“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Martin Luther King, Jr

Heather Gray
June 2, 2020
Justice Initiative

Preface

Once again, with the recent tragic killing of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, young activists are wisely demonstrating throughout the United States demanding an end to this injustice, racism and white supremacy and of police violence.

Strange as it might seem, I began to learn more about the history of contemporary U.S. police violence while in the Philippines in 1989, which led me to better understand what we are experiencing regarding today’s scenario.

It is also likely that Donald Trump recently held a national call with governors of U.S. states to explore ways to take federal troops into the various states. The fact is, however, that the U.S. government is not allowed to send federal troops into the states at will, thanks to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 after the Civil War. “The purpose of the act… (was) to limit the powers of the Federal government in using its military personnel to enforce the state laws” (Posse Comitatus Act – Wikipedia).

Below is some history of the militarization of the U.S. police departments thanks to the early U.S. colonization of the Philippines and of the restraints of the federal government to militarize the states due to the Posse Comitatus Act.

JI Military Police 2: March 24, 2018 Atlanta “March for Our Lives in Atlanta”  (Photo: Heather Gray)

America’s Early Colonial History

In the 20th and 21rst centuries, U.S. policies around the world, both economically and militarily, have been questionable at best. U.S. violent international policies outside the Americas started with the Philippines in the beginning of the 20th century. These policies, more often incredibly violent, as mentioned, are coming back to haunt us. An example of this includes the U.S. international policy of “Low-Intensity Conflict” (LIC) related to the militarization of our domestic police forces.

After Philippine-American War (1899 to 1902), the U.S. launched LIC, at the beginning of the century in its Philippine colony, with the creation of the Philippine Constabulary. The Philippine Constabulary is, even today, a national police organization created principally to protect American and Filipino corporate and military elite interests. The legacy of this policy is that it now serves as a model for a militarized policing system in our 21rst century domestic American life.

I generally define the “elite” as neoconservative and neoliberal economic proponents along with their corporate capitalist supporters and colleagues.

The U.S. government and its elite tend to often try out policies internationally before introducing them into the U.S. and, as in the Philippines, the U.S. elite have always demonstrated their desire to control the American people. They certainly don’t want opposition to their policies or threats to their economic control, as we have consistently witnessed throughout the history of the U.S. Witness the FBI, the CIA, COINTELPRO, etc, and the assassination of many of our persuasive and profound leaders, such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and others.

Constraints on Militarization in the United States: Some History

I realize this is hard to believe, but often, the U.S. elite are constrained in implementing controlling policies in the U.S. domestic arena due to some laws that prevent this. They then will try to circumvent the restricting laws or attempt to overturn them altogether.  

Not long after the end of the Civil War (in 1865), the United States government sent federal troops to the South to enforce the policies of the post-war Reconstruction period:

The Reconstruction period addressed how the eleven seceding southern states would regain what the Constitution calls a “republican form of government” and be re-seated in Congress; it addressed the civil status of the former leaders of the Confederacy, and the Constitutional and legal status of freedmen, especially their civil rights and whether they should be given the right to vote. Intense controversy erupted throughout the South over these issues….Congress removed civilian governments in the South in 1867 and put the former Confederacy under the rule of the U.S. Army. The army conducted new elections in which the freed slaves could vote, while whites who had held leading positions under the Confederacy were temporarily denied the vote and were not permitted to run for office (Reconstruction – Wikipedia).

Needless to say, it is important to note, as referred to above, that many of the federal policies during the post Civil War Reconstruction Era were needed and appreciated regarding the rights of freed slaves. And it is also important to note, then, that what is critical regarding federal government intervention, as Trump is wanting, is the policies and/or political orientation of the federal government itself. If the orientation of the federal government is oppressive of the rights of all the people, then the last thing the majority of the people would want is federal troops coming into their states.

The Compromise of 1877: When, in 1877, there was a highly contested presidential election between Democractic candidate Samuel Tilden from New York and Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, a compromise was generated between the southern ‘Democractic’ delegation and the northern ‘Republicans’. This became known as the “Compromise of 1877“, in which the south agreed to support the Hayes presidency in return for the removal of the federal troops from the South  (Compromise of 1877 – Wikipedia).

In other words, the southern elite wanted to once again have controlling interests over the freed slaves and everything else in the South without federal interference.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878: The compromise between the northern and southern political parties, then, led to Congress passing the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878. “The purpose of the act… (was) to limit the powers of the Federal government in using its military personnel to enforce the state laws” (Posse Comitatus Act – Wikipedia).

There are exceptions, however, to the Posse Comitatus Act. If a state chooses to violate its citizens’ rights under the constitution and/or federal laws, federal military troops can then be sent in. This was the case when President Eisenhower sent troops to Arkansas in 1957 to enforce the Supreme Court’s “Brown v Board of Education” decision to integrate American schools. Eisenhower, reluctantly, I might add, responded to the obstructive opposition by the arch segregationist, Arkansas Governor, Orval Faubus.

Military Police 3: U.S. Troops in Little Rock, Arkansas 1957 (History.com)

Since the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, therefore, the U.S. government has been constrained overall in the use of military force domestically in any of the U.S. states.

This constraint, though, has never been the case in U.S. international policies and, therefore, the U.S. has engaged in militarizing the domestic arenas of other countries that fall under the auspices of the U.S. empire or areas of interest (such as the Philippines, South American countries, the Middle East, etc.).

Low-Intensity Conflict (LIC) is a “Policing/Militarization of the U.S. Empire”

What is “Low-Intensity Conflict”? There are seemingly many definitions of the term. Regarding the impact of LIC on the U.S. personnel, however, I refer to it as “low-intensity” only for the U.S. military and/or the controlling elite. In other words, the U.S. military does not get its hands dirty nor is it violently impacted by LIC, but instead it trains others to do this insidious work. 

