cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5918585

SisterSong, a women of color reproductive justice collective based in Georgia, sounded the alarm for Black women on Facebook Sept. 16: “Today, we are mourning the loss of Amber Nicole Thurman. When Amber sought medical care, doctors delayed providing lifesaving care as Georgia law criminalized the procedure Amber needed.

“Experts deemed Amber’s death preventable, but this is the result of heartless attacks on our bodies. This is the reality of being a Black woman seeking care in an anti-abortion America. … We must Trust Black Women to lead the fight to defeat extremist politicians who oppose bodily autonomy.”

Danielle Rodriguez, SisterSong’s Georgia Coordinator stated: “We cannot allow Amber’s death to be in vain. It is time for us to take action. We call on every person who believes in the right to safe, accessible health care to stand with us. Contact your local representatives and demand they repeal Georgia’s abortion ban, which is killing our loved ones.”

On Sept. 18, SisterSong posted: “We are in the midst of a reproductive health crisis! We refuse to sit idly by while Black women lose their lives due to the criminalization of care caused by restrictive abortion bans. If you are ready to organize to put an end to the control of our bodies, we welcome you. Reproductive Justice envisions a world where all of us can make decisions about our bodies and determine our futures.

“We need all hands on deck to demand accountability for Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller. If we don’t act now, their stories — and the untold tragedies yet to come — will only become more common.”

Remember Amber Nicole Thurman! Remember Candi Miller!

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5805298

Due diligence edit: I do not agree with unc about voting for the Top Cop. In fairness, should've expected he'd couch this video; he'd always be the first to talk about how the majority of corn/breadtube creators have liberal politics first 🤷

I'd go as far as to call this judicial overreach on the part of the cracker's (illegitimate) 'legal' system as "liberal authoritarianism". They're now claiming, as their sycophants, water-bearers, and zealots have always done, that to protest Amerika's actions, that to detest the bloodshed Amerika aids, abets, provides comfort, and materiel for, that to stand against the genocidal butchers in Israel, in Ukraine, in every sovereign nation that AFRICOM has spidered its settler-colonial appendages through, is to be an "aGeNt Of FoReIgN pOwErS".

This conviction is a vindication of the most intellectually lazy and dishonest, most xenophobic white liberal response to pushback, the "buh, buh, ruzzian bot" response that has come to mark them no different from the crackers in the RNC. Can't you just see the way that marquee looks over this action? In glowing, 288pt bold-italics Impact:

"If you don't back our settler-neocolonial ambitions, we will make you into a carceral slave".

So much for free speech, yanquis. Death to your past, death to your future; death to your Global Settlement.

Did you know that Tupac, the son of a Black Panther revolutionary, read the works of communist leader Joseph Stalin? Maybe you should, too.

Tupac Shakur was shot dead on this day in 1996–remembered not only as a Hip Hop legend but also for his unapologetic, radical views on class struggle and Black liberation.

#Tupac #2Pac #TupacShakur

Attica has been described as the biggest deployment of state violence since the crushing of the Native uprising at Wounded Knee — 81 years before.

The significance of the Attica uprising as a prison rebellion transcends prison. Attica was a high-water mark in the Black Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. It was almost the Black Liberation Movement’s Paris Commune of 100 years before in France in 1871.

Attica was spontaneous, but to the extent that it was led, it was organized by revolutionaries — highly political individuals who considered themselves Marxists, Maoists, Black liberationists. They organized committees for food and for negotiations. They put together 28 demands in a few hours!

Their demands addressed every aspect of survival in prison: health, food, an end to solitary confinement, legal rights, the right to family visitation, the right to get political material in the mail. Particularly noteworthy, in relation to the 2016 national prison strike, is that almost one-third of their demands addressed prisoner labor rights.

This is from their statement: “We demand an end to prison labor exploitation. […] Prisoners who refuse to work are punished and segregated. This is a class issue.”

