"I
believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the
oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that
there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice,
and equality for everyone and those who want to continue
the system of exploitation. I believe that there
will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will
be based on the color of the skin..."
Malcolm
X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz]
As
the struggle by everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow
people, including those in the Occupy Movement continues,
in this nation and abroad, many are increasingly beginning
to understand the need for collective unity in these
challenging and legitimate efforts to� attain real systemic
change.����
Notwithstanding
the ongoing covert and often brutally overt activities
by the U.S. corporate-government, its police, "intelligence"
agencies, and its operatives of both the Democratic Party
foxes and the Republican Party wolves to distort, co-opt,
discredit, and neutralize the everyday people's struggle,
including the Occupy Movement; there is the pressing necessity
to creatively find the ways and means to nurture and support
this incredibly important people's struggle.
We
everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people all
have our important narratives to tell and lessons to learn,
in and from, this ongoing struggle. In this vein it is of
the utmost imperative to grasp the fact that that those
of us who support and/or are within this protracted people's
struggle have varying levels of historical and political
consciousness. This fact necessitates that we learn, and
quickly, how to collectively address the inevitable challenges
and systemically inherent contradictions that are
bound to be within any struggle that seeks to throw-off
systemic psychological ingraining and bring about genuine
change.
With
the exception of systemic operatives and others whose
de facto objective is to neutralize and/or destroy this
people's struggle, every effort must be made to openly and
honestly communicate, while remembering that public disunity
should be avoided whenever possible. There of course will
and must be honest disagreement, reflecting differing experiences
and perspectives of those within the people's struggle,
otherwise someone would be lying. However, it is
tactically and strategically of great import to air said
differences away from the glare and systemic opportunism
of the corporate-stream media, et al, keeping in mind that
the aim of the corporate-government, its operatives, and
the corporate-stream media is to distort and sow seeds of
division within the everyday people's struggle. Vigilance
in this regard is necessary, while utilizing common sense
and staying focused in the people's movement are also simultaneously
necessary.
The
time has come to intensify in this collective struggle.
Even so, it will remain a protracted and an extremely challenging
struggle, full of pit-falls; but in the words of Frederick
Douglass, "If there is no struggle, there is no
progress."
It
is now the 21st century, and in the further words of Malcolm
X, "we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed
against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter."
There remains much work to be done.
Onward,
then, my sisters and brothers! Onward!
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney,
is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister
of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political
prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored
his civil / political rights case to the United Nations
under the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities
in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed
in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour,
formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour.
For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and
Thinker,
by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click
here
to read excerpts from the book.) Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.
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