Why are there no New Afrikan/Black Nation revolutionary seperatists on the forum?

[Palingenisis]

Even if he only posts in spurts Comrade Red Cat contributes so much to the forum by giving us insight into the struggles and world view of the Revolutionary Communists of India. Thats what in part makes the internet so good in that it allows us to interact with people from far away places that we otherwise wouldnt. Its really sad than that revolutionary New Afrikan/Black seperatists/nationalists tend to stay away from this forum. I would really love to here about their on going national liberation struggle from a left wing persecptive and discuss it with them and ask them questions.

What is keeping them away?

[gorillafuck]

Separatism is deeply anti-working class.

[Palingenisis]

So you consider the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army deeply anti-working...I didnt mean seperatism as having nothing to do with whites...I meant in the sense of the New Afrikan nation getting the forty acres and a mule that they were promised...That blacks captive within USA borders form a nation and they deserve national liberation is a classic Anti-Revisionist/Revolutionary Communist line going back to the founding of the CP-USA.

[gorillafuck]

So you consider the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army deeply anti-working...
The BPP were not separatists. The BLA I don't know much about at all so I don't know.


I didnt mean seperatism as having nothing to do with whites...
Separatism means separation. As in, separatists oppose unity.

[Palingenisis]

Well they wanted a seperate New Afrikan/Black nation didnt they?

Thats what I meant by seperatist.

Monkey Smashes Heaven engages in some "cracker" baiting....But I have always presumed that they are basically all white students?

[gorillafuck]

Well they wanted a seperate New Afrikan/Black nation didnt they?
No.

[Palingenisis]

I really think that you are wrong there. Huey Newton refered to himself as a revolutionary nationalist and they made constant reference to the liberation of their people.

Why else form a Black Panther Party?

[gorillafuck]

I really think that you are wrong there. Huey Newton refered to himself as a revolutionary nationalist and they made constant reference to the liberation of their people.

Why else form a Black Panther Party?
Because black communities were facing so much oppression that it needed to be militantly opposed along with being an anti-capitalist militant.


Working class people of all colors must unite against the exploitative, oppressive ruling class. Let me emphasize again - we believe our fight is a class struggle not a race struggle.
We do not fight racism with racism. We fight racism with solidarity. We do not fight exploitative capitalism with black capitalism. We fight capitalism with basic socialism. We fight imperialism with proletarian internationalism.
Those who want to obscure the struggle with ethnic differences are the ones who are aiding and maintaining the exploitation of the masses. We need unity to defeat the boss class - every strike shows that. All of us are laboring class people...in our view it is a class struggle between the massive proletarian working class and the small minority ruling class. Working class people of all colors must unite against the exploitative ruling class.All of those by Bobby Seale

[Palingenisis]

It doesnt follow from that they opposed the traditional line of the CP-USA.

Im sure you could find similar quotes from Harry Haywood.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'm pretty sure Black Nation separatists aren't exactly looked upon as revolutionary, given some chummy meetings they had with neo-Nazis.

[Palingenisis]

I'm pretty sure Black Nation separatists aren't exactly looked upon as revolutionary, given some chummy meetings they had with neo-Nazis.

Im not talking about Nation of Islam types.

But what about the Afrikan People's Socialist Party?

Or even the New Black Panther Party?

[Os Cangaceiros]

The New Black Panther Party are a pack of morons.

To answer the question posed in the OP: because this is a forum for revolutionary leftists, and they're not.

[Pavlov's House Party]

I'm pretty sure Black Nation separatists aren't exactly looked upon as revolutionary, given some chummy meetings they had with neo-Nazis.

http://jssnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/rockwell.jpg
American Neo-Nazi leader George Norman Rockwell was invited to speak at a Nation of Islam meeting by Elijah Muhammad in 1961 and 1962.

[Palingenisis]

The New Black Panther Party are a pack of morons.

To answer the question posed in the OP: because this is a forum for revolutionary leftists, and they're not.

The Afrikan People's Socialist Party and the New Black Panther Party are revolutionary leftists. They will be fighting the good fight when most of the people here will be voting for the GOP and painting the picket fences once they get a cushy job after graduation.

http://asiuhuru.org/ontheground/apsp-usa/

[Political_Chucky]

http://jssnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/rockwell.jpg
American Neo-Nazi leader George Norman Rockwell was invited to speak at a Nation of Islam meeting by Elijah Muhammad in 1961 and 1962.

