The closer we get to Election Day, the more voters are likely to feel like Neo in The Matrix when he’s offered a choice between the blue or red pill—a choice that will decide both individual and universal fates. Our democracy isn’t a Hollywood production, however, and the truth is that there are more than two options. For nearly 10 years, I’ve voted my values and cast ballots for third-party candidates—and I’ve survived, despite the many myths about what that choice would mean for our nation and the political process. Misrepresentations about voting third party may keep many voters from breaking out of the two-party system, but they shouldn’t. There’s life beyond the Republican-Democrat matrix if you know the truth. Here are five of the most popular myths about voting third party, and why they’re total bull: Read More

On December 5th, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, affectionately known as Tata Madiba to some, transitioned to the ancestral realm. His name rings in many corners of the globe and on Tuesday he was memorialized in South Africa, but his relevance and importance to global and local freedom struggles cannot be underestimated. In the past few days, many accounts have sought to paint him as both revolutionary and peaceful, anti-establishment, as well as establishmentarian—the truth is that in 95 his years Mandela was all of these things. Through my own lens as an African-American with Pan-Africanist sensibilities, his diverse personas lent me insight into what “a long walk to freedom” looked like and why we all must engage in the process of creating, not only more just communities, but a more just world.

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Recently, Lupe Fiasco has been catapulted to national media attention, not (just) for his music but his political commentary. Two weeks ago on an internet interview with CBS Fiasco said, “To me the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America. I’m trying to fight the terrorism that’s causing the other forms of terrorism. You know the root cause of terrorists is the stuff the U.S. government allows to happen. The foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists.” While this set off a firestorm of angry comments and media attention about Lupe’s uncritical eye and virulent condemnation of the continuing trope of Barack Obama as a terrorist, most of these comments miss the mark. Lupe Fiasco, as his name signals, routinely finds himself in controversial positions that are both contradictory and illuminating at the same time. Lupe’s comments about Obama and politics, in a way, channel Malcolm X’s and Martin Luther King Jr’s political commentary.

In November of 1963, Malcolm X commented on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination by suggesting the violence that took Kennedy’s life were “chickens coming home to roost.” At this time, Kennedy was thought of as a friendly president to Black folks and ultimately this became a wedge comment that alienated him from many Black Americans who identified as politically progressives but found his comments irresponsible given the contentious political climate.

Less well known, but equally allegorical Fiasco’s remarks eerily reflect Martin Luther King’s speech in 1967 at Riverside Church in Harlem where he said, “They ask if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.” While Lupe is no Martin Luther King, both were concerned with the government’s role in supporting violence locally and internationally. At the time of King’s comments the United States was enmeshed in a war that he found unconscionable and history would reveal was unnecessary.

In many ways Lupe has been outspoken about Obama’s military advocacy and in 2008 found himself in a flap with another Chicago rapper turned political candidate RhymeFest. Fiasco is no stranger to politically complex views, which he laments are often “dumbed down” into sound bites. Later in the CBS interview, Fiasco states that he does not vote and that his own beliefs about what a vote endorses keep him from the ballot box. Not surprisingly many have responded “If you don’t vote you can’t complain.” To Lupe’s credit he follows in a long line of Black commentators and activists who chose not to vote but offer critical commentary. For many, including Fiasco, voting in a two party system connotes support for a system that they find too limiting and non-representative. In “Words I Never Said”, Fiasco outs himself as a non-voter, “Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say sh*t/That’s why I ain’t vote for him, next one either.” His decision not to cast a ballot doesn’t curtail his speaking or even wearing his politics on his chest. Fiasco, as an avowed Muslim, has been known to rock “Free Gaza” shirts on stage just as easily as he does designer fashions. For Lupe, the continued instability of the Middle East is directly linked to United States involvement which makes Obama culpable given he is Commander-in-Chief of the US Military.

While we may not all share Lupe’s critical stance on Obama or American politics (and most of us don’t read the wikileaks wires, though we should) there is a line of logic and historical precedence for his comments. In listening to the knee-jerk responses to Fiasco’s words the significance of his hit single “Words I Never Said” rings out. The song is a critique of the curtailing of rights, particularly free speech, in an era of perceived freedom and liberty. If we don’t listen and take Lupe’s words seriously, it’s almost as if we’ve made his point even louder.