“Low Intensity Conflict” is simultaneously “high intensity” for those outside the U.S. who are victims of these U.S. international LIC policies. These victims are often under intimidating surveillance, sometimes suffer or are killed by summary execution, torture, displacement etc. by military or police in their own country who are often trained philosophically and militarily by the U.S.

In other words, LIC is a method employed to “police/militarize” the U.S. empire on behalf of U.S. political and economic interests. This could also be referred to as “war capitalism” (Beckert).

After the Philippine-American War, the Philippines became a colony of the United States. This was the first imperial venture by the United States outside its hemisphere and it set the tone for the 20th century policies in other countries including those in South America, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. These other countries were not ‘colonies’ but are ‘countries’ the U.S. has had an interest in and/or has wanted to make sure the governments complied to U.S. trade policies or other economic interests.

In 1901, then, the U.S. created of the Philippine Constabulary (PC) to perform LIC policies and intimidate the existing Filipino revolutionaries. It is still in existence today. (Philippine Constabulary – Wikipilipinas)

It was created under the Commission Act No. 175 by Captain Henry T. Allen, an American, who was later dubbed as the “Father of the Philippine Constabulary”. It was first named as the Insular Constabulary and later renamed to Philippine Constabulary in December 1902.

The Constabulary was the first of the four service commands of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. It was a gendarmerie-type police force (armed police force or a militarized police force)  to replace the Spanish Guardia Civil (Spanish Civil Guard – Wikipedia).

The Constabulary was later integrated with the municipal police force, (to become the) Integrated National Police (and then) into the current “Philippine National Police” on January 29, 1991.

In layman’s terms, the militarized Philippine Constabulary has served in the interest of the U.S. and Filipino elite against the revolutionary movements in the Philippines that would, for example, choose to rid the country of its exploitative corporate and military ventures. At the very least, the revolutionary movements throughout Philippine history have attempted to end a government that relies so heavily on and adherence to the United States dictates. (Read the history of the Hukbalahap in the mid 20th century and/or the New Peoples Army (NPA), and about the National Democratic Front in the Philippines in the excellent book The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance by Daniel Schirmer and Stephen Shalom).

Michael McClintock describes an example of the Constabulary military actions in the 1950s:

The combined army and Philippines Constabulary (PC) force level rose dramatically from 32,000 at the beginning of 1950 to 40,000 in 1951 and 56,000 in late 1952. Air power, too, became increasingly important as U.S. assistance stepped up, with some 2,600 bombing and strafing runs reported between I August 1950 and 30 June 1952 alone (some sorties allegedly with support from U. S. planes out of Clark Air Force Base). Requests for napalm were initially turned down on State Department advice, but from late 1951 American napalm was supplied and used both for crop destruction and antipersonnel purposes. A record system devised for Philippine military intelligence, which traced all known supporters of the wartime Huk resistance movement, was operational by the end of 1950; according to one source, it was used in screening operations that resulted in some 15,000 arrests in the first six months of 1951 (McClintock).

In other words, regarding the Philippine Constabulary, there is a fine distinction, if any, between what is “policing” and what is “military” operations.

On-Going U.S. International “Low-Intensity Conflict” Policies

When militarizing the domestic arena of its areas of influence in the world, the United States, as mentioned, pays no attention to its own domestic laws as a model that do not easily allow for this militarization in its own domestic sphere.

In fact, international LIC policies have been implemented by the United States throughout much of the 20th century. The Philippines is just one example. Regarding LIC in South America, we need to consider the U.S. School of the Americas (SOA) or what is now referred to as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). Founded in 1946, it is located in Fort Benning, Georgia. In this school, the United States trains the military of South American countries to serve a somewhat similar role as the Philippine Constabulary and/or even more violent and extreme, if that’s possible. Filipino army officers have also been trained at the SOA.

We could say that the WHINSEC in the U.S. is training the South American military to fight against their own people, as is true with the Philippine Constabulary.

So, instead of the United States military going into El Salvador, Nicaragua, Columbia, Argentina, etc. the U.S. trains troops from these countries to serve the interests of the United States and the friendly elite of the South American countries. Again, it is a “policing” or “militarization” of countries in what the United States considers its empire of interest.

The “School of the Americas Watch has a sizable listing of human rights violations committed by graduates of the SOA/WHINSEC.  In fact, the “School of the Americas Watch” is under the leadership of Father Roy Bourgeois who has for years wisely tried to close down this school.

One example, below, of these human rights violations is by the SOA graduate  General Juan Orlando Zeped from El Salvador who took a course at the SOA in 1975 on “Urban Counterinsurgency Ops”.; and in the 1969, the “Unnamed Course.” Below is some information about General Zeped’s tragic behavior:

Jesuit massacre, 1989: (Zeped) Planned the assassination of 6 Jesuit priests and covered-up the massacre, which also took the lives of the priests’ housekeeper and her teen-age daughter. (United Nations Truth Commission Report on El Salvador, 1993) Other war crimes, 1980’s: The Non-Governmental Human Rights Commission in El Salvador also cites Zepeda for involvement in 210 summary executions, 64 tortures, and 110 illegal detentions. (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) Member of the “La Tandona” and held the rank of colonel and served as the Vice Minister of Defense at the time of the massacre. Prior to the massacre he publicly accused the UCA of being the center of operations for the FMLN and was present for the meetings where orders were given for the massacre. He was later promoted to the rank of general (Notorious Grads – School of the Americas).

