The Challenge of Autonomy: Prospects for Freedom Going Into 2021

1. Intro: Do For Self Politics vs. Hypothetical Radicalism

“And i prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight…”

– Harriet Tubman

“Freedom is something that you have to do for yourself.“

– Malcolm X

[see pdf for full text]

Young people getting active in the streets today are entering a desert of political options and conversations. A degenerate political left represents the only well-known alternative to openly fascist Democrats and neo-nazi-courting Republicans, a left that has grown so petty bourgeois (middle class) in its class character that it has very little relationship to the physically existing world, as outlined in section 1. For those of us who actually want to make this thing materially viable, we need to focus on building the actual material infrastructure for self-determination, independent of police and State assistance…

[see pdf for full text]

We put this together in three parts: 1. an introduction 2. an analysis of the events of 2020 and how they show us the limits and “prospects for freedom” available in the foreseeable future, and then 3. a list of concrete, tried and tested baby steps that serious comrades can start from scratch with. We speak from generations of experience and successful communal structure – not from our own personal opinions, left-wing jargon, dreams, theories or books alone…

[see pdf for full text]

No one is going to get us ready for what’s coming except ourselves. No one is going to get us free except each other…

Let’s each and every one of us, wherever we are right now, whatever we’re working with no matter how few or how poor, analyze our situation, form a plan, and start right now. And let’s see it through!

FULL TEXT BELOW

Click to access the-challenge-of-autonomy.pdf

On the Conditions Facilitating Our Dying

As Africans in America we must understand that our constant dying is not coincidence but the result of conditions(1) created by White Supremacist Capitalism. Some of these conditions, such as poverty or inaccessible healthcare kill us slowly, over the duration of our whole lives; while others, like qualified immunity(2) and stand your ground laws, give state actors and white vigilantes free license to end black and brown lives instantly. But despite the nature of our dying, the fact remains that the state is actively facilitating that death and we cannot vote away our dying as much as we can’t vote away the very state that is killing us.

The same state that imposed these conditions upon us will not remove them because to do so would be to self-destruct. The conditions are its very essence. There is no US without state sanctioned killing and ritualistic violence towards black people. The same way this violence is hardwired into the cultural psyche of whites(3) it is codified into the DNA of the state because in this country state power has always been informed by white power.

I would ask anyone who disagrees to show me a period of American History where this was not the case. White Supremacy was foundational to the The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Even the 13th amendment marked more of an evolution of White Supremacy from one stage to another, than it did any actual shifting of values. After its ratification vagrancy laws(4) and convict leasing(5) ensued and we saw the first prison boom. Lynchings and White Supremacist terrorism increased(6) as well. To this day we have yet to see an actual changing of conditions or end to our suffering and dying.

For God’s sake we were dying under a Black leader as much we were dying under white ones before him. If this isn’t proof that white supremacy is too deeply ingrained within the fabric of the state to be removed then what is? The truth is obvious but constant oppression has a way of beating down a people’s mental fortitude.

This is why many of us have the mindset of a person trapped in an abusive relationship; unable to imagine a world in which their abuse doesn’t exist because they view their abuser as their only means of living a meaningful life. To any rational, healthy, outside observer the truth is clear: either the abuser must be removed from the equation or the recipient of the abuse must get out from under the abusers control.

Similarly, if the state’s position is that of an oppressor, to expect a sudden change based on the election of a new racist every four years is fantasy. If we continue on the road of choosing which boot is on our neck and which shackles are on our wrists instead of taking action, our children will be condemned to poor butchered half lives(7), oscillating between begging a “liberal” state for welfare and begging a “conservative” state to stop cheering on white vigilante violence. Either way we remain beggars.

As long as we are choosing between two racists in a state sponsored circus every four years the conditions facilitating our deaths will not come to an end. Specific, talented negroes will be allowed to succeed and stand in positions of power on the condition that they contribute to the oppression and exploitation of their own, but as a whole we will never be equal to our oppressor under their system.