This pic is hilarious to me

While many are calling for his resignation, Steele’s outspokenness has made the question of war and public opinion resurface in the American media. The War in Afghanistan has quietly slipped out of the media’s topics and from the American public’s consciousness. While Steele has been wrong on many statements his comments leave me believing the adage, “even a broken clock is right two times a day.”

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*The title of the post is a play on Black like Me, get it?

Recently, I penned a piece discussing the need for Black folks to join in with the fight against Arizona’s racist immigration bill SB 1070. My goal was to challenge Black folks, to think beyond the immediate immigration bill to the larger injustices that are taking root in Arizona. In the past few weeks, Arizona has continued to make their intentions clear. Whether you agree with SB 1070 or not, the state of Arizona has begun a march towards making the state free, open and inhabitable to Whites and closed to people of color, particularly Latinos.

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It has been a tough 4 days for Haiti and its Diaspora but from struggle emerges strength. I first want to say I am every renewed by the way I’ve seen folks in my own personal network and internationally begin to pull together for Haiti. I am clear that what we are doing now is small and late, but there is nothing like watching community form before your eyes and working together. Political differences become supplanted in the midst of crisis and when heavy lifting is occurring. A number of people have reached out to me regarding Haiti and the context surrounding the country that would allow an earthquake to do so much damage. In reality, like most “natural disasters” there are very human causes that lead to such catastrophic consequences. I have assembled some of the best writing I’ve seen on the context and figured I’d let you read the experts words moreso than mine.

Alternet covers the emergence of Haiti and the deep connections between the United States, Haiti and the globe:

However, more than two centuries ago, Haiti represented one of the most important neighbors of the new American Republic and played a central role in enabling the United States to expand westward. If not for Haiti, the course of U.S. history could have been very different, with the United States possibly never expanding much beyond the Appalachian Mountains.

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The Socialist Worker has a good article on the policies that helped produces deep issues of political and economic infrastructure.

“The media coverage of the earthquake is marked by an almost complete divorce of the disaster from the social and political history of Haiti,” Canadian Haiti solidarity activist Yves Engler said in an interview. “They repeatedly state that the government was completely unprepared to deal with the crisis. This is true. But they left out why.”

To understand these facts, we have to look at a second fault line–U.S. imperial policy toward Haiti. The U.S. government, the UN, and other powers have aided the Haitian elite in subjecting the country to neoliberal economic plans that have impoverished the masses, deforested the land, wrecked the infrastructure and incapacitated the government.

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Democracy Now features a good discussion of how US Policy has shaped the “underdeveloped” state that Haiti was in prior to the Earthquake

And they got there because they or their parents or grandparents were pushed out of Haiti’s countryside, where most Haitians used to live. And they were pushed out of there by policies thirty years ago, when it was decided by the international experts that Haiti’s economic salvation lay in assembly manufacture plants. And in order to advance that, it was decided that Haiti needed to have a captive labor force in the cities. So a whole bunch of aid policies, trade policies and political policies were implemented, designed to move people from the countryside to places like Martissant and the hills—hillsides that we’ve seen in those photos.

Watch the video here or read the transcript beneath the video.

Make sure to check out the piece in the UK Guardian by Peter Hallward on OUR ROLE in the creation of the Haiti we know today. And the interview on Democracy Now with Randall Robinson, founder of TransAfrica, who explains the sick irony in the appeal to George Bush for assistance.

I certainly acknowledge there is a lot to read and watch there but while the media concentrates on framing this as a unconscionable “natural disaster” as if Haiti is perpetually “bad luck” there needs to be a deeper conversation about Ayiti (Haiti) and her people. The strength and resilience that formed Haiti will be what allow it to return to being the Pearl of the liberated African Diaspora. Please read the partner post to this Haiti in Context: Voices which capture the voices of the people.

*please pardon me for not citing where all these pieces came from. Folks have forwarded me so many things. Charge it to my head not my heart.

I believe in living,

I believe in the spectrum

of Beta days and Gamma people.

I believe in sunshine.

In windmills and waterfalls,

tricycles and rocking chairs.