Doesn't that beat the whole purpose? Thats like Osama Bin Laden at a 9/11 conference.

[Who?]

New Black Panther Party?

What are you on about Pali? They're a racist and anti-semetic organization condemned by the Huey P. Newton Foundation.

There are, however, many socialist organizations who support the right to self-determination for oppressed nationalities. Some examples that come to mind are Socialist Action and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the latter of which was spawned by a merger of many former New Communist Movement organizations.

[#FF0000]

New Black Panther Party are revolutionary leftists

No. No they are not.

[#FF0000]

Doesn't that beat the whole purpose? Thats like Osama Bin Laden at a 9/11 conference.

Nazis have good relationships with certain sorts of ethnic separatists, regardless of what ethnicity they want to separate.

[Palingenisis]

New Black Panther Party?

What are you on about Pali? They're a racist and anti-semetic organization condemned by the Huey P. Newton Foundation.

There are, however, many socialist organizations who support the right to self-determination for oppressed nationalities. Some examples that come to mind are Socialist Action and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the latter of which was spawned by a merger of many former New Communist Movement organizations.

I will take your word for it...There website appears to be down.

You didnt mention in your list the Revolutionary Organization of Labour which is probably the best of Maoist influenced groupings in the USA.

http://www.mltranslations.org/Us/index.htm#ROL

[Os Cangaceiros]

The Afrikan People's Socialist Party and the New Black Panther Party are revolutionary leftists. They will be fighting the good fight when most of the people here will be voting for the GOP and painting the picket fences once they get a cushy job after graduation.

http://asiuhuru.org/ontheground/apsp-usa/

I'm guessing you're not too familiar with Khalid Abdul Muhammad, are you? He was the chairman of the NBPP from 1997-2001. From Wiki:


After being stripped of his position as NOI spokesman, Muhammad became the national chairman of the New Black Panther Party (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party). On May 21, 1997, he delivered a heated speech at San Francisco State University (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/San_Francisco_State_University) in which he criticized Jews, whites, Catholics and homosexuals. He endorsed a Holocaust denial (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Holocaust_denial) position, asserted Jewish control over U.S. policy, and alleged Jewish involvement in various conspiracies.

That kind of rhetoric is commonplace in certain "black nationalist" circles. Not all, but certainly some, which is probably why the older Black Panthers have disowned the NBPP (as previously mentioned).

[Pavlov's House Party]

Doesn't that beat the whole purpose? Thats like Osama Bin Laden at a 9/11 conference.

They were both segregationists. I suppose the idea was "you take your guys and we'll take ours and everyone will be happy". Even in the 80's there was collaboration between the two: neo-nazi leader Tom Metzger said this of NOI: "They speak out against the Jews and the oppressors in Washington. ... They are the black counterpart to us."

[brigadista]

Here is the statement from the Dr Huey P Newton foundation on the "new black panther party"


http://www.blackpanther.org/newsalert.htm

[scarletghoul]

The BPP's position changed a lot over time. In short they started out as Black Nationalist separatists, then internationalist socialists, then 'intercommunalist'.

I wrote an intro to the theory of intercommunalism a while ago (its on my blog but thats down temporarily so heres the neglected revleft thread i made for it)- http://www.revleft.com/vb/intercommunalism-essay-intro-t142553/index.html?t=142553
Basically the theory states that the world is so unified its impossible for a people to become a truly separate nation and decolonise, and that instead communities should aim to determine their own destiny by liberating territory.

Black nationalists are just as revolutionary as Irish or Palestinian nationalists, though I think Huey was correct in moving on theoretically from that position. The APSP/ASI are a great example: Huey Newton and the rest would often criticise that kind of group for 'cultural nationalism' and there is some truth in those criticisms, but at the same time I defy you to watch a video of Omali Yeshitela speaking and tell me there is no revolutionary potential there.. In other words Black Nationalists are revolutionary even if imho theoretically inaccurate.

As for the original point of the thread there are certainly Black Americans who post on RevLeft (i remember one ex-panther), though yeah i dont know of any black nationalists in the traditional sense.. I think Black US communists mostly just join the same organisations as whites now

[scarletghoul]

Also NBPP are not that good.. APSP are pretty cool though. There's a million other small panther influenced groups in the US, ranging from the racist NBPP the Maoist New Afrikan Black Panther Party

[scarletghoul]

http://theworkersdreadnought.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/new-afrikan-black-panther-party/ has links to some nabpp documents. as you can see theyre maoist and black nationalist.

