, open-ended wars abroad and the changing demographics of the U.S. population, voted in a moderate Black democrat as its President, who at the time for many appeared to represent much more.

The southern black population is similarly dominated by local moderate black democratic officials. As the black power movements of the 60’s and 70’s retreated under immense attack by local and national US government forces. The void was filled by “safe” politicians who did not do much to upset the economic balance of power that favored white power brokers and embraced moderate Democratic Party rhetoric on governing. In essence making places like Jackson Ms, a post apartheid South Africa, plenty of electoral power never translated into actual political power, a black petty-bourgeoisie happy to live off the scraps of the minority white capitalist class that calls the shots.

It is in this context that MXGM saw an opening to support the candidacy of Lumumba. For the black political class the needs of the community take a back seat to their own individual career paths. With no commitment to anything, beyond getting elected these officials don’t bring any overarching principles to city-government beyond the principle of careerism. This gave us the opportunity to respond with a candidate who could highlight real choices. In no other place except the South could we play on a city wide basis, where over 50% of the U.S. black population still lives and where in major cities in the South blacks still represent over 50% of the electorate. It is here where we can highlight the politics of self-determination versus the politics of careerism and moderation.

We have also borrowed from our friends in places like Venezuela with the concept of Peoples’ Assemblies. Organizing the community into specific blocks for a more direct democracy that begins to set the agenda for what candidates that are elected should be fighting for as opposed to just hearing what candidates say they are going to do. This work must be done in an intentional way, one that involves planning for what the city/community should look like and how it should be governed. Even if candidates don’t overtly share our politics they are responsive to them for the first time. In addition the Peoples’ Assembly is a larger base where policy thru community organizing can be achieved. We are developing Assemblies for each of the seven wards in Jackson and by the beginning of 2012 we should be supporting the start of two additional Assemblies in Jackson.

On the challenging side the politicizing of young people will take a while. The ideas of politics being outside of mainstream discussions is now a foreign concept to many young people. The idea that life chances are all about personnel responsibility now once again dominate discourse and that will change only through more victories. In addition despite my needed respite from only working with “professional” organizers the need to expand what we have is great if we are to keep the momentum going. As Lenin and others have pointed out the vanguard party cannot easily be discarded when thinking through strategy and planning.

We hope to facilitate several mechanisms for people close to us to move to Jackson through some of our economic development plans but that is a few years away. Unlike the past where activist would move based on what were the strategic needs of a movement they were a part of, today’s organizer is less likely to make such a move unless it’s tied to the adventure of an international struggle or a semi-natural disaster. We don’t want to overwhelm Jackson with transplants but I believe with ten more trained organizers steep in the politics of self-determination we could test our theories that much faster. My goal and hope is that within two years this work will produce real results in making Jackson a capital of black progressive change and positioning the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement as a leading community force that even if not liked by all will certainly be recognized as one to reckon with.

http://kamaufranklin.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/the-new-southern-strategy-%e2%80%93-the-politics-of-self-determination-in-the-south-%e2%80%93-a-discrete-public-journal-%e2%80%93-entry-1/

Written for Left Turn Magazine

Manning Marable’s, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention”, must be seen for what it is, an ideological polemic. The general focus of this polemic is Black Nationalism, and Black revolutionary nationalism in particular. Manning’s critical focus and fixation on Malcolm X as the quintessential point of reference for Black Nationalists since his cold blooded assassination in 1965, is a means to socially advance a line of reasoning against this broad political philosophy and social movement by turning its iconic figurehead on his head. The objective of this inversion is to prove, in 594 pages no less, that those who adhere to and seek to advance some variant of a Black nationalist program not only have it all wrong, but in fact are distorting what Malcolm himself stood for at the end of his days.

As Manning would have it, at the time of his assassination, Malcolm X had all but abandoned Black nationalism, and had instead become a pragmatic, liberal humanist, with social democratic political leanings. As several critics have already pointed out, this character bears a striking resemblance to Manning himself. Paraphrasing Patrick Moyniham, although Manning is unquestionably entitled to his own opinion, he is not entitled to his own facts. And the fact stands that the document that most clearly reflects Malcolm’s political philosophy and programmatic orientation at the time of his death was the Program of the Organization of Afro-American Unity. This program is without question a revolutionary nationalist program. The OAAU’s program is modeled on the anti-imperialist program of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) advanced by the Casablanca block of the Union in the early 1960′s. The Casablanca Group included several progressive states offering political, financial and military aid to the revolutionary anti-colonial struggles then raging on the continent, particularly in the Portuguese held colonies and Southern Africa. Chief amongst the Casablanca states were Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana, Sekou Toure’s Guinea, and Gamal Abdel-Nassar’s Egypt, all of which Malcolm X had long standing knowledge and admiration of. This is evidenced by his constant references to the 1955 Afro-Asian or Bandung Conference, even prior to his departure from the Nation of Islam (NOI), and the Non-Aligned Movement which he was concretely relating to at the time of his death. Manning consistently tries to tip toe around these and other clearly known facts, and where he can’t he insists on trying to twist their meaning into something more temperate and palatable to the liberal, non-racial or multi-cultural, social democratic movement and program he was seeking to advance.

