We must not respond to the duplicity of “liberals” by aligning with the intolerance and exploitation of “conservatives”

NNPA columnist Raynard Jackson (Black Leaders have Sold Out, Atlanta Daily World, April 25, 2013) has put forth an old argument that uses the furor over immigration reform (with a nod to the gay marriage debate thrown in for good measure) to argue for people of Afrikan descent to take their support away from the “liberal” Democratic Party and its anointed Black leaders and throw it behind the “conservative” Republican Party.  While I agree with Mr. Jackson that we should not mindlessly follow Democratic Party ideology and every media-sponsored, corporate-influenced “leader” hook-line-and-sinker, to then propose a solution of allegiance to the Republican Party is completely nonsensical and would amount to the cultural (and some would say actual) suicide of Afrikan people.

Mr. Jackson bemoans the lack of inclusion of the Afrikan Descendant (he says “Black”) community in the gay marriage and immigration debates, noting that the “liberal” organizations such as the NAACP, Urban League and Congressional Black Caucus expend so much energy supporting “homosexual marriage and amnesty for illegals” while we receive no support from the immigration and gay lobbies for our issues, citing the Trayvon Martin case as an example.  Specifically with regard to immigration, he cites the unemployment rate among people of Afrikan descent and notes that “Blacks will be hurt the most by giving amnesty to these 11 million illegals and yet there has not been one town hall meeting with the Black community to discuss how this issue will negatively impact the Black community’s high unemployment rate.”

He specifically makes reference to polls that suggest that, contrary to the beliefs of many, the US population in general, and the Black population in particular, is opposed to both gay marriage and “amnesty for illegals”.  He blames Ben Jealous of the NAACP, Marc Morial of the Urban League, MSNBC commentator Rev. Al Sharpton and Ohio Representative and Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Marcia Fudge in particular for attempting to hijack the interests of the Black community to curry favor with the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration.

Then he lets the other shoe drop as he hints at his solution: the Republican Party, which has fought against “the illegals” (and the homosexuals) for decades.  Apparently, Mr. Jackson believes that the occasional conflicts between Latinos and Afrikan-Americans, and the moral opposition of many in our community to homosexuality indicates that we should all become Republicans.  Perhaps we should go Tea-Partying with the right-wingers and join in on some occasional Stars-and-Bars romanticizing about the Good Ol’ Days of the Confederacy for good measure.

This entire join-the-GOP argument has been proposed a number of times before, by Black commentators working for White newspapers and a surprising number of Black papers as well.  It’s a classic case of Black intellectuals proposing, over and over again, the same shockingly simplistic and counter-intuitive analysis in an effort to sound “forward-thinking”, or at least smarter than the rest of us.  Because the Democratic “liberals” ignore us and take us for granted, we should turn to the Republican “conservatives”.  In their apparent zeal to literally save us all from ourselves, our conservative Black intellectuals careen right past what should be obvious on a breakneck course into the arms of our historic oppressors, who want nothing more than to relegate us all back to a modern-day plantation.

First, let’s deal with this whole concept of “illegals”.  The largely-Mexican immigrants who are so often derided by flag-waving Americans are the descendants of the people of Old Mexico, which, by the way, included not just present-day Mexico, but also Texas, New Mexico (ever wonder where that name came from?), Arizona, California, and even parts of Nevada and, I believe, Colorado.  These territories were all systematically seized (some would say stolen) from Mexico by the US through the instigation of hostilities (“Remember the Alamo!”) and then the annexation of land as part of the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, all in service to the US doctrine of Manifest Destiny.  Thus, the frequent refrain from many Mexican and Central and South American immigrants today: “We didn’t cross the border.  The border crossed us.”

(If we want to blame someone for our high unemployment numbers, maybe we shouldn’t take in the politics of misdirection by attacking another group of exploited and oppressed people in some silly fight over the crumbs left over by the “One Percent”.  Perhaps a more suitable target would be those officials who railroaded our once-public institutions such as schools, libraries, recreation centers and adult education centers into either privatization or outright economic oblivion so their buddies could profit from building more prisons.  Perhaps we should look at those politicians who have presided over what may be the largest upward transfer of wealth in the history of the United States.  Perhaps we should point the finger at the opponents of a living wage, trade unions, comprehensive jobs programs or even enforcement of current anti-discrimination laws.  Who might those people be?)