Their demands included: Prisoners should be considered workers. The workday should be eight hours. Prisoners should have the right to form a union. Prisons should be made to conform to New York state labor laws, including wages and workers’ compensation for accidents. Prisoners should have access to vocational training, union pay scales, union membership.

Workers World Party played an important rôle at Attica. The Party had a tremendous reputation with prisoners, through both Youth Against War and Fascism and the Prisoners’ Solidarity Committee, and was known in all state prisons. We did work, ranging from solidarity with political prisoners and legal help to providing buses to take prisoners’ families for visits to upstate prisons.

We were also known for our political program: “Prisons are concentration camps for the poor! Tear them down!” Our reputation was such that the Attica negotiating committee asked that a leading comrade, Tom Soto, be an observer during negotiations with the state.

Ultimately the repression came. Nelson Rockefeller, the oil billionaire, then the governor, gave the orders to crush the uprising. He had a reputation as an Eastern liberal, but he was actually a ruling-class monster with presidential aspirations, so he ordered more than 1,000 troops, guards and state troopers from four to five nearby states to shoot indiscriminately. The state killed more than 30 prisoners and 10 hostages.

The bourgeois propaganda was that the prisoners had killed the hostages, with the media giving all sorts of lying details. But it later came out that all who died, died of bullet wounds — and the prisoners had no guns. Surviving prisoners were tortured, without their wounds being treated.

The ruling class made their point: “There is a price to pay” if there is ­rebellion.

The Democratic Party has been trying to appeal to Black communities in the US by referencing hip-hop songs, doing interviews on Black media platforms, and, according to some reports, even changing their accent when speaking to Black people. 

In recent years, Republicans have also been trying to appeal to Black voters by claiming immigrants steal jobs, with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump going as far as calling the low-paid positions allegedly under threat as ‘Black jobs.’ 

Despite these political parties’ attempts to garner votes, a narrative remains that voting rates are low in working-class Black communities because Black people are ignorant, uneducated or too lazy to cast a ballot. A Washington Post-Ipsos survey reported that 62 per cent of Black people planned to vote in November’s presidential election, down from 74 per cent in June 2020. What might account for the drop?

However, Dedan Wa Waciuri of North Carolina-based community organisation Mapinduzi (@mapinduzi_252 on IG and @weareuziiii on X) argued that neither Republicans nor Democrats work in Black people’s interests. He pointed out that voting activists are the truly lazy ones for limiting their political engagement in our communities to once every four years. 

What might be the solution? Perhaps, we can studying the Black Power Movement in the US and the worldwide Pan-African struggle. Then, consider organising for Black liberation and Pan-Africanism, like Mapinduzi.

In the comments, let us know what you think of Waciuri’s message.

Video credit: @bigklfa600 (TikTok) @dedanwaciuri (IG) @waciuri_dedan (X)

-------------------SOCIAL---------------------- FACEBOOK - facebook.com/africanstreammedia INSTAGRAM - instagram.com/african_stream TIKTOK - tiktok.com/@africanstream TWITTER - twitter.com/african_stream

30+ years, and the only thing that's changed is this line:

"The people of my country aren't so bad".

...They are now. I think my first foray back into poetry will be a response/interpolation of this piece.

For decades, most Black political commentary has expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people, but recently, a new phenomenon has appeared, particularly on social media platforms, which accuses all Palestinians of being anti-Black racists, and asserts that aligning with them is either of no use to Black people or even that it is detrimental to our own cause. Some of these individuals are Democratic Party operatives attempting to maintain Black voter loyalty as Israeli war crimes in Gaza remain a campaign issue. Others are of a right wing tendency which either supports U.S. imperialism or asserts that Black politics can and should stand alone, and that any talk of solidarity with Palestinians or other peoples is misguided.