The Domestic Military: Contemporary Police Departments and Militarization

I have always assumed that the U.S. would also want to implement the LIC strategies domestically or have increased domestic militarization in the U.S. as well, that, as mentioned, the Posse-Comitatus Act has largely prevented. So, rather than sending in the U.S. military into the cities, one way the U.S. has managed to circumvent Posse-Comitatus is to “militarize” the local domestic police forces, which is now happening to a significant degree in the United States. It’s also another way to increase the huge U.S. military budget, as the domestic police departments are obtaining left over military equipment, as if that’s what we want or need in our cities!

In many ways, the militarization of police departments affords the opportunity for the police to “fight against” the American people rather then serve in the “interests” and “protection” of the American people. This is similar to the U.S. LIC trained military recruits in South America and elsewhere.  

In a 2014 article on Alternet, Art Kane states:

The “war on terror” has come home-and it’s wreaking havoc on innocent American lives. The culprit is the militarization of the police….

A recent New York Times article by Matt Apuzzo reported that in the Obama era, “police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.”  The result is that police agencies around the nation possess military-grade equipment, turning officers who are supposed to fight crime and protect communities into what look like invading forces from an army. And military-style police raids have increased in recent years, with one count putting the number at 80,000 such raids last year (Kane).

Art Kane‘s “11 Shocking Facts About America’s Militarized Police Forces” are:

1. It harms, and sometimes kills, innocent people.
2. Children are impacted.
3. The use of SWAT teams is unnecessary.
4. The “war on terror” is fueling militarization.
5. It’s a boon to contractor profits.
6. Border militarization and police militarization go hand in hand.
7. Police are cracking down on dissent.
8. Asset forfeitures are funding police militarization.
9. Dubious informants are used for raids.
10. There’s been little debate and oversight.
11. Communities of color bear the brunt.

Included in the concerns about militarized police forces should also be about information the training police officers receive altogether, as in attitudes and justice toward the other.

Kane provides an excellent narrative for each of the above facts.  I witnessed virtually all of these “11 shocking facts” in the Philippines in 1989. They are now, unfortunately, to be witnessed in the United States as well.

The unfair and disastrous “Low-Intensity Conflict” policies forced on many other parts of the world have come home to roost.

Summary

It is encouraging, however, that there is now significant organizing in the country against this trend of police militarization and gun violence overall. It needs to also be extended as well to the countries throughout the world that are continuing to be victims of these U.S. “Low-Intensity Conflict” policies. Closing down the School of the Americas would also be a good first start and implementing policies that do not allow for a militarization of our police departments would be another, and should be addressed with all deliberate speed. Many American police have also been trained in Israel and this should end altogether.

Americans also need to address the training American police departments are implementing with the domestic police recruits and police staff altogether. For example, how much of the low-intensity conflict model is being implemented. In other words, is the violence by the police used to service the corporate and elite interests in America? And further, is the training racist, biased, altogether encouraging discriminatory behavior and  the use of force by the police throughout the country.

When Martin Luther King said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he was certainly correct by inferring that injustices conducted by the U.S. elsewhere will come home!

Gray & Associates, PO Box 8048, Atlanta, GA 31106

On Saturday, October 12, 2024, the “Electoral Poly-Tricks” Pan Afrikan Community Town Hall Meeting was held at the Temple of New African Thought, located on 5525 Harford Road in East Baltimore. The purpose of the Town Hall was not to present a candidates’ forum where political hopefuls would subject us all to their political platforms and their long lists of promises of what they will do for our community; it was planned as a discussion among us as a community about what motivates us to participate, or not participate, on the electoral process and to make the voting decisions we make. We believe we succeeded in meeting that goal.

Sis. Tomiko, cultural anthropologist and founding director of Aging People in Prison Human Rights Campaign (APP-HRC), conducted the Libation to open the meeting. Bro. Cliff, Maryland Facilitator of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC), member of the North America Regional Coordinating Committee of the Pan African Federalist Movement (PAFM) and Moderator of the Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition (MPACC), then went over the meeting plan for the Town Hall and explained the history of the Pan Afrikan Town Hall Meetings from 2007 to the present, after which he and Sis. Tomiko introduced the Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition (MPACC), the organizers of the Town Hall, and its cooperative coalition organizing strategy that includes the Seniors Advocacy Network, the Ubuntu Domestic Violence Collective and the Afrikan Women’s Defense Collective.

Bro. Cliff introduced the theme of the meeting: “Electoral Poly-Tricks”; proposed some questions to consider and assumptions we make as citizens when we go (or don’t go) to the polls. The aim of the Town Hall was to inspire the community to think when we go to the polls and to look ahead, after the elections, to build our own independent Pan Afrikan political infrastructure.

The Panelists present at the meeting were:

• Bro. Everett Winchester, Minister of Information for Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) globally and President of the Division 106 Barca-Clarke (named for General Hannibal Barca and Dr. John Henrik Clarke) in Baltimore
• Bro. Nnamdi Lumumba, co-founder of Ujima Peoples Progress Party (UPP), which also is participating in the National Black Radical Political Convention (NBRPC), where he serves as Executive Secretary
• Dr. Dennis Ausar Winkler, founder of Temple of New African Thought (TNAT) Holistic Wellness Center, race-based trauma expert, social scientist, scholar-activist, counselor, educator, professor and podcast host
• Two more Panelists, Baba Khalid Raheem (New Afrikan Independence Party and National Black Radical Political Convention, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) and Baba Charles Barron (former city council member and independent Pan Afrikan activist, also with the National Black Radical Political Congress, New York City, New York) would join the discussion later over Zoom.