Next, let’s look at who our Black conservative would-be saviors would have us join forces with.  The Republicans?  Are you kidding me?  Because the Democrats take us for granted and ignore us, we should leave them and run to those who beat us every day?  Racial profiling, political imprisonment, the death penalty, the de-funding of schools, opposition to affirmative action, opposition to a living wage, upward redistribution of wealth, the increased criminalization of our youth, privatization of prisons, deregulation of the same banksters who plunged the US into a mini-Depression, support of the worst corporate polluters on the planet as they pursue dirtier and dirtier methods of resource extraction, the Monsanto-ization of our food supply, voter intimidation, the support of corporate murderers and thieves who pillage Afrika and South America on the regular while they overthrow and sometimes assassinate heads of state, the doctrine of perpetual war to maintain the US’s status as the biggest bully on the block – while both political parties are guilty of most of these sins, the Republicans commit these crimes “in spades” (Pardon the politically-incorrect pun).  They are still light years ahead of the Democrats in their baldface attempts to impose a global military-police state upon everyone else, especially our ancestral home, Afrika.  The simplistic and insulting tactics of ideological deception, acrimony and fear employed by so many conservatives, especially Black conservatives, should turn the stomach of any self-respecting Afrikan.

Finally, in this mad dash from the so-called “liberal left” to the so-called “conservative” right, who are our corporate-influenced intellectual pundits ignoring?  First of all, I don’t expect them to talk about the Greens, who are seen as more “liberal” than the “liberals” for whom they have such disdain.  The Greens are more passionate about gay rights and a path to citizenship for the “illegals” than the Democrats are, so it’s no surprise to me that they are not mentioned as an option.  Plus, the Greens tend to be fiercely pro-environment and anti-war, again not in line with the so-called “conservative” agenda.  And the Libertarians, from my personal experience, appear to be basically Republicans “in disguise” (much like Ancestor Malcolm X said about Dixiecrats and Democrats back in the ‘60s).

But there are others in the political arena whom the conservative Black intellectuals refuse to discuss.  I know many of us suffer allergic reactions to Socialist arguments, but how many of us really understand what Socialism is?  I’d bet very few, if any of us.  Why?  Because we are conditioned from early childhood to fear Socialism as a synonym for Communism (which we also don’t understand for the most part).  Thus, Americans supported the war crime the US committed on September 11, 1973 when it overthrew and assassinated Chile’s president, Salvador Allende, because the US wanted Chile’s copper and other resources and Allende was standing in the way.  This atrocity, which plunged Chile into a 17-plus-year reign of terror and gave rise to one of the most despicable dictators in world history (Augusto Pinochet) was justified, however, because Allende was a Socialist.  Similar arguments were made for the multiple attempts to overthrow Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia, much as they were used to justify the assassination of Congo’s Patrice Lumumba in the 1960s and the support of the racist apartheid regime in South Africa (Yes, we celebrate Nelson Mandela now, but America vilified him while he was imprisoned for 27 years).  The lies that led to the genocide of the Vietnam War were easily swallowed by loyal Americans because of the fear of Communism that we were all brought up with.  Thus, any organization that promotes an ideology based on Socialism in any form, such as the All-Afrikan People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) or the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM), must be condemned and dismissed without so much as a second thought, and certainly without any real analysis or discussion that would give us the chance to see that these, after all, are human beings too.  (And I am not a member of either organization, not that it should matter here.)