And i believe that seeds grow into sprouts.

And sprouts grow into trees.

I believe in the magic of the hands.

And in the wisdom of the eyes.

I beleive in race and tears.

And in the blood of infinity.

I believe in life.

And i have seen the death parade

march through the torso of the earth,

sculpting mud bodies in its path.

I have seen the destruction of the daylight,

and see bloodthirsty maggots

prayed to and saluted.

I have seen the kind become the blind

and the blind become the bind

in one easy lesson.

I have walked on cut glass.

I have eaten crow and blunder bread

and breathed the stench of indifference.

I have been locked by the lawless.

Handcuffed by the haters.

Gagged by the greedy.

And, if i know any thing at all,

it’s that a wall is just a wall

and nothing more at all.

It can be broken down.

I believe in living.

I believe in birth.

I believe in the sweat of love

and in the fire of truth.

And i believe that a lost ship,

steered by tired, seasick sailors,

can still be guided home

to port.

Please note time change: Forum starts at 4 PM

Harlem Political Forum

In Commemoration of Hubert Harrison:

The Voice of Early 20th Century Harlem Radicalism: 1883 to 1918

Which Way Forward for the Black Left?

A Critical Analysis of Obama’s Presidency & the State of Black Politics

Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 4 pm

St. Mary’s Church, 521 West 126th St.

(Between Amsterdam Avenue and Old Broadway)

Reception: 2 to 3:30 PM:

Food & Drink: Admission $10

Forum Admission: $5 Suggested Donation

(To help defray cost of event)

Panelists: Cynthia McKinney, Presidential candidate 2008 and former US Congresswoman; Glen Ford, Executive Editor, Black Agenda Report; Professor Anthony Monteiro, African American Studies Department, Temple University; Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report Editor & Senior Columnist; Mae Jackson, Writer & Activist; Nellie Bailey, Harlem Tenants Council;

• New York City Council Proclamation Presented Posthumous to Hubert Harrison. Accepted by Harrison’s Family: Charles Richardson (Grandson); Ilva Harrison (Grand-daughter); & Yvette Richardson (Great Grand-daughter). Remarks by Jeffrey B. Perry, Author of “A Harrison Reader”& “Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism 1883 to 1918”.

• Tribute to the Lore & Legacy of Mamadou Chenyelu, Journalist, Publisher and Author of “Harlem Ain’t Nothing But a Third World Country: The Global Economy, Empowerment Zones and the Colonial Status of Africans in America” who made his transition on April 4, 2009 in Silver Spring, Maryland after a long bout of illness. Statement by Author/Journalist Herb Boyd. (Mamadou’s family including his brother James McCall will participate in the tribute).

Brief Highlights: Connecting the Political Analysis to Local Struggles

Bernard White on WBAI Political Battle; Stella D‘Oro Striker; & Columbia University Expansion into Harlem.

“The test of vision in a leader is the ability to foresee the immediate future, the necessary consequences of a course of conduct and the dependable sentiments of those whom he assumes to lead. . . . The Negro leaders of the future will be expected . . . not to blow hot and cold with the same mouth, but “to stand four-square to all the winds that blow.”

Hubert Harrison, 1920.

harlemtenants@gmail.com or nelliehester@yahoo.com. Visit websites:www.harlemtenantscouncil.org

First up, video interviews with K’Naan by Davey D. K’Naan is a phenomenal voice for Somalian struggle with his first two albums: The Dust Foot Philosopher and Troubadour. Remember when Chuck D said rap was Black America’s CNN, K’Naan has taken that to heart in his discussion of his life and his people’s lives.

Second up, an article that recently appeared in GQ magazine (yeah, Gentleman’s Quarterly) by Jeffrey Gettlemen of the NY Times. The article is one of most context sensitive mainstream press article on the situation, though it has its limitations.

Third up, Black Agenda Report was one of the first analyses of the Pirates that went beyond “Pirates after booty”/”maritime terrorist” approach of mainstream media. The deeper you dig, the more you see the manipulation of political powers for the good of few and the pain of the majority. Here is a piece from December on Sadia Ali Aden on some of the US involvement in the struggles happening there.

