CONFRONTATIONAL POLITICS TO COMBAT FASCISM!!
Confrontational Politics is a brand new name for an upgraded style of militant, forceful, head on tactics; designed to challenge the racist oppressor. It incorporates armed and unarmed aggressive self-defense in an aboveground blend of using disciplined Black formations. Its Genesis and early beginnings has roots that stretches way back to Marcus Garvey's United Negro Improvement Association's Self Defense wing called the Black Legion and Malcolm X's late 1950's The Fruit of Islam.
Marcus Garvey was a great black leader who understood the necessity to present to the Black masses a disciplined above ground militant unit that would represent an uncompromising stance in the face of violent white racist retaliation triggered by any black organization seeking freedom. He was the premier leader who first put the critical need for self-defense on the map. He understood that security and protection was interconnected with Black dignity especially since white supremacy and capitalism relied on sheer force to enslave black people. This racist intimidation was emitted from many different elements of white Amerikkkan society. It is what forbids the majority of Blacks from participating in any legitimate struggle whether it is consciously or unconsciously acknowledged.
Marcus Garvey's Black Legion wore military clothing, trained openly in military drills, and carried long swords publicly whenever it was legal to do so. It was an aboveground apparatus. When the U.S. Governments secret polite force known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F. B. I.) recognized the threat of the Black Legion, Marcus Garvey was one of the first blacks put on the dangerous subversive list and the U. S. Government's secret war plan called Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) was originally created to target him and his organization. COINTELPRO's insidious use of legal and illegal tactics to disrupt and neutralize Marcus Garvey's "Back to Africa" movement consisted of informants; agent provocateurs, attempted assassinations, and bogus trumped up charges against innocent Black people in the U. N. I. A.
Even though the Black Legion never really engaged the racist authorities or any white supremacy organization in an aboveground confrontational political demonstration, the seed of potential of a clash was planted in the racist white psyche, so therefore, the U. N. I. A. was sought out to be eliminated. This is not to say that there were no underground aggressive attacks launched by the Black Legion but what we are mainly concerned with within this analysis is aboveground confrontation. We are very sure that there were secret strikes carried out by the Black Legion against critical Racist targets by the official policy of the U. N. I. A. towards the Black masses was that the Black Legion represented just the idea or concept of self-defense and was not a formation that engaged in serious direct confrontation. It mainly provided security for the organization and its leadership officials at public events or it paraded around in large formations as a self-defense symbol of dignity for Black people.
In the late 1950's Malcolm Little became Malcolm X after he joined the original Nation of Islam led by Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X was fresh out of prison where he was recruited into the N. O. I. Since Malcolm was a former street hustler and ex-prisoner, he maintained a link to Black people in those areas. Elijah Muhammad gave Malcolm permission to organize those Blacks into self-defense unit called the Fruit of Islam (F. O. I.). Malcolm brought brothers in from off the streets and taught them Judo martial arts, military drills, discipline, and the N. O. I. self-defense philosophy. "Officially" they carried no carnal) Bodily) weapons. They didn't have a policy towards confrontational political demonstrations at that time mainly because they considered themselves to be primarily a spiritual organization.
Then on one amazing politically charged night, Malcolm X was put in an extraordinary dilemma, when a N. O. I. member was brutally beat by the racist New York police. Robert Johnson was savagely dragged to the precinct and he was being denied medical treatment after his head was busted open by Police nightsticks. Malcolm, who was the head minister at the New York N. O. I. temple, led a large, disciplined formation of the F. O. I. through the streets of New York causing a large commotion and a Black crowd of people followed them there. The Muslims lined up in a militant line facing the police station with the enormous crowd positioned behind them. This militant action sent shock waves through the police station and community because this was the first time in the history of Black people in racist Amerikkka that anyone had the heart and courage to openly confront the police in such a strong manner!!! Then Malcolm boldly walked into the police station, flanked by just a couple of Muslims and let the other F. O. I. members positioned in a long disciplined formation outside, casting a menacing silent aura. He went to the police front desk and then demanded that the injured Muslim be given medical attention. The police in the station only agreed to the demand once they saw the large militant confrontation-taking place outside. Malcolm walked out and then led the F. O. I. and the gigantic crowd to the hospital to guarantee that the injured Muslim was given medical care. Once he was sure that the Muslim got the help he deserved, Malcolm used just one hand turn and the Muslims did a militant right face and dispersed with the crowd in a matter of seconds! Once the white police officer who witnessed Malcolm X dismiss the Muslims with just one hand gesture, remarked out loud that "That's too much power for one Black man to have!" After this first ever use of confrontational politics, Malcolm X became well known and admired amongst local black residents in New York when the newspapers reported the story the next morning. He was regarded as a true leader of the black community who would not break down even in the face of overwhelming odds.