But, if we are so afraid of the “hard-left” Socialism and Communism, that doesn’t mean that we must rush to embrace the harder-right Capitalism that the Republican Party would have us endure.  First of all, there are hybrids of these systems that have been used successfully in countries in Latin America, Central America and Europe (and, in fact, to a very limited and inadequate degree here in the United States).  Better yet, we can develop our own system based upon the best of ancient Afrikan communitarian culture.  The problem with these options, though, is that in order to adopt and practice these ways of living, we actually would have to study and learn something.  And we don’t have time for all that, do we?  After all, the playoff game is on TV, or we must keep up with the Khardashians, and we all have to go update our status on Facebook.  And anyway, after we do our study, we would then have to do some real work.  We would have to organize our people ourselves instead of waiting for the Great White Father to do it for us.  We would have to hold public Town Hall Meetings based on our Afrikan culture and identity, where members of our community would actually come together at the grassroots level and develop our own set of “national” priorities, first at the local or state level, then at the national level, and finally at the global Diaspora level, to craft a comprehensive Pan-Afrikan Agenda that might answer the centuries of abuse, mis-education, exploitation and oppression that Afrikan people have been forced to endure, once and for all.  And even though there is already an organization that has done much of the initial heavy lifting to get exactly this type of process started (the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus, http://www.srdcinternational,org), we still don’t have time to get involved in such silly pursuits because we have to get busy showing everyone just how patriotic we are to a nation that built itself on the enslavement of our ancestors, clearly a much more worthy expenditure of our time and energy, no?

I remember a time when Rev. Jesse Jackson actually made me proud of him.  He, conservative economist Ron Woodson and the late lawyer Johnnie Cochran were guests on Meet the Press just before the Million Man March.  The late Tim Russert, the then-host, asked the three men: “Is the Million Man March about separatism or about inclusion?”  First, Mr. Cochran, the skilled lawyer who should have seen the flim-flam coming, answered hopefully.  “I think it’s about inclusion, Tim,” he said, and he went on to explain about the principle of Black men coming together to not only embrace each other but also to apologize and atone for their misdeeds and to resolve to be better men and better citizens.  Mr. Woodson replied in classic conservative-Black-intellectual style: “Tim, I’m sorry to say it’s about separatism,” he sighed, and spoke about the Black-only, male-only theme of the March in a voice tinged with regret.  Rev. Jackson was the only one who saw through the trap.  “I cannot answer that question, Tim, because you have presented a false dichotomy,” he replied assertively.  Rev. Jackson had seen that the question was designed to manipulate us into choosing between “A” and “B”, when the alphabet actually gives us 26 letters (in some countries more) for us to choose from, and the truth was that the Million Man March was about neither of those things.

I see that our conservative Black intellectuals are still using that same tactic today.  What that tells me is this: They aren’t really interested in freeing us from Democratic Party or “liberal” control; what they want is to place us under “conservative” Republican control.  Which, frankly, isn’t all that different.

Yes, it’s time for us to look somewhere other than at the media-supported, government-approved leaders for Afrikan people.  Yes, we are often sold out by many of them (but not all: witness Cynthia McKinney) because we don’t realize who they really work for (and it usually ain’t us).  But trading a “Black leader” who parrots the Democratic Party line for one who parrots the Republican Party line amounts to nothing more than jumping out of the frying pan into the skillet.  Come on, Black People.  Our ancestors created the first great civilization, our moral code of Ma’at carried the seeds of the Ten Commandments before there were Ten Commandments, and our resilience as a people has kept us here on this planet despite perhaps the most persistent global genocide ever committed over at least the last half-millennium.  Stop resorting to the easy, mindless pseudo-intellectual pablum that is fed to us regularly by the flag-waving, corporate-influenced right wing of the US (which now includes many of the Democrats anyway) and the western world.  Drop your collective Bwana Complex and start organizing, mobilizing and ruling yourselves as Afrikan People.

We Are Allowing Our Oppressors To Keep Us Apart

So many identities.　 So many nations.　 So many names.　 So many perspectives.

We are Afrikans (with a “k” or a “c”).　  African-Americans.  Blacks.  Negroes.  “Coloreds”.　Moors.　Nubians.　 Nuwaubians.　Kosmosans.　Egyptians.　Kemites.　Ma’atians.　 Afro-Asiatics.　Rastafari.

We are Muslims.　 Christians. 　Hebrews.　 Yoruba.  Santeria.　 Wolof.　 Dogon.　 Vodou.　 Mdw Ntr.

We are Republicans. Democrats. Greens. Independents.  Socialists.  Communists.  Anarchists, even.