No where was this more painfully evident than on pages 484 – 486 of the book. The portion that perhaps best illustrates Manning’s disdain for Black nationalism and his narrow interpretation of it is found on page 485. He states:

“The unrealized dimension of Malcolm’s racial vision was that of black nationalism. A political ideology that originated before the Civil War, black nationalism was based on the assumption that racial pluralism leading to assimilation was impossible in the United States. So cynical were many nationalists about the incapacity of whites to overcome their own racism that they occasionally negotiated with white terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, in the mistaken belief that they were more honest about their racial attitudes than liberals. Yet as Malcolm’s international experiences became more varied and extensive, his social vision expanded. He became less intolerant and more open to multiethnic and interfaith coalitions. By the final months of his life he resisted identification as a ‘black nationalist’, seeking ideological shelter under the race-neutral concepts of Pan-Africanism and Third World revolution.”

First, he rehashes an old, liberal line against Black nationalism that it is the largely rejected strain of Black politics that periodically reemerges like a phoenix during times of heighten oppression against Black people. Manning, like many of his predecessors who held and advanced this line, has a hard time grasping that since the inception of the genocidal white-settler project that is the United States, that there have been African people not in the least mystified by the material and ideological trappings of their would be masters, and have sought to establish their own independent states or safe havens on American soil or sought repatriation back to Africa. Uncompromising self-determination and sovereignty has always been the fundamental objective of this tendency of the Black Liberation Movement. Further, Manning’s statement assumes that structurally the US is qualitatively less white supremacist now than it was in the 19th century. While some of the formal trappings of white supremacy have changed, and changed considerably as in the case of the elimination of de jure apartheid, the fundamental essentials of the racist political economy remain the same. And we have to keep in mind, that although history never repeats itself exactly, there are plenty of signs that the “second reconstruction” has exhausted itself with the election of President Obama, and is in the process of being reversed, much as the first reconstruction was between the late 1870′s and 1890′s.

Second, neither Pan-Africanism, Third Worldism, or Tri-Continentalism were ever “race-neutral”. All of these social movements were and are crystal clear that one of their primary enemies was and is white supremacy in the guise of European and American colonial occupation and imperialist exploitation. Malcolm X’s deepening embrace of Pan-Africanism and Third World internationalism was never a rejection or retreat from Black nationalism. If anything, as it pertains to his adoption of these ideologies and movements, the base of his contemporary US influences alone (the myth that it was international travel alone that advanced Malcolm’s politics in this vein needs to be totally debunked) – which run the gamut from Paul Robeson, W.E.B. DuBois, Queen Mother Moore, Robert F. Williams, CLR James, Vickie Garvin, Carlos Cooks, Elombe Brath, Harold Cruse, John Henrik Clarke and Gaidi and Imari Obadele, to name but a few – indicate more than anything, that Malcolm was in fact embracing the more revolutionary and internationalist currents of the Black Liberation Movement. These revolutionary currents were brutally repressed in the 1940′s and 50′s by the US government and largely sidelined by the liberal, petit bourgeois leadership of the social movement now labeled the “Civil Rights Movement”, which made a conscious choice to abandon the economic demands and human rights framework advanced by the BLM in the 1930′s and 40′s, so as not to be castigated or associated with communism and the revolutionary nationalist movements opposed by US imperialism during the high tide of the Cold War.

In light of these facts, I think it becomes clear that Manning’s distortions are more than just mere twists of fact. “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention”, has to be read as a product of the political and ideological struggles of its own time and historical context, just as much as it should be read and interpreted as a product of a singular (or team, as I believe there was more than one hand responsible for some of the sections of this work) consciousness. It is the contemporary weaknesses of the Black Liberation Movement on a whole, and its Black Nationalist wings more specifically, buttressed by imperialism’s hegemonic co-optation of Afrocentrism and other liberal variants of multi-culturalism into a “post-racial” politics of American nationalism that define the so-called “age of Obama”, that enabled the production of this work. Nowhere is this most evident than on page 486, where Manning raises the question:

“If legal racial segregation was permanently in America’s past, Malcolm’s vision today would have to radically redefine self-determination and the meaning of black power in a political environment that appeared to many to be ‘post-racial’.”