This was the last time Malcolm was allowed to use the F. O. I. in a confrontational political demonstration. Yet, he was emboldened by this successful use of power against power and begun to also publicly advocate the use of guns in the self-defense of the black community. He was later suspended and left the Nation of Islam. The U. S. government begun to put him under surveillance and directly in the gun sight of COINTELPRO's cross hairs. When his family was threatened and harassed by racist forces, he allowed himself to be photographed with a M-1 carbine assault rifle while he peered out of his home window. This picture became extremely popular throughout the Black movement as Malcolm's most worthy call for the need of armed self-defense of the Black community. This picture was definitely worth more then a thousand words for Black people.
The F. O. I. went on to disavow and prohibit confrontational political demonstrations. They became a division within the Nation of Islam that provided security for Muslims and high leadership officials in their organization. They also focused on checking internal sub-visions and activities of secret agents placed within the organization by racist forces and secured complete records of all persons employed by their organization. It is not known if they ever launched any underground strikes against their racist enemies but I believe most likely they did at sometime.
There were many different organizations that had a critical influence that advanced confrontational political strategy throughout the 1960's like Robert Williams armed Negro Advancement Association for Colored People, The Student "Non-Violent" Coordinating Committee, the Deacons of Defense, Malcolm X's Organization of Afro-American Unity, The Revolutionary Action Movement , and a host of many others. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense started in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, took confrontational politics to its highest level during the 60's. Minister of Defense, Huey P. Newton, was a street devotee to Malcolm X's theories and practice. In fact, the entire Black Panther for Self-Defense was created in the spirit of Malcolm X after Malcolm was brutally gunned down by COINTELPRO. Huey decided to confront the racist police forces in Oakland whenever they pulled over Black people and tried to brutalize them. Unlike the community patrol organization that just took pictures of random acts of police brutality that operated at that time in L. A., Huey took it a step further by patrolling the police while openly brandishing shotguns because it was still legal to do so in the state of California.
This was also a small-scale adaptation of Malcolm X's late night confrontation at the New York police station. Huey learned from Malcolm that the racist authorities could be effectively challenged and confronted with Black Power against White Power approach. As long as a group maintained a disciplined and legal posture, then the police could check on their illegal brutality and murder of Black people. Huey and Bobby also began to call the police "pigs" on these patrols because it was also a legal thing to do. Huey understood that such a serious act of confronting such a deadly tentacle of our oppression in a militant way would inspire brothers and sisters from off the block to join the struggle for Black liberation.
Out on these patrols facing down the police while openly displaying their weapons helped the panthers capture the hearts and minds of the Black community. When recruits from off the block began to stream into the Panthers, Huey and Bobby took the confrontations to an even higher level by being armed openly, confronting an entire police station after the savage police murder Denzel Dowel. Many Black organizations at that time began to criticize the Black Panthers for being what they referred to as the Panther's being "prematurely paramilitary" and thought the Panthers should have kept their activities underground.
Huey responded to these absurd critiques by writing an article called "The Correct Handling of a Revolution". He pointed out that it was impossible to mobilize the community in a significant manner if the Black revolutionaries did not openly confront the racist enemy to educate the people to resistance. He correctly analyzed that those groups that tired to criticize the Panthers were impostors and fake revolutionaries because they wanted the people of the community to bear the pressure of the police retaliation for such resistance while the so-called revolutionaries hid. He accused these groups of being fake revolutionaries who did nothing but talk and were too afraid to draw the oppressors blood! He wrote that nay true revolutionaries always started out aboveground in order to educate the people to the revolutionary organization existence and desire to help liberate the people, so the government would not be able to lie to the people and make them feel that the revolutionaries were some type of crazy fanatical violent group out to harm the community. He wrote that the group started out aboveground but eventually have to go underground once the oppressor began to target the group in an extreme manner. By then the revolutionaries would have already won the respect of the people and would have created conditions for underground operations to be carried out successfully with the protection of the community.
Eventually Huey's analysis of the struggle would be proven right but the practice of the Panthers took a strategic sharp turn from this position. COINTELPRO sent out a directive to the California State Government to pass a law to effectively strip the Panthers of their right to openly carry guns in public by creating the Mulford Act in 1967. The Black Panthers marched on the state capital building openly armed with guns, while the politicians were in the process of pressing the Mulford Act and started the media into helping the Panthers organization, but the Mulford Act was passed, stripping the communities' right to openly bear arms and eliminated the Panthers patrolling the police with guns. This is the critical point in the Panther history, when they began to confuse the mandatory separation necessary for aboveground and underground operational activities. Their "legal" confrontational politics dissolved into launching offensive strikes in the public arena when Huey carried a concealed handgun in a hollowed out legal book, he carried around on the night of the shootout between him and the Oakland Police took place. This one event has remained concealed from most people for over 40 years until the book, "Will You Die With Me" by Flores "fly" Forbes was published. In this book Fly exposes the truth about the death of officer Frey and the resulting Free Huey movement to save Huey from the gas chamber and get him released. Fly was a high-ranking Panther security official and personally bodyguard for Huey.
