Saturday, August 22, 2015
Huey P. Newton, the Canadian Connection
Huey P. Newton (1942-1989): The Canadian Connection
The Canadian Connection
By Norman (Otis) Richmond aka Jalali
Huey P. Newton was murdered 26 years ago in Oakland, California during
the month of August. Because Black freedom fighters like George and
Jonathan Jackson, Khatari Gaulden and others lost their lives during
this month, revolutionaries inside the California prison system have
deemed it Black August.
It is August 22, 1989 at about 8:30 a.m. the late Gwen Johnston, the co-owner
of Third World Books and Crafts (Toronto’s first African Canadian
owned bookstore) phones me. The news is shocking, dreadful even. Mrs.
Johnston is in tears stating, “Otis they have killed Huey”.
Mrs. Johnston and her husband Lennie were huge supporters of Newton,
the Black Panther Party and the struggle for African and human
liberation.
When Newton returned to the United States after his exile in
revolutionary Cuba in 1977 he first landed in Toronto. He was detained
in Brampton, Ontario and was represented by the progressive
Euro-Canadian lawyer, Paul Copeland. Toronto’s African community
supported Newton and the Panthers had several chapters in this county.
Toronto’s African community was represented by Owen Sankara Leach,
Lennox Farrell, the late Sharona Hall, Mitch Holder, Bryan Hyman,
Cikiah Thomas and others at the Brampton courthouse. It was covered by
the Toronto dailies and even was discussed by Walter Cronkite on the
CBS Evening News.
Spider Jones discusses his brief tenure with the Black Panther Party
in his autobiography “Out of the Darkness: The Spider Jones
Story”.Another African born in Canada Rocky Jone created a Black
Panther Party chapter in Halifax,Nova Scotia.
Whatever his shortcomings and there were many, Newton led many of us
ideologically. For a brief moment in the history of Africans in
America Newton was” the tallest tree in the forest”.
Malcolm X was the first national leader in the African community in
the United States to oppose the war in Vietnam. Dr. Martin Luther King
later followed Malcolm’s lead on this issue; Newton took it to the
next limit. He offered troops to fight on the side of the North
Vietnamese. In 1970, when was released from prison in California, his
first act was to offer troops to fight in Vietnam on the side of the
Vietnamese people.
On August 29, 1970 Newton wrote "In the spirit of international
revolutionary solidarity the Black Panther Party hereby offers to the
National Liberation Front and Provisional revolutionary Government of
South Vietnam an undetermined number of troops to assist you in your
fight against American imperialism. It is appropriate for the Black
Panther Party to take this action at this time in recognition of the
fact that your struggle is also our struggle, for we recognize that
our common enemy is the American imperialist who is the leader of
international bourgeois domination."
Newton also raised the questions of the liberation of women and even
gays. At that time in our history this was not fashionable.
Nationalists, Pan-Africanist and even some socialist formations did
not wish to touch the hot potato of gay rights. Newton did. He was the
bold one. His speech given on August 15, 1970 created a firestorm in
the African liberation movement. At that time I did not support
Newton's thoughts on the issue of gays and lesbians.
Newton said: "We should be careful about using those terms that might
turn our friends off. The terms 'faggot' and 'punk' should be deleted
from our vocabulary and, especially, we should not attach names
normally designed for homosexuals to men who are enemies of the
people. Homosexuals are not enemies of the people. We should try to
form a working coalition with the gay liberation and women's
liberation groups. We must always handle social forces in the most
appropriate manner."
Newton was born in Oak Grove, Louisiana on February 17, 1942.
Louisiana has always been a problem for the ruling circle in the
United States. Queen Mother Moore, Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter, Raymond
“Maasi” Hewitt, Elmer
"Geronimo" Pratt, Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown), Paul
Mooney Richard Williams (father of Serena and Venus Willisms )and
Newton all hail from Louisiana.
Queen Mother Moore from New Iberia, Carter and Hewiitt from Shreveport, Geronimo
from Morgan City, Imam Al-Amin from Baton Rouge and Newton from Oak Grove.