It's not surprising that these questions have come to the fore as the Democratic National Convention is taking place in Chicago, while so-called ceasefire talks take place in Israel, even though Israel continues to reject any talk of a real ceasefire and Kamala Harris promises to keep sending them weapons. Black Agenda Report editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka provides his analysis in conversation with Executive Editor Margaret Kimberley.

Do not be fooled, family. There's hella motherfuckers out here who want to see our solidarity split; and some of them look and act like us. This is why they want us to assimilate so badly; so we stop expressing solidarity with the enemies of the Settlement. Or not even the enemies of the Settlement; even the innocents in the way of what the Settlement's allies want!

They want you cosigning the genocide just as breathlessly as Harris, Booker, or Jeffries would; and they will dissemble, cudgel, and cajole until either you do, or until you make it clear that they'll have to chalk you out too to kill your solidarity.

While Joe Biden spoke during the opening night at the convention a group of delegates who want to end the Israeli genocide managed to sneak in a banner which read, “Stop Arming Israel .” One delegate felt compelled to hit one of the protesters on the head with a sign. Others moved to cover up the banner and then began shouting, “We love Joe!” Nadia Ahmad is the Florida delegate who was struck on the head. “They’re up there talking about fascism and like hitting me on the head with ‘I love Joe’ signs. That’s not a good look,” she said in what is perhaps the biggest understatement of the convention.

Let me just say how much it fuckin sickens me that the community has gone from "Not Like Us" to falling in around Kamala like she's not the same Cop City-repping, 1033-funding, genocide-collaborating ghoul that Genocide Joe is, just with a misleader's coat of paint.

I want to quote from a commentary written by WWP’s First Secretary, Larry Holmes, back in 2016: “The significance of the Attica uprising as a prison rebellion transcends prison. It was almost the Black Liberation Movement’s Paris Commune, of 100 years before in France, in 1871.

“Attica was spontaneous but to the extent that it was led, it was organized by revolutionaries — highly political individuals who considered themselves Marxists, Maoists, Black liberationists. They organized committees for food, for negotiations.

“Their demands included: Prisoners should be considered workers. The workday should be eight hours. Prisoners should have the right to form a union. Prisons should be made to conform to New York state labor laws, including wages and workers’ compensation for accidents. Prisoners should have access to vocational training, union pay scales, union membership.”

The prisoners also demanded that they be granted asylum to an anti-imperialist country.

The lessons of Black August and Attica are not just about the past but the present and the future. Their legacies today are about resistance and fightback against capitalism that apply to so many fronts, be they Black Lives Matter, the climate crisis, evictions and more. Their legacies are about freeing all political prisoners and shutting down all aspects of mass incarceration.

When Attica martyr, L.D. Barkley stated that Attica is the sound before the fury of all the oppressed, he was referring to the multinational voices of workers using rebellion to be visible and heard then, but also now with the global working class that will one day take its rightful place as being the gravediggers of capitalism.

Related: Honor the legacy of Black August: Support Workers World

28 articles, summing up to about seven years worth of critique on the Swine Queen of Cali. This shit ain't new, she's been giving us reasons to despise her even BEFORE she was in spitting distance of figureheadery.

July 26 was the 57th anniversary of the murder of three Black teenagers by Detroit police. Auburey Pollard, 19, Carl Cooper, 17, and Fred Temple, 18, were beaten and then shot outside the Algiers Motel during the historic 1967 Detroit Rebellion, which was sparked by racist police brutality. They were gathered at the motel when the murders and beatings of others occurred.

The three officers who murdered the youths were charged with murder but were acquitted by all-white juries.

Now, finally, a historic marker has been erected to remember Cooper, Temple and Pollard. Their family members and friends attended an unveiling of the marker on July 26. Among them was Cooper’s best friend, Lee Forsythe, who said: “I saw my best friend die. I heard him take his last breath.” (wfmj.com, July 26)

The rebellion began July 23, 1967, after police raided an unlicensed after-hours bar. Anger had been building after two attacks on the Black community by racist mobs and the police killing of a Black woman. Thousands of federal troops, National Guard, Michigan state police and Detroit police were deployed to put down the mass revolt, leaving scores of people killed, injured and arrested.