The panelists begin by sharing their general views

Bro. Everett Winchester described the electoral process as “very difficult”. We look for what feels good to us, the “lesser of two evils”, but not what gets us power. We should know every elected official in our community so we can know who to pressure to ensure we get something in return for our vote. Other geographical jurisdictions and ethnic/racial communities get more from their candidates because they are better organized to wield power than we are.

Bro. Nnamdi Lumumba’s organization, UPP, is geared around de-mystifying politics and building power in the electoral arena. The purpose of politics is to make decisions, make policy and determine who gets resources. Elections have a particular part in this. We use ideas from Western Europe which doesn’t really have democracy (more like an advanced, refined version of feudalism) and from the United States which doesn’t have real democracy either, having built itself by enslaving and exploiting others, most specifically our ancestors and our Sisters and Brothers in Afrika and the Global South. The process of real democracy is working together cooperatively. Maurice Bishop’s Grenada pursued this goal before it was destabilized by US and other foreign intervention. In the United States, we only talk about democracy when we are told to vote every two, four or six years. The intent of elections is to wage a nonviolent struggle for control of the state, to replace the warlords’ historical ways of violence and bloodshed. Control of the state is important because it means control of the courts, the police and the legislatures that decide what resources get deployed for the people. We don’t look at it that way so we come across as beggars during election season.

Dr. Ausar Winkler noted that we only look at politics through the lens of electoral politics. Political statements are made everywhere, including our choice in clothes. We all believe we are doing the right thing, even those who are voting for Trump. There is the White Supremacist Republican Party and the White Feminist liberal party, the Democrats. The most radical you can be (without being punished) is what the White Feminists prescribe in the Democratic Party. We need to have more nuanced and sincere discussions, including “what is my body”. We also have to look at the man, woman and child and not get caught up in White Feminist attitudes.

Bro. Everett noted that the system was not meant for us; it was meant to keep us down. In a race for economic power, resources and education, Dr. Claud Anderson says we are in last place. We need to come together and start demanding things; until then, others are making decisions for us, including decisions that impact our Sisters and their bodies. The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey said everywhere he went in the world, Black people were on the bottom, and Bro. Everett sees this today. This system was not meant for us, and we need to come together and fight for those things our people need.

Bro. Nnamdi started talking about some of the assumptions we make. We assume that we have to vote for one side of White Power and White Supremacy or the other; capitalism, theft of land, and exploitation of others are built into that choice. Winning power is not always the same as winning elections. Elections are held to determine control of the state. If we don’t have that available to us, winning power over our own local community becomes part of the struggle to win power over our lives. Putting leadership that is always ignored up front. Building power in the community between elections. We have to address and dismantle the assumptions that are built in.

Dr. Ausar noted that most Black men are not voting for Trump, despite what some in the media (and even our own community) like to claim. Most vote Democratic and are for reinstating Roe v. Wade, but the media makes it seem otherwise. Black men and Black women generally agree (both around 68%) in favor of Roe v. Wade. More White women than White men do. How do these issues show up in our houses, our living rooms? But we unfortunately tend to believe all types of things and don’t analyze the propaganda. Many of us don’t have time to read as much as we need to if we want to cut through the propaganda. We need to have more frequent, deeper, and more thoughtful conversations around these issues and we need to collectively make these decisions, including looking at why our Sisters even need to have abortions.

Bro. Nnamdi noted that Sisters are an extremely consistent and reliable voting bloc. And those who say Kamala Harris is not Black (a notion that was largely triggered by Trump’s claim at this summer’s National Association of Black Journalists convention that “she suddenly became Black”) are falling for the flim-flam and vicious lies propagated by White racists. “She is an Afrikan. She is an Afrikan. She is an Afrikan.” Whether she serves our interests or not is another discussion. And we cannot ignore the concerns of our Sisters. If we are going to talk about democracy, the majority (Sisters) must be heard. We cannot live in a world where half our intellect, labor and voices are ignored. We cannot allow White Supremacy to take half of our voice and labor. But this is nothing new. This has been done to us throughout history.

Bro. Everett, as the father and grandfather of Black women and girls, stated that we must make sure the Black Woman is nurtured correctly and is heard. Most teachers are women, and women tend to be better educated. Our problems should be discussed and solved together as Black Men and Black Women and not separated. Whatever his wife feels, that’s his opinion. Whatever we feel collectively is his vote. Mama Earth is the Lady President of UNIA-ACL Chapter 106 Barca-Clarke, which is reflective of this philosophy.

Dr. Ausar feels decisions regarding the man’s body as well as the woman’s should reflect the needs of the community if we’re going to get into regulating the woman’s reproduction by our community. Men’s reproductive behavior should be as regulated as women’s.

Community Comments and Interactive Discussion

There are people in our community who “fall through the cracks” and are still often not seen by the “phenomenal” organizations and hard-working activists in our community. The people in the cracks need to be better seen by the activists with all these organizations we have.

Bro. Everett said we need to create our own political entity. UNIA-ACL is more than just a flag. There is a government aspect. It’s there for all of us, hence the “Universal” part of the name. We can start to govern ourselves in our community.

Bro. Nnamdi noted that civics are no longer taught in schools. People in power take advantage of people who do not know. Introducing political education to our communities is an objective of UPP.

Dr. Ausar noted that we are indoctrinated into the system so we believe that what we learn in academia is the most revolutionary you can be. Henry Louis Gates noted going into the mainstream academic and political institutions with Afro combs and coming out eating caviar.

It was noted that protecting our families is more important than just the politics. One suggestion was to “take the woman off the market”, deny the services of our Black Women to the system. We all need to be in recovery because of the “isms” we have all been put through.

