Race, Class and Organisation [1997]

Workers Solidarity Federation (South Africa)

 

Source: Black Flag 212, P22-25 https://libcom.org/article/race-class-and-organisation-workers-solidarity-federation

 

Study Guide: This text is a brilliant insight into what would later become the deeply deracialized politics of the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (and later Federation), the WSF being a precursor organisation to the ZACF founding a few years after this piece came out. It would be wrong of me to prescribe this piece or its politics to one of the WSFs white members as the author is anonymous. However, it might be worth seeing my essay on the ZACF in this reader.  

 

INTRODUCTION BY BLACK FLAG:

 

We recently observed a very fruitful discussion on race and class on the internet, particularly around “black” anarchism, special oppressions and the desirability of separate organisation.

 

One of the best and most comprehensive posts came from a member of the Workers Solidarity Federation of South Africa, an anarchist/syndicalist group which while in a personal capacity reflects their politics and positions on these matters. Interest in anarchism is growing throughout the world. There are active groups in most parts of the world, with the exception of the Indian subcontinent, Antarctica and as far as we know the Chinese dictatorship. This process will no doubt accelerate and there is a challenge for us to make our ideas accessible. But as our South African comrades point out below, “it was the ability of anarchism to provide alternatives and to pay special attention to the specific needs of these different sections of the working class in order to unite the whole class that made the success (of the Cuban anarchists and IWW) possible,” not “a revision of anarchism to accommodate nationalism”.

 

RACE, CLASS AND ORGANISATION

THE VIEW FROM THE WORKERS SOLIDARITY FEDERATION

 

It is falsely claimed by some that Anarchism as currently constituted is unable to attract Black people, and other specially oppressed minorities. It is therefore argued that we should thus endorse separate Black-only anarchist/ community organisations that may in some (vague and unspecified) cases associate with “white” groups – “white” groups should “work among” “their own” people etc.). It is also asserted from this view point that Anarchism is “Eurocentric” and lacking an analysis of racism and imperialism.

 

IN DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL ANARCHISM

 

These arguments are wrong or lacking in clarity. They reflect a distortion of Anarchist history, and a misunderstanding of Anarchist strategy.

 

Firstly, class struggle anarchism has historically proved quite capable of attracting massive numbers of people of color. In fact, one could claim that historically most anarchist movements have been based in Third World countries. For example, anarchism dominated the revolutionary movement in China in the 1910s and early 1920s. In the First World, Anarchist movements historically attracted specially oppressed national minorities, for example, the syndicalist IWW attracted thousands of Black workers in the USA Deep South, and other movements, Jews in eastern Europe.

 

Today, there are groups such as the WSF in South Africa and the Awareness League of Nigeria.

 

The key to this success was a consistent class struggle program that combated all manifestations of oppression. For example, the Cuban Anarchists mobilized both Afro-Cubans,creoles and Spaniards in massive integrated anarcho-syndicalist unions because they opposed racist practices like apprenticeship laws, because they supported the anti-colonial struggle against Spain and because they provided a class struggle answer to the questions facing all sections of the working class. It was not a “revision” of anarchism to accommodate nationalist paradigms that made the breakthrough – it was the ability of anarchism to provide alternatives and to pay special attention to the specific needs of these different sections of the working class in order to unite the whole class that made the success possible. Anarchists did not capitulate to nationalist ideas- they combated them- they did not organise separately, they organised as Anarchists on a class struggle basis.

 

Similarly, they were key players in anti- imperialist struggles in many countries, for example, Cuba (1890s) Macedonia (1880s), Herzegovina (1900s), Nicaragua (1920s), Ukraine (1918-21) , Ireland (1916) and Korea (1920-40s). Again, class politics was the basis of this engagement.

 

Even today, the Anarchist groups emerging in Third World countries like Nigeria and South Africa base themselves on a class program- we have seen the end results of nationalism and we oppose it (although obviously we defend peoples right to choose to believe in it, and even if we recognize grassroots nationalists as progressive fighters against racism etc.).

 

This does not mean that we downplay imperialism or racism- on the contrary we pay specific attention to these key questions, but we subject them to class analysis and advocate class struggle strategies against them. This clearly shows that the claim that Anarchism is “white” or “Eurocentric” is fundamentally wrong, as Anarchism – in terms of its analysis, history and composition- has in all respects been a truly global movement against oppression in all guises. All modern Anarchists need to live up to this legacy.

 

Black nationalism and/or separatism is not the only thing that can fight racism or attract Black people and workers to organisations. Even in South Africa, the Communist Party was the main mass organisation throughout the 1930s and 1940s and dwarfed the nationalist groups like the ANC; in the 1920s the main mass organisation (aside from the Communist Party) was the quasi-syndicalist Industrial and Commercial Workers Union. In Harlem in the USA in the 1930s, the CPUSA was able to win Black workers away from Garveyism on the basis of a consistent defense of the unity of White and Black workers.