For non-Black people of color, working within the state can translate to an eventual easing of suffering but for Blacks our death and suffering is a necessity under white supremacist capitalism. That is why appeals to the Black voter rely on empty rhetoric and posturing. Hilary pulled hot sauce out of her purse, Kamala made reference to hip hop, and Biden warned us of losing our black cards if he didn’t get our vote but none of them committed to changing the conditions that are killing us en-masse. Conditions for which they are all directly responsible. The truth is they won’t commit to changing these conditions because they can’t. It’s like asking a vulture to abandon rotting flesh and adopt a vegetarian diet. You’re asking the vulture to starve itself.

 If liberation in our context is finally living as American citizens equally, without being oppressed based on race, religion or gender then know that assimilation into whiteness is implicitly understood as the goal. This is because in the US, whiteness is the prerequisite for those things. No group has ever attained them besides by assimilating into it. 

For non Black people of color this success via assimilation is a possibility. Granted it requires losing hold of religion and culture but it is possible. For indigenous and Black people, it  is not. If it was it would’ve happened already. Why is it that European Jews, the Irish, and Italians all fully assimilated into whiteness within a generation while blacks are over two centuries deep into the same cycles of oppression? Is it something wrong with black people? Black culture? The black family perhaps? If your answer is yes to any of those you’re a racist and have a bad understanding of history. If your answer is no, only one logical conclusion remains. That our death and suffering are too embedded into American culture, and state power to be voted out or represented away.  They are necessities for the state. The lifeblood of the nation. Whiteness is predicated on being the antithesis of an “Other” and that “Other” is blackness.

My intention in writing this isn’t to embrace defeatism, pointing out these realities is neither that, nor pessimism. It is acceptance of the most empowering truth, that God Almighty has placed within us the ability to change the conditions around us. Only we, with the permission of God, can bring about the end of these conditions. Nothing else ever will; especially not the same systems that are carrying out our killing. 

Peep how quickly the state made concessions we never thought possible under the onslaught of the George Floyd Rebellion(8). Imagine if all the organizing and energy that went into pushing people to vote went into facilitating direct action to ensure that these concessions go through without the state backing out of them. Don’t stand back and wait until the young people who put their lives on the line for these concessions burn out and then point and say “See it was just a fad.” “Nothing really changed.” “This is why protesting doesn’t work.” Not only do you sound like a coward but you also sound like a fool. If the state’s concessions don’t come to fruition it will be because of YOU. Because YOU sat on the sidelines and condemned; because while others put in work and tried to be free YOU yelled from the rooftops that they were silly for thinking they could free themselves. That is defeatism, that is pessimism. Those in the streets burning American cities are your protectors.  They have done more for you than the state ever has and ever will. 

Understand that the state is an enemy to you. It is facilitating our physical and spiritual death. Organize your communities, work toward autonomy from the state in education, healthcare, self defense, and all other avenues. Hold tight to the rope of Allah(9) and do not seek shelter(10) or help(11) with those who are killing us. All praise is due to God the most gracious, most merciful. May God bring about an end to the killing, and give all of us guidance. Ameen.

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/george-floyd-america/systemic-racism/?fbclid=IwAR1sApDHlsoJ1Cf8jkWRM8T1nb1enuAP4b2OKjczfbjpiu_1BwQnzoyTFCo

2. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-police-immunity-scotus/

3.  https://blogs.prio.org/2020/07/the-legacy-of-white-violence-in-the-us/

4. https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/

5. https://theconversation.com/prison-records-from-1800s-georgia-show-mass-incarcerations-racially-charged-beginnings-96612#:~:text=Previous%20historical%20research%20shows%20that,former%20slaves%20in%20the%20U.S.&text=Before%20the%20abolition%20of%20slavery,1835%2C%20it%20had%20risen%20eightfold.

6. https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/

7. George Jackson, Blood in My Eye (Black Classic Press, 1990) Page 18

8. https://www.facebook.com/840844280/posts/10158418299074281/

9. https://quran.com/3/103-105

10. http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=3&verse=28

11. http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=5&verse=51

[Photos] This Is What Oakland Looks Like A Week After Mayday

Oakland, California

The following photos were taken along the march route of May Day’s 7pm Anti-Capitalist march in Solidarity with the Baltimore Intifada and Freddie Gray. Bay Area Intifada has chosen to leave out any rundown or critique of the days events, as any critique would be as predictable as the day itself.