Exactly one year later, on July 23, 1968, the Glenville uprising began in Cleveland.

I don't think, not since I became aware of his analyses, that comrade Baraka has ever once been off the mark with his reading-for-filth of the Black Misleadership Class. It's his eye we need to be evaluating the settlers and their minstrels with-- not the likes of Grandmaster Jay, of Tariq Nasheed, or of Umar Johnson.

As Harris said recently , “I am eager to run on the record of what Joe and I have accomplished together.” That means a continuation of the same – wars abroad and austerity domestically.

Just in case anyone thought Harris was going to suddenly pivot for real against the genocide. That woman was bought-and-paid-for by white supremacy LONG before she had executive aspirations-- she was a pig before!

It breaks my heart seeing would-be comrades thinking that just because of a few pretty words in spite of her condemnations of literally-attacked protestors, that she is suddenly going to take the concerns of the Dearborn bloc, or the protestors who recently went to DC seriously. We need to be real about this woman. We need to not be white-liberal-naive about this woman.

Meet the new boss, same as the bad cop.

Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, a multiaward-winning force and cultural voice for freedom, transitioned on July 16, 2024. As a scholar, singer, composer, organizer and activist, Dr. Reagon spent over half a century speaking out against racism and systemic inequities in the U.S. and globally.

Born in Dougherty County outside of Albany, Georgia, on the 4th of October 1942, she was field secretary of SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) and a founding member of the original SNCC Freedom Singers, formed in 1962.

In 1966, she was a founding member of the Atlanta-based Harambee Singers. In 1973, while a graduate student of history at Howard University and vocal director of the D.C. Black Repertory Company, Dr. Reagon founded the internationally renowned African American women’s a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey In The Rock, leading the group until her retirement in 2003.

Because news from the Sahel has to be on our radar.

In answer to the students’ questions, he said he was honored to be on the call with them. “You act with class and class consciousness.” He was thrilled about the arrested Columbia students demanding that the arrested CCNY students be treated with the same respect as they were. “You responded as human beings! You’re on the right path of history.”

Answering Reed’s question about the rôle of music in the struggle, Mumia said: “Every movement needs music to move people. […] Find what turns you on.” He said it felt wonderful speaking to the students. It took him back to the 1960s and the Vietnam War — which “was also a war of settler-colonialism.” He added, “It’s clearer now with Gaza, that is an open air prison.”

Mumia ended by saying that the watchword was “Unity!”: “You are rocking this country. […] People are studying this movement all over the world, because it’s a moment of freedom within repression!” He quipped, “If Huey [Newton] and Eldridge [Cleaver] had had your media, we would’ve won!” But then he added, “Don’t rely on corporate media. You have your own. So people outside of the circle of students should hear it. I commend you.”

The prison recording ended the call, and when it did, the students called out triumphantly, “We did it!”

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5065645

DEATH TO AFRICOM, KILL THE BOER

This race brings up an age old political question for Black people. Should the light weight goofball be supported when in danger of losing his office because of big money pressure from a group of white people or should he be treated with the same indifference that he meted out to them? Bowman’s absence, like his presence, probably won’t matter very much.

My answer: let him be hoist upon his own petard. Play liberal games, win liberal prizes-- in this case, as swift betrayal and replacement with someone who'd play ball with the zionist-supremacist terrorists. When it first came out that Bowman lost, I footstomped that this is the fate of all misleaders-- when they need an example to execute for the edification of the rank-and-file, the true-believers, and the cynical careerists, it will be you the minute they run out of actual progressives.

...Which of course, erroneously assumes that the Democrat party has any dyed-in-the-plaid progressives. You will not catch me shedding tears for a half-stepper.