There were 74 chapters of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement
Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) in Louisiana
alone. Tony Martin pointed this out in his volume, “Race First: The
Ideological and Organizational truggles of Marcus Garvey and the
Universal Negro Improvement Association”.
In the 1950s and 1960s the militant Deacons for Defense sprang up in
the pecan state. Jesse Jackson won the primaries for the Democratic
Party in 1984 and 1988. Barack Hussein Obama, rode a wave of black
support to victory in Louisiana.
The state has also produced its share of sell-outs, buffoons and idiots.
As we commemorate the 39th Anniversary of Black August and the 26th
anniversary of Newton joining the ancestors we should remember the
words of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Says Mumia: "Huey was, it must be said, no godling, no saint. He was,
however, intensely human, curious, acutely brilliant, a lover of the
world's children, an implacable foe of all the world's oppressors."
Norman (Otis) Richmond, aka Jalali, was born in Arcadia, Louisiana,
and grew up in Los Angeles. He left Los Angles after refusing to fight
in Viet Nam because he felt that, like the Vietnamese, Africans in the
United States were colonial subjects. Jalali is producer/host for the
Diasporic Music show on UhuruRadio.com every Sunday at 2pm ET. His
column Diasporic Music appears monthly in The Burning Spear newspaper.
He can be contacted Norman.o.richmond@gmail.com
Parable of a Happy Black Man
Some young people have come by Marvin X's Academy of da Corner at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland and after looking at the spread of conscious literature, broke down in tears at the beauty of blackness before their eyes, something they'd never seen before. Those of us who are conscious and have been conscious since the 60s, take for granted that all of our people are aware of black consciousness literature, but this is presumption that must be discarded. Many of our people have never seen a black book, sadly, in many homes there are no books, newspapers, magazine or other reading material. Some parents are so ignorant they tell their children, "Don't bring nothing home from that damn school."
Dr. Nathan Hare, Father of Black Studies
As a teacher, I have long told educators when they ask me to speak with students that I would prefer talking with their parents for students are not the problem. Recently, when I told an administrator in the Oakland Public Schools I only wanted to speak with parents, he replied, "This can be arranged easily through the Housing Authority because parents are required to attend meetings in the projects." We know few parents attend PTA meetings at schools, i.e. Black parents. I have gone to parent meetings in Berkeley where my grandchildren attend school and the white parents are there at 8AM in the morning.
But let me get back to Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, the most dangerous classroom in the world, a teacher's self definition, but it has been the scene of numerous rallies, protests, rebellions and riots, from Oscar Grant to Occupy Oakland to Ferguson to Baltimore to Black Lives Matter, Port of Oakland General Strike and beyond.
In partnership with sociologist and clinical psychologist, Dr. Nathan Hare and educator Dr. Julia Hare, I am able to give out books for free to the poor, others are requested to give a generous donation.
This week I was giving out books to those without money (alas, free phone, now a free book!), two persons who witnessed me were Blues Hall of Fame member Augusta Collins and former Nation of Islam official, Brother Jerry of Mosque #26, San Francisco. They were present when one young man came up to my table without funds. I handed him a book and he gave me a strange look, walked a couple of feet then turned back to me, saying, almost in tears, "Brother, I really don't know how to take this because ain't nobody ever gave me nothing before, " and he crossed the street.
Brother Jerry said, "Brother Marvin, some of our people have never been given a gift in their life. They don't know how to take it. Keep doing what you are doing, Marvin X. You are doing a great work. May Allah be pleased with you." Augusta Collins said, "Marvin X, when I get home I'm going to write on Facebook what I saw you doing today. This is beautiful."
After a day at the Academy dealing with the poor, mentally challenged, the petit bourgeoisie, whites suffering addiction to White Supremacy Type I (Dr. Nathan Hare, see his foreword to my manual How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy); whites in denial of course, although one young white lady made a generous donation for a collection of books to help her people suffering Type I Addiction) but after a day dealing with mainly those suffering unresolved grief and trauma from the American neo-slave system(Addiction to White Supremacy Type II, Dr. Nathan Hare), when I got home, I called Dr. Hare to tell him of the day's events.