 

AGAINST SEPARATE ORGANISATION

 

**As Anarchists we call for separate organisation in one sense: we call on the working and poor people to organise separately from their class enemy, the bosses and rulers**.

 

What then of non-class based forms of separate organisation such as women-only organisation (as advocated by radical feminism) or Black-only organisation (as advocated by Black nationalists)?

 

Before dealing with this issue, we need to understand the links between racism, class and class struggle.

 

STATE, CAPITALISM AND RACISM: ONE ENEMY, ONE FIGHT

 

We would argue that racism is the product of capitalism and the State, created to justify slavery and colonialism in the Third World, and to divide workers, and super-exploit national minorities in the First World. Capitalism and the State are inherently racist: they always generate new forms of racism (e.g. against immigrants). The social inequalities created by racism can only be dealt with by the removal of capitalism and the State to allow for projects of redress, reconstruction etc.

 

[/i]*Therefore the fight against racism is a fight against capitalism and the State*

 

CLASS UNITY, CLASS STRUGGLE, CLASS POWER

 

Only the working class, poor and peasants can make the anti-state, anti-capitalist revolution because only these classes are productive (and can therefore create a non-exploitative society), and have no vested interest in the current system. In addition, as the vast majority of the world’s population they have the numbers to win, as well as the necessary social power (by virtue of their role in the workplace as producers of wealth they can hit the bosses and rulers where it really hurts- in the pocket) and organisational ability (their concentration in factories etc. facilitates mass action).

 

The Black middle class, capitalists etc. will defend capitalism and the State against the workers despite the fact that this means they are defending the system that creates racism. It is in their class interest to do so. In any case, they are shielded from the worst effects of racism by their nice houses, good schools etc.

 

*Therefore the fight against racism requires a class struggle and a workers revolution*.

 

The struggle against capitalism can only succeed if it is anti-racist. We can only mobilize the whole working class if we fight on all fronts, against all oppressions that affect us. We can only unite the working and poor people for a revolutionary victory through a consistent opposition to the divisions within the working class and poor i.e. race, nation etc.

 

Insofar as workers can only be mobilized and united on the basis of programs that oppose all oppression, insofar as working class Blacks are the most affected by racism and insofar as the majority of people affected by racism are working class, it follows that anti-racism etc. is a working class concern and issue.

 

*Therefore the fight against capitalism and the state requires a fight against racism*.[i]

 

Given that the working class is multi-national and multi-racial, it follows that its struggle must be fought on internationalist, united, integrated lines. As argued above, this unity is only possible on a principled basis of opposition to all oppression.

 

ARE WHITE WORKERS A ‘LABOUR ARISTOCRACY’?

 

No sections of the working class gain in real terms from the special oppression of Backs, colonial people etc. In the First World, White workers may have slightly less unemployment etc., but they are still the majority of the workers and the poor i.e. of the exploited classes victimized by capitalism and the State . Racism worsens conditions for all workers because it divides workers struggles and resistance and ability to destroy the system. That is why the ruling class promotes it: it would never promote something that benefited the majority of workers. Therefore it is in these workers’ direct interest to fight racism and unite with Black workers.

 

Even if these workers accept racism, they are still not its primary cause: racist-capitalism is. Nor are they its beneficiaries.

 

At the same time, doubly oppressed groups like Blacks etc. require allies amongst the White working class. Without them, they lack the numbers, strategic position, or social power to defeat the racist system and its causes for once and for all. Unity is also in their interests.

 

Similarly, the argument that the Western working class benefits materially from imperialism, is false. There is not a shred of proof, nor a sustainable economic theory to show this. Nor can any correlation be shown between the level of imperialist activity and the living standards of First World workers.

 

On the contrary, imperialism is against the interests of these workers, because it strengthens the power of their own states (e.g. colonial armies are used against workers “at home” -remember Spain 1936?), wastes resources and lives that could be spent on people on the military, promotes reactionary ideas like racism and imperialist patriotism that divide workers and strengthen the ruling class, and allows multi-national companies to cut jobs and wages by shifting to repressive Third World colonial and semi- colonial regimes.

 

SEPARATE ORGANISATION?

 

As Anarchists should unconditionally defend the rights of specially oppressed sections of the working class to organise separately because we defend the principle of free association. BUT we should separate question of the right to organise separately from the issues of the usefulness of this mode of organisation.

 

We simply cannot take it for granted that separate organisations are necessarily progressive or travelling the same road as we are.

 

Separate organisations are not necessarily progressive – in some cases they are clearly reactionary and a backward step, in others they are poor strategy.