It was stated that government is important. Much of the support for Kamala Harris is primarily to prevent Trump from regaining the levers of power. The reason this country is not in rebellion (though it should be) is largely because Trump has been allowed to run for president when he really should be in prison.

Bro. Nnamdi noted that White Supremacy is in crisis. Kamala Harris is another chess move in this larger game between political action committees. We need to be in control of the candidates, the political action committees and the campaigns. In France, the right wing has denied their election. This is one example of how fascists are coming to power in response to White Supremacy’s crisis, trying to keep the power they have stolen. Trump’s plan was written in 2021 by a think tank. The ideas of Project 2025 are already being implemented in state capitals across the US. The plan is already written so he is only the icing on the cake. This is organized repression which must be met by organized resistance, which we largely lack because we are not truly organized.

Bro. Everett noted that we need to be honest about who we are as a collective. Harris says she has no specific agenda for Black people; if she says she does she will lose the White vote. Trump represents White Power and is unashamed to show it. Until we have someone who is from us and about us, ready to fight for us, our voice is muted.

Sis Tomiko mentioned the different political parties that are running (Green Party, Party of Socialism & Liberation, Libertarian Party, Dr. Cornel West’s independent campaign). Which ones should we look at?

Bro. Nnamdi said UPP has not endorsed any party, but the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s (PSL, with Claudia De La Cruz running for president) positions are interesting. The Green Party’s (Dr. Jill Stein as the presidential nominee) positions are well thought out, and the National Black Radical Political Convention, being held on October 26-27, has supported Dr. Cornel West’s efforts. You can also write in candidates; he has written in Mumia Abu-Jamal for president numerous times. If you have to hold your nose to vote, what does that do to your consciousness?

Bro. Everett noted that we are the First People, we are phenomenal. We need to go from asking for a piece of the pie to demanding the whole pie. In the Park Heights neighborhood, we see the Black side and the Jewish side that get different quality of services. We need the whole pie. We need to learn our history in our schools. We don’t learn about Garvey, we don’t control what we learn in our schools.

Building Our Own Black Agenda?

Bro. Nnamdi noted that even when we could not vote we had a level of organization and activity. Public school education came from Black Republicans way back when that was a progressive party. For the Jewish community, the ideological glue was often Zionism. Where is our ideological glue? Where is our ability to punish those who make decisions that go against us? National politics is so often out of our weight class.

Dr. Ausar acknowledged that we all want to see the best for our people. There are individual people in political positions that wish and mean us well. We often miss each other’s arguments though. Some of us are trying to survive under the status quo (things staying the same, wanting to make things better but not rock the boat too much to avoid repercussions) while others are speaking from a liberation framework about top-to-bottom revolutionary change. Some friends of ours who are in political positions want to do things and say things but are afraid to do so. Many of our people are suffering in deplorable conditions, more so than some Third World countries. What is going to liberate us? People working in the system too often call the revolutionaries insane, idiotic and crazy. People are beating up on third party politics. Dr. Ausar is all about third parties and wants to support them so they can reach 5% of the popular vote and gain some of the perks of reaching that status.

Baba Khalid Raheem greeted the meeting panel from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania over Zoom. Before the 1960’s we had just a handful of Black elected and appointed officials, less than 200. Now we have more than 2000, but one might think we still had only 200. The numbers have not equated to political power. We gave our political power to one of the two major parties. First we went to the Republican Party, but then they sold us out in the 1870’s in the Hayes-Tilden Compromise. Then they sold us out again in the Civil Rights era. Now we must develop our own independent political parties. Most of us are regular working-class people or working in the gig economy. We need to develop a political agenda and organization that represents our situation as a people, and stop just going along with the Democratic Party. We must break that culture and move to another level. The New Afrikan Independence Party and the National Black Radical Political Congress are important organizations he is working with.

It was stated that in Baltimore we have a closed primary system that limits the ability of independent political candidates and parties to win in elections. Most of the Afrikan organizations represent the tip of the spear but are out of touch with the largest voting constituency, Elder Black Women. Pan Afrikan activists need to get in touch with the grassroots community organizations. There is a Baltimore directory that lists the neighborhood organizations’ meeting dates. We also need independent freedom schools like what we once had with the Soul School Institute and the Timbuktu Center.

Bro. Nnamdi noted that the number of independent voters has grown every year, which is going to change the game. Primary elections are won by a minority of voters, and general elections are often run unopposed by the winner of the primary. We don’t seem to realize that the winner of the primary did not win the overall election, and we need better civics education so we can realize that and use that to our advantage.

The two-party system that controls Maryland’s politicians has a sitting governor and presidential candidate that are party to an ongoing genocide in Gaza, even making it illegal in some cases for businesses to boycott Israel. Cooperation Jackson (Jackson, Mississippi, founded by Ancestor Chokwe Lumumba and now supported in part by his son, Jackson mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba) has been responding to economic extraction and racism through three pillars: anti-imperialist political candidates, people’s assemblies where the community comes up with a collective people’s agenda and selects their representatives, putting economics behind politics and rejecting individualism (which would be nothing more than resorting to capitalism in blackface) in favor of cooperative economics. We can build something like that here.

Professors and scholars talking only to professors and scholars will miss the people in the cracks. These issues that impact us have been talked about for over 77 years at least, and some of us act as though this is something new. There is information about food distribution centers and other sources of community help that our activists and organizers have been unaware of or have even ignored.