"Dr. Hare, I tell them to take one each of your and Julia's several titles and give a generous donation. Give what God puts in their hearts. Some have only given one dollar, some have given donations of twenty, forty, fifty dollars, so it all works out."
Dr. Hare said it was fine with him and encouraged me to keep on doing what I'm doing. This is better than keeping the books in storage and getting nothing; if we get two dollars per book, it's better than nothing!"
"Doc, I rather give the people the discount than a distributor. At least the people smile. Distributors and bookstores usually have an ugly frown when you come for your money." I told Dr. Hare about the brother who was given a free book and almost broke down after receiving his gift."
Again, Dr. Hare said, "Keep on doing what ya doing, Marvin X!"
Academy of da Corner, Bay Area Locations
During the week, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland
Saturdays, Lakeshore Avenue, across from the Farmer's Market
Sunday, Berkeley Flea Market, ASHBY BART STATION
As a senior citizen, Marvin X appears at Academy of da Corner as per his energy level or when he feels like it. Best to make an appointment: 510-200-4164.
We know many of you have only read the writings of Marvin X since the sixties until now, persons on the social media have read his writings but never met him in person, the same with persons who heard him on KPFA and KPOO radio.
If you'd like to meet and greet him at any of the above locations, it is best to call to make sure he will be there.
Marvin X is presently working to establish the Black Arts Movement Business and Cultural District along the 14th Street corridor, from the Afro-American Museum/Library at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way to Alice Street. He is forming a community task force to help him plan the district in partnership with the City of Oakland. If you'd like to be part of the BAM Business and Cultural District Community Task Force, please email me some of your ideas for such a district. We are scheduled to meet with Oakland City Council President Lynette McElhaney in September, so send me a paragraph or two of your ideas ASAP.
jmarvinx@yahoo.com
As-Salaam-Alaikum
Marvin X (El Muhajir)
BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT DISTRICT
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Parable of the White Supremacy Bikers
making terrorist threats, so it is best to say nothing to them. Better to rape a
black woman walking in the hood at 3AM than a white woman, don't even
think about touching a strand of her pretty blond hair!
Parable of a White Supremacy Bike Rider
Master Teacher Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, aka The Black Arts Movement Business and Cultural District. Marvin X says his classroom is the most dangerous in the world. Well, revolution occurs literally in his classroom, the Oscar Grant rebellion, Occupy Oakland, Ferguson, Black Lives Matter. Marvin X was in his classroom the night police shot the US Marine in the head. Marvin X suffered tear gas even though he ran inside Burger King. Ishmael Reed calls Marvin X, "Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland." Bob Holman calls him, "The USA's Rumi, Saada, Hafiz...." Amiri Baraka said, "Marvin X, aka El Muhajir, is one of the outstanding...African writers and teachers in America. He has always been in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed, he is one of the innovators and founders of the new revolutionary school of African writing."
photo Adam Turner
The white supremacy bikers and skate boarders think with the same sick mythological construction as others addicted to white supremacy. But the white supremacy bikers are especially arrogant in their addiction to white supremacy, instead of seeing themselves as bikers, they think they are superior to cars, that cars should bow down to them because they are white, especially those living in the hood that gentrification has bestowed them.
Now we must acknowledge that black bikers have none of the arrogance of the white supremacy bikers. For the most park, black bikers never get in front of a car and think the car or rather the driver should submit to them solely because they are white and not only rule the roads but rule the world. Black bikers know they don't rule the roads or the world. Black bikers have common sense, no matter how much they are addicted to white supremacy.
But the white supremacy bikers would never admit they are addicted to white supremacy even though it was through their inheritance that they were able to remove the blacks from housing in the hood in order to claim it for themselves. They are in denial about the fact that only white privilege allowed them to move into the hood and displace the blacks they claim as allies in their fake pseudo liberal progressive persona.