We are NAACP.　 Urban League.　 Alpha.　 Kappa.　 Sigma.　 “Q-Dog”.　 Delta.　 Zeta.　 AKA.　 Sig-Rho.　 Iota.

We are OAAU.　 SCLC.　 SNCC.　 NOI.　 BPP.　 N-BPP.　 WADU, PADU and GADU.  A-APRP.　 Kawaida.　 GAC.　 PAOC.

We are doctors.  Lawyers.  Entrepreneurs.  Farmers.  Community activists.  Engineers.　 Warriors.  Philosophers.  Priests.  Politicians.  Activists.  And even slackers.

We are liberals.  Conservatives.  Pan-Afrikanists.  Black nationalists.  Cultural nationalists.　 Revolutionaries.

We are also confused.  The whole lot of us.

It often seems that we spend more time talking “at” each other than we do talking “with” each other.  All the while insisting that Afrikan Unity (or some form of it) is important to us.

The source of that unity must be the realization that, despite the small differences that have been manufactured (from the initial migrations that Dr. Chancellor Williams described so well in The Destruction of Black Civilization to the present time) to keep us apart, we share things that are much more important that should be bringing us together:

We are all separated from our ancestral home.

Even those of us still living in Afrika are separated from the most productive farmland, the minerals under the ground that are the source of the continent’s great wealth, and the life-giving waters of the Nile, the Congo, the Niger and other great rivers and lakes.

We are not recognized as a people on the World Stage.

Those of us on the Continent are often “ruled” by the heirs of neocolonialism who marginalize the masses for the benefit of their Western paymasters, and those of us in the Diaspora have no seat in the United Nations at all.

We are turned against each other.

Xosa vs. Zulu in South Afrika.　 Hutu vs. Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi and Congo.　 “Arab” vs. “Afrikan” (a truly contrived conflict if ever there was one) in Sudan.　 Christian vs. Muslim vs. Hebrew vs. “Pagan” everywhere (where the hell did we, who are　treated as　”foreigners”/”pagans” around the world,　get that　concept?), especially since the current practiced forms of the major religions are not indigenous to Afrika even though their seeds were all grown there.　 In the US, it’s Crip vs. Blood, Panther vs. Kawaida/United Slaves, North Side vs. South Side, even East Baltimore vs. West Baltimore (the major US city closest to me).　 Internationally, it’s Afrikan vs. Afro-Caribbean vs. Afro-American in some kind of mad internecine free-for-all as we race to the bottom of the human food chain.

And all the while, the oppressors laugh as they plunder our land in Afrika and our bodies and minds elsewhere in the Diaspora.

In the Baltimore (“Harriet Tubman City”) area, there are many activists and organizations who do work that is praiseworthy.  I applaud Bro. Carlos Muhammad for his effort several years ago to bring the community together through the Luv4Self Network.　 I applaud Bro. Manifest for his ongoing work with Richmond, Virginia’s Happily Natural Day.　 I certainly owe a debt of gratitude to Baba Dalani Aamon for founding the Harambee Radio Network (broadcasting around the world over the Internet at www.harambeeradio.com), which gave me more than an hour every Sunday afternoon for six years to share information when I couldn’t afford to print the Newsletter.　 Baba Keidi Obi Awadu has done a similar great deed with the establishment of Harambee’s “sista” Internet station, LIB (Living In Black) Radio.　 Major shout-outs go to Bro. Anpu (Ruffmic) and Bro. Heru (Freedomwriter) of Precise Science for bringing the Pan-Afrikan cultural and moral vibe to music.　 People like Bro. Imhotep Fatiu (Pan-Afrikan Liberation Movement and Urban Youth Initiative Project), Bro. Jabari and Bro. Sundiata (Reality Speaks/Solvivaz Nation), Sista Ertha Harris (Millions More Movement-Baltimore) and Baba Ade Oba Tokunbo (OAAU-BPC) are others right here in Maryland with whom I am personally familiar who do great work in an attempt to organize us around critical issues of the day.　 And there are others.  Still, not enough of these organizations and leaders talk to each other.　 Some do, but some remain separated from each other because of differences in spirituality, political focus, issues of self-identity, personal conflicts, or simply because of the perception that the barriers that separate us are insurmountable.　 This must be true, for if they did not believe so, these barriers would have been overcome and destroyed long ago, and for all time.