Bro. Everett said that UNIA-ACL has reached out to numerous community organizations and last year held a Town Hall that invited community organizations. Earlier today, they participated in a community clean-up. Whenever we start moving as a community we should adopt a Race First consciousness. We need to start talking about what is impacting our community so we can invest, strategize and build together. If Kamala Harris is not doing anything for our community (a claim which has been disputed by others), that is on us for not putting the pressure on her to do for our community if she wants our support.

Bro. Nnamdi noted that Cooperation Jackson’s (Jackson, Mississippi) model is anti-capitalist and thus is different from, for example, Dr. Claud Anderson’s model. With regard to Pan Afrikan organizations reaching out (or not reaching out) to community groups, Bro. Nnamdi is also on the board of a local community organization, and connecting is hard. Pan Afrikan activists cannot just “stick and move”, visiting a community organization and then moving on to the next one; they have to “stick and stay”. They must be able to remain involved with those communities and be prepared to dig in with them.

Dr. Ausar urged us to remember that this work is exhausting. We become tired and it’s easy to start pointing fingers, and we must fight the urge to do that; most of us mean well. We are tired, and organizing is hard. We need to be able to re-charge our bodies, and we need to listen to each other and realize the ways in which we can get triggered when we are all talking at each other instead of talking to each other. We need to evolve our ideas so we don’t get confused by the Black capitalist agenda.

Sis. Tomiko noted that many of those in the meetings of activists and foundations on a larger scale are not Pan Afrikan activists but are people who work in foundations and have jobs with them. Often there are only a few real Pan Afrikan activists in these larger meetings.

Bro. Cliff noted that activists simply don’t have the people to be everywhere. He mentioned a meeting he had on behalf of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) about 15 years ago with the then-director of a local community organization umbrella group to try to reach all of the neighborhood organizations where people of Afrikan descent live. SRDC sought to reach out to the people in our community groups to get their involvement in building our own Pan Afrikan Agenda back then, so we could use it to build unity, pressure local politicians, develop self-help initiatives and take our grievances with the United States to international organizations like the African Union and United Nations. We did not know who all the organizations were and how to contact them, so meeting with this umbrella organization seemed to be a good place to start to get some direction and advice. The director told us to go talk to the Continental Africans instead of the Black community organizations, clearly not understanding what SRDC’s objectives were despite having been told. There are assumptions we make about each other and we judge each other prematurely, which stifles our efforts to move forward.

Baba Charles Barron, former New York City Councilman, joined the Zoom as a panelist. He came out of the Black Panther Party movement and ran for public office and beat the establishment Democratic machine that was backed by president Barack Obama, Congressmember Hakeem Jeffries and current New York mayor Eric Adams. He and his allies won city and state assembly seats. They overcame the Negro Democratic Party structure for 21 years. They established schools, secured the freedom of three political prisoners and brought economic programs to the community. They stopped gentrification, opposed landlords, pursued a reparations agenda and built a community center that the community will soon own. Mainstream Negro politicians, on the other hand, saw their neighborhoods gentrified. Now he is working with the National Black Radical Political Congress with Bro. Nnamdi and Baba Khallid. Revolution will happen from the bottom up, not the top down. He is backing the independent candidacy of Dr. Cornel West for US president.

Bro. Nnamdi stated that Baba Barron ran as a Democrat but built an independent infrastructure that took control from the mainstream Democrats. You can run as a Democrat if you are ready to build that independent infrastructure and take control from the Democratic Party on behalf of the people.

Mama Earth stated that we don’t have enough patience and compassion with one another. Many of us in our organizations are going through a lot ourselves and we can’t always run after all the other organizers and activists. Some of us don’t have enough time to handle all the responsibilities we have on the organizational as well as personal level. We need to come together and build with each other so we can do what we must do collectively without becoming overwhelmed. We can’t do it alone. We have to do it together in a united front.

Everyone has something going on in their organizational as well as personal lives. We can all do only so much by ourselves. If we center too much on ourselves, we run the risk of losing the “I Am Because We Are” perspective that is so important to our ability to move our people forward.

Kamala Harris, whatever our criticisms of her may be, is seen as vastly different from Donald Trump, who we already know is damaging to the country and world as well as to the already-destructive mindset of many of his followers. Until a revolution takes place, many of us will support Kamala Harris if for no other reason than to defeat Trump.

Bro. Nnamdi noted that Baba Charles Barron will be a participant in the NBRPC conference. Visit https://nbrpc.org for more information. Also, he understands and respects the support for Kamala Harris, but his refusal to support a political party that is participating in genocide should be respected also. The Biden-Harris administration is participating in the genocide of Gaza through its support of Israel, and he chooses not to support them. Although he was not here to tell anyone who they should vote for, he is guided by the conviction that “Afrikan people can live without imperialism.” We need to organize ourselves to make this happen.

Sis Tomiko stated that she heard an Indigenous activist on WPFW-FM (Washington, DC) state that a number of Indigenous activists were planning to sit this election out because they will not support genocide.

In answer to a question about obtaining agricultural visas for Black Farmers and Urban Farmers like in the Park Heights area of Baltimore, Bro. Everett noted that UNIA-ACL has agricultural gardens in Curacao and Liberia. The League of Nations acknowledged UNIA as a government on the days before it became the United Nations and had instituted a procedure where UNIA was a place to go to obtain visas until UNIA came under attack by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) COINTELPRO.

An attendee on Zoom commented that we must get out of the Democrat-Republican mindset and build our own political base. “You are the ones doing the work.” We must stop inviting people from the outside that just want to talk about what they’re going to do but do nothing but represent the lobbyists and corporations that fund them. We must choose our own candidates and leaders. Baba Khalid Raheem invited them to join NAIP, UPP or NBRPC. In Pennsylvania, there are also closed primaries. The New Afrikan Independence Party has run candidates for mayor of Pittsburgh and for county council seats and got up to 12 percent of the vote, from people who were not in the New Afrikan Independence Party. Similar efforts have been undertaken elsewhere in the country. A Race First approach sounds good but we must be principled first, else we will be drawn to Black politicians who do not share a revolutionary Black perspective and could sell us out to our enemies.