These fake liberal children of the KKK will even Occupy Oakland with the Blacks, march with them in protesting police violence yet go to their new homes in the hood where blacks once lived until the whites or neo-whites, i.e. children of the old whites, hipsters, et al., have come to settle so they can be in close proximity to San Francisco's financial district or the new technology centers of the SF or Silicon Valley, since they can yet afford housing prices in San Francisco or in the Valley of the neo-colonized brain children who dominate the start up companies and entrepreneurs of generation billionaires.
One has had to literally fight the white supremacy bikers in the streets, most recently while we were unloading to teach at Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, proclaimed by the people as the Black Arts Movement Business and Cultural District, from 14th and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way to Alice and 14th and beyond, including Lake Merritt and Laney College.
A white supremacy female biker, the worst kind in her gender loving supremacy, approached me as I stopped at 14th and Broadway to unload books at Academy of da Corner. She informed me I had almost hit her. In truth, I didn't see her due to an eye injury. But as I said above, if I were a biker, I would be more concerned about the car with two thousand pounds of steel and plastic coming at me rather than impose my ass on a bike to the car. But, no, the white supremacy bikers think they control the roads and streets and we low life ghetto rats should submit to them. Her boyfriend, another biker, joined the conversation against me as I unloaded so I had to call him a bitch motherfucker too and tell him to kissx my black ass. I repeated what I'd said to her, "I think you need to watch the cars rather than focus on the cars watching your white ass on your bike."
They departed, but my day at Academy of da Corner was hardly over. Hour by hour, I must encounter the mentally ill from every ethnic group. A mad Latino asked me for the time. I told him to turn around and look at the clock atop City Hall. He refused to do so and said he wanted me to give him the time. I told him he was not going to work me, suck my energy. Look at the clock. He declined and walked across the street.
A former street child came by so grown up and womanly I didn't recognize her, but she persisted until I did. She said, "Marvin X, look at me, you don't remember me, I can't believe this. Remember when I used to dress like a boy? Remember when I was homeless?"
Then I remembered her. But looking at her, here was a full woman before me. Girl, what happened to you? You into dick now?
She said yes, I have a boyfriend. I don't do that gay/lesbian shit no more. They can't say nothing to me. But Marvin X, you taught me in your Mythology of Pussy of Dick that I own my pussy and I can give it to whomever I please. Recently I did and the nigguh been buggin me ever since.
You mean you gave the nigguh some pussy and he got sprung?
Well, you can say that, but I got a boyfriend, but it was one of those moments when a girl do what she wanna do.
But now you done sprung da nigguh?
Guess so, that nigguh won't stop text messaging me.
Well, I'm just happy to see you have developed into a beautiful young woman, after foster care, homelessness, street life, etc. You look beautiful to me.
Thank you, Marvin X. You know you've been my teacher since I was fifteen.
I am pleased to see some of my street children survived, but they were some of the most talented in the first place, poets, singers, artists, musicians. Imagine, some of these children who gather at Frank Ogawa Plaza/Oscar Grant Plaza are those lost and turned out on the way to grandmother's house, children of foster care, children who've never known their father and/or mother. Can you imagine not knowing your father or mother? And some parents were same gender loving persons. One young man said, "Hey, Marvin X, my mother is a lesbian, so how you think I felt when I went to school sports events with my mother and her women? My friends asked me what the fuck was going on? But I love my mother, just know that, Marvin X!"
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Parable of Why I gotta be a bitch cause I don't wanna give up my pussy?
One Day in the Life of Marvin X, aka, Plato Negro at Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, Oakland, aka, Black Arts Movement Business and Cultural District
Subject of the Day: Why I gotta be a bitch because I don’t want to give up my pussy?