   

[Events] This Week the Bay Area is All About Black Liberation

Schedule of Events: Tonight – Tuesday, Feb 17th – Tuesday Feb 24th

*Tuesday Feb 17, 7pm: “The Militarization of police, Islamophobia and the Black Community” with Dhoruba Bin-Wahad”:

Join us for a discussion with brother Dhoruba Bin-Wahad a former Black Panther Party & BLA member and political prisoner who has been on the frontlines of struggle for liberation since the 1960’s up to the present day. Also speaking will be Kalonji Jama Changa of the FTP Movement based in Atlanta. This event will be at the Oakland Islamic Community Center and open to Muslims and non-Muslims alike and we would request all to wear modest clothing inside the Masjid.

This event will also be on Huey P. Newton’s birthday and the same week as the 50th anniversary of the assassination of El Hajj Malik Shabazz and the legacy of both of these freedom fighters will be discussed along with the topic: “Militarization of police, Islamophobia and the Black Community”

Tonight’s History of Struggle Discussion: Franz Fanon

History of Struggle Examination and Discussion: Franz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth

Qilombo (2313 San Pablo Ave, Oakland)

3 February 2015, 7-9PM

A survey of human rights struggle across time and territory, facilitated by Qilombo volunteers. This will be a political examination and discussion about different analysis, strategies and tactics of different revolutionaries over time. We will be examining the successes/failures of the theories and practices of different people and groups involved in revolutionary movements.

This week we will be examining the “Wretched of the Earth” by Frantz Fanon. More specifically we will be studying revolution and counter-revolution as concepts and functions.

Facebook event here

Wretched of the Earth PDF here

Feb 12, 2015: Important Hearing in SHU Lawsuit

From prisonabolition.org

From Hunger Strike Solidarity

In Ashker v. Brown, we will prove that ten years in solitary confinement in the Pelican Bay SHU is cruel and unusual punishment (violating the 8th Amendment).

In an end-run around our lawsuit, CDCR has been transferring hundreds of prisoners out of that SHU.  This is good news for some, but many prisoners are simply being transferred to other SHUs, most notably to Tehachapi.  Four of our ten named plaintiffs have been moved there.  Because the judge previously defined our 8th Amendment class as prisoners presently at Pelican Bay SHU for ten years or more, these plaintiffs and others are no longer considered part of the class.

In response, we recently filed a motion to expand the reach of the solitary confinement lawsuit to include prisoners who have spent 10 years or more at Pelican Bay SHU but have recently been transferred to other California SHUs.
As we wrote:

“the cruel and unusual treatment they experienced, and its debilitating effects, have not abated, but instead continue under a different name in a different prison.”

CDCR should not be able to thwart our 8th Amendment claim by transferring these long-suffering prisoners to a different SHU.  These prisoners should be released from SHU, not moved to a different SHU.  Granting our motion will give the court jurisdiction over these prisoners so that, when we succeed at trial, they will be included in the relief that the court orders.

Please attend the hearing on Plaintiffs’ (Prisoners’) Motion to Amend the Complaint.  Your presence in the courtroom shows the judge that we care and are paying attention to decisions made about the torture in the SHU.

DATE: Thursday,  Feb. 12, 2015
TIME: 2:00 p.m.
ADDRESS: U.S. District Court in Oakland, 1301 Clay Street(federal courthouse)
COURTROOM: Dept. #2,  4th Floor, Hon. Claudia Wilken, presiding

Note:  The judge could take the hearing off calendar or postpone it.  We will post any changes on this site immediately.

Information explaining the motion came from Carol Strickman,Staff Attorney, Legal Services for Prisoners With Children and Co-Counsel for Plaintiffs in Ashker v. Brown

Protestors to Police: No Christmas For You!

Flier for X-Mas Day FTP March (Oakland)

Police unions around the country are cashing in on the deaths of two NYPD officers by guilt-tripping the masses, attacking protestors (and even blaming the mayor, attorney general and president) for having “blood on their hands.” Tonight New Yorkers defied the calls of the mayor and the police unions to “suspend” all protests by taking to the streets in Manhattan and the Bronx. Here in the Bay Area, residents of Oakland are sharing that sentiment by holding a FTP (Fuck The Police) march on Christmas day with one stated goal: No Time Off.

