Black Comrades

The Fair Representation Act has been re-introduced in Congress. This bold solution can stop gerrymandering and make Congress work for every American. 

The Fair Representation Act can solve partisan gerrymandering, make every congressional district competitive, and encourage politicians to represent all of us instead of just their base. It does this by combining three reforms: 

• Multi-member districts. In three- or five-member districts, nearly every voter will elect a candidate they support. Voters like Massachusetts Republicans and Oklahoma Democrats will be represented in Congress. Gerrymandering will become nearly impossible.

• Ranked choice voting for all U.S. House and Senate elections. RCV frees voters to support their favorite candidates, and encourages candidates to reach out to more voters for second-choice support. When RCV is used in multi-member districts, it is a form of proportional representation.

• Uniform rules for congressional redistricting 

The Fair Representation Act can be passed without a constitutional amendment. It truly has the potential to transform our political system and create a more inclusive and deliberative government which respects and empowers all voices.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2330381

The Black Alliance for Peace stands in solidarity with the people of Gaza and all Palestinians under occupation in the racist, apartheid settler state of Israel. We recognize the right of Palestine to exist and the right of the Palestinian people to resist occupation. We call on African/Black people to remember our long tradition of solidarity with Palestine.

We condemn the monstrous and cowardly actions of the racist Zionist entity which is committing mass atrocities against the two million people who are locked in the open air prison of Gaza. As the crazed Zionists indiscriminately bomb civilians in Gaza, while characterizing Palestinians as “animals,” we are witnessing an international crime in real time - a genocide. This is a genocide that is fully supported and celebrated by other Western racist settler states - the morally depraved “international community.”

Full text at the link.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2328738

From what I read, and forgive me if I am wrong, Sister Souljah may not have been an explicit communist as someone like Angela Davis, but I came across this video today and found she was very on point. Solidarity to all of my black comrades. <3

“Where is the white outcry…? Who are these ‘white good people?’ I want to see them. I want to meet them.” Positively prophetic.

The bombing took place less than four weeks after the historic March for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, D.C., and four months after a Children’s Crusade march that was savagely attacked in Birmingham. On May 3, 1963, 1,000 Black elementary, junior high and high school students left their classes to take part in the crusade action against segregation.

The notorious police commissioner, Bull Connor, gave orders to the racist police to unleash vicious dogs and firefighters to aim water in high-pressure fire hoses on these young people before many of them filled jail cells when they refused to end their march. This incident, which created national and international outrage, prompted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to write his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

Whereas it was at the instigation of Burkina Faso and Iran that the draft of a resolution was written and endorsed by all 54 African member states of the United Nations to protest the 2020 murder of George Floyd and to demand that the United Nations investigate racist police brutality on U.S. soil — and whereas in December 2022 Mumia wrote to thank the group of U.N. states — of which the African states were such an important block — for this historic stand of African solidarity for a milestone episode in the history of our lynchings;

Frantz Fanon, who lived his last day supporting the Algerian anti-colonial revolution, condemns the colonialists for assaulting Algerian history. In his classic work, “The Wretched of the Earth,” he wrote, “colonialism is not satisfied with snaring the people in the net, or of draining their colonized brain of any form or substance with a kind of perverted logic. It turns its attention to the past of the colonized and distorts it, disfigures it, and destroys it.”

That colonial policy, conducted against the colonized people of Algeria a half-century ago, is being employed against Black people in America today. We need freedom schools, liberation schools, as occurred during the 1960s, to teach the truth to children today.

With love, not fear, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Rachal, who was holding the hand of her young granddaughter, Jaylaa Randle, said: “Officer, you get to go home to your wife, to your family, and to your mother, to your father, but this little girl right here does not have a father anymore. She will not have her father at her Pre-K graduation.”

As Jalen Randle’s younger brother was introduced, the crowd was told to be patient as he had never before spoken publicly about his brother’s murder. Blake Rachal took the mic but couldn’t get a word out before he broke down in tears and walked away from the press conference, too moved to say one word.

Massachusetts is home to more than 80,000 Haitians. The Boston march focused on a bill to end U.S. support for corrupt Haitian politicians and to end the practice of U.S. gun dealers supplying weapons and ammunition to Haitian criminals. It demanded that Washington support the United Nations embargo on sending weapons to Haiti.

Placards on the march from City Hall Plaza to Boston Commons proclaimed “Haiti won’t perish!” and “Haiti, God hasn’t forgotten you!” The speeches and chants at the Commons were concluded by Toussaint, speaking from Miami over a television link.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/986807

Here's a long list of texts about race and racism.

Lorincz was finally arrested days later, with charges of manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, and assault and battery in Owens’ death, once the police had dismissed the Stand Your Ground claim she had made. The Stand Your Ground law has been used by other racist vigilantes besides Zimmerman to try to justify assaults against people of color in Florida.

[…]

Two weeks after the fatal shooting of Ajike Owens, on June 16 the Department of Justice released a damaging 89-page report of a three-year investigation that found the Minneapolis police guilty of a racist pattern of discrimination targeting Black and Indigenous communities.

At the young age of 15, Mumia Abu Jamal had gained the attention of the FBI and was placed on the COINTELPRO list after he became the Lieutenant of Information for the Philadelphia Black Panthers Branch. He was a black activist and journalist who was falsely accused of murdering a cop and has been in prison for 41 years.

Amnesty International did a report on his imprisonment and even they had to admit "it doesn't meet international standards". Of course, it cowardly doesn't take an opinion on whether he's guilty or won't even say he's a political prisoner. Some interesting tidbits are that 71% of the potential Jurors were black and struck off, the caliber of bullets didn't match at all (not disclosed to jury), no sort of gunpowder test was done, the FBI admitting that they had him under surveillance and worked with philly pd to frame him, etc.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr51/001/2000/en/

His lawyers have recently been given 60 days to review evidence, and I just hope the decades long work of organizers to free him come to fruition. Fuck Philly PD, one of the dirtiest shit stains of a police department on the planet.

https://www.liberationnews.org/supporters-rally-for-mumia-abu-jamal-as-court-considers-evidence-showing-police-da-corruption/

Black revolutionary comrades, be careful and be vigilant. Your very existence threatens the American empire. Your fight is the fight of billions around the world; just as your victory!

In his last six years of freedom, he thought more and more of his mother, Ruby Mable Hamlin, who died while he was in Angola. He called her his true hero. She was, he said, “functionally illiterate.” But, he added, “I never saw a look of defeat in her face no matter how hard things got. I grew into my mother’s wisdom. I carry it within me.” Albert Woodfox returns to his ancestors.

Little known fact, but the "Uncle Tom" character is based on a real man named Josiah Henson! Josiah Henson was a former slave who escaped to Canada (900 Miles of walking!), acquired some land, and started a school and community for other escaped slaves. The institue was called the British American Institute for Fugitive Slaves!

He taught himself to read and write later on in his life, and he did narrate his book called "The Life of Josiah Henson: Formerly a Slave".

Why did Uncle Tom sorta became associated with being a docile sellout? Well, if i had to guess, Harriet Beecher Stowe (white woman) who wrote about Mr. Henson probably did so/ was forced to write him in that light to attract a more...white audience. I guess the idea of an emancipated black former slave who was intelligent wasn't all too marketable then. Hell, the book supposedly outsold the bible when it dropped.

I was recently reading about the Young Lords and their hospital occupation in one of the PSL's publications! I thought this was a pretty cool instance of occupations succeeding and being popular (at least in the sense of mass support).

They occupied a Bronx hospital and were able to get the government to come to the negotiation table. They also staged trash burnings across the city to protest inadequate sanitation.

I don't know how they are these days, but I thought it was a cool instance of afrolatin history :).

One of the videos is from Democracy Now so bear with me...

Currently looking for mods to help this community! Please message me if interested! :)) Sunshiner#4971

Hey all!

I wanted to share this excellent YT channel I've been watching for over a year now, called Revolutionary Blackout Network. It's a group of BIPOC leftists/socialists/communists discussing mutual aid, geopolitics, economics, domestic (mostly U.S.) policy, 3rd parties, and more with livestreams almost every day (at least once). I think the Lemmygrad community would really appreciate the content.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with this channel other than as a regular viewer.

Peace and Love to all of you <3