[RHIZOMES]

Its because most Black separatists aren't nerdy white teenagers who spend hours on the internet - i.e. the usual internet forum crowd.

[Sentinel]

Why is this in Chit Chat?

[Sasha]

Its because most Black separatists aren't nerdy white teenagers who spend hours on the internet - i.e. the usual internet forum crowd.


no, the few we had seemed to be black teenagers who spended hours on the internet. :rolleyes:
anyway, to answer the OP, the few who showed up in my time here always got themselfs either restricted for sexism (fierce anti-abortion) or banned for homofobia or racism. Maybe we are unreasonble ultra-leftists, maybe there is something intrinsic reactionary in their beliefs. anyway, we dont give anyone special treatment when it they are spouting reactionary shit (except maybe some MLs and irish republicans ;))

[Dimentio]

Nazis have good relationships with certain sorts of ethnic separatists, regardless of what ethnicity they want to separate.

Yes, the nazis in South Africa (not the official government but militias) for example kept alliances with certain political parties and tribal assemblies before others.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

There's nothing revolutionary about seperatism. Seperation encourages the divided communities to consider their counterparts part of the faceless "Other", a process of dehumanisation that makes it so much easier to commit atrocities.

It's generally harder to hate Khalid, your neighbour of ten years, than it is to hate "that stupid bunch of towelheads" over there.

[Palingenisis]

There's nothing revolutionary about seperatism. Seperation encourages the divided communities to consider their counterparts part of the faceless "Other", a process of dehumanisation that makes it so much easier to commit atrocities.

It's generally harder to hate Khalid, your neighbour of ten years, than it is to hate "that stupid bunch of towelheads" over there.

And of course this is to completely misunderstand the situation....As comrades Joseph Stalin and Harry Haywood never ceased to point out we arent talking about a racial but a national issue...Where one nation ruthlessly oppresses, represses and exploits (the fact that members of the New Afrikan nation make up such a disproportionate membership of those basically enslaved in the USA's prison labour camps should say it all) another and where the working class of the oppressor nation sees (maybe indeed mistakenly so) its interests as laying with its own ruling class because of its relative prievilige (again the popularity of Glenn Beck and the TEA party among the white nation working class says it all). As Marx correctly pointed the nation that oppresses another forges its own chains. Why is it so difficult for those from Imperialist nations who enjoy white skin preivilige to understand that the global community can only truelly come about on a basis of equality and justice and that their own nation's Imperialism and their own white skin "superiority" is the principle thing standing in its way, and not the cries of the oppressed peoples for equality and liberation?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

And of course this is to completely misunderstand the situation....As comrades Joseph Stalin and Harry Haywood never ceased to point out we arent talking about a racial but a national issue...Where one nation ruthlessly oppresses, represses and exploits (the fact that members of the New Afrikan nation make up such a disproportionate membership of those basically enslaved in the USA's prison labour camps should say it all)

That is no more to the point than the fact that there is a significant Aryan Nations membership in US prisons. Gangster nationalism may be a natural response to certain conditions, but that doesn't make it right.


another and where the working class of the oppressor nation sees (maybe indeed mistakenly so) its interests as laying with its own ruling class because of its relative prievilige (again the popularity of Glenn Beck and the TEA party among the white nation working class says it all). As Marx correctly pointed the nation that oppresses another forges its own chains. Why is it so difficult for those from Imperialist nations who enjoy white skin preivilige to understand that the global community can only truelly come about on a basis of equality and justice and that their own nation's Imperialism and their own white skin "superiority" is the principle thing standing in its way, and not the cries of the oppressed peoples for equality and liberation?

Seperation is not equality and having the bosses share your skin colour or ancestry is not liberation.

[FreeFocus]

The BPP's position changed a lot over time. In short they started out as Black Nationalist separatists, then internationalist socialists, then 'intercommunalist'.

I wrote an intro to the theory of intercommunalism a while ago (its on my blog but thats down temporarily so heres the neglected revleft thread i made for it)- http://www.revleft.com/vb/intercommunalism-essay-intro-t142553/index.html?t=142553
Basically the theory states that the world is so unified its impossible for a people to become a truly separate nation and decolonise, and that instead communities should aim to determine their own destiny by liberating territory.

Black nationalists are just as revolutionary as Irish or Palestinian nationalists, though I think Huey was correct in moving on theoretically from that position. The APSP/ASI are a great example: Huey Newton and the rest would often criticise that kind of group for 'cultural nationalism' and there is some truth in those criticisms, but at the same time I defy you to watch a video of Omali Yeshitela speaking and tell me there is no revolutionary potential there.. In other words Black Nationalists are revolutionary even if imho theoretically inaccurate.