Here again, Manning displays his narrow understanding of Black Nationalism. In this leap frog of a statement, Manning fails to address the more than 40 years of the Black nations internal struggle over the question of self-determination. What is negated here is an explanation of the political and military defeat of the Black Liberation Movement in the 1970′s and 80′s, and the Black petit bourgeoisie’s broad betrayal of the liberation movement by making conscious, deliberate and consistent choices since the 1970′s to incorporate itself within the American imperialist project. Thus by virtue of a vacuum, the Black petit bourgeoisie, in alliance with the Democratic Party, has assumed an unrelenting hegemonic stranglehold over Black politics, removing it from the streets, the schools and the shop floors to ensure that the peoples’ political engagement would be safely confined to narrow electoral channels. The liberal Black petit bourgeois program and cultural orientation willfully subjects and subordinates the interests of Black people to the interests of the American imperial project, essentially to ensure that its own position within the projected is secured and consolidated. The “post-racial” political climate that Manning speaks of is not some neutral phenomenon that somehow spontaneously emerged. It is the outcome of this struggle, an outcome with clear winners and losers. The primary loser being the Black working class.

Since its qualitative fragmentation (particularly after the collapse of the National Black Political Convention and the dissolution of the African Liberation Support Committee in the mid-1970′s) and repression induced retreat in the 1970′s, the Black Liberation Movement has been largely unable to address the deteriorating conditions of the Black working class produced by capital’s globalizing counter-offensive to the gains of Black workers and the working class as whole won between the 1930′s and 60′s, and fundamentally blocked from enacting on a comprehensive scale an independent political program that advances the goal of self-determination. One of the primary results of this defeat has been a steady right orientated ideological drift in the Black community that has tailed the growing class fragmentation of the Black nation into the Haves (and have access) and the Have-Not’s. The Have’s occupy the hegemonic center, and through the hegemonic block that they have constructed within the Black nation have advanced a program that creates space for the general acceptance of Black cultural and physical inclusion within the imperial project, just so long as it doesn’t threaten the settler-order at home and the never ending expanse of capital globally. The Have-Not’s meanwhile, due to the present lack of a strong and viable alternative, are increasingly excluded from labor markets, warehoused in prisons, and contained in isolated urban ghetto’s or ex-urbanian cantonments seeking economic justice and self-determination.

Manning spent a considerable portion of his political and academic life contemplating what could and should be a viable political alternative for the Have-Not’s. As one of his defining political projects, he was unwavering in his resistance to the advance of conservative and reactionary Black nationalist politics, as well he and all of us should be in my own opinion, posing as that alternative. But, he often displayed a somewhat narrow understanding of the complexity of Black nationalism, which often led him to short change revolutionary nationalism and its promise and potential as an alternative in his works and political engagements. However, its clear from reading “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention”, that Manning was not just casting Black nationalism narrowly unintentionally, but that he was committed to seeing that no version or tendency of this phenomenon be projected as an alternative. However, as hard as “A Life of Reinvention” tries to negate the propagation of this ideological and political alternative by its attempted inversion of the political life and legacy of Malcolm X, it largely fails. And it fails because as much a Malcolm X was constantly pushing himself and being pushed by his peers to grow politically, his commitment to the self-determination of African people in the US and throughout the world was unwavering, and no assemblage of minutia can twist this historical fact.

For reference to many of the historical points raised herein, please consider the following sources as a sample of the rich history of the Black Liberation Movement:

1. “Race Against Empire: Black Americans and anti-impmerialism, 1937 – 1957″, by Penny M. Von Eschen.
2. “Eye’s Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944 – 1955″, by Carol Anderson.
3. “Black Reconstruction in America, 1860 – 1880″, by W.E.B. Du Bois.
4. “From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity”, by William Sales, Jr.
5. “Want to Start a Revolution? Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle”, edited by Dayo Gore, Komozi Woodard, and Jeanne Theoharis.
6. “Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics”, by Cedric Johnson.
7. “The Golden Age of Black Nationalism, 1850 – 1925″, by William Jeremiah Moses.
8. “Black Power in the Belly of the Beast”, edited by Judson L. Jefferies.
9. “Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition”, by Cedric J. Robinson.
10. “We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations, 1960 – 1975″, by Muhammad Ahmad.
11. “New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965 – 1975″, by William L. Van Deburg.
12. “A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics”, by Komozi Woodard.
13. “Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power”, by Timothy B. Tyson.
14. “Negroes with Guns”, by Robert F. Williams.
15. “Free the Land”, by Imari A. Obadele.

—–
Kali Akuno is the National Coordinator for the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXMG) and the Director of Education, Training, and Field Work for the US Human Rights Nework (USHRN). Kali is currently working on a book tentatively entitled “Confronting a Cleansing: Hurricane Katrina, the Battle for New Orleans, and the Future of the Black Working Class”. The views expressed in this article do not reflect those of MXGM or USHRN. Email feedback to: kaliakuno at gmail dot com

Stopping street harassment is going to take women and men. The problem is that it’s often viewed as a woman’s issue alone, which clearly neglects that the majority of those who harass are men. As a Black man, I seldom worry about going somewhere having a person make unwanted advances, touching my person, or live in the constant fear that any moment I could be accosted.