The need for independent candidates was emphasized, and perhaps Bro. Nnamdi can take the lead here. We should put our money behind candidates who can meet our needs. Run for office like Baba Charles Barron did in Brooklyn.

Do We Have an Agenda of Our Own?

Bro. Everett commented that it must be an overall community-uplift objective. Resources, educational system and businesses need to be looked at, and a candidate or a party needs to look at these and include the community. Race First is about doing what will benefit our Afrikan family even if the supported candidate is not an Afrikan themselves. Other cultures move by looking out for their communities: Jewish, Asian, Latino. We must start looking out for each other. Vote for and support those things that are in our favor.

Bro. Nnamdi stated that we need to have an assembly to talk about what our agenda will look like, realizing that we are not monolithic and will have different ideas. We also need the infrastructure to make it happen and a democratic structure for our community to have a voice, and no room for an imperialistic agenda. Our existence will always be in peril as long as White Supremacy and imperialism are allowed to continue to exist.

Dr. Ausar noted that we must discuss in a sincere manner, and places like this must be healing spaces where we can have these conversations. We say we are the choir, but we’re not. We are the ones who actually need healing. We’re struggling and we don’t know how to get along with each other. If we don’t learn how to coexist and to disagree and debate in sincerity and love, we are in trouble. The whole “Kamala or not” argument is a case in point, assuming that no one here is going to vote for Trump. We can’t just see ourselves as the “special ones” going out to heal the community when we need healing ourselves.

Bro. Cliff made three points. (1) We need healing as Dr. Ausar said; he used now-Ancestor Mama Iyaluua Ferguson’s statement after Imam Jamil Al-Amin/H. Rap Brown was convicted and sentenced; “People say we’re preaching to the choir. If we’re a choir, we’re damn miserable. We were supposed to save him.” (2) We need to vote strategically, whether we vote for a third party to support it long term or vote for which candidate we are ready to fight for the next four years. People cried in joy when Obama was elected but got mad when he did things we could not stand, such as prosecuting whistleblowers, ignoring the World Conference Against Racism review sessions, increasing drone raids in Afghanistan and bombing Libya into the previous century, things he did because he was the president of the US and not just for us. No president is going to have an agenda just for us; whoever wins, we must be ready to fight, but we have failed to fight, either waiting for our hero to fix things or hiding from our enemy. We must organize between elections, not just every four years. (3) We need to build an independent Pan Afrikan political organization, a grassroots community council, and our own Pan Afrikan Agenda which will be regularly reviewed and updated to create a cooperative agenda, steps which we have refused to take so far. People in attendance here and on Zoom made important comments and they must be involved in building a cooperative, comprehensive Pan Afrikan Agenda that we all can embrace.

We will hold more of these Town Hall Meetings in the future, including sessions to build that cooperative, comprehensive Pan Afrikan agenda. We asked those in the chat and those in attendance here to provide their contact information so we can reach out to them and work on building from here.

UPP had copies of its official publication, The Progress Report, on sale on the back of the room. Also in the back, Diasporan Soul Kitchen was open for those who wanted to purchase some excellent, tasty and healthful food and drink.

We will provide updates to our ongoing efforts to build that Pan Afrikan Agenda. Watch this space for more information and insights on the US elections, which are presently upon us, and how we as Afrikan People can organize ourselves to weather whatever storms spring from the election results. Groups at the regional, national and Diaspora levels are making connections to try to build a broader, collective, cooperative unity. The Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition (MPACC) will seek to be part of these efforts to bring our people together on the local, national and global levels.

Editor’s Note: The following message was posted in February on behalf of the Ujima People’s Progress Party (UPP), which is currently building a Black Worker-Led Independent Political Party in Maryland.

Hi Friend,

Happy New Year maybe. 2020 was terrible, particularly for black people in the US. I think that actually having a happy new year would require serious personal and collective growth. Growth requires a critical evaluation of the past in order to avoid repeating mistakes and one makes plans for the future. In that vein of reflecting on the past, I want to share with you a short video (9 min) of Michael B. Jordan reciting a famous speech by the Chicago Black Panthers’ Chairman, Fred Hampton. I pulled out these three statements to give you a sense of the speech.

“We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don’t fight racism with racism. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity.”

“We say you don’t fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.”

“I’m telling you that we’re living in a sick society. And anybody that endorses integrating into this sick society before it’s cleaned up is a man who’s committing a crime against the people. If you walk past a hospital room and see a sign that says “Contaminated” and then you try to lead people into that room, either those people are mighty dumb, you understand me… cause if they weren’t, they’d tell you that you are an unfair, unjust leader that does not have your followers’ interests in mind.”

Chairman Fred Hampton was assassinated in his bed by the Chicago PD at 21 years old. At that time in 1969, Chicago’s City Council and Mayoralty were controlled by the local, post-Civil Rights, Democratic Party as it is today. In my opinion, Hampton was right and still is today: Integrating into a sick society and its sick political values hasn’t paid off in fifty one years. Fifty one years later, we still don’t even have enough equality to be killed by police and hospitals at the same rate as white people. Fifty one years later, the median net wealth of black households is trending toward $0 dollars. Fifty one years later, the Democratic National Convention rejected the Movement for Black Lives’ proposal of the Breathe Act while the largest civil rights demonstrations in US history were in full swing. (Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don’t support the Breathe Act either.) I think that continuing to subordinate the political demands of black people, indigenous people and working class people to the priorities of capitalist, primarily white political parties is likely going to make 2021 as catastrophic for black people as was 2020. Asking Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi to support the Breathe Act (or anything that black people, poor people or the biosphere need) again is not a “strategy” that our leaders should have the audacity put forward in 2021.

