Savant's Words on Baltimore

The great thing about the current movement in Baltimore--indeed the "Black Lives Matter" Movement everywhere--is that it BEGINS as a Black initiative, our response to police terror and social oppression. But it galvanizes everyone--whites, Asians, Latins, Jews, Arabs, etc. On the Marc train back to Baltimore yesterday I ran into an older brother, a conductor named Link (I call him the Philosopher conductor because of his interest in Fanon, B. Russel, metaphysics and poetry), a man from the Black Power era, was telling me and other passengers how inspired he was to arrive in Baltimore on Wednesday--two days after the riots--and to find HUNDREDS of white students from Johns Hopkins and Towson State U marching to demand justice for Freddy Gray and family, and an end to police terror against the Black community in Baltimore. Yesterday, our Hispanic compatriots marched with us and in solidarity with us---hundreds of them, some marching from "Spanish Town" in the Fells Point area. When Jewish colleague Frank (fellow Dem. Socialist and philosopher) asked me last Saturday whether I thought he would be welcome in the Gilmore projects area, I told him I thought there would be no problem. He was so astounded by the warm welcome he received in the hood that he couldn't stop talking about it all week! LOL! While marching from Gilmore we slowly passed a group of so-called Black Hebrew nation members. We heard from them the usual harangue that these whites in or midst were really enemies of "us original Israelites." But they were ignored. Frank was disturbed by this, but I said to him: "But notice that they are being IGNORED. Besides, they're on the sidelines ranting. They're not participating as the march passes them by. They're not a part of the movement. History is passing them by, and they're just around for the ride. And if we Black folk aren't taking them seriously, I don't see why you should either." Somewhere in one of Dr. King's later writings, he noted that the moral inspiration of the Black freedom movement was such that "when the Negro marched the nation marched with him." We may be seeing this again.

-Savant



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If I recall correctly Ujimaa means collective or cooperative work. Taking second look at the leaflet, it seems to be called the Ujima Peoples Party. Part of what is said on the leaflet is the following: "From Ferguson to Baltimore, the Black community has had enough of police brutality, murder and corruption! In Black, Brown and poor communities all over America, brutal, rude and disrespectful treatment at the hands of the police goes unpunished. We are continually told that they are here to serve and protect our community, but in fact they patrol our community like an occupying army!" And so forth. Among their list of demands are: the firing of officers involved in Freddy Gray's killing, charging them with murder, Reparations for the family of Freddy Gray and other victims of police brutality and murder, the firing of Bmore police chief ( who happens to be black) Anthony Batts, termination of all relations and negotiations with the racist Baltimore City Police Union, Repeal of the Law Enforcement Officer Bill, of Rights which protects police from prosecution, mandatory city residence for all officers, Community control of police and an elected citizen oversight board. Similar demands are being made by some other groups as well, some going so far as to demand the dismantling of the police, and their replacement with a more democratically governed force. Again, we will see. As the old saying goes, "the devil is in the details."

-Savant

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Unfortunately, we've got too many Baltimore police who are stupid racists like Mick, and many of whom are themselves drunks, dope addicts and dope dealers. Every kid in the ghetto knows about police corruption, brutality is the Harlem rrand stupidity. I grew up in the east Baltimore ghetto myself. And I know that what James Baldwin said about the cops in Harlem is manifestly true of the Baltimore police: "Rare, indeed, is the Harlem citizen, from the most circumspect church member to the most shiftless adolescent, who does not have a long tale to tell of police incompetence, injustice, or brutality. I myself have witnessed and endured it more than once." (NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME, p.66). In Baltimore, I was nearly killed at age 17 by racist pig cops brandishing rifles and pistols. I was armed with such deadly weapons as Feodor Dostoyevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, an one of Basil Davidson's histories of African civilization. I might have been killed were it not for the presence of an elder more skilled than I at negotiating these dangerous encounters with "Baltimore's Finest.". Had I been killed the cops would have either planted a weapon on my corpse, or offered up the lame excuse that those books I was carrying looked like guns. And the media, racists like you, reactionary Negroes like Nikki, and perhaps even opportunistic bourgeois Negroes of the corrupt black political class (whose local voice is mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Black, and most prominent national voice is Barack Obama) would be carrying the police and corporate media narrative that I was one of those ghetto "thugs". At best, if they admitted police were in the wrong, they focus more attention on salvaging the police image with talk about a "few bad apples" that young Savant happened to encounter, but who don't reveal any structural corruption or racism in the force as a whole, Same tired old BS.

-Savant

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Attai: Merci pour l'article sur les emeute en Baltimore. Bien sur, Le Monde est supeieur comparativement a la majorite des journaux Americain. Noam Chomsky a dit qu'il a appris plus concernant i'Amerique des journaux etrangere que les journaux Americains. Aussi, cherchons "BlackAgendaR eport.com" pour les critiques du Gauche Noir.

-Savant


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I will find out if I'm able to get to the Saturday meeting. One of the organizers of Ujima, Dr. Ken Morgan, was formerly a member of the Socialist Workers Party. Most Black nationalism in America has been somewhere in between the left (revolutionary nationalism) and the right ( conservative or reactionary nationalism). Left nationalism, at least in the 20th Century, has been anti-capitalist. The most prominent of left nationalist organizations in the 1960s, and the most influential black nationalist movement in the USA from about 1967--1973 was the Black Panther Party. (Less influential was the Revolutionary Action Movement). In the 1920s, the most influential left nationalist movement was the African Blood Brotherhood. They were suppressed by the then newly formed FBI of Hoover, and those who remained tended to merge with the Communist Party. Manning Marable has done a bit of writing on that back in the 1980s and 90s. I believe AA philosopher Lewis Gordon (who has a new book out on Fanon) addresses some of this in an article called "The Black Intellectual Tradition." which is accessible on the net.

-Savant




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Yes, you can see signs of that in Topix all the time. Mostly among whites, but also among some Blacks. I live in Baltimore. And while I don't think sporadic outbreaks of rioting is an effective way of fighting oppression, and indeed is counterproductive, I don't denounced the young Black people who are doing it. I will work with them, seek to politically educate them, and learn effective ways of engaging in politically conscious ORGANIZED resistance and struggle.

-Savant

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Mayor Stephanie Rawlings resembles Fanon's description of the native bourgeoisie in the neocolonial phase: junior partner of capitalism. Moreover, the denunciation of the kids as "thugs" and criminals by both Rawlings and Obama indicates something of the class divide in Black America, and the reality that the struggle against racism can no longer be separate from the struggle against capitalism. By the way, Bmore police claims that gangs had called a truce to unite to fight the police has been revealed as false. Fascist pig cops lied. And the racist corporate media--both liberal and conservative--simp ly swallowed it whole, and just repeated the police fabrications. About the only good thing that came out of Obama's mouth was a criticism of the media for paying little attention to a week of nonviolent protest, but then filling the headlines and the electronic screen of endless images of kids (miniscule in number compared to nonviolent demos) smashing window and fighting the police. Well, I will be at some of the community organization meetings, and I intend to be at part of the meeting of a group called Ujima which wants to form a political organization grounded in the Black working class. A name like Ujima such a kind of nationalism, but an emphasis on Black working class leadership suggest a left perspective, perhaps what Manning Marable calls "left nationalism." I will go and find out this weekend.

-Savant