A young lady stopped by Marvin X’s Academy of da Corner in an agitated state. She came up to his table but asked if she could sit down? He said please, come sit down. She sat down and said the following:
Marvin X, tell me why I gotta be a bitch cause I won’t give a nigguh ma pussy? Marvin X, a nigguh threatened to kill me last night because I wouldn’t give him my pussy. Marvin X, do I have to die cause I won’t give a nigguh my pussy? What am I supposed to do? And he ain’t even my boyfriend? He ain’t my boyfriend! We ain’t never had no discussion about giving him some of my pussy. I don’t even know him like that, but he threatened to kill me last night, Marvin X. What am I supposed to do? I don’t even know if his dick is clean! He might have AIDS or some other shit. He don’t know if I got some STD or HIV but he ready to kill me over my pussy. Am I a slave, am I supposed to give up my pussy to any man who says he wants my pussy? I ain’t no ho’. Marvin X, can you help me understand what’s going on with these nigguhs? Because I wouldn’t give him some pussy he said I was mentally ill, bipolar, manic-depressive, but the main thing that bothered me was because he kept calling me a bitch. I can’t understand why I gotta be a bitch. Help me, Marvin X.
Marvin X replied, “Well, brothers do think they own the pussy, that they have all rights to your pussy, even when they ain’t even your boyfriend. Men will claim shit that ain’t theirs to claim.
I’ve repeatedly told men, especially in my Mythology of Pussy and Dick pamphlet, that they don’t own the pussy, that they don’t have a pussy, that they don’t bleed five days a month. One sister replied, “Well, ma nigguh act like he got a pussy, he act like he on his cycle!”
Sister, I wish I could tell you things are getting better but we just saw the man in Texas kill eight people, including six children, because he felt he owned his ex-woman’s pussy, even though she was married to another man, had five babies by her new husband, one by her ex-man, but he killed everybody cause he felt he owned her pussy. It’s sick, sick, sick.
But I still wanna know why I gotta be a bitch? Why I gotta be called mentally ill cause I won’t give a strange ass nigguh my pussy that God gave me? Seem like it’s the end of the world, Marvin X, is it?
Looks like it to me.
You mean these people ain’t gonna never wake up and change? You mean I gotta be a bitch til the day I die?
Well, you were called Queen during the 60s, so you’ve gone down the scale from Queen to bitch, ho’, dog, slut. We’ve gone from Black Power to Black Lives Matter. We lost power in the counter-revolution, so now we’re trying to regain our mental and physical equilibrium with Black Lives Matter. For sure, it only matters to us, nobody else gives a damn about Black Lives Matter if and when we don’t. So sadly, sister, yes, you will be a bitch until the man bitch gives up his man bitch behavior. If you ask me, he looks like a bitch, walking around showing his funky ass. Who wants to look at his black funky ass. And he calls himself a man? How can a grown man walk with his wife and children with his pants on his knees, showing his funky drawers? Then he calls you bitch, no he’s the bitch, the ho’, the slut, not you!
---continued--
August 18, 2015
Marvin X
Academy of da Corner
14th and Broadway
downtown Oakland
BAM Business and Cultural Districtjmarvinx@yahoo.com
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com
Dr. Sam Hamod, Ph.D on true Islam
Poet/Professor, Dr. Sam Hamod, one of the founders of Muslim American literature
I
am sad to tell you that there are so many lies being posted about Islam
that it's hard to keep up with them all. As an expert on Islam, and as
the former director of The Islamic Center in Washington, DC ( the focal
point of Islam in North America at the
time, but it is not longer a Center, it is now just a backward mosque),
it is important to understand that: 1. Islam is not tribal or national,
but far too many alleged Muslims paste their tribal notions on Islam (
i.e., 'honor killing," 'not educating women," "giving women a lower
place in society," "seeing women as only child bearing creatures."
"thinking that they have to let their hair grow long or have a beard,"
"dissing Christianity (which wrong, because the Qur'an makes clear that
all "people of the book should be respected), and other
misunderstandings of Islam.
2. ISLAM FORBIDS KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE (thus it is clear, tht this israeli and american inspired ISIS group is not Muslim and if they think they are then they are of the devil , not of God/Allah), the Qur'an makes clear, 'to save one innocent person is to save all of mankind, to kill one innocent person is kill all of mankind."