Or do I?

In hearing the testimonies of women enduring street harassment, I couldn’t help but hear the testimonies of young men of color regarding police harassment. While street harassment and police harassment have key difference, in many important ways they’re similar.* Here are three important parallels:

It’s everywhere- I live in New York City, the mecca of diversity. However, when you look at the stop-and-frisk numbers for the city you find that Black and Latino (predominantly male) residents are singled out. In 2009, of 576,394 stops and frisks were performed and 84 percent of them were on Blacks and Latinos. This is astronomically high, given that Black and Latino compose roughly 26 and 27 percent of the population respectively. The harassment that men of color often undergo via the police is a constant pressure. When walking through Harlem, I routinely see Black boys approached by undercover officers and forced to submit to “random searches.”

These searches are anything but random and serve to make young boys and men feel unsafe in their own communities. In the same way that young men of color are subject to an “invisible force” that disrupts their life without consent, young women of color feel the same. Somehow we live in communities where both men and women of color feel unsafe, displaced and harmed by harassment. Neither forms of harassment lead to safer communities or healthy relationships.

It’s illegal- When we look at the stop-and-frisk data from NYC we see the number on reason someone is stopped and frisked is “furtive movement.” Do you know what that is? Me neither. In fact, you’re not supposed to! The goal is to find any reason possible to stop and deter you from going where you’re going or living your life peacefully. Sound familiar?

Of course disproportionately stopping and frisking people is illegal, just as street harassment should be, but too many of us turn a blind eye to both. It’s going to take those that are the most and the least affected by street harassment and police harassment to come together to fight them. One sided action is not enough.

Knowledge is Powerful!

The Center for Constitutional Rights and Hollaback! have begun to carefully documenting the incidents of harassment. But we all must realize documentation is not enough! As organizers and members of communities, we need to create models that reduce levels of harassment, increase feelings of safety, and heal wounds within communities where gender violence, police violence, and all forms of violence have cracked the foundation.

Here in New York, I work with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement which has developed as Know Your Rights campaign for communities of African descent. The People’s Self-Defense campaign is ultimately designed to give community members the tools to develop healthy communities that are safe spaces for all people, not a select few. Simply pointing at the problem will not cause it to change; instead strategic coalition building and intersectional approaches will be the proving ground for our collective to stop street harassment. The moment is ripe for collaboration and growth, but only if we can see the common harms and develop diverse responses to them.  

*One of the first things I ever learned in organizing and doing work was “don’t do analogs.” While this is good advice, in some cases analogs are essential to creating buy-in from those who may not always see the “relevance” of a social problem. Admittedly there are differences between the two, but as an organizer I’m more interested in getting people to see the common ground so we can develop diverse solutions to these problems.

- Dr. L’Heureux Dumi Lewis, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Black Studies at the City College of New York

This post is part of the weekly blog series by male allies, originally posted at www.stopstreetharassment.org.

http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/2011/05/parellels-of-street-harassment-police-harassment/

Egyptian anti-Mubarak protesters dance and sing under an anti-Mubarak banner in Tahrir square in Cairo. Courtesy Of The Associated Press, Sat Feb 5, 4:38 AM ET

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) stands in solidarity with the revolutionary spirit and action that has swept North Africa, particularly in Tunisia and Egypt, and similar uprisings in Algeria, Jordan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.  In line with the demands of the Egyptian people MXGM calls on Hosni Mubarak to step down from the Presidency immediately, for an end to neo-colonial and neo-liberal regimes propped up by US imperialism in the region, for self determination expressed through the creation of a people’s government with transparent and participatory processes and procedures (with the relevant changes to the constitution to institutionalize these reforms), the observance of human rights for all the peoples and communities living in Egypt, the end of torture and state repression, and the release of all political prisoners in Egypt.

The critical uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt represent a critical reawakening of the African and Arab revolutionary movements and processes.  As both an extension of and ally to these revolutionary movements and processes, MXGM will do everything within its power to help their advance as a critical next step in the liberation of African, Arab, and all oppressed and exploited peoples.  We call on all those who desire to see Africa and Southwest Asia (i.e. the Middle East) free from the US, European, Zionist, and neo-colonial domination to stand with the peoples of Tunisia and Egypt, and join us in our solidarity initiatives.

Peace

Solidarity Statement From MXGM

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) takes a yearly journey in August outside the US empire as part of our Black August experience to engage with other organizers and activist of Afrikan descent. This year’s delegation was to Haiti and was one of the most important and urgent journeys we have taken.  This impoverished Afrikan nation in the Caribbean is rebuilding once again. Little more than seven months after a devastating earthquake killed over 200,000 Haitians the resiliency of the people is a marvel. Through graffiti writing the people express themselves in various ways about their post-earthquake circumstances and their distrust for their government, their elite, the UN occupation and the non-governmental organizations (ngo’s), most of which have become parasites on the Haitian body. On the walls of the crumbling National Palace statements like “Aba Ministra” down with the U.N occupation, “Aba Preval “down with Preval (the current President), to calls for Aristides return, speak volumes about the daily struggle to survive and a continued heightened political consciousness and concern about fighting for a true peoples democracy.

