Puerto Rico Getting the Detroit Treatment
Puerto Rico, a hurricane-ravaged colony of the U.S., has been subjected to much the same financial dictatorship as Detroit, a Black internal colony, said Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Detroit-based Pan African News. “Here again, you have these financial decisions, against the will of the people, made by a small group of people, to the detriment of the people,” said Azikiwe. Detroit was forced into bankruptcy in 2013, its citizens stripped of control of their local affairs.
Rex Tillerson is “Yesterday’s Man”
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who some fellow Republicans believe has been politically “castrated” by President Trump, demanded that Iran get out of Iraq, its neighbor and close ally. “I think Mr. Tillerson will be departing Washington for his sprawling ranch in Texas before the Iranians leave Iraq,” said Dr. Gerald Horne, professor of history at the University of Houston. Tillerson’s “loose talk should not be taken seriously. He is yesterday’s man.”
“Africologists” Will Snitch on You
“Cultural nationalists” -- including those that call themselves Africologists -- “don’t want to change the world; they want to change how they can move in it,” said activist Kashara White, speaking at an all-day conference on the life and work of Black Panther co-founder Huey Newton, at Temple University, in Philadelphia. “Their Black nationalism is not Huey’s Black nationalism,” said White, who majored in African American Studies. “They want money” and “a positive relationship to capitalism. They will snitch on you” to the white authorities.
Mumia on the Passing of AIM Leader
Dennis Banks, the American Indian Movement leader who “sought to organize scattered native clan members into a militant, cohesive unit,” died last week at the age of 80. Banks “was among thousands of young activists of native, indigenous communities who rose up to speak and act on behalf of the oppressed,” said Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner.
“Swipe It Forward “
Black Youth Project 100 activists are urging New York City subway commuters to share their unlimited fare cards with poorer riders. “There’s no reason to believe that Black people are jumping turnstiles at a higher rate than white people, but we know that 90 percent of those arrested are Black or brown,” said Rahel Mekdim Peka, of the “Swipe it Forward” campaign.e
An abolitionist frame of thought is a rebirth, a spiritual process, a painful undertaking, and an ancestral conjuring for Black and brown people.
Looting and rioting appear as immediately effective tactics in the struggle against whiteness, property and the police.
Weapons are flowing to pro-regime gangsters suspected of assassinating opponents of the US-backed regime.
We must instead think creatively about how to either take total community control of law enforcement as an institution or to bring about an independent, nation-building, self-governing reality.
It’s Cowboys and Indians updated: a wicked game where Black people are seen as predators but almost always end up prey.