3. Islam is worldly, it asks that you "read and think,' not just memorize, but try to keep learning and learn all you can about everything in the world, and use all good methods to continue learning. It is not Arab, Pakistani, Indian, Afghani, etc. and many do not even know that the largest Musiim country in the world is Indonesia, and most of those people do not speak Arabic--thus, it is not a religion of one country, but of the world, as is Christianity and Buddhsim, Hinduism, etc.
I
SHALL SAY MORE IN ANOTHER POST, BUT THIS IS A START SO THAT OTHERS CAN
SEE SOME OF THE MISTAKES OTHERS MAKE WHEN SPEAKING ABOUT ISLAM.
Professor Sam Hamod, Ph.D
Professor Sam Hamod, Ph.D
The Cross and the Lynching Tree (James Hal Cone and Bill Moyers)
Jesus crucified on the cross and lynching tree of America
The Brother's Network honors Larry Robin as Brother of the Year
"The
voice of intelligence ... is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is
ignored by
the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of
shame. It is biased by hate
and extinguished by anger. Most of all it is
silenced by ignorance." -Dr. Karl A. Menninger
Larry Robin, 2015 Brother of the Year, founder of Moonstone Arts Center,
Robin's Bookstore, and Moonstone Preschool. Mr. Robin's was the first
and
only bookstore in Philadelphia to sell books written by African
Americans in
Philadelphia. His legacy includes the opportunity for
emerging and established
authors and intellectuals to read chapbooks,
poetry, novels and literature, from
movement during the
last forty years has presented their work in the Moonstone/
Robin's
Bookstore space.
Please join us in congratulating Larry Robin, our
Brother of the Year, and we cordially
invite you to attend these
upcoming programs hosted by Larry Robin.
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Ebony Magazine: 1,000 Black Activists, Artists and Scholars Demand Justice for Palestine
1,000 Black Activists, Artists, and Scholars Demand Justice for Palestine
Full-text of statement from Angela Davis, Cornel West, Talib Kweli, the Dream Defenders, Hands Up United and other prominent organizations and leaders
By
Kristian Davis Bailey and Khury Petersen-Smith
Photo courtesy of
Christopher Hazou
Over 1,000 Black activists, artists, scholars, students, and organizations have launched a statement
expressing their solidarity and commitment to ensuring justice for
Palestinians. Signatories to the statement span a wide cross-section of
Black activists and scholars, including Angela Davis, Boots Riley,
Cornel West, dream hampton, Emory Douglas, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pam Africa,
Patrisse Cullors, Phil Hutchings, Ramona Africa, Robin DG Kelley, Rosa
Clemente, Marvin X, Talib Kweli, and Tef Poe. 38 organizations signed on,
including The Dream Defenders, Hands Up United, Institute of the Black
World 21st Century, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Organization for
Black Struggle.
"The past year has been one of high-profile growth for Black-Palestinian solidarity. Out of the terror directed against us—from numerous attacks on Black life to Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and chokehold on the West Bank—strengthened resilience and joint-struggle have emerged between our movements. Palestinians on Twitter were among the first to provide international support for protesters in Ferguson, where St. Louis-based Palestinians gave support on the ground. Last November, a delegation of Palestinian students visited Black organizers in St. Louis, Atlanta, Detroit and more, just months before the Dream Defenders took representatives of Black Lives Matter, Ferguson, and other racial justice groups to Palestine. Throughout the year, Palestinians sent multiple letters of solidarity to us throughout protests in Ferguson, New York, and Baltimore. We offer this statement to continue the conversation between our movements:
On the anniversary of last summer’s Gaza massacre, in the 48th year of Israeli occupation, the 67th year of Palestinians’ ongoing Nakba (the Arabic word for Israel's ethnic cleansing)—and in the fourth century of Black oppression in the present-day United States—we, the undersigned Black activists, artists, scholars, writers, and political prisoners offer this letter of reaffirmed solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and commitment to the liberation of Palestine’s land and people.