Over the last 20 years this generation of Haitian people has had to deal not only with the devastating effects of this earthquake, but with the continued battles to establish a popular democracy that represents the interest of the vast majority of the Haitian people. After the fall of the brutal US backed father – son Duvalier regime through the efforts of a mobilized populace. The Haitian masses have had to continue to fight their own Kreyòl, elite, for a time the U.S. propped up military and right wing militias responsible for killing thousands of pro-democracy activist and poor who created the popular organizations that battled to elect Jean Bertrand Aristide twice. After those victories the people have had their hopes dashed in two coup d’état orchestrated by Haitian elite and the US, Canadian, French and Dominican Republic government to depose Aristide and remove him from the country and the banning of the Fanmi Lavalas party from participating in Haiti elections. Lavalas is the political party of the majority of Haitian people and as Haitian human rights lawyer Mario Joseph put it “Lavalas could put up a ham sandwich in an election and win against all other parties and candidates in Haiti and everyone knows it.”

In addition the last twenty years have seen the US lead the way in making the Haitian economy bleed for supporting the wrong candidate. Imposing a Cuban style embargo on important aid and battering through structural adjustments programs via the International Monetary Fund and World Bank that destroyed state controlled aspects of the economy that supplied jobs and revenue for the Haitian government to build schools and provide some resources. What replaced sold off state properties that were then closed down or protected Haitian agricultural industries that were forced to open their markets — US cheap imports (Including in 1982 the eradication of Haitian pigs based on the demand of the US government, to be replaced with US pigs, who are smaller and die quicker because they are not conditioned to Haiti’s terrain.) Tax free cheap labor zones were set up providing “jobs” for needy Haitians leaving them even more in need after receiving a pay check that is too low to feed ones-self on. What was left of a Haitian economy has been replaced by foreign ngo’s that have no accountability to the government or people of Haiti, only to their sponsors and fundraising drives delivered off the back of the poor masses.

Haitians also have to deal with an occupation by United Nation forces, which shoot up places like City Soleil for being aligned with Aristide and Fanmi Lavalas while at the same time the so-called peace force of the U.N. nor the Haitian national Police can seem to find, arrest or take weapons away from former coup leaders who have been allowed to return to Haiti. People like Guy Phillipe, a top coup conspirator and murderer of Haitian people with strong CIA connections. Phillipe freely roams around without any interference from so-called UN peace-keepers giving interviews about his intent to run for president (As compared to Wyclef, he at least lives in Haiti.)

This is enough to wear any people out. However the Haitian people are in a literal life and death struggle for control of resources, aid and keeping the idea of a popular working democracy going. The popular organizations and the Haitian masses are recovering and assisting their people by creating and recreating indigenous community groups to support the people.  As part of the delegation trip we visited camps where Haitian people live in the thousands sometimes hundreds of thousands. Many of these places have only been visited once or twice by the UN or other so-called aid groups seven months after the earthquake. Literally billions of dollars have been collected or pledged, but the vast majority of the monies have not reached the Haitian people. Instead the Haitian people have self-organized to provide some protection against violence and rape, sought out resources for the hungry and created makeshift schools for the young. The popular organizations have worked to rebuild schools and colleges, women’s groups, micro-lending organizations, organizations dedicated to freeing Haitian political prisoners and aid sites that provide mental health and other material services and more. The people of Haiti cry out that the government has not been accountable and the Haitian elite of course never was so into this breech steps in indigenous groups as the Institute for Justice and Democracy, the Aristide Foundation, the September 30^th and others.

Amongst popular organizations there is a call to allow the people to recover before new elections are held. To delay the upcoming elections to allow for full participation from the Haiti people and Haitian political parties, instead of the cynical US and Haitian elite backed process that is moving forward requiring ids to vote, knowing full well many people lost almost everything after the earthquake including of course ids. These popular organizations with the solidarity of international groups have continued to support accountable aid efforts a just electoral process justice and human rights for the Haitian people, even through this catastrophic process.

The Black August delegation, a representation of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement expresses full support for the demands of the Haitian people. Our delegation was named for a fallen comrade Javad Jahi who as a member of MXGM dedicated himself to solidarity with the Haitian people. Our trip was built off of some of those relationships. As we support financial aid efforts sponsored by the Haiti Action Committee and Haiti Emergency Relief Fund that have direct ties to indigenous Haitian organizations we call for a new solidarity movement that will support the demands of the Haitian popular movements. Towards that end we have helped create the Haiti will Rise Again Coalition to fight against continued US foreign policy that seeks to protect interest of the Haiti elite, at the expense of the wishes of the people to have a true popular democracy.