Keep informing yourself and keep on believing in the value of human life. As K’Naan said T.I.A.

Shout out to K’Naan and Davey  D’s twitter feeds where I got a lot of this and you can find much more… see people twitter can be useful for more than telling us what you ate today or your complaints about the weather ;)

(click to enlarge image with details)

hattip to Drew Citron

Thursday, February 19, 2008 at 12 Noon
New York Post Offices
1211 Avenue of the Americas (between 47th & 48th Sts)
New York, NY

Second, I am absolutely impressed and empowered by the amount of student activism I’ve seen bubbling up nationally and in New York in particular over the past few months. While contemporary college students are often discussed as “disconnected” from social struggles or suffering from “apathy”, at a least a cadre of students have been pushing for greater social justice. A few months ago students at the New School took-over a building and received their demands, last night at about 10pm a coalition of students at New York University, occupied the marketplace of the Kimmel Center. Find out more about their demands, principled take-over, and recent details go here.

If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.  ~Malcolm X

Yesterday and today, some of the most violent attacks on the Palestinian people in decades were launched by the Israeli military. As I write this, the death toll is approximately 280, and the number of innocent lives that will continue to be lost are unknown. I value human life and really have dreamed about a peaceful middle east, but now, more than ever, I’m concerned that my wishes may be nothing more than a dream. The question of Zionism remains one of the most politically contentious among global citizens today, but for me it’s not a question of politics, it’s a question of human life and rights. Beneath you will find two videos from the great Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), who left the earth in 1998, speaking on the distinction between Judaism and Zionism and his position on imperialism. Please listen, I’m sure you won’t agree with all, but there is much to be learned from here. I am amazed at the freedom with which Kwame Ture spoke, you’ll likely never see another Black leader be this unfettered on these matters.

Hattip to Rosa Clemente on the speeches and to Mombe Banga for cajoling me to bring BHC back

Over the past week, the media and everyone who could jump on the bandwagon of wagging fingers, frowned brows, and we told you so’s in relation to the Big Three has. While I don’t think all of these sentiments are misplaced, I wonder the most about the people of Detroit, not the Big 3. I’ll make a clear distinction here. The Big 3 being GM, Ford, and Chrysler represent the business interests of the automotive industry. The people of the Detroit Metro area are beneficiary’s and burden bearers of the Big Three’s ability to remain solvent and even profitable in these turbulent financial times. Pretty much we’ve come to the point that industry is realizing that we’re pretty far down the rabbit hole and major changes are going to come down the line. The thing that both scares, and maybe even reassures me a little, is that Detroit has been at the bottom before.

Detroit remains the classic example of the “failed city” the “dead city” the city that was forgotten. Well, while the economics, politics, and social organization of Detroit has been on decline for years, the people and their commitment to change has not been. In many ways, the one thing that these stories don’t talk about are the people in Detroit who despite increasing layoffs, increasing segregation, asset sucking casinos and odds that increasingly mount against them, continue to fight to build a better Detroit.

There is a boatload of critical work happening in education there. There is the push for viable public transportation. There is the movement to slow the “invisible hand” of foreclosures. There is work on urban space and converting brown fields. There is a vibrant arts scene. These people and these voices will remain invisible. Sure, their voices will never get as much press as the Big Three, but they demonstrate a resilience that the rest of the nation is going to have to come to grips with really soon. The age of watching industry fall in one area and not have it affect another is gone. Are fates have been intimately linked and we’ll see these connections with even greater consequence during this financial debacle.

The way people from Detroit tend to get mentioned in these discussions is if they are sitting around getting fat off of union pensions and benefits. If you’ve been to Detroit, lived in Detroit, or know folks who have worked for years for the Big Three, it’s simply not the truth. As we watch the Big Three scramble for assistance, be sure to watch who gets thrown under the bus first. Is it the 20,000 dollar jets or the family that lives on 30,000 a year?

And on a side, but related note to my traveling, I’ll be taking some time to reorganize my stuff over the next while, so posts may be slow.

It is an adaptation from Howard Zinn’s new graphic novel A People’s History of Empire. Yeah, that’s right, Zinn has a graphic novel. I think his commentary is quite appropriate given King’s speech on April 4th, 1967.