As for the original point of the thread there are certainly Black Americans who post on RevLeft (i remember one ex-panther), though yeah i dont know of any black nationalists in the traditional sense.. I think Black US communists mostly just join the same organisations as whites now

Good post, I agree with the analysis you give here about the BPP and Black Nationalism.

To answer the Palingenisis' original question, there aren't any Black Nationalists in the vein of the BPP/Uhuru Movement because some fucking people on this board would try to have them banned for racism or restricted to OI.

[Palingenisis]

Seperation is not equality and having the bosses share your skin colour or ancestry is not liberation.

Who said anything about gangster nationalism? I was talking about progressive/revolutionary/communist national liberationists.

Seperation already exists. And again who said anything about Black/New Afrikan capitalism?

Do you take the same line as Spiked! towards First Nations national liberation or culture as well?

[Apoi_Viitor]

Well they wanted a seperate New Afrikan/Black nation didnt they?

Thats what I meant by seperatist.

You are indeed correct. I believe that the position of the Communist Party (up until the Civil Rights Movement was becoming big) was that it was necessary to construct a separate black nation. Have you read any of Harry Haywood's works? He seems to be the most influential figure of this movement...

EDIT: Um, I guess you have, I probably should have read the second page before I replied... But I'll ask you this - do you still believe Harry Haywood's analysis of 'two nations' under one rule is still relevant today?

[Palingenisis]

EDIT: Um, I guess you have, I probably should have read the second page before I replied... But I'll ask you this - do you still believe Harry Haywood's analysis of 'two nations' under one rule is still relevant today?

I dont live in the USA so its hard for me to gauge things but at the moment I will give a provisional yes...I certainly believe that its a legitimate position.

[gorillafuck]

The BPP had a mixed ideological thing going on, they were basically different stripes of anti-racist anti-capitalists (a lot of leaders were Maoist, but some of them influenced A.P.O.C, ec.). They were basically an anti-capitalist organization that promoted self defense for black and minority communities as well as encouraging class conciousness among working class blacks and working class whites.

They weren't separitists.

[Optiow]

The New Black Panther Party are a bunch of nationalistic idiots. They are no better than Nazis, only they're black.

A revolutionary leftist is someone who believes in the working class as a class, not as divisions of Whites, Hispanics, Blacks and Asians. Socialists and communists are primarily anti-racist, because SKIN COLOUR DOES NOT MATTER. That is why leftists believe in equality - because we are all equal.

What have the NBPP done for their communities? Nothing. They dress up in black outfits and shout at "crackers" on the streets, but what have they done to help people? The BPP set up all sorts of drug rehabilitation, schooling and breakfast programmes, and they lowered gang rates and poverty in black communities. Now That is leftist. But what have the NBPP done? They have shouted in the street nothing but racist rhetoric, with no solid action being done to help people. That is not leftist.

That is why the seperatists do not come here, because they are not leftists like we are. They don't believe in the working class, only the black working class. They don't believe in equality, they believe in black supremacy. THAT is why they are not here, because if they were they would not be welcome.

[Kléber]

It doesnt follow from that they opposed the traditional line of the CP-USA.
The CPUSA dropped the call for self-determination in 1935, because the revisionist Comintern was adopting the Popular Front theory which called for alliances with "democratic" imperialism.

As the quotes provided by Zeekloid show, the BPP was not a separatist organization although I do not believe it officially condemned separatism per se, the Party was for self-determination whether or not through an independent national framework.

[Palingenisis]

The CPUSA dropped the call for self-determination in 1935, because the revisionist Comintern was adopting the Popular Front theory which called for alliances with "democratic" imperialism.
.

Are you sure about that or is this just Stalinoid bashing?

I was under the impression that Stalin at one stage threatened to kick elements of the CP-USA out of the Comintern if they dropped to the call for national self-determination/liberation (which is what I meant by seperatism..as in Corsican seperatism...not as in racial seperatism).