 

Non-class based separate organisations typically fails to correctly identify the source of the special oppression faced by the group in question. For example, separatist Black nationalism calls for people of African descent to organise separately on the basis that all Whites are the source of Black oppression. Therefore they are the enemy. What such an approach fails to recognize is the primary role of capitalism and the State in causing Black oppression, and the common interests of both working class Blacks and Whites in fighting racism on a class-struggle basis (see above). Or it may be argued that capitalism is a form of racism – this again fails to recognize the common interest of both working class Whites and Blacks in fighting capitalism.

 

Separate organisation that is not on a class struggle basis almost always lays the basis for cross-class alliances as is based on non-class identities and supposed common interests between all who share that identity. As we argue, only class struggle can end special oppressions such as racism and sexism.

 

They thus became hitched to the class projects of capitalists, bosses and power-hungry would-be rulers. A case in point is the Nation of Islam in the US.

 

Separate organisations can divide the working class into competing and fragmented sections. Why stop at separate organisation for women, Blacks etc? The whole notion of separate organisation lays the basis for a continual fragmentation of identities and issues: gay versus black versus women versus lesbians versus bisexuals versus gay blacks versus white blacks versus bisexual males etc.

 

Instead of an emphasis on difference, what is needed is a search for points of agreement and common interest: divided we are weak-it is class that provides a basis for uniting the vast majority of the world’s population against the primary causes of poverty and oppression: capitalism/ the State/ the ruling class.

 

Some call for separate organisation on the basis that only separate organisation can prevent the marginalization of the concerns of a particular group. For example, Black nationalists in the US often call for Blacks to organise separately so that they are not, for example, marginalized or ignored in mainly White organisations.

 

While this is an important issue, it does not follow that separate organisation is the best solution. Not at all!

 

Separate organisation often reinforces the marginalization of a group’s concerns, for example, it can be used to as a way of ghettoizing issues. Rather than challenging racism, such organisations allow racism to be ignored by others. White workers can ignore the issue: “leave it to the Blacks, its their concern, not ours”. But should, say, illegal immigrants have to fight against racist immigration laws on their own, or should they have allies from other sections of the working class? “Self- determining” isolation can readily lay the basis for weak struggles that are easily defeated by the ruling class (see above). Finally, the claim that Blacks can never function in integrated organisations expresses a disturbing lack of confidence in Black people’s abilities.

 

Instead, we should win all sections of the working class over to a program of opposing, not ignoring all oppression. This is a more effective way of winning demands. Even if some do not have direct experience of a given oppression, it does not follow that they are unable to be won to a position of opposing it. As argued earlier, no workers really benefit from special oppressions like racism. It is in their interest to be anti- racist.

 

Separate organisation is not even progressive in some cases.

 

Separate organisation in the workplace is NOT acceptable in any case where industrial unions of all workers exist. The logic of trade-union organisation is to unify different categories of workers, who can only find strength in their unity. To set up a separate Black trade union in a situation where Blacks are a minority weakens the existing unions, but puts these workers themselves in a weak and unsustainable position due to their limited numbers, as well as in direct conflict with the existing union, thus creating a dynamic that can lead to the destruction of union organisation in the plant as a whole.

 

Maximum unity on a principled basis is always desirable, supported and fought for. Black-only unions are a recipe for failure where Black people form a minority in the working class (obviously the situation is different in South Africa where the Black working class is the majority- but more on this later). How can one even launch mild forms of industrial action without the support of most workers?

 

Furthermore, separate organisation is only admissible in cases where workers face a special oppression. We do not support Zulu-only unions like UWUSA (in South Africa) because Zulus do not face a special oppression as Zulus.

 

Separate organisation is not innately progressive. It can be used as a tactic to roll-back worker struggles and undermine the left. For example, the nationalist-minded liberal middle-class Black leaders of the mass Industrial and Commercial Workers Union in SA in the 1920s used arguments that the Communist Party was a “White” institution to expel socialists from their ranks and had the union over to (White!!) liberals like Ballinger who opposed anything other than simple bread and butter, non-political orthodox trade unionism, as opposed to the ICU’s previously semi-syndicalist positions.

 

SPECIAL ORGANISING COMMITTEES

 

Having said this, it is clear that Anarchist political organisations should be integrated. Having said this, we do recognize that it may be necessary to set up commissions/ task grippes within these organisations to focus on specific issues e.g. groups to work on immigrant support. These are not separate organisations, but working groups integrated into the overall organisation, and to which any member may belong.

 

RELATIONS WITH EXISTING SEPARATE GROUPS

 

People respond to capitalism and the State in a variety of ways, and through a variety of ideologies. How should we relate to these groups?

 

In general, the WSF apply the following “rule of thumb”. A basic distinction can be drawn between “political groups” (those which unite people on the basis of accepting a certain ideology- such as political parties), and “economic groups” (those which unite people on the basis of their common, immediate social and economic interests- such as unions, rent-strike committees).