That much is clear from the chronic miscommunication between groups, the lack of cooperative organizing with many of our important causes and campaigns, the lack of support I see for many important organizing efforts, and the occasional sniping I’m forced to endure between people who should be fighting for, and not with, each other.

I don’t wish to get into a debate over which spiritual, political or philosophical perspective of all the ones I mentioned above (and countless others I didn’t) is the best, or the correct one.　 What we need to do is bring those perspectives together, so we may all learn from each other and ultimately see, through each other’s examples, the most effective path(s) that we need to follow.

The ultimate purpose of this particular commentary is to offer one solution, which is to continue the call I’ve been putting out for the last several years: to bring Afrikan people together, city by city, state by state, country by country (but starting, for me, in my home state, Maryland), in a series of Pan-Afrikan Town Halls.

I’m currently the Maryland State Facilitator of an Afrikan-Diasporan organization called the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC), which was formally developed in 2006 to organize Afrikan people on a city, state, country, regional and ultimately Diaspora-wide basis to seek representation at the table in the Civil Society committee (Economic, Social and Cultural Council, or ECOSOCC) in the African Union (AU).

Before people start jumping up and getting hysterical about the shortcomings of the AU, let me state that I see a much larger mission here.　 SRDC’s purpose is to seek entry into the AU for the Diaspora as a voice of influence to move Afrika in a more positive direction for her people and the Afrikan Diaspora.　 But at the same time, what we will achieve is the restoring of positive, constructive communication and cooperation between Afrikan people throughout the Diaspora and on the Afrikan Continent.

How do we do that if we can’t even get along within the same city or country or discussion group, I hear you ask?　 Well, that’s the first and, apparently, the most difficult step.　 It’s certainly the most important step, as all other steps build on this.

Every member of the Pan-Afrikan community who is reading these words must become involved in some way in bringing us all together, not to put a stop to our debates, but　to make our debates a bit less important than our cooperative plans to achieve our global unity and liberation.

To Bro. Carlos: I hope to put something together with you, based on your networking from the Luv4Self Network, and combine those efforts　with those of other Maryland-area groups, from individual organizations to the coalition that puts together the successful Kwanzaa event in Baltimore every winter, so we can continue to chart the course which you and others have helped put us on and strengthen the organization in Maryland, where I live and serve as the Facilitator.　 I and the other SRDC Facilitators would also like to be able to formally present the SRDC plan for the states in the US where we are not already established, establish a Community Council of Elders , and at least propose to the people in those states that we nominate and elect the next slate of Representatives and Observers who would pursue a Pan-Afrikan Agenda, through SRDC, with other similar groups that already exist across the United States (California, Washington State, Ohio, New York, South Carolina, Oregon, Maryland and Tennessee) and throughout the Diaspora (Nicaragua, Martinique-Guadeloupe, Canada, Jamaica, the Netherlands, Germany, and others).　 This call has been made, by myself and other SRDC members in the areas listed above, to not only continue the efforts at strengthening Pan-Afrikan unity in their states, but to plant the seed in neighboring states and areas of the Diaspora as well.

To be able to achieve true unity across communities of Afrikan descent in the US and the Diaspora, we must organize in at least a “critical mass” of local communities across the US and throughout the Afrikan Diaspora.  Because SRDC was founded in the United States, our initial aim is to do this in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, to show Afrikan people throughout the Diaspora that those of us in the United States are indeed capable of coming together as one, despite the way we often behave which has led others to compare us to “crabs in a barrel”.

There have been some who have expressed misgivings, or at least uncertainty, about what it would mean to participate in SRDC’s effort.　 Some of these misgivings are from misconceptions that are understandable, and some are expressions of personal exhaustion from having fought as long as some of us have, but others are simply due to some irrational fear of the loss of personal influence or from inertia and old habits, while still others are because of personal beefs and petty bickering that have no place in efforts to forge Pan-Afrikan unity.