We can neither forgive nor forget last summer’s violence. We remain outraged at the brutality Israel unleashed on Gaza through its siege by land, sea and air, and three military offensives in six years. We remain sickened by Israel’s targeting of homes, schools, UN shelters, mosques, ambulances, and hospitals. We remain heartbroken and repulsed by the number of children Israel killed in an operation it called “defensive.” We reject Israel’s framing of itself as a victim. Anyone who takes an honest look at the destruction to life and property in Gaza can see Israel committed a one-sided slaughter. With 100,000 people still homeless in Gaza, the massacre's effects continue to devastate Gaza today and will for years to come.
Israel’s injustice and cruelty toward Palestinians is not limited to Gaza and its problem is not with any particular Palestinian party. The oppression of Palestinians extends throughout the occupied territories, within Israel’s 1948 borders, and into neighboring countries. The Israeli Occupation Forces continue to kill protesters—including children—conduct night raids on civilians, hold hundreds of people under indefinite detention, and demolish homes while expanding illegal Jewish-only settlements. Israeli politicians, including Benjamin Netanyahu, incite against Palestinian citizens within Israel’s recognized borders, where over 50 laws discriminate against non-Jewish people.
Our support extends to those living under occupation and siege, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the 7 million Palestinian refugees exiled in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. The refugees’ right to return to their homeland in present-day Israel is the most important aspect of justice for Palestinians.
Palestinian liberation represents an inherent threat to Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid, an apparatus built and sustained on ethnic cleansing, land theft, and the denial of Palestinian humanity and sovereignty. While we acknowledge that the apartheid configuration in Israel/Palestine is unique from the United States (and South Africa), we continue to see connections between the situation of Palestinians and Black people.
Israel’s widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, including the political imprisonment of our own revolutionaries. Soldiers, police, and courts justify lethal force against us and our children who pose no imminent threat. And while the US and Israel would continue to oppress us without collaborating with each other, we have witnessed police and soldiers from the two countries train side-by-side.
US and Israeli officials and media criminalize our existence, portray violence against us as “isolated incidents,” and call our resistance “illegitimate” or “terrorism.” These narratives ignore decades and centuries of anti-Palestinian and anti-Black violence that have always been at the core of Israel and the US.
We recognize the racism that characterizes Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is also directed against others in the region, including intolerance, police brutality, and violence against Israel’s African population. Israeli officials call asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea "infiltrators" and detain them in the desert, while the state has sterilized Ethiopian Israelis without their knowledge or consent. These issues call for unified action against anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and Zionism.
We know Israel’s violence toward Palestinians would be impossible without the US defending Israel on the world stage and funding its violence with over $3 billion annually. We call on the US government to end economic and diplomatic aid to Israel. We wholeheartedly endorse Palestinian civil society’s 2005 call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and call on Black and US institutions and organizations to do the same. We urge people of conscience to recognize the struggle for Palestinian liberation as a key matter of our time.
As the BDS movement grows, we offer G4S, the world’s largest private security company, as a target for further joint struggle. G4S harms thousands of Palestinian political prisoners illegally held in Israel and hundreds of Black and brown youth held in its privatized juvenile prisons in the US. The corporation profits from incarceration and deportation from the US and Palestine, to the UK, South Africa, and Australia. We reject notions of “security” that make any of our groups unsafe and insist no one is free until all of us are.
We offer this statement first and foremost to Palestinians, whose suffering does not go unnoticed and whose resistance and resilience under racism and colonialism inspires us. It is to Palestinians, as well as the Israeli and US governments, that we declare our commitment to working through cultural, economic, and political means to ensure Palestinian liberation at the same time as we work towards our own. We encourage activists to use this statement to advance solidarity with Palestine and we also pressure our own Black political figures to finally take action on this issue. As we continue these transnational conversations and interactions, we aim to sharpen our practice of joint struggle against capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and the various racisms embedded in and around our societies."
Visit www.blackforpalestine.com for the full list of signatories and more information. You can also follow the statement on Facebook and Twitter. Kristian Bailey is a co-author of the statement along with Khury Petersen-Smith.
Sandra Rivers on the beating of Black Panther Party Elder, former political prisoner (19 years) Dhoruba bin Wahad
THERE IS NO – NONE – NO – RATIONALE FOR PUTTING HANDS ON A REVERED ICON OF OUR BLACK LIBERATION STRUGGLE!!! Dhoruba bin Wahad has given his LIFE to our struggle!!!
Malik Zulu Shabazz and
others who are
responsible for Dhoruba bin Wahad being so viciously brutally beaten
that he
had to endure 6 hours!! Of surgery to repair a broken jaw and other
injuries to
his face, ….. – MINIMALLY, should assure that Dhoruba bin Wahad
receives ALL medical and personal care needed to bring him to FULL
RECOVERY!!!
Those mouthing ‘Hands Off Asaata’ must apply that maxim to
ALL freedom fighters, especially our super heroes like Dhoruba, as well as ALL
African people!!! Internal integrity is
THE most important value for our liberation!!!
We are awaiting further information as to how to get
speedy-recovery wishes to Dhoruba and any needed material support.
Sandra Rivers
Black Farmers Praise Ancestor Julian Bond
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Sekou Osei on the beating of Elder BPP Warrior Dhoruba Bin Wahad
"As Ancestor Amiri Baraka would say, 'The only reason is no reason'."--Marvin X
Dhoruba Bin Wahad, New York Black Panther Party member, spent 19 years as a political prisoner.
From: Sekou Osei
- To: Marvin X
While I never took the NBPP seriously beyond militant "protest
theater" of angry symbolism and with "no program." But this leads to
some very profane conclusions of "counter-revolution." I gather that
Dhoruba wanted to confront the use of the "name" that has nothing in
common with the original Black Panther Party, while the New Black
Panther Party came out of masonic leadership under the leadership of
Khalid Muhammad.
However, what I understood in my E-mal in June and July that the NBPP
was having an open round table discussion and Dhoruba felt that what
was needed was a full public disclosures of the origins of the NBPP and
its false actions of a radical tradition and as a revisionism of the
actual radical tradition.
What has to be noted, I guess Dhoruba felt he had to confront these
theater imposter himself, because there is no Black radical left to take
that on. The best that this so-called left does is call militant
protests as base building and relies on spontaneity that never comes.
They don't have the ability to analyze or critique and the best that
they do is create list of so-called Black radical theorist whose only
character is loquacious intellectual narcissism that provide no clarity
of anything and only provide academic feel-good speculation.
Perhaps from this, this was the background that Dhoruba felt he had to
take action to confront this stench of toads. While, Dhoruba may not of
had a full organization to carry out this ideological confrontation, it
would be a mistake to belittle Dhoruba confrontation as a silly
escapade of an old man and not see the counter-revolutionary character
and actions of the NBPP to attack a former political prisoner and never
lift a pinky to the agents and extra legal agents of the state that
murder Black people without consequence. And has taken this public
posture for the last 20 years...
Sekou
Monday, August 17, 2015
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Two poems by Julian Bond (RIP)
Post Publisher Paul Cobb and his longtime friend and comrade in the Civil Rights Movement, Julian Bond (RIP)
Poems by Julian Bond
LOOK AT THAT GIRLLook at that girl shake that thing,Copyright © Julian Bond, 1960, all rights reserved.
We can't all be Martin Luther King.
[This was written sometime in the very early '60s — or perhaps even '58 or '59, — when I was a Morehouse College student. From time to time, usually through the auspices of some religiously oriented campus group, we'd be invited to meet with our white counterparts at Emory or Agnes Scott. We'd wear our Sunday best and sip tea and eat cookies. Typically a well-meaning white student would say as we were parting — 'If only they were all like you.' That prompted the poem." — JBond.]
I TOO, HEAR AMERICA SINGING
[As published in the first issue of The Student Voice — SNCC's newsletter, summer, 1960.]
I too, hear America singingCopyright © Julian Bond, 1960, all rights reserved.
But from where I stand
I can only hear Little Richard
And Fats Domino.
But sometimes
I hear Ray Charles
Drowning in his own tears
or Bird
Relaxing at Camarillo
Or Horace Silver doodling,
Then I don't mind standing
a little longer.
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