 

We would work alongside in “political groups”, for example, around campaigns.

 

And we would work within “economic groups”. Economic groups tend to have working class bases and deal with issues relevant to working and poor people. They therefore have a class dimension. Our aim here would be to promote

 

(1) class consciousness and workers power: these grippes should be run by the working class and reject class collaboration.

 

(2) work in principled alliance with other working class formations out of recognition of the common interests of the working and poor people and the necessity of class struggle

 

(3) do not undermine the unions, but on the contrary work with them, defend them and promote them

 

(4) take up arguments about the need for anti-racism etc. with other sections of the working class

 

(5) win them to a revolutionary Anarchist program

 

Our aim here would be to unite and merge these “economic organisations”: those in the workplace should be united into “One Big (Trade) union”; those in (working class) residential areas into “One Big (Community) Union”. They would have a common struggle: against capitalism, the State and all oppression. In this way, they could provide the nucleus for the self-governing worker and community councils of the Anarchist future. Thus, we call for this unity to

 

(1) unite the working and poor masses around their common interests and needs

 

(2) provide a united basis for self-management after the revolution.

 

SOUTH AFRICA – A SPECIAL CASE

 

In South Africa, this situation is somewhat different. Clearly, the defeat of racism in South Africa does also require a class struggle and a workers revolution (as elsewhere). But here the Black working class is the majority of the population, the most radical, combative and organised force in society. Thus the question of Black workers presents itself in a different fashion here as it is obvious that the Black working class will be the force that makes the SA revolution. Since there is no left-wing or working class movement that can possibly marginalize the Black working class, the need for special committees, sections etc. to deal with racism is redundant in the South Africa case.

 

What then of White/Black worker unity? This unity was remote in the extreme in the apartheid years- it was extremely unusual for White workers to join the struggle of the Black working class under apartheid, precisely because of their extreme level of privilege (although some did, mainly from the Communist Party). So, in contrast to the situation in the West, White workers here actually did benefit from racism. Nonetheless, interracial workers unity (on an anti-racist platform) would have been advantageous even under apartheid because it would have weakened the armed power of the State (most Whites were at some or other point soldiers and were and are workers). With the demise of formal apartheid and the move to a formally non-racial bourgeois parliament, the prospects for such unity are far better. The economic crisis, the removal of job reservation and other legal privileges, the breakdown of the alliance between Whites of different classes that underpinned the racist regime all make a workers alliance and unity more feasible.

 

Thus we have a situation where literally tens of thousands of White workers and historically White unions have actually joined the non- racial integrated COSATU unions; the main historically white union federation, FEDSAL, has also begun co-operating with COSATU in negotiations and even demos (although White worker attendance is quite poor). We should support this unity, so long as it is on an anti-racist basis, and so long as the general layers of activists remain broadly representative of the mainly Black unions. In other words, workers unity is good, if only in terms of our proletarian internationalism and non-racialism, but the basis of that unity must still be the struggle against racism as well as capitalism. In any case, it is clear that the Black working class will still be the battering ram that destroys the system (the possible participation of White workers as reliable allies notwithstanding). Therefore, class unity on a principled anti-racist basis (with the provisions for special organisations outlined above) is the key to freedom.

 

This is why we say

 

“BLACK LIBERATION THROUGH CLASS WAR”

 

“STATE, CAPITALISM, RACISM: ONE ENEMY, ONE FIGHT”

House Of Shango: local black squatters serve up free food for the Brixton community

 

Brixton social justice activist, Olive Morris, gets an English Heritage blue plaque

 

Brixton community activist Olive Morris remembered as squatters leave Gresham Road premises

This is hot garbage, uploaded for historical reasons.

https://littleblackcart.com/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=898