Fortunately, this Kwanzaa, many of us spent some time reflecting on the principle of self-determination. Being self-determined would include coming to our own decisions about community safety, imperialism, capitalism, socialism, racism, ecology, etcetera and creating our own agendas. I’m part of an organization that’s working on this in our state. Ujima People’s Progress Party (UPP), a black, working class political party is planning a campaign to achieve ballot access in Maryland. If successful, UPP would become Maryland’s first, black, working class political party. (Roughly 30% of Maryland’s population is black.) No matter what state you’re in, any success that we have would probably produce positive spillover effects on independent, self-determining, black politics in your state. So I would be grateful for your involvement no matter where you live. If you’re not already connected to UPP and you support more choices for black voters, then hit me back and we’ll talk about the ways that you could consider supporting us.

…I hope that I’m communicating how imperative it is that black voters get greater ideological diversity on our ballots.

With the same old ideology in charge, 2021 is going to be as lethally anti-black as the last one. Black lives could matter, but they don’t because, fifty one years later, too many black leaders feel that a black political agenda is less important than the Democratic Party’s priorities. Too many black leaders feel that a back agenda is less important than the organized wealth of white liberals. Black lives will matter when black people link up, overcome our internalized racism enough to develop independent black power. Over 70 million voters just opted to re-elect the most overtly racist US President in recent history. And the incoming President won by trying to win over those same voters. If we don’t try something else, then in fifty one more years, my grandkids will have another lifetime of marching and asking America for equality to look forward to. Let’s try something else.

Happy new year “if you’re willing to fight for it”,
Thinq Tank

An update on the drive for a black, working class-led political party in Maryland:

One of our party leaders, Nnamdi Lumumba was recently interviewed by Dr. Jared Ball, a media and journalism professor here in Baltimore. This is a very important, 18-minute excerpt from that interview. It includes Nnamdi explaining why our party needs ballot access and our theory of power (within and outside of electoral politics). If you’re not sure about why black/African people in Maryland and the US need independent, political power, then I urge you to take a listen. And please consider making a contribution to our effort for ballot access.

I’ve been thinking that, ultimately, the success of this effort will come down to our own capacity to trust primarily black institutions as much as we trust primarily white institutions.

Can black people trust ourselves and other black people with independent, political leadership? Or is our internalized racism too deep for us to invest in a self-determined ideological vision?

Do we only trust a Colin Powell, a Barack Obama, a Kamala Harris or a Brandon Scott because their brown skin is backed up by the capitalist, imperialist, ecocidal politics of primarily white organizations?

Is our awareness of radical black politics so lacking and caricatured that we assume that a black-led party is just a bunch of “hoteps” who want revenge against white people?

From where does our endless confidence in the Democratic Party come – despite its persistent racism, over-policing, war and general shortcomings? And when will we start to keep that tireless energy for our own ideas and institutions?

I think that the answers to such questions are first answered on an individual basis. If, as individuals, we are going to wait until independent, black politics are embraced by the New York Times, CNN, Bernie Sanders, the NAACP, by mainstream America or by wealthier black people, then no, this initiative is going nowhere. But the reason why our organization even exists and why independent black power is even a possibility is because here in Maryland and around the world there have always been (and always will be) individuals who look to ourselves to affirm our own humanity and worth in spite of the violent exploitation that dominates the world. Many of those individuals got organized behind revolutionary ideas, despite the odds, which is what is happening right now in Maryland. If you’re one of those individuals, please make a contribution and let’s get organized!
Asante,
Thinq Tanq

In May 0f 2022, Pan African activists from across the African Continent and around the Diaspora met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the Roots-Synergy Roundtable.  There, work began on a unified strategy to firmly establish, after over 17 years of false starts, a roadmap for the African Diaspora to achieve recognition in the African Union as its Sixth Region, and for activists from around the world to launch a new era of cooperation to move the Pan African World forward.  Several online meetings of Pan African activists from Central America, South America, North America, Europe, Africa, Australia and the Middle East followed the Addis Ababa meeting and set the stage for the next major in-person conference to further this objective.

This work continued when these activists reconvened in Maputo, Mozambique in July of 2023.  At this time, the African Union African Diaspora Sixth Region High Council was launched.  A Constitution was written, ratified and released to the public, and is available to read below.

ADOPTED&APROVED_ConstitutionAUADS 6thregionHighCouncil. docx

Credit must go to Dr. Barryl A. Biekman, founder of the African Union African Diaspora Sixth Region Facilitators Working Group-Europe (AUADSFWG) for her tireless work in leading this endeavor.  Dr. Biekman has been a regular presence on the international scene for over 25 years, having participated in the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa in 2001 and working consistently with the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) since its 2006 founding to establish representation for the African Diaspora in the African Union, pursuant to the AU’s African Diaspora Initiative which it had proclaimed in 2003.  She has attended meetings, conferences and public sessions at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, as well as the United Nations Headquarters in New York City and Geneve, Switzerland.  She has been a tireless advocate for the African Diaspora on the ground in The Netherlands where she currently lives, promoting the “Sixth Region” African Diaspora and mobilizing against such racist traditions as “Svarte Piet”, or “Black Pete”, a Christmas holiday tradition in many sectors of Dutch life which reinforces anti-Black stereotypes.