COALITION POINTS OF UNITY

1. Be in Alliance with the Haiti Action Committee and the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund — www.haitisolidarity.net
2. Be a multi-national, multi-racial and multi-tendency alliance composed of various political, social, spiritual, and cultural organizations in the metro-Atlanta region committed to pressuring the US government, multi-lateral institutions (i.e. IMF, WB, WTO, Inter-American Bank, etc.), and
   trans-national corporations to comply with the principle demands of the progressive people’s movement in Haiti
3. Engage in organizing, mobilizing, resource generation, and educational activities that realize the demands of the Haitian people’s movement, this would include, but not be limited to, petitioning, lobbying, demonstrating, marching, direct action, and providing material aid

DEMANDS OF THE HAITIAN PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT

1. An immediate end to the United States and United Nations occupation of Haiti
2. The elimination of all IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Bank, US, and G20 debt and the structural adjustment and privatization programs required of these debts
3. The nationalization of all Haiti’s natural resources
4. Reparations and restitution from France and the United States for the forced indemnities, illegal blockades and occupations
5. Freedom for all political prisoners from the 2004 coup and its aftermath
6. Residency and amnesty for Haitian refugees
7. End the ban on the Fanmi Lavalas Party to ensure that there are legitimate “free and fair” elections
8. The immediate return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide

It is rumored in the past that the “jail” was painted over by residents, but the same feature was reinstalled. The buzz generated around the offensive “jail” element this time got swift response from NYCHA. On Wednesday afternoon, NYCHA sent employees to the House’s playground to paint over the jail and bars as a temporarily solution. A more permanent solution will be coming soon. Chapter members are actively checking other playgrounds throughout  the city which may feature similarly dangerous images for our children.

The message sent to our children by a jail in the middle of where they live and play is one that we cannot afford to go unanswered. With the ever increasing schoolhouse to jailhouse pipeline, we have to be very sensitive to the ways that our community is characterized and how folks try to socialize our children. With more Black people in “correctional control” now than were enslaved in 1850, it’s too common for our families to be broken up by the criminal injustice system. As we celebrate the closing of a jail for our babies, let’s continue the work of supporting our political prisoners and arming our people with their rights for self-defense. Salute to Ademola, Lumumba, Monifa and everyone who used people power for this victory!!!

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1) Captain Obvious to the rescue

If you have walked around Harlem in the last ten years, this story should not or does not surprise you. Everyone I passed the link or story around to who has lived here for a while responded with amusement, confirmation, and continuing with their day. Why? In part because demographic shifts get picked up by the census after people experience it in their everyday lives. The standard “quick and dirty” test of racial segregation within NYC that I give my students is the “train test.” I ask them, “Where do you get on? Where do you get off? What type of people (ethnicity) get off at your stop? When can you get a seat?” These questions lead them to think about demographic change in terms of race, ethnicity, economy, and space. In short, ride a train and you’d know that non-”Black” folks have been streaming uptown for a while now.

From IRAAS Harlem History Photo Essay

2) The Great White Fear

The article features a lovely picture of a White man, Joshua Buachner and his 2 year old daughter. It’s amazing how a docile picture of brownstone can create such a panic. The responses I saw highlighted the booming White surge in Harlem. Well kids, look at the numbers! First, the article plainly states Central Harlem has received a boom, doubling so now that means 1 in 10 residents in Central Harlem are White! Whoa! One in 10 … yeah, that’s right let it marinate … oh wait, not running scared? Right! The percentage of White residents was so low that a doubling lead to 1 in 10. If you look at the graphs provided, you’ll see there is a significant uptick but not one many are concentrating on. And trust me, 1 in 10 should make you think when you get of at 125th that you got off in the Upper East Side. Perspective is everything.

3) Urban Amnesia

The article pretty much steps over the entire history of redlining and other forms of systematic depreciation of Harlem properties and shuffling of the Black population into Harlem. Redlining served to keep people from buying property, served to make folks who had property sell instead of “riding the tide”, served to limit commerce in Harlem, and even carried a premium for services used by residents. Yes, there was significant outmigration, but this outmigration operated in concert with the “invisible hand” of financial incentives for some and disincentives for others. In reality, Black Harlem has really been leased space. A significant number of Black folks were able to buy, but many if not most Black folks in Harlem did not own; they rented. The result is that the owners left, the renters stayed, and Harlem’s economic depression continued for far too long. The out-migration and in-migration (depends on who you ask also known as gentrification) is not happenstance. Yes, everyone has individual agency and choices, but one’s choices are shaped by larger forces.

4) Black is, Black ain’t?