When the Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver took it upon himself to attempt to register an offensive retaliation against the system and openly shot cops in full Panther uniform after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the Panthers were put permanently on a course of confusion towards the proper practice and balance between aboveground and underground operations. This also provided the government a convenient way to convince the public that the panthers were crazed fanatics in need of extermination and should be deemed Public Enemy Number One!
Eventually the Panthers were manipulated by COINTELPRO into violently feuding with each other in a tragic episode most have come to regard as "the split" in the organization, incorrectly thought of as the East Coast chapters against the West Coast chapters, but was more accurately a division between those Panthers who wanted to stay aboveground and those who wanted to go underground. The aboveground faction sided with Huey and the underground sided with Eldridge. None of them realized then that the government's COINTELPRO had set them all up and manipulated the wedge between them by manufacturing precise handwritten letters and signatures of both Huey and Eldridge. One letter was written to Huey, signed by the government in Eldridge's handwriting stating that Eldridge intended to do serious harm to Huey. The other letter was written to Eldridge by the government in Huey's handwriting stating that Huey intended to shoot at Eldridge. Divide and conquer led to the destruction of the most highly advanced Black organization of the 1960's for Black people trapped in the hells of Amerikkka!!! All this could have been avoided if the Black Panthers adhered to a strict line of aboveground armed self-defense and underground-armed struggle.
Out of this unfortunate disaster of the most effective groups in the 1960's Black Liberation Struggle arose a war torn group of Panther Elders from that period who embody pessimistic post-traumatic stress defeatism. There are a few elders from that era who still have faith in the struggle for freedom so there are some exceptions to the rule, but most elders from back then have took to criticizing the youth for their lack of knowledge of self, fighting each other, and apolitical ways. These holier than though, self-righteous elders fail to take responsibility for being manipulated into Black (Panther) on Black (Panther) violence themselves by COINTELPRO. Instead of being brave and properly educating us, the youth just inherited the Black on Black violence from these elders. Some of them even go so far as to still be foolish enough to feud with each other to this very day at different Panther reunions and rallies for political prisoners who are still locked down from back then!
The Black Riders are the New Generation Black Panthers. We have scientifically analyzed history and mastered the art of confrontational politics. We started off striking fear in the enemy by creating our Watch-A-Pig program. This hard line program consists of fearless Black Rider Warriors who wear camouflaged paramilitary fatigues, berets, and big black boots. We patrol the ruthless barbarian police with video cameras, high tech walkie-talkies, state of the art police scanners, tasers, mace, bats, knives, and any other lethal weapons we can get a hold of. This educates Black people to be fearless against police terrorism, many people have come out of their homes with their own video cameras or camera phones and joined us in line to help watch the pigs, to stop them from hurting the Black community. We have been operating the Watch-A-Pig program for over thirteen years now. Since the passage of the Mulford Act outlawing the original Panthers and the communities' right to openly carry guns in public, we keep legally registered guns on security in Black Rider homes and buildings in case the pigs attack us unjustly and we have to defend ourselves. We openly do military drills and carry long swords or machete whenever legal to do so. We train in many different martial art armed and unarmed combat styles like short staff, sword fighting, katana, Judo, Kung-Fu, Dynamic kicks, arts of breaking, and especially Shodokan death blows. Most of our warriors have developed unorthodox fighting methods gleaned from survival on the dangerous Los Angeles gangland streets.
We have launched large-scale confrontations against many different military type pig stations all over L. A. The most known confrontational political demonstration we did was when we struck the L. A. P. D. headquarters Thirty Deep strong seething with animosity, hostility, and stern faced, after they savagely murdered a 13-year-old boy named Devin Brown in 2005. We led 500 people in a full-scale clash with the armed supremacist group called the Minute "Klan" Men and their racist police bodyguards in Leimert Park. We kicked the Minute "Klan" completely out the "hood". We also stood face to face against overwhelming odds when we ran up on the gigantic L. A. Federal Building to confront the viciously sadistic F. B. I. because of their unjust attack and political incarceration of the San Francisco 8 Panther Elders stemming from a charge that happened way back in 1971.
We have an upgraded self-defense philosophy and a strict policy of separating aboveground and underground activity. The U. S. Governments new COINTELPRO called homeland Security and their PATRIOT Act guidelines have tried to attack us many times and we have defended ourselves from their weak, mindless attempts to eliminate our organization. We will advance the New Black Liberation Movement wave after wave until our people's freedom is secured. He who does not fear the death of a thousand cuts will dare to unseat the emperor!
The Black man and Black woman once culturally inspired, properly trained, and boldly led are the greatest human fighting machines the world has ever known!
POLITICS IS WAR WITHOUT BLOODSHED AND WAR IS POLITICS WITH BLOODSHED!
POWER TO THE PEOPLE WHO DON'T FEAR FREEDOM!
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