[Kléber]

Are you sure about that or is this just Stalinoid bashing?
The full history of the CPUSA and self-determination is rather complicated, but here goes. The call for self-determination was initially adopted by the CPUSA with little debate, against the protests of many of its African-American members, at the behest of the revisionist Second Period Comintern in 1928. As that phase came to an end and the Comintern swung into its ultraleft Third Period, onetime CPUSA leader John Pepper took the initiative to call for a "Negro Soviet Republic." In 1930 the Comintern's official position changed and it ordered the CPUSA to remove explicitly separatist language ("to the point of separation") from its official position on the African-American question, informing the Party that "it is not expedient ... to emphasize this point [self-determination] too much." Five months later, the Comintern changed its position and ordered the CPUSA to make self-determination a central plank of its party program; also, the "Negro Soviet Republic" thesis was officially disavowed and the Comintern stipulated instead that "If the proletariat has come to power in the United States, the Communist Negroes will not come out for but against separation of the Negro Republic from federation with the United States." For the next five years, the CPUSA fought for self-determination as one of its central political platforms, with modest political gains. Then, in the mid-1930's with the adoption of the Popular Front and a new orientation toward liberalism, FDR and the New Deal, the CPUSA quietly shelved its call for self-determination from 1935 as it was an obstacle to supporting the Democratic Party and liberal African-American groups. Browder pushed to liquidate the Alabama Share Croppers Union which dissolved in 1936. Haywood opposed this zig-zag but he was marginalized within the party for resisting the official line. The CPUSA's work in the South ceased by 1943 and the actual theory of self-determination was officially abandoned by 1944, as the party moved to dissolve itself during the war. In 1946 the reconstituted party reaffirmed the theory of self-determination "under capitalism or socialism" and resumed its work to organize and recruit African-Americans, but in practice the theory remained a dead letter; the party never returned to the pre-1935 line of militant agitation around self-determination. The CPUSA, catering to the petty-bourgeois NAACP, finally repudiated self-determination for the last time in 1958; its official explanation was that outmigration of African-Americans from the Black Belt had rendered the theory obsolete.

That was mostly paraphrased from "Self Determination in the Black Belt: Origins of a Communist Policy" by Harvey Klehr and William Tompson, and "Color-Blind" Racism by Leslie G. Carr.


I was under the impression that Stalin at one stage threatened to kick elements of the CP-USA out of the Comintern if they dropped to the call for national self-determination/liberationThe only place I've heard that was a MTW video on youtube. Trotsky did intervene in the US SWP to force them to support the call for self-determination, but I haven't seen documentary proof that Stalin had the same influence on the CPUSA, except insofar as he was the chieftain of the bureaucracy which dominated the Comintern from the Fifth Congress to its disgraceful end, and thus assumes overall political responsibility for the 1928 and 1930 Comintern resolutions on the African-American question. If Stalin had political responsibility for these Soviet policies, then he was also complicit in the repressions, the revisionism and the final liquidation of the Third International in 1943. You can't have it both ways, and say every good thing the Comintern did was thanks to Stalin pulling the strings, but every betrayal was revisionists taking the wheel while Stalin stepped outside to smoke his pipe.

Stalin's clique did actually have at least two CPUSA leaders killed in part because of their positions on the question of self-determination for African-Americans: Lovett Fort-Whiteman, African-American veteran of the ABB and CPUSA and founder of the ANLC, for opposing Comintern interference on the issue; and John Pepper, Hungarian-American revolutionary whose call for a "Negro Soviet Republic" was deemed an embarrassment.

[Martin Blank]

The Afrikan People's Socialist Party and the New Black Panther Party are revolutionary leftists. They will be fighting the good fight when most of the people here will be voting for the GOP and painting the picket fences once they get a cushy job after graduation.

The APSP is a pan-Africanist socialist group, and I see no reason why they wouldn't be welcome here. Members of our organization have had good relations with APSP comrades.

The New Black Panthers, on the other hand, are agents provocateur and should be given no quarter in or by the "left". The NBPP was formed by known agents provocateur from NYC, Detroit, D.C. and Boston -- all of whom had been isolated from honest revolutionary nationalist forces well before coming together. They tried to march in an antiwar protest in D.C. in April 2002 with posters of Osama bin Laden (I was there, and I helped to expel them from the march ... and I will never regret that action). I don't care what kind of language they use to justify their support for reactionary anti-worker terrorists or their reactionary politics in general. Actions speak louder than words.

[bcbm]

which is what I meant by seperatism..as in Corsican seperatism...not as in racial seperatism

strange example to choose in trying to differentiate the two... flnc support "preferential" treatment of corsicans against north african immigrants and have conducted solidarity actions for clandestini corsi who are openly racist and attack immigrants.

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

God dammit Palignenis you are so fucking stupid.