The article stresses the decrease in “Black” families, which the author never defines but we can take to mean largely African-American families (people of African descent who were part of US chattel slavery). In passing the article mentions the increasing numbers of Black residents who are not African-American such as West Indian and Continental African immigrants. This expansion of the African diasporic presence can be seen in food choices, neighborhood institutions, and has undoubtedly added to the flavor of Harlem… but what about the “other” folks? You know, the ones the article gives short sell to? The most rapidly increasing groups in Harlem according to the chart are the “other(s).” And I’d bet, though I don’t have the data, this is an increase in Latinos, particularly Afro-Latinos. The article quickly mentions that the Latino population is at an all time high in Central Harlem and Harlem at large. It seems that that for the past 30 plus years, Latinos have been moving in and occupying neighborhoods throughout Harlem without large alarm and cover stories. Uptown has a bustling Afro-Latino population which should not continue to be overlooked. If you are a student of Harlem, you know there has been tension but also very fertile ground around race and ethnic solidarity between African-Americans, Continental Africans,  Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, etc. This could represent a greater Pan Afrikan possibility … or panic, it’s up to us to decide.

5) Whose/Who’s Harlem?

The next steps for Harlem are in motion. Yes, there is an increasing White presence, but to me the more important part is that there is an increasing Latino presence, particularly Afro-Latino population. These are the moments when Harlem residents have a chance to redefine what it means to be Black Harlem. While in the 20th century Harlem witnessed the extreme flight of Whites and its Blackening, the process does not have to be reversed. Everyday when I walk around Harlem and the Heights I see the beauty of the Diaspora. A key to maintaining our stake and status in this historic “capital of Black America” is looking for links of solidarity around affordable housing, living wages, and community. Black Harlem has always been what its residents made it out to be. Ownership has never been the bedrock of the community, instead its the vibrance of our people that creates beauty in the midst of struggle.

The election was actually indicative of a real shift in the body politic and presented a realistic opportunity to further develop a progressive/moderate coalition of so called racial minorities and young whites.  The shift should have presented the dems an opportunity to actually cater to their base and to prepare for the inevitable push back from the Right.  Instead, liberals drank their own cool aid and embraced the “post-racial” prism which left them looking like deer caught in the headlights when racism/white nationalism raised its head.  In the meantime the Right jumped into their ole reliable hooptie, driving deep seated white supremacy beliefs into a mini-movement, effectively rekindling their base for the 2010 mid-term elections.

When you actually break down the election numbers, you can see the importance of demographic shifts and the voter turnout that brought this liberal/moderate coalition of Blacks, Asians, Latinos and young whites to victory. In winning approx 54% of the total votes cast, Obama won only 43% of the white vote (despite repeated cable pundits and anchors who keep claiming the that the overwhelming majority of whites voted for Obama), but over 95% of the Black vote and about 67% of the Latino and Asian vote.  How these numbers were flipped into proof of a “post-racial” America is a testament to the power of the media and feeblemindedness of liberals.  With the browning of America, racial coalition politics is more crucial in national elections and that should have been enough of a victory in speaking about how far the country has come.

Revenge of Identity Politics

Looking at the numbers, it is not a surprise that Obama won 43% of the white vote, considering the state of the country it should have been 63%. You would think that after a near collapse of laissez-faire capitalism and two wars with no end in sight, the need for change would be easy to see. But you can’t keep a good strategy down. As liberals were celebrating their kum-bai-ya moment, our right wing friends were regrouping, and their response was not less of a southern strategy but instead to turn up the fire.

Fox news led off with the attack on the New Black Panther Party showing how they supposedly intimidated white people on Election Day intimating the stealing of the election by the radical Obama. Next was the call after the election that the President-elect was going to take away their guns. So after the biggest spurt of gun buying in history was matched by the largest amount of death threats on a new President, something started looking a little shaky for the no more race crowd. Later the Birther movement rolled in with “he ain’t no American, that boy was born in Africa.”  Glen Beck calls the half-white Obama racist and says he hates white people, it’s really getting hot now. Then the health  care debate gives off the battle cry of Obama being a socialist, look at them czars he hired, lets bring the guns to the town halls. The Texas governor threatens to leave the union.  God bless them, they are as ugly as ever. If you thought the Willie Hortan adds of the 80’s were bad, take a look at what’s next. Rush Limbaugh turns a school fight where a white kid gets dropped, into a call for segregated buses to protect young whites against “Obama Nation”.

What are we to make of these attacks? They are going to intensify the racial tension because it’s the Right’s only path to victory in a majority white party. The strategy of course is even older than the southern strategy of the sixties. It was the Democratic party of the South that first employed its own version of this strategy after Republican Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation Act, insuring a loyalty of Southern whites for close to 100 years, until the 1960’s when Republicans employed it as a response to the civil rights movement.

Prior to last year the right wing was on a path to creating a permanent majority. The Christian right comprised the ground troops to the new neo-conservative anthem of embracing open markets and missionary wars as the path into heaven. It only increased the apathy of the general Black population in the electoral field on a national level. It was Republican overreaching in Iraq and the greatest economic crises in the US since the great depression that got Obama 40% of the white vote. On immigration the Republicans, who prior to their overt campaign to kick out all the Latino’s oops, they meant illegals were getting a much higher share of the Latino vote, pushed more Latinos to the left of the republican party.