An Afro-Nihilist Manifesto – Final

I am NEVER a fucking “African-American”!
I am NOT “half-Black.”
I am a mulatto, but I am ALWAYS Black.
I am, sometimes, a Negro.
I am usually a nigger… I am usually a “nigger.” I am usually a
n**ger. I am usually an (“)N-word(“).
Now that THAT’s out of the way…
This compendium is in memorium of my brother, Chris
Monfort. Though he might not fuck with a lot of this, he would
die for my “right” to write it. Plus, he’d appreciate that I “had
the balls” to do so…
I dedicate this to Franklin “Hogg” Hargus (and his
cocksucker). Thank you both for the wisdom and inspiration…
An AfroNihilists Libation…
I play the Sims, but only Cleo,
cuz I wanna set it off…
or do the right thing
like Mookie and Smiley.
I wanna pirate, like a Somali,
On the wide Sargasso sea
and free every Sally Hemmings.
Squat like Ellison’s pre-”Ex-Worker”
and be too “G” to need even a name…
I am a sick nigga, I am a spiteful nigga,
an unpleasing nigger.
No more balling like a quadroon,
This mulatto is bringing tragedy
like a mix of Bigger Thomas and Val Solanis
Lighting up August worse than Joe Christmas,
in way to put Jimmy Governor to shame…
If only other edgelords
(of ego addiction and ought-istic affliction)
would listen to Zami’s biomythography
in lieu of playing into horseshoe theory with hand grenades!
I, too, sought the wild by way of the rational
Mama “Bone Black” bell may be the diagnostician
of their dissonant cognition
but Dr. Frantz Fanon deposed Francois de Sade
and can cure the caucazoid infection…
A daywalking vampire with descent
of both Yakub and Khmet
my “Immersion-Emersion” should be icy and bloody
avenging Saartjie Baartman as would Saidiya Hartman
if she, and Wilderson Three,
had resisted domestication…
Eshu, help me eschew my melanincholia!
Let shattered museum glass be my cast cowries…
Make me the “abasom” of the Ewe.
Dumpster-diving at Akodessewa
An ancient adze finds my hand,
and I go from Gongoli to Kakuungu
(witch doctoring my own Nguzo Sab-bath
I take things apart like Okonkwo)
So, for Benin and Togo,
I do the whole Voodoo Doughnuts crew
Like Washington in Waco, circa 1916,
They should have asked Ogun about irony,
because immolation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Shango Unchained is playing in my brain
Like Mancala between Marighella and Gerima
“Tarantino in the Congo” will be shot, guerilla-style…
Shanghai-ed, Dago Dubya Griffith will die in a Coltan mine
and the card attached would say “dead wigger storage.”
Kunta the hack’s foot off, wrap it in kente cloth,
A fetish object fashioned for every Lupita Nyong’o
to ward off all the rapey Weinsteins
and that one wop hipster (“in ten-thousand”)…
May Anarcha’s pain come to Spokane
No anesthetic for she of the NAACP
since Blackness is but an aesthetic…
Dolezal will get paid the same as Korryn Gaines,
with a speculum (to take Amadou’s name out her mouth)…
Even in a cage, no book deals or box-braids,
she’d have Hughes’ poetry and Mandingo fantasies
I’d rather kill this mockingbird… She sings too fucking much.
My Maafa legacy is reverse missionary,
Anansi’s oral theology of anti-prosperity
in riotous tribute to Marsha P.
Scott D. will see how bomb his church can be
and a lot less Lively in the process.
Still I weep for the four on 16th street
But with the blues and caprice of John Allen and John Lee
So I jazz things up with coal trains, in the style of 103 at Lockerbie,
and improvise like Coleman (both Alton AND Ornette).
I’ll bless the rain like MOVE’s Africas
If encaged for burning hippies as at Osage….
Like Ganja (too free for Hess Green),
Gravediggaz got a number I can call
When the Dr. Know to make track 8 on H.R.’s “Yellow Tape”
Not a song but a prescription, so…
In ode to Joy DeGruy (of Ever-Present Anger)
and guided by the Cosmos (especially Setepenra)
we gather wild Afrikan roots
from house to field, with an “X”
(a la Malcolm and Micah Johnson)
to Mark Essex the spot.
Showing Love(lle Mixon)
and (Maurce) Clemmons-y to my enemy,
I follow the Gospel according to Christopher
(Monfort AND Dorner, as Karma for Columbus)…
My clip is a tongue to speak my oppressor into oblivion,
in hollow-pointed words, 9mm at a time,
one shot, (one kill) DO not miss your chance to blow
every latter-day Elvis away (it’s only culturally appropriate)
Bag some cracker begpackers and McYoga vultures,
Bobos in condos can go the way of the Cali condor (but never to recover).
Do Liberal do-gooders in the NPIC like Kuwasi B. did the Klan and Nazis…
Let every honky be exterminated accordingly.
If the Jackson’s repped R and B less than the G,
Both Igbo tradition AND Marxist contradiction
George and Jon of the BPP might be
Communists Tending Toward the Wild…
But fuck “if,” and “maybe,”
Turner, Vesey and the debtor inheritors
of Toussaint’s Ayiti couldn’t know victory
pre-CCTV in the iPhone Galaxy.
In DuVernay’s USA, every Friday is the 13th, in Quilombos of concrete, so…
Why not go Boko Haram?
My bastardization of divination ends here,
In contemplation, not completion…
They say we can’t hate everybody,
and so the pillars of society “-ism,” “-ology” and “-emacy”
some bullshit at us,
(sometimes capricious, always arbitrary)
to absolve portions of the population
of what they “deserve”…
(Whatever that fucking word means.)
A race of infants, sick with abuse,
cannot read, yet die to write
they name on a wall they don’t own.
Grasping to death at shiny baubles
and crying away self-respect to get they dick wet…
If not better than the race of teenage boys
who love only games, rules and strategy,
at least they more honest…
Intentions be damned.
[The simple mind does
overgeneralize, but
how many exceptions
does it take to define
the rule?]
He only a god,
when he got a gun in his hand.
Without systemic power,
the weak settle for respect
and from individuals, no less.
Discipline tastes like cowardice to the hungry.
If all I have is worth less
than a perceived slight,
why not throw it away on a dice game?
Money matters more
than my Black life.
Only the rich can afford to be open-minded,
so the holy trinity of my community
is respectability, conformity and arrogance
(that bastard son of ignorance and
