Re: [Marxism] Too damned colonialist for words

[Art McGee <amcgee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Hoover once described the Panthers as the most dangerous
> group in America. There was a reason for that. Unlike
> Malcolm, talking about black separation, etc., the
> Panthers were talking political economy and Marx, linking
> their struggle to that of the North Vietnamese, meeting
> with Chou En Lai in China, in contact with the Provisional
> IRA. In short, they were internationalists and therefore a
> genuine threat.

I see things haven't changed much over the years. Folks are
*still* going around in circles talking about shit they have
absolutely no clue about. Pathetic.

1. Most of Malcolm's early talk about separation was as
a result of absorbing the Nation of Islam's doctrines, an
important phase in his political development and cultural
consciousness.

2. Malcolm was never really for absolute separation, but
the imagery of separation is part of a Black rhetorical
tradition designed to inspire Black people towards the
more important concept of self-determination.

3. Malcolm was for self-determination, which isn't about
separation at it's core, but requires indigenous leadership
and control. To dismiss self-determination as an important
current within Black American thought is racist.

4. Malcolm was always an internationalist, as Pan-Africanism
is inherently an internationalist perspective. The racism of
those who fail to acknowledge Pan-Africanists as
internationalists is so self-evident as to need no further
comment.

5. As Malcolm matured politically, something the Panthers
didn't do, he began to more explicitly embrace socialist
and marxist concepts. He would have become even more of
a dialectical and historical materialist if he had lived
longer. The failure to acknowledge the interruption of
Malcolm's growth as a revolutionary and to freeze him in
time is also an example of the racist dismissal of important
Black leaders.

6. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, in addition to
being inspired by Mao and The Lowndes County Panthers, got
their primary ideological and cultural inspiration from
Malcolm X. Malcolm is the father of Black Power, and all
organizations and people making even a remote claim on the
concept owe their existence to him, including Ture.

7. Despite the good things the Panthers did as a whole, both
in terms of theory and praxis, some sectors of the Panthers
fucked up in a whole bunch of ways that could only be termed
one way: counter-revolutionary. In particular, the Oakland
Panthers, who despite considering themselves headquarters
and who are most prominent in people's minds, did not define
the whole of the party, and thankfully so, because their
counter-revolutionary praxis in some cases was something
to be ashamed of.

8. And let me once again emphasize the racism inherent in
trying to pit Malcolm X against the BPP, when both are part
of a continuum of struggle for Black Liberation that each
made a most invaluable and unassailable contribution to.
Neither was any more revolutionary or dangerous than the
other, and it is only in the distortions of White
Supremacist thinking, which too many Marxists are
susceptible to, that such a distinction manifests itself.


Art

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