Our response

As we look at the American economic order, the saying goes when America gets a cold, black people get the flu, well its more like the swine-flu at this point. Black unemployment rates, which traditionally are at recession levels, have now hit the stage of depression officially topping 15% to 25% in most regions of the country not to mention other societal stats that continue to place black people at the bottom of social-economic indicators of well being in this society). That order is not going to change by the actions of a moderate democratic party no matter who is in charge. However even for someone like myself that sees very little value in the American political system for long-term black interest, I can see how the Obama election rejuvenated black political involvement in this arena. This brings its own set of challenges, but the increased civic involvement is something that has to be taken as a positive overall. The limits of the US system to extract real change will only bring forth the need for a more profound “identity” politics for Black people. One that does not mirror what’s on the Right but instead uses the politics of self-determination to build institutions that are controlled by the black community and brings forth the issues that are of concern in our community despite who may be the dominate electoral party in charge.

In addition since the Republicans strategy is to pull more whites back over to them, or to back off their immigration stance and try and to split the Latino vote. The recession will mean more angry white folks who will continue blaming Barack Hussain Obama for everything the Bush and its neo cons created. How do you think Black people are going to respond to the attack of the first black President, they are going to defend him, and we should think about how to work with that, not just talk about Black bourgeoisie, or offer a critique from the left that does not include concern for Obama and his possible safety, but find ways to relate to that anger that speaks about the need to build institutions that can defend black “progress” or create a power base in the community.

The importance of stressing institution building for Black people in America has to become central to any argument in these political times. Why won’t right-wingers admit defeat and go away? It’s because they have the hardware and have built the institutions that solidifies their ability to get the word out and to regroup even after defeat. Fox news did not go away after the election it re-thought it’s position and came back even more nasty than before. Black identity politics should not duplicate the right at all, but it should lean that kum-bai-ya moments are just that, moments. Once the moment passes if our communities are not in any better shape than before then we have not done anything to meet our collective interest, even if an individual milestone has some ripple effect and is widely celebrated, by those who want us to be post-racial.

What do you think?

Although I appreciate his book The Green Collar Economy, I never believed that a green economy would save working people. I felt that the book gave solutions on how to save the current capitalist system. And fundamentally that presents a problem, as many in this country are suffering because of capitalism and its failures.

No matter my political differences with Jones, I will never discount his work, energy, community organizing skills and progressive tendencies, which have reconnected urban youth with Mother Earth and have inspired many in my generation to create space in the predominately white liberal “green” movement.

And as the former Green Party vice-presidential candidate who campaigned against the Obama administration, I am not surprised that Jones turned out to be a high-profile casualty of an administration that started at the center and continues to move to the right.

But what has surprised me is that people are not calling out the Obama administration for its role in the matter. Do not be fooled. There is no doubt that the Obama administration knew about Jones’ so-called “radical” past. I am not willing to believe that they never did a Google search on Jones or looked at his past comments, speeches or actions.

By accepting Jones’ resignation, the Obama administration essentially gave a victory to the very racist Glenn Beck and the most vile “news” station in modern time. By accepting Jones’ resignation, they have put a target on all of us who would be deemed “activists” or “radicals.” Accepting Jones’ resignation is a slap in the face to all of us.

So for those who voted for Obama, when will you let him know that you will not accept Van Jones as a casualty of an administration capitulating to the right?

And for those who are still not convinced, Dead Prez said it best:

Everywhere we go, everyday on TV, they be talking about who you gonna vote for, 
Got a Black man running but I wonder if he get in, who he gonna open up the door for
I don’t want to discourage my folks I believe in hope I just want us to want more
Politics is a game, how they keep us contained, there’s gotta be more that we can hope for
democrats and republicans just two sides of the same coin, either way it’s still white power, it’s the same system just changed form,
You wanna vote, please do, cast your ballot, let your voice be heard
But what I do wanna say is after the election you’ll see, mark my word It’s Politricks time again.

Where do we go from here?

First, I caution people, do not make Jones into a martyr. I am urging people to go back to the grassroots, go back to the local community to organize and support progressives and third-party candidates in local elections.

Next, we need to support our progressive media. Malkia Cyril, the Executive Director of The Center for Media Justice says, “We need to create an echo chamber of progressive media to counter the echo created by the right.”

And finally, we need to learn from this experience. The Van Jones takedown has revealed our own frustrations and inability to build and sustain a powerful multi-faceted, multi-racial movement.

I hope that people take one lesson that I learned from Van Jones’ book: Stop fighting against something and start fighting for something.

Maybe our fighting for something began Labor Day Weekend. If that is the case, we should all thank Van Jones for leaving the manicured green lawns of the White House.

See this piece originally published at PBS.org.