aggression)
Needless to say,
I don’t get invited to my own family cookouts.
Honest Work: Overture
Mama: My son found a master!
Worker: Praise God! It is a Corporate Persyn or Humyn persyn?
Mama: Corporate… Zombie Worship.
Worker: Thanks be to Jesus… But he’s real smart, no? He was going to school…
Mama: No more. No money. He needs medicine. He buy it on the street. They take away his
money. For school. And they take away his medicine…
Worker: Santa Maria… Maybe, he – –
Master: Shut the eff up, s-word c-word. Get back to effing work… Effing s-word c-word…
Warrior: Slavery-
Master: 40 hours a week-
Warrior: -built this country
Master: Any more, and we’d have to pay you more…
Warrior: And the extermination-
Master: If you don’t like it-
Warrior: -of Native people…
Master: You can die in the street…
Warrior: And the extinction-
Master: All your free time-
Warrior:-of millions of species-
Master: -you will spend-
Warrior: -of plant and animal-
Master: preparing for when you are here…
Warrior: Pollution and disease-
Master: If you don’t like it-
Warrior: -from industries of torture and destruction-
Master: -you can spend years in a cage…
Warrior: -are killing us…
Master: Any questions-
Warrior: It doesn’t have to be this way-
Master: -can be asked during your break.
Warrior: We can make a better world. We can- [Warrior is silenced by the placement of white
headphones in his ears]
Master: Get to work! [Character exits]
[Master writes the names of various resources on a large piece of butcher paper, tears it off the
pad, tears it to pieces and burns it in a nearby garbage pail. He then faces the audience and shits
in the garbage pail, singing commercial jingles. While intoning the names of various brands, he
whips Warrior like a slave with an actual bullwhip. When finished, he spoonfeeds the contents of
the garbage pail to the Warrior, now a Zombie…]
Master: Thank you for shopping with us!
______________________________________________________________
Slave: …And what do YOU do?
Character: I cut my hands.
Slave: -could be worse, I-
Character: I throw food away.
Slave: -but the company makes money!
Character: I have to bribe people in white coats if I want to see the sun.
Slave: Just buy health insurance!
Character: I listen to shitty, shitty pop music-
Slave: I LOVE pop music-
Character: and annoying ads-
Slave: those ads ARE catchy-
Character: -on repeat. All Day. Every Day.
Slave: You get used to it-
Character: I spend the best hours of the day, all day, every day, with people I hate.
Slave: We all do it. I –
Character: I look, act and think how someone else wants me to-
Slave: At least you live in ‘Murica!
Character: You call this living?
Slave: I don’t know. I been here over 20 years. I missed my Mama’s lasts and my kids’ firsts. I
met my wife here. I got divorced, because of here. I can’t remember… what it felt like… before I
came here. You’re still young. You should be happy.
Character: That doesn’t make me happy. At all… Maybe you-
Slave: I gotta get back to work. [exits]
Zombie: Peanuts?
Character: Roasted?
Zombie: Peanuts!
Character: Salted?
Zombie: Peanuts!!
Character: Shells on?
Zombie: Peanuts!!! Peanuts?
[Master shines light in Zombie’s eyes, shakes rattle, puts on Santa hat and beard]
Zombie: Peanuts! Peanuts!! Peanuts!!! [Wanders off]
Master: “I thought I wanted limes, but the display… at the store… looked like shit. I mean, one of
the limes wasn’t facing the same direction as all the other limes and… and there was a brown spot
on it. Brown is fucking disgusting. So I left. Now I have nothing to go with the tequila… My
superbowl party is ruined.” That’s from a zombie. They’re not supposed to be ABLE to talk, if
you did your job up to standard…
Character: Standard?
Master: Standard, yes, standard! If you don’t like it…
Character: I’m sorry… I got a letter today. My ma- mother. She was caught eating fruit she picked
and they threw away. The man who oversees, he saw. She sleeps in the back of a truck… and he
saw. He tried to… or he would tell… she fought him. She doesn’t have a job, and may have to
start… again. She might be sent back home… It is a lot on my mind and my heart.
Master: Up to STANDARD, harder than the HARDEST working WORKER or I’ll… or you’ll… if
you don’t like it… AH!… I’ve got it!!! What’s that cheesy pop song, that’s real URBAN, yeah,
when then vocalist hits that major or minor key, or whatever its called with “beats”, their eyes…
programmed to look up-left… see the blue patterned triangles we’ve placed according to
schematic, and their stomachs… programmed to constrict with hunger when their retinas are
stimulated by this imagery, yes, yes… THAT marketing campaign will ensure my BONUS. I’m a
genius.
Character: Your bonus?
Master: You’re dismissed. Consider this a verbal warning. Someone will be by with papers for
you to sign…
Character: Verbal warning?
Master: Yeah, further corrective action could be up to and including termination.
Character: Termination?
Master: Are you…? Yes, termination. I said dismissed… You’ve been sent home.
Character: Sent home?
Master: Clean the bathroom on the first floor, while you’re at it. Someone made a mess…
______________________________________________________________________________
Character: [writes] I don’t know if this will get to you. I know you will survive. When I make
enough… when I own my own… when I… I can’t lie to you. I can’t let this go on. It looks normal,
and that is sick. Yesterday, the master… he said she was stealing something… He grabbed her… a
grandmother… she fought him… He… her throat… she passed out. They put her in a cage anyway.
A grandmother. “She should have thought of that”… I don’t want to think anymore. I’m sick. I’m
not the only one. Someone should… I love you.
____________________________________________________________________________
Slave: What did YOU do today?
Character [stripping off mask, leans the long gun against something, puts a piece of paper in
Slave’s front shirt pocket, removes gloves]: Well, I disabled the power to the cameras, sound
system, everything… then I laid some zombies to freedom… a lot of zombies. I also wrote a
suicide note… for you!