Let me address some of the misconceptions first.　 Your organization will not “lose itself” by aligning with SRDC.　 It is a coalition of a variety of organizations that have come together to achieve a common goal: the establishment of a Diasporan voice in the African Union and the forging of global Pan-Afrikan unity.　 People don’t have to individually become “members” of SRDC, and the different groups don’t have to take some loyalty oath to it (there have been some who apparently think that they must subordinate their own organizations to comply with　SRDC’s goals), but we do need the input of the Pan-Afrikan community to examine and discuss the SRDC plan and to choose Representatives, Observers and a Council of Elders (either through Afrikan Consensus or democratic elections) if we are to say that any state truly has Representatives that can speak for Afrikan people of that state, and by extension, if we are to say that Afrikans in the US and Afrikans in the Diaspora truly　have representative leadership.

To those Veterans who are simply exhausted, I can understand.　 Many of you have been involved in this much longer than I have—I am but a pup in this dogfight—and sometimes even my own energy level sinks dangerously low.　 Activists and organizers who have struggled with no help or support year upon year, or Political Prisoners who have languished in confinement for decades before finally being freed (or not freed) have earned either some time off or outright retirement from the struggle.　 They have been doing already, and for quite some time.　 They have seen marriages and relationships destroyed because of the pressure of this struggle, they have lost friends and comrades to this struggle, they have seen their health decline because of this struggle, and they have received little thanks.　 We do need their guidance and, at times, their admonishments when we go astray.　 But the heavy lifting is up to those of us who follow.　 We cannot drop the load now.

As far as the inertia, old habits, personal beefs and petty bickering are concerned, it’s time to stop it.　 Barack Obama or no Barack Obama, we remain in a struggle for survival across the globe, and time is running out for us.　 We cannot afford to allow this state of disunity to continue any longer.　 Those who oppose this effort to bring us together in some form of Pan-Afrikan unity have apparently aligned themselves with those who have opposed other similar efforts throughout our history, and they owe our scattered and suffering masses an explanation and a heartfelt apology for their obstructionist behavior.

Healthy debate is fine, but I’ve seen too much back-biting between activist organizations and within a number of discussion groups that were created to pursue Pan-Afrikanism and Black Unity.　 And this goes beyond just an effort to root out provocateurs and opportunists in our midst or to distance ourselves from illegal or dishonorable behavior by misguided members; now we’re seeing heated arguments about what name we will use to refer to ourselves and rifts that have developed between committed organizers because someone’s ego has been bruised.　 Don’t you know better by now?  Isn’t it time to start putting our differences aside, honoring those unique aspects about each of our belief systems that make us strong, and coming together so we can break our psychological chains?　 Or is the unspoken purpose of the back-biters to achieve the destruction of all organizations and forums that committed Pan-Afrikan organizers have created to help us, to paraphrase Ancestor Robert Nesta Marley, “emancipate ourselves from mental slavery”?

Think I’m being too hard on us?　 Wanna cuss me out?　 Or do you agree with my analysis and want to get involved in a positive way?　 Are you already doing this great and important work and want to link up with others who are tired of watching us rip ourselves apart?　 Do feel free to give a brotha a shout.　 Drop a comment to this piece on our Web Site.  Let us know who is out there who is ready to start making a positive difference and bring our people together at last. 　The development of a broad coalition of true Liberation Thinkers, a true Pan-Afrikan United Front, is needed, and I hope we can find a way to bring something like this about at last.　 Mama Pam Africa of MOVE, Bro. Carlos, Baba Dalani, Baba Keidi, Sista Marpessa who struggles for Political Prisoners, and others have been trying to bring us together for years, and I and others in SRDC have seen how difficult it can be to get us to stop screaming at each other and start talking, listening and planning with each other.　 I hear so much from us when it’s time to “vent spleen” and not enough when it’s time to sit down with each other, learn to understand (or “overstand”) each other and truly plan for our own Unity and Liberation.

Peace and Power,
Bro. Cliff
Editor, KUUMBAReport Newsletter
Maryland Representative, Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC)