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<h2><b>Why I support Occupy The Hood.</b></h2><font size=3>by
</font><a href="http://www.facebook.com/lorenzokomboa.ervin">
<font size=3 color="#3B5998">Lorenzo Kom'boa
Ervin</a></font><font size=3> on Monday, October 10, 2011 at
6:55pm<br><br>
The new mass movement, Occupy Wall Street, has already birthed a number
of movement of oppressed peoples of color: Indigenous/African/Carribbean,
etc. They are DeColonize OWS, the People of Color Working Group, and
Occupy the Hood. It is Occupy the Hood, which is an actual Black working
class political tendency, which has the most promise as far as Africans
in America are concerned. They are not only trying to pressure the white
majority to make a place the for voices of Black/POC people, but also
organizing an independent tendency which can organize in our communities
around issues effecting us especially. it is that latter dimension which
really excites me.<br>
<br>
For years, I have heard, but not seen a Black revolutionary mass movement
in the hip hop era, which is free of middle class conventional politics
or being manipulated by some power-hungry preachers/politicians. This
movement has the potential to create a genuine mass movement of the poor
and oppressed, based in the urban inner cities. It is a youth centered
movement, but seems to understand if it raises issues of oppressed
peoples in Harlem, North Philly, South Memphis, or other hoods in other
places, they can bring a true majority together, an army of the
poor.<br>
In order for that to happen, they have to put the people and mass
grassroots politics in command, and be based totally around popular
issues. In saying "politics", I am not talking about electoral
politics, which I consider virtually useless and weak, I am talking about
putting the Black poor together as a class, and then using their numbers
to confront the white capitalist government and its financial sector in
an anti-capitalist protest movement.<br><br>
It is this what made the Black protest movement of the 1960's so dynamic,
not just a number of small militant groups fighting isolated in various
communities. Black Power was a widespread, but decentralized mass
movement which superceded the civil rights phase, even before the
assassination of Dr. M.L. King. Groups like the Black Panther Party,
League of Revolutionary Black Workers and others had become mass
movements in their own right, instead of tailing after white
radicals.<br>
<br>
This can happen again, and in my mind, Occupy the hood is that movement
best situated to make that happen in this period. They are part of the
Wall Street tendency, and can unite with other POC tendencies and even
anti-racist/anti-colonial whites to wage an internal battle inside OWS to
make it accountable to POC's instead of just white middle class workers
who have lost their jobs, homes, or money in this period. We have
suffered far worse.<br>
Over 1 million Black/POC people are in the prison system, which destroys
not just the prisoner but his family and community. We have the highest
levels of unemployment in the USA, "officially" 16.7%, but
actually far higher at Great Depression levels of 26%. We have the
highest number of urban homeless. We have record levels of infant
mortality, approaching the 3rd world. On and on we are catching hell more
than anybody, and we are the class of surplus labor that all economists
speak of who have considered the matter.<br>
<br>
But we need to organize, not just bemoan our fate or curse our luck. We
can change everything with out all-out struggle, on our own terms. We do
not have to be shackled by the racism and backwardness of white workers.
Through a movement like Occupy the Hood, we can organize not only our own
communities, but through that organize the world who would unite with our
struggle. So, to end this, I see the potential of this movement more than
anything else to come along in the hip hop era. They seem to "get
it", and understand instinctively that they can organize their
peoples to not only destroy Wall Street, which is based on our slavery
and exploitation, but the entire system of capitalist oppression. Memphis
has been designated the poorest city in the USA. I'm honored to be part
of this movement in anyway, and will do everything I can to push it
forward. I am not interested in "leading" it, they seem to have
already gotten founders and collective leadership that can do the job at
this early stage. I hope that all power will continue to rest in the
local communities, and that they shut out all manner of political
opportunists seeking to become the next Obama or politician using the
movement as a launching pad. Only if power is in the hands of the people
will it succeed. <br><br>
<br>
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