The Anarchist Rain [1998]

anarchistrain PDF (Imposed)

Made Crazy By You / Driven Sane By Myself [1997]

Featured in Claustrophobia magazine, number 8, page 7.

https://archive.org/details/claustrophobia-no-8-summer-1997/page/7/mode/2up?view=theater

Writings from The Anarchist Rain [2001]

Featured in THE DEFIANT: Prisoners in the Global Resistance

https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC510_scans/APLAN_Anarchist/510.aplan.defiant.2001.pdf

On the Prisoner Solidarity Committee [1998]

The following was based on a letter written to a comrade of Moncton ABC, a support group of the ABC Federation. Shaka gave us the letter to be printed here as a contribution to dialogue on these questions.
The hand between the candle and the wall
Grows large on the wall…
It must be that the hand
Has a will to grow larger on the wall
To grow larger and heavier than
the wall…
–Wallace Stevens

May 10, 1998
10:30 pm

Dear Scott,

I hope that this letter finds you well. I be still here, in chains, trying acutely to remain sane. The vile psychological and emotional effects I must endure, caused by this prison/neoslavery existence, is one of the most feared weapons in our enemies arsenal of pestilence and genocide. These years and days spent in isolation and exile, separated from family, from friends, from freedom; forced to miss the struggle of my family in that same society that separated us; the dehumanizing scars inflicted on the minds of those of us who are reduced, negated and equated to the subhuman status of our forbears who were made the victims of European economics (capitalism); made to submit to a repressive situation supposedly designed to correct so-called criminal behavior, while in fact what is occurring is the further erosion and deforming of the naturally ordered social inclinations endowed in the marrow of all human beings. The question of my humanity, my right to life, liberty, and the quest for human purpose has been answered by the call of the monopoly capital to destroy such human rights for their bestial lust to accumulate super profits via the criminalization of my kind of human being.

Such blatant and insidious disregard and discard are the incessant realities that I must daily confront, combat, and conquer; such insanity chips away at the resolve of the strongest of my kind… Simply put… I am doing okay simply because I am alive, still struggling to become more fully human, in spite of the situation.

As to your proposal to reactivate the PSC [Prisoner Solidarity Committee], I think that you should continue to push it, however, I don not wish to become involved in it. My reason for not wanting to be involved is because I do not agree with the idea of any New Afrikan being a social prisoner. I have (and many other revolutionary New Afrikans as well) long ago come to recognized the political reality that each and every New Afrikan in this settleristic-imperialist nation is in fact prisoners of war, and once we are shoved in this situation of acute repression we become political prisoners of war. Historically speaking, the war that I am indirectly making reference to began when european capital launched its first slave ships and began its free market system with the trade of my Afrikan forbearers. At the conclusion of the amerikkkan war for independence, the present capitalistic nation-state called the USA was founded for euroamerikkkans, but my kind remained in chains.