A handful of organizations and self-appointed leaders, like the well-known FBI informant Rev. Al Sharpton, have rushed to condemn the killings in an attempt to “preserve the moral high ground.” However, many long time anti-police activists and residents of Oakland are remembering Lovell Mixon — a local villain to some, but a hero to others– who killed four OPD officers during the height of the Oscar Grant rebellions.

People Remove City Fence Posted Around Triangle Park

Collaboration by We Copwatch and Bay Area Intifada,

On Saturday morning, community members, with the blessings of Triangle Park residents, removed a fence put up by the the city just days before. The park is a community space where people mingle, snooze, break bread, play chess and–for some homeless people–can finally rest their feet. The city put up the fence to push park residents and visitors out of the community gathering space, angering park residents, nearby neighbors and other Oaklanders. People are drawing a clear connection between the fence and the city’s ongoing efforts to gentrify Oakland through the displacement, murder and harassment of black, brown and homeless communities.

On the way to the park, a couple of community members talked to Bay Area Intifada about the significance of the fence:

Another community member talked about why we should support the people at the park:

On Black Objecthood and Noodles

We were lined up zip-tied in Santa Rita, the seven of us searched, stripped and patted down. 23 was the only other person of color arrested with me that day, a young black man who spent the bus ride over heckling the California highway patrol officers to the best of his ability. I told 23 in the bus ride over, “If you think CHP are a bunch of fucking pricks, wait till you meet the correctional officers. If you talk shit to them like you just talked shit to the CHP they will drag your ass into a little room and beat the fuck out of you.”

He said, “I appreciate the advice, but you do things your way, and I’ll do things mine, if I die in here, tell them my name is 23.”

When we were marched out and lined up, 23 resisted, a cop laughed, and slammed his face into a wall, seven or so officers grabbed him and dragged him kicking and screaming into a little room. “I’m not resisting!” he screamed through the sound of beatings. Consecutive sounds of flesh smacking against bone and concrete like a round of applause, their microphones’ were on, and connected to the sound system in the hallway we were kept in. We heard everything. The screams echoed through all of the halls of the cell.

The cops were laughing, yelling to one another, “Turn your damn microphones off!”

One officer paced behind us and calmly said,
“Me, I hate violence. Honestly, I am a pacifist. But if you give us trouble, you’ll end up like him. Now if you just behave, you won’t have to end up like him. What else can I do? If me or my officers are put in danger, I’ll have my hands tied, I’ll have no choice.”

Interesting that he said “hands tied” eh? Oh yes officer. Never has the narrative of the state been so clear to me. Oh officer, I praise your honesty. Your lynchings do not go unnoticed. Black is the bottom; it is of no coincidence that you made an example of 23, just as you did of other black youths. My upward mobility as a yellow fellow depends on how far I can push black people down. Black is perpetually made example of. I am juxtaposed to black objecthood. If I decide to join them, my wretched little lot and I will end up like them. I get it now. Never has your message been so clear to me. Oh yes, my honest pig, preaches nonviolence. Maintaining order depends upon systematic black death, that is the central logic of anti-blackness, of black objecthood of black social and material death. My assigned API identity is dependent upon the example made with black death. The line is drawn.

A new political climate, the stage is set.

Yes, do you hear it? The background is moving, the stage props are shaking, they are growing feet, little beady eyes taking form, they are living now, and taking center stage, and devouring the actors alive.

Slurp their fucking intestines up like noodles.

Yours Truly,
Yellow Peril

break the laws/break the chains: political reflections on Mike Brown and White Supremacy from Oakland CA

Reposted from Kissing in the Dark

To be free is to break the law

“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”

-assata shakur

 I write to you from a humbled place. Striving to be a warrior for my people; looking and listening. This is an attempt to share some political reflections as a Black womyn in the struggle since I left the womb. The last two days Turtle Island (united states) has been on fire in solidarity with Mike Brown’s family and Ferguson, Missouri to protest the murder of Mike Brown by pig Darren Wilson, who continues to live freely with no charges filed against him. Mike Brown, like many of my brothers and sisters before me, was murdered for being a Black man in the White mans system. A system built out of the genocide of Black and Native folks. No justice will ever be served in their courts. This week in particular is a powerful week to be remembering and honoring native resistance, and Indigenous resistance all over this earth to white supremacy and state violence. Nothing has changed including the lies and bullshit holidays they try to feed us to distract us from these truths. We honor by continuing to resist.