The constitution was written by and for euroamerikkans’ right to determine and govern themselves as human beings. But my kind, my forbearers, remained the chattel of settleristic amerikkka. In this constitution our subhuman status was affirmed and reaffirmed by those who wrote it. They defined us as being three-fifths of a person in this very constitution that is hailed as being the greatest ever written. In 1857, the highest court of law in the USA (the supreme court) again affirmed the status of “subhuman slaves” of my kind, in the court’s Dred Scott decision. U.S. Chief Justice Roger Brooks Taney said: “A Negro has no rights that a white man is bound to respect.” To show their correctness and legal grounds for denying the slave Dred Scott’s petition for freedom, the United States Supreme Court turned to the Constitution written by their fathers for their freedom to oppress and profit from the genocide and enslavement of the Native and Afrikan slave, and said:

When the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were written, Africans were perceived as three-fifths of a person. When one speaks of ‘we the people,’ we were not speaking of you. And therefore we cannot now give you the rights and appurtenances that apply to ‘we the people.’ The constitution has no relevance to you and your kind, or to your descendants should they ever become free.

The whole system/institution of slavery was an act of war that was committed against the nations within Afrika which the european slavers (from europe and the amerikkkas) captured, bought, and sold their victims. The nations of europe waged this war in the name of capitalism, civilization, and Christianity. These Afrikan human beings had never before encountered such a foe that came in the disguise of a friend and trader of pretty and shiny products, thus they were not prepared for the deceit, betrayal, racism, greed, and hate that moved these pale men.

New Afrikans were supposedly freed on December 6, 1865 by the 13th amendment of the US constitution, which reads: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” And almost three years later on July 9, 1868, we were compelled to accept the paper citizenship ratified via Congress in the 14th amendment of the constitution, which reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

With the ratification of these amendments came much fanfare and praise by those Kneegrows who claimed to have been the representatives of the New Afrikan masses whose true desire was to be liberated from the Nation-State that held them captive as slaves, a country that had robbed them of their human right to self-determination and independence as a Nation. The student of history will surely see that all these laws that have been enacted and ratified by the capitalist and white supremacist body of the us government, for the sham freedom granted to New Afrikans, were in reality no more than political ploys used to further the interest of capital and white supremacy. Thus through the 13th and 14th amendments we recognize the fact that over 130 years ago the ground for the PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX was laid. In both amendments the person could not be made a slave or deprived of life and liberty, unless they have been duly convicted of a crime. As the children of the only people who were brought to this settleristic-imperialistic nation in chains, we (I) realize that as the victims of this undeclared war, and that history is not a dead thing for all that is today is but a continuation of what has occurred those 130 years ago, that we are a colonized people. We have been bounded to this decadent nation through the laws, miseducation, and acute genocidal repression that has been waged against our nation.

I am simply trying to give you an idea of why I refuse to ever be a part of anything done by the ABCF. As a New Afrikan I do not accept or respect or recognize the legitimacy of the US government, nor the definition of the United Nation of what or who is to be defined as a PP/POW. My people, no matter how much they have been brainwashed, are all PP/POWs, simply because their continued exploitation and oppression is perpetuated by and through the political system of this capitalistic nation. The conditions that give life to the so-called social crimes are created by this government. The Iran/Contra drug smuggling and CIA crack cocaine pipeline into South Central LA are but two very minute examples of how these situations are created via the government for economic forces/capital. I will not be confined to the definitions handed down by my oppressors, the very european nations that have created the blighted conditions that are killing millions of the world’s people daily.

The Definitions that the ABCF are using do not take into account the present anti-colonial/revolutionary struggles that are being waged throughout this settleristic-imperialist nation. The new form and shape of our struggle is not even taken into consideration by this ABCF. They look to the comrades who have been locked down for over 20 years, who were engaged in the movement 20-30 years ago for insight into that which they could not possibly understand. the conditions that gave rise to the New Afrikan revolutionaries of my generation, are conditions that are quite different from those that gave life to the brothers and sisters from our revolutionary struggles of the 60s and 70s. The government had effectively razed the revolutionary movement of that period in time. My generation was raised without the knowledge of that phase in our struggle for a full and complete freedom: self-determination and independence from decadent capitalist nation-state.

My friend, the fact that the ABCF is made up of middle-class white folk is another reason for me and the Spirit collective not wishing to be involved in such federation. For to allow such a federation to set the terms of how we are to view who is to be considered PP/POWs is to sanction FALSE INTERNATIONAL-ISM. and we will not be a part of this sort of endeavor.

Though we agree that the support of those brothers and sisters who have been targeted and framed by the government, for the active roles they played in attempting to make revolution, should receive the full support of the movement; we, however, simply do not see them as the only political prisoners and prisoners of war, solely because they made a conscious effort to engage this system of white supremacy and monopoly capital that oppresses and exploits and murders its internal and external neocolonies.

I hope that you will keep on struggling in the name of humanity and revolution. Though I do believe that we should create a UNITED FRONT for the making of the revolution for a better tomorrow, however, I will not be a part of any front that does not address the reality of white supremacy, the blight of all humanity.

take care.
DARE TO STRUGGLE,
DARE TO WIN!

RELENTLESSLY,

